The Way Back

Vegon had spent most of his life believing that knowledge reduced fear.

The principle had served him well.

A strange creature became less frightening once its anatomy, habits and weaknesses were understood. Ancient ruins became problems of language and engineering. Magic, even corrupted magic, followed patterns once one studied it closely enough.

Chul' Tor had damaged the principle considerably.

Vegon walked south with the others while the Scourge Lord's words repeated in his mind.

That is what you were taught.

Fyros was dead.

Not believed dead.

Not presumed dead.

Dead.

The histories agreed on little about the Sundering, but they agreed on that. Fyros had fallen in the final battle along with three of his Scourge Lords and the original Hand. The explosion that followed had reshaped kingdoms, corrupted magic and ended the age of dragons.

Entire systems of history had been built around that fact.

Chul' Tor had treated it as a misunderstanding.

Worse, he had spoken of a master.

Vegon could think of several explanations.

He disliked all of them.

Ahead, Jandar stopped walking.

The swashbuckler stood in the middle of the old road staring at a tree.

Mills nearly walked into him.

“What?”

Jandar pointed.

“Bird.”

There was no bird.

Mills looked into the branches anyway.

“Yes.”

Jandar smiled.

Then continued walking.

Vegon felt something tighten beneath his ribs.

Jandar had recovered enough coordination to move without help, though Mills remained close whenever the trail grew steep. He knew their names sometimes. Other times he seemed to recognize them only as familiar shapes.

He knew his sword was important but no longer understood why.

Mills carried it now.

That alone made the world feel incorrectly arranged.

Zook walked ahead, finding the quickest route back toward Oron and the harbor. Deacon stayed near Jandar without admitting that was what he was doing. Xil had been quiet since they left the village.

Vegon moved closer to him.

“Can you repair this?”

Xil looked toward Jandar.

“I told you what I need.”

“Stronger magic.”

“Yes.”

“You possess stronger magic.”

Xil's eyes narrowed.

Vegon waited.

Then recognition crossed the cleric's face.

His hand went beneath his armor.

He drew out the strand of prayer beads.

Vegon stopped walking.

“So do you.”

Xil stared at the beads.

Several were ordinary stone, worn smooth from years of use. Others held power that had survived the corruption of magic better than most crafted objects.

One of them could restore what ordinary healing could not.

Xil's expression darkened.

“I should have remembered.”

“You had just faced two Scourge Lords.”

“That does not make me feel better.”

“It was not intended to.”

Deacon noticed they had stopped.

“What?”

Xil held up the beads.

“Possibly an answer.”

That brought everyone back.

Jandar returned because everyone else did.

He stood among them looking pleased to have been included.

Mills touched his shoulder.

“Xil may be able to help you.”

Jandar considered this.

“Good.”

No fear.

No understanding.

Vegon preferred Jandar afraid.

At least fear would have meant the man understood that something had been taken from him.

Xil examined the strand.

“The prayer is powerful.”

“How powerful?” Deacon asked.

“Enough.”

“Then do it.”

Xil looked at him.

Deacon's expression did not change.

“Please.”

That was apparently his concession to religious procedure.

Xil turned to Jandar.

“Sit.”

Jandar sat immediately.

Mills blinked.

“I don't think I've ever seen him do that.”

“No,” Zook said. “It's unsettling.”

Jandar smiled up at them.

Xil knelt.

Vegon moved several steps away to give him room.

The cleric wrapped one hand around a pale bead near the center of the strand.

His eyes closed.

The prayer began quietly.

Divine magic gathered.

Vegon felt it before he saw anything.

The taint was there.

It always was.

A distortion running through the structure of the spell like dark sediment through clear water.

But the power held.

Xil spoke another word.

The bead brightened.

Jandar's smile disappeared.

His entire body stiffened.

Mills moved forward.

Vegon caught his arm.

“Wait.”

“What is happening?”

“I don't know.”

“That isn't reassuring.”

“It rarely is.”

The light from Xil's hand spread over Jandar's face.

Not across his skin.

Through it.

For an instant Vegon saw something beneath the magic: threads of pale energy woven through thought itself, structures too complex for any wizard to reproduce deliberately.

Then the taint moved.

Black veins appeared inside the light.

Xil flinched.

His grip tightened around the bead.

“No.”

The word was not part of the prayer.

The magic twisted.

Vegon reached instinctively toward the Weave and stopped himself.

Interfering with divine magic he barely understood would help no one.

Xil forced the prayer onward.

The black veins broke.

Light surged.

Jandar screamed.

Deacon stepped forward.

Vegon blocked him.

“Give him a moment.”

“How many?”

“I don't know.”

“You say that too much.”

Jandar collapsed onto both hands.

Xil remained in front of him, continuing the prayer until the bead in his hand cracked.

The light vanished.

Nothing happened.

For three breaths Jandar remained on the ground.

Then he looked up.

His eyes moved first to Xil.

Then Deacon.

Zook.

Vegon.

Finally Mills.

Jandar stared at him.

Mills swallowed.

“Hello.”

Jandar looked down at himself.

At his empty sword belt.

Then at the moon-touched rapier in Mills's hand.

His expression changed.

“Mills.”

Mills exhaled.

“Yes.”

“Why do you have my sword?”

Mills laughed.

The sound broke somewhere halfway out.

He thrust the weapon toward him.

“You gave it to me.”

“I absolutely did not.”

“That sounds more like him,” Deacon said.

Jandar took the rapier.

He studied the blade.

Then looked around.

“Why are we standing in the woods?”

No one answered immediately.

His eyes narrowed.

“That is never a good sign.”

Xil sat back on his heels.

“How much do you remember?”

Jandar frowned.

“The village.”

“Which part?”

“The insect things. Deacon shooting everything. I crossed the bridge.”

Deacon sighed.

“Yes.”

“On the rail.”

“Yes.”

Jandar smiled.

“I assume it was impressive.”

“No.”

“Then why do I remember you staring?”

Deacon ignored him.

Jandar's smile faded slowly.

“There was someone.”

Vegon watched his face.

“Two people.”

The memory returned in pieces.

Jandar touched one temple.

“The thin one.”

“Yes.”

“He did something.”

Xil nodded.

Jandar looked toward him.

“I remember feeling…”

He stopped.

Vegon waited.

Jandar's usual instinct would have been to turn the moment into humor.

He did not.

“Nothing,” he said. “I remember feeling nothing.”

Mills had gone quiet.

Jandar looked at him.

“You were there.”

“Yes.”

“Was I embarrassing?”

Mills considered.

“Extremely.”

Jandar closed his eyes.

“Thank the gods.”

The relief in his voice was real.

Mills smiled.

Vegon almost did.

Then Jandar looked toward Deacon.

“The other one.”

Deacon's expression hardened.

“Chul' Tor.”

Jandar repeated the name.

No recognition.

Vegon explained.

“One of Fyros's Scourge Lords.”

Jandar stared at him.

“The dead ones?”

“Missing.”

“That seems like a distinction we should have taken more seriously.”

Vegon could not disagree.

Jandar looked around.

“And he saved us.”

“Yes,” Zook said.

“From another Scourge Lord.”

“Yes.”

“Because his master told him to.”

No one answered.

Jandar nodded slowly.

“I preferred being stupid.”

Deacon snorted.

Jandar turned.

“There you are.”

“I didn't say anything.”

“You did something with your face.”

“My face didn't move.”

“It rarely has to.”

For the first time since the village, the group felt correctly assembled.

Vegon disliked how much that mattered.

They camped before continuing.

Xil needed rest after the restoration, and no one argued.

The place Zook chose lay beneath a broad shelf of stone where the mountain had pushed through the forest. It gave them cover on three sides and enough open ground in front to see anything approaching.

Mills made a small fire.

Jandar sat near it with his rapier across his knees.

He had asked for the entire story twice.

The first time he interrupted constantly.

The second time, not once.

Vegon found the second version more concerning.

“So,” Jandar said when Deacon finished describing Chul' Tor's departure, “an ancient servant of Fyros knows who we are.”

“Apparently,” Vegon said.

“His master knows who we are.”

“Possibly.”

“His master specifically does not want us dead.”

“Yes.”

Jandar looked into the fire.

“And you are trying not to say what that suggests.”

Vegon adjusted his cloak.

“It suggests several things.”

“Name the worst.”

Deacon looked at him.

“Don't.”

Jandar ignored him.

Vegon considered how much speculation was useful.

None.

Unfortunately, speculation was all they had.

“Chul' Tor served Fyros.”

“We know.”

“He referred to someone as master.”

“We know.”

“He also challenged the accepted account of Fyros's death.”

Mills stopped tuning his lute.

Jandar's expression remained still.

“So you think Fyros survived.”

“I did not say that.”

“You were thinking it very loudly.”

Vegon disliked that phrase.

“No evidence confirms it.”

“Other than one of his Scourge Lords being alive.”

“Chul' Tor's survival does not prove Fyros's.”

“Another Scourge Lord was also alive.”

“Yes.”

“That feels like the beginnings of a pattern.”

Vegon looked at him.

“You have been restored for less than an hour and are already irritating.”

Jandar smiled.

“Then Xil did excellent work.”

Xil sat across the fire.

His eyes remained on the broken bead in his palm.

Jandar noticed.

“You used that on me?”

“Yes.”

“Was it important?”

“Yes.”

“How important?”

Xil looked up.

“You are alive and yourself.”

“That did not answer the question.”

“It did.”

Jandar seemed ready to make another joke.

Then he stopped.

“Thank you.”

Xil closed his hand around the shattered bead.

“You would have done the same.”

Jandar thought about that.

“I would have tried.”

“That is what I said.”

The fire cracked softly.

Vegon looked away.

They had all nearly died often enough that gratitude should have become ordinary.

It had not.

Perhaps that was useful.

Zook returned from checking the edge of camp.

“We aren't alone.”

Every weapon came free.

Zook blinked.

“Not like that.”

Jandar slowly lowered the rapier.

“Consider phrasing.”

Zook pointed into the forest.

“Animals.”

Deacon frowned.

“What kind?”

“Normal ones.”

That took a moment to understand.

Since reaching Oron, most of the island's wildlife had either avoided them completely or been sufficiently unnatural to attempt murder.

Zook continued.

“Birds. Small things moving in the brush. They're coming back.”

Xil looked north.

“The shrine.”

“Maybe.”

Vegon followed his gaze.

Whatever corruption had occupied the old circle, destroying it might have changed the surrounding land.

Or they might simply have reached a different region.

The first explanation felt meaningful.

Vegon distrusted meaningful explanations without evidence.

Still, when a bird called somewhere beyond the firelight, everyone heard it.

Mills smiled.

“A bird.”

Jandar looked toward the trees.

“Yes.”

“An actual bird.”

“We have seen birds.”

“Not on this island.”

Jandar considered.

“Fair.”

Mills lifted his lute.

“Do not write a song about the bird,” Jandar said.

“I wasn't.”

“You were.”

“I was thinking.”

“That is how it begins.”

Mills played anyway.

Not a song.

Just a quiet progression of chords beneath the sound of the forest returning around them.

No one asked him to stop.

Vegon took the middle watch.

He preferred it.

The first watch required waiting for everyone else to settle. The last required accepting that morning had arrived.

The middle belonged to people willing to be awake when nothing else was.

Jandar joined him.

Vegon noticed before the swashbuckler spoke.

“You should sleep.”

“So should you.”

“I am on watch.”

“I am recently intelligent. I want to enjoy it.”

Vegon looked at him.

Jandar sat near the fire.

For a while he said nothing.

That was enough to make Vegon suspicious.

“What?”

Jandar poked at the coals with a stick.

“Was I really that bad?”

Vegon considered pretending not to understand.

He decided against it.

“Yes.”

Jandar nodded.

“What did I do?”

“You classified stones.”

“I remember none of that.”

“One was round.”

“Was it?”

“More or less.”

Jandar looked relieved.

“At least I retained standards.”

Vegon sighed.

The humor did not last.

Jandar's gaze returned to the coals.

“He took everything.”

Vegon waited.

“I could see,” Jandar said. “Hear. Move. But none of it connected to anything. I knew Mills was there because I recognized his face, but I didn't know what recognition meant.”

His voice had become quieter.

“I remember Deacon holding my arm at one point. I knew I should trust him. I didn't know why.”

Vegon had no useful answer.

So he gave none.

Jandar looked toward him.

“That frightens me more than I would like.”

“Reasonably.”

“You're supposed to reassure me.”

“I am not particularly skilled at it.”

“Yes. I chose poorly.”

Vegon almost smiled.

Jandar leaned back against the rock.

“Chul' Tor recognized us.”

“Yes.”

“Not as Silver Crown.”

“No.”

“As the Hand.”

Vegon looked toward the sleeping camp.

Five.

The number had followed them through ruins and prophecy, through the carvings beneath the tower and now into the attention of enemies four centuries old.

“I don't know what we are,” Vegon said.

Jandar glanced at him.

“That may be the most frightening thing you've ever said.”

“I know what we are individually.”

“Do you?”

“Yes.”

Jandar raised an eyebrow.

Vegon ignored it.

“But the pattern forming around us is based on information we do not possess.”

“History.”

“Yes.”

“Which you hate.”

“I do not hate history.”

“You hate not knowing it.”

Vegon looked at him.

Jandar smiled.

“See? Intelligence restored.”

The smile faded.

“If Chul' Tor wants us alive, it isn't because he likes us.”

“No.”

“So whatever we're doing may help him.”

Vegon had been trying not to finish that thought.

Jandar had done it for him.

The Grimoire.

The awakening War Mage discipline.

The spirits.

The return of Scourge Lords.

Their enemies watching rather than killing them.

Vegon looked north toward the darkness beyond camp.

“We should tell Eticus everything.”

“He'll tell us not to panic.”

“He may.”

“Then he'll panic privately.”

“Almost certainly.”

Jandar nodded.

“That will help.”

It probably would.

They broke camp early.

Zook found the old road again before sunrise, and by midmorning the terrain had begun descending toward Oron.

The mist returned gradually.

First in the valleys.

Then between the trees.

By noon they were moving through it again.

Jandar seemed entirely restored. He complained about the damp, criticized Deacon's choice of pace and repeatedly attempted to persuade Mills that the song about his intellectual collapse should never exist.

Mills made no promises.

That alone improved morale.

They reached the outskirts of Oron late in the afternoon.

The city had not changed.

Vegon had not expected it to.

Still, after everything farther north, the broken streets felt almost familiar.

Zook led them around the areas where they had fought the gray creatures. They passed the distant remains of the building Vegon and Xil had burned, now reduced to a blackened shell.

Jandar stared at it.

“Did we do that?”

“Yes,” Xil said.

“Why?”

“Things were hiding inside.”

Jandar nodded.

“Reasonable.”

Xil looked toward Vegon.

Neither commented.

The tower appeared through the mist before sunset.

Deacon stopped.

The spirits.

Vegon saw it immediately.

“What?”

Deacon listened.

His face tightened.

“They're here.”

“Aaron?”

“I think so.”

The party waited.

Nothing appeared.

Then Deacon's attention shifted toward the tower.

He walked to the entrance.

“Deacon.”

The fighter ignored Jandar and went inside.

They followed.

The chamber beneath the tower remained exactly as they had left it. Carvings of the ancient army covered the walls. The five eroded figures stood among them.

Deacon entered alone at first.

Vegon stayed near the steps.

The temperature dropped.

Aaron Silverhand appeared.

Faintly.

His translucent armor was barely visible in the dim room.

Deacon faced him.

“We met Chul' Tor.”

The spirit changed.

No words.

No movement.

Yet the shape of him seemed suddenly harder.

Anger.

Vegon felt it from across the chamber.

“You know he's alive,” Deacon said.

Aaron's answer came only to him.

They waited.

Deacon's eyes narrowed.

“What does that mean?”

Another pause.

Then Deacon looked toward Vegon.

“He says Chul' Tor was never the worst of them.”

Vegon felt cold.

Jandar folded his arms.

“Wonderful.”

Deacon returned his attention to the spirit.

“He has a master.”

Aaron's outline flickered.

For one instant the entire room filled with whispers.

Vegon could not understand them.

He did not need to.

Fear required no translation.

Deacon stiffened.

“Aaron.”

The spirit raised one hand.

Images appeared along the wall.

Not illusions exactly.

Light moving through the ancient carvings.

The army.

The battle.

The five figures.

Then something behind them.

A shape so damaged by age that Vegon had mistaken it for fractured stone.

Aaron pointed.

Vegon approached.

The carving showed a figure above the battlefield.

Or perhaps behind it.

No face remained.

No recognizable weapon.

Only a crownlike arrangement of lines around the head and a mass of darkness carved beneath.

“What is that?” Zook asked.

Vegon brushed dirt from the stone.

“I don't know.”

Jandar looked at him.

“Your confidence has suffered recently.”

Vegon ignored him.

Aaron's form began to fade.

Deacon stepped forward.

“Wait.”

The spirit looked at him.

“What are we supposed to do?”

The reply took effort.

Deacon listened.

Then frowned.

“That's not an answer.”

Aaron repeated it.

Deacon's frustration deepened.

“What did he say?” Xil asked.

Deacon looked at them.

“Live.”

Jandar blinked.

“That is surprisingly practical advice from a dead man.”

Aaron disappeared.

The whispers went with him.

Deacon stared at the empty room.

“He keeps doing that.”

Xil placed one hand on his shoulder.

“This time he gave you an answer.”

“Not a useful one.”

Vegon looked toward the carving.

Perhaps it was more useful than Deacon thought.

Chul' Tor wanted them alive.

Aaron Silverhand wanted them alive.

Neither had explained why.

Enemies and allies separated by four centuries agreed on one thing.

The Hand had something yet to do.

Vegon was becoming less interested in whether they were the heroes of an old prophecy.

He was more interested in who expected to benefit if they were.

They camped in the tower again.

No one particularly liked the choice, but the alternatives were worse.

By morning they would reach the harbor.

Xil could contact Captain Tawetta once they were close enough to the coast, and if the weather favored them the Wind Dancer might return by the following day.

Vegon should have felt relieved.

Instead, he dreamed.

He stood in Windmarch.

The city was empty.

No guards on the walls.

No merchants in the streets.

The Citadel doors stood open.

He climbed the stairs alone.

At the top, the Grimoire of Orozon rested on Eticus's desk.

Open.

Readable.

Vegon moved toward it.

A shadow stood behind him.

He turned.

No one.

When he looked back, the writing on the page had changed.

Five words.

He understood them perfectly.

YOU OPEN WHAT WE CLOSED.

Vegon woke before dawn.

For several seconds he remained completely still.

The tower was quiet.

Jandar snored nearby.

Deacon sat on watch at the broken window.

Nothing had happened.

Only a dream.

Vegon repeated that to himself.

Then something heavy moved outside.

Not close.

Farther into the city.

A branch cracked.

Then another.

The sound was followed by a low vibration that traveled through the stone beneath him.

Deacon turned from the window.

Zook woke immediately.

“What was that?”

No one answered.

Another sound rolled through the mist.

Deep.

Animal.

Enormous.

Jandar sat up.

“Please tell me that was thunder.”

Zook went to the opening and looked into the gray streets below.

Vegon joined him.

At first there was nothing.

Then something moved between the buildings far to the east.

Too large to see completely through the mist.

A shape passed behind a ruined house.

The roof reached only halfway up its body.

Zook stared.

Jandar came beside them.

“Well.”

Deacon picked up his crossbow.

Vegon looked toward the harbor.

One final stretch of ruined city stood between them and the sea.

Somewhere inside it, something enormous had begun moving.

Jandar rested one hand on the moon-touched rapier.

“At least I'm smart again.”

Vegon looked at him.

“For how long remains an open question.”

Jandar smiled.

There he was.

Outside, the unseen creature roared again.

This time the whole tower seemed to answer.