Kaylor knew he was going home when he stopped calling it going back.
The distinction arrived without ceremony.
He had been walking south for most of the morning, though the road itself wandered enough that direction had become an argument rather than a fact. Low hills rose around him, green where the shadow had never reached and mottled brown where summer had begun taking the moisture out of the earth. A river followed the road for several miles before disappearing behind trees.
Kaylor had slept beside that river two nights earlier.
He had intended to continue north.
Instead he had awakened, eaten, packed his bedroll and walked south.
He told himself the road was better.
Then he told himself there was no reason a walkabout required commitment to a particular direction.
By midday he stopped lying to himself.
Oxland was south.
So he was going home.
There was no divine revelation attached to the realization.
No voice spoke inside his mind.
No symbol burned across the sky.
No injured messenger came staggering down the road carrying news that only Kaylor could answer.
He simply wanted to go home.
That was unfamiliar enough to make him stop walking.
Kaylor stood in the center of the road.
A cart approached from behind.
The driver slowed.
“You all right?”
Kaylor looked over his shoulder.
“Yes.”
The driver waited.
Kaylor realized he was still standing in the road.
He stepped aside.
The cart continued past.
Kaylor watched it go.
Then laughed.
Only once.
Quietly.
He had spent years being summoned.
By gods.
By enemies.
By obligation.
By guilt.
By friends.
Sometimes by people who did not know his name but knew there was a dragon somewhere and that someone should probably do something about it.
This time nobody had called him.
There might not even be anything waiting when he arrived.
Perhaps Fendor had found another tavern.
Perhaps Hexen had become a tree.
Perhaps Nethnarel had taken the Crystal of Chaos apart because everyone had foolishly left her alone with it.
Perhaps Isamu was still away.
Perhaps the Manticore's Tail had burned down during one of Fendor's arguments about whose turn it was to pay.
Kaylor started walking again.
Faster.
He reached the first village where someone recognized him before sunset.
That delayed him.
Not because they asked for help.
Because they asked him to stay for dinner.
Kaylor almost refused.
He had learned enough during the walkabout to recognize the old reflex.
Important people were always going somewhere important.
Meals became interruptions.
Conversations became delays.
Rest became something earned only after the next problem was solved.
He stayed.
The village had rebuilt most of a small bridge washed out during the unnatural weather of the shadow. The work had taken longer than anyone wanted. The carpenter responsible for it complained for nearly an hour about the quality of timber available in the region.
Kaylor listened.
Nobody asked what Thorax had said before dying.
Nobody asked whether gods were real.
Nobody asked what dying felt like.
A woman asked whether dragonborn could eat onions.
Kaylor said yes.
She added onions.
A child asked whether he had ever ridden a dragon.
“No.”
“Why?”
“They object.”
The child considered this.
“Have you asked?”
Kaylor looked at him.
“No.”
“You should.”
Kaylor nodded solemnly.
“I'll remember that.”
Later, someone produced a fiddle.
Kaylor did not dance.
There were limits.
But he stayed until the music ended.
When he left the following morning, the carpenter handed him a small piece of wood carved into the shape of a hammer.
It was badly proportioned.
The handle was too short.
The head was crooked.
Kaylor accepted it as though it were a holy relic.
“Thank you.”
The carpenter shrugged.
“My boy made it.”
The boy stood nearby looking embarrassed.
Kaylor attached the little wooden hammer to a strap on his pack.
The real Hammer of Thunderbolts remained across his back.
For some reason, the smaller one felt heavier.
In Oxland, Nethnarel had covered an entire wall with diagrams.
Fendor hated diagrams.
Not because he was incapable of understanding them.
Because diagrams had a habit of making obvious things look like work.
The one currently dominating Nethnarel's tower consisted of five symbols repeated in several arrangements, lines connecting them, notes written in at least three languages and one section Fendor suspected Nethnarel had crossed out solely because Hexen had understood it too quickly.
He stood in front of it.
“It's five circles.”
Nethnarel did not look up.
“Thank you.”
“I'm helping.”
“You are narrating geometry.”
Fendor pointed.
“Fire.”
“Yes.”
“Water.”
“Yes.”
“Earth.”
“Yes.”
“Air.”
“Yes.”
He pointed at the last symbol.
“And bad decisions.”
“Chaos.”
“I prefer mine.”
Isamu sat at the long table behind them.
Hexen leaned beside one of the windows, watching leaves move outside despite there being no wind.
The Crystal of Chaos was no longer kept in the room.
That had been Isamu's suggestion.
Nethnarel had objected.
Then a stone gargoyle on the eastern face of her tower had begun raining upward.
The Crystal now rested within a bare chamber beneath the tower, surrounded by mundane barriers whose purpose was not to contain it so much as to keep curious people from approaching it.
Nothing they possessed could reliably contain the thing.
Distance at least reduced the frequency of effects.
Nethnarel drew another line on the wall.
“The runes came in pairs.”
Fendor nodded.
“Two of each.”
“Yes.”
“Ten circles.”
“Yes.”
“But five kinds.”
“Yes.”
“I remain excellent at this.”
Nethnarel finally turned.
“Would you like to leave?”
“No.”
“Then stop.”
Fendor smiled.
Isamu said, “He's right.”
Nethnarel looked betrayed.
Fendor straightened.
“Say it again.”
“No.”
“You heard him.”
“He said you were right once.”
“I want it preserved.”
Hexen glanced toward the wall.
“The pairs matter.”
Nethnarel nodded.
“That is what I keep coming back to.”
She had redrawn the chamber from memory as accurately as possible.
Raised platform.
Thorax.
Ten massive circles.
Two fire.
Two water.
Two earth.
Two air.
Two chaos.
Their positions had not remained fixed during the fight, which made reconstructing any original pattern difficult.
The circles had moved.
Thorax had moved with them.
The heroes had moved through them.
They had treated the entire thing as a battlefield.
Nethnarel suspected that choice had hidden the purpose of the room in plain sight.
Isamu looked over the sketch.
“Why pairs?”
“We don't know.”
“Opposition?” Hexen suggested.
“Possibly.”
“Balance?”
“Possibly.”
Fendor raised one hand.
“Because whoever built the room liked symmetry.”
Nethnarel considered.
“Possibly.”
Fendor looked disappointed.
“You were supposed to reject that.”
“I reject you, not symmetry.”
Isamu pointed toward two of the circles.
“If they were positions, perhaps each pair was intended to hold a force between them.”
Nethnarel nodded.
“Or transfer something.”
“Or stabilize it,” Hexen said.
“Or separate it.”
Fendor leaned against the wall.
“Or we could return to the room and look.”
Silence.
Nethnarel turned slowly.
Fendor's expression changed.
“What?”
Hexen looked at him.
“That was almost useful.”
“I've been useful all morning.”
“No. This was different.”
Fendor looked toward Isamu.
“You heard him.”
Isamu ignored him.
Nethnarel crossed to the table.
“The tower collapsed.”
“So did we once,” Fendor said. “That didn't stick.”
“The Ageless Tower was coming apart at a structural level that included space.”
“Yes.”
“We Plane Shifted out.”
“Yes.”
“We have no reason to assume there is anything left.”
Fendor gestured toward the floor.
“The thing under your tower appears to disagree.”
Nethnarel said nothing.
The Crystal had come from somewhere.
Perhaps from Thorax.
Perhaps from the platform.
Perhaps from the failure of the tower itself.
But its internal symbol was Oslan.
Its effects reproduced the five categories of force represented in the final chamber.
And the Sage had explicitly directed them toward the platform.
Hexen left the window.
“Mahi Esri is still there.”
Nethnarel looked at him.
“The fortress.”
“Yes.”
“The tower might not be.”
“No.”
“But we could start there.”
Isamu nodded.
Nethnarel looked toward the diagram again.
Fendor smiled.
“So we agree.”
“No.”
“You're packing.”
“I am considering.”
“That is Nethnarel for packing.”
She ignored him.
Then her eyes stopped on the five symbols.
Five.
The thought from the previous night returned.
Not fully formed anymore.
Now it was annoyingly obvious.
She counted again anyway.
Fire.
Water.
Earth.
Air.
Chaos.
Five.
Nethnarel turned toward the room.
Hexen.
Fendor.
Isamu.
Herself.
Four.
Kaylor absent.
Five.
She hated numerology.
It was lazy scholarship.
Any sufficiently large collection of facts could be made to produce matching numbers if one selected carefully enough.
There had been six heroes originally.
The platform contained ten runes.
Thorax had one head.
At least at the end.
None of those numbers demanded metaphysical significance.
And yet—
Unity.
She looked at Isamu.
He saw the thought return.
“What?”
Nethnarel pointed at the wall.
“Five kinds.”
“Yes.”
“How many living members of the original company?”
Isamu did not answer immediately.
Fendor did.
“Five.”
Hexen looked toward him.
Fendor's expression had lost its humor.
There had once been six.
Nobody needed to say the missing name.
Nethnarel continued.
“I am not suggesting each of us corresponds to an element.”
“Good,” Fendor said. “Because I refuse to be earth.”
“Why?”
“Boring.”
Hexen looked offended on behalf of the planet.
Nethnarel raised her voice.
“I am not suggesting it.”
Fendor nodded.
“Continue.”
“The platform was built around five categories of force. Whatever ‘unity’ meant, it may have required simultaneous interaction across them.”
Isamu considered the diagram.
“Multiple participants.”
“Possibly.”
“Five?”
“Possibly.”
Hexen shook his head.
“We shouldn't assume that.”
“I know.”
“Five Oslan mages could have used it.”
“Yes.”
“Or ten.”
“Yes.”
“Or one person moving between them.”
“Yes.”
Fendor looked between them.
“So we have established that the answer could be five, ten, one or something else.”
Nethnarel sighed.
“That is what evidence looks like before you understand it.”
“Terrible system.”
Isamu stood and approached the wall.
“Unity doesn't necessarily mean number.”
Nethnarel looked at him.
“Explain.”
“Five people standing in the same room are not united.”
Fendor nodded.
“We've demonstrated that extensively.”
“Unity is agreement.”
Hexen added, “Coordination.”
“Trust,” Isamu said.
That word changed the room.
Nethnarel looked back at the five symbols.
Thorax had spoken about their friendship.
Not incidentally.
He had mocked it.
Promised to break it.
Called loyalty weakness.
At the time, it had sounded like the ordinary arrogance of a creature who believed itself above mortals.
Perhaps it had been.
But the Sage had given them a counterword.
Unity.
Nethnarel thought of Thorax moving across the platform while they attacked from different angles.
Fendor firing from above.
Hexen tearing at him in monstrous form.
Kaylor charging.
Nethnarel throwing everything she had left.
They had fought magnificently together.
But each attack had still been an individual answer.
Different people trying to break the same enemy.
Maybe the platform required something else.
“We need Kaylor,” Nethnarel said.
Isamu looked at her.
“Yes.”
Fendor glanced toward the door.
“Do we get to find him now?”
“No,” Isamu said.
Fendor exhaled.
“I knew asking would ruin it.”
Nethnarel did not argue.
Not yet.
Kaylor had left because he needed to.
If the answer involved trust, hauling him back through divination and teleportation because they had discovered another emergency would begin the lesson incorrectly.
But Nethnarel disliked waiting.
Particularly when reality itself was becoming unreliable beneath her tower.
She looked at the wall.
“Then we keep working.”
Kaylor encountered the first rain two days from Oxland.
Ordinary rain.
He almost laughed at that too.
Water fell down.
Every drop.
No lightning formed faces.
No cloud attempted to murder him.
No spectral army rode inside the storm.
It simply rained.
Kaylor found shelter beneath a broad oak and waited.
He could have continued.
The armor would endure it.
He had endured worse.
But there was nowhere he had to be before nightfall.
So he sat.
Rain struck leaves overhead.
The road darkened.
Water gathered in ruts.
A pair of merchants hurried past beneath cloaks.
One raised a hand.
Kaylor returned the gesture.
When the rain weakened, he stood.
Something glinted beside the road.
A nail.
Kaylor picked it up.
He had no need for a nail.
He put it in his pocket anyway.
Walkabouts apparently accumulated useless objects.
A carved wooden hammer.
A nail.
Two polished stones a child had insisted were lucky.
A folded scrap of paper containing directions to an inn Kaylor had already visited.
He wondered what Fendor would say.
Probably that Kaylor had finally learned how treasure worked.
The thought made him miss Fendor.
That surprised him less than expected.
Hexen next.
Then Nethnarel.
Then Isamu, though he still did not know whether Isamu had returned.
And Grazim.
Always Grazim.
Kaylor no longer fought that sequence.
Grief did not behave because one had accepted it.
It simply stopped needing to be solved.
He resumed walking.
The Crystal of Chaos produced snow inside Nethnarel's basement that afternoon.
Only inside the innermost room.
Only for thirteen seconds.
None of it was cold.
Then every flake became ash before touching the floor.
Nethnarel watched from beyond the threshold.
Fendor stood beside her.
“That's new.”
“Yes.”
Hexen crouched and touched the ash after the effect ended.
It became water against his fingers.
Isamu looked at the Crystal from behind the second barrier.
“More frequent?”
“Yes,” Nethnarel said.
“Stronger?”
“Yes.”
“Spreading?”
Nethnarel hesitated.
“Not much.”
That answer bothered all of them.
Fendor pointed toward the floor.
“What is ‘not much’?”
“Last night the lower stairs were colder than the room.”
“It's autumn.”
“They were covered in frost.”
“Less autumn.”
Hexen stood.
“We cannot leave this here indefinitely.”
“No.”
“Can we move it?”
“Yes.”
“Safely?”
Nethnarel looked at him.
“No.”
Fendor leaned against the doorway.
“Good meeting.”
The Crystal rotated.
The red lines curled inward.
Then stopped.
Everyone froze.
The lines had never stopped.
For one second there was no movement inside the perfect clear surface.
Then all the red lines reversed direction.
They spiraled outward.
The room shook.
Not violently.
Once.
A pulse.
Every flame in Nethnarel's tower went out.
Somewhere above, glass shattered.
The Crystal resumed its normal inward rotation.
Fendor stared.
“I vote for sooner.”
Nethnarel was already moving.
She climbed the stairs two at a time.
Hexen followed.
Isamu came next.
Fendor waited.
He looked once more at the Crystal.
“Don't do anything.”
The Crystal ignored him.
“Worth trying.”
He followed.
On the upper floor, one window had broken.
Nothing had struck it.
The glass lay outside the tower.
Nethnarel stood in the opening looking toward the city.
Oxland appeared normal.
Smoke rose from chimneys.
Carts moved.
People crossed streets.
No one looked upward.
No one screamed.
Hexen joined her.
“Still local.”
“For now.”
Nethnarel hated those words.
Isamu looked toward the road leading beyond the city.
Still no Kaylor.
Fendor arrived last.
“We can't wait forever.”
Isamu nodded.
“No.”
Nethnarel looked at him.
“You said not to call him.”
“I did.”
“And?”
“I still think that.”
Fendor threw both hands up.
Isamu continued.
“But unity doesn't require Kaylor if Kaylor isn't here.”
Nethnarel stared.
“What?”
“We don't know that the mechanism requires five of us.”
“We just spent two days—”
“Thinking it might.”
“Yes.”
“Might.”
Fendor smiled slightly.
“You've infected him.”
Nethnarel ignored both.
Isamu looked at her.
“If the Crystal becomes an immediate danger, we act with whoever is here.”
Hexen nodded.
“Agreed.”
Nethnarel looked back over Oxland.
She did not like it.
But she nodded.
“Agreed.”
The decision settled something.
Not the Crystal.
Them.
If Kaylor did not return, they would go without him.
They would not make the world's survival conditional upon one person answering a summons.
Perhaps that was part of unity too.
Kaylor reached Oxland the following morning.
He knew the city long before he saw the walls.
Smell first.
Woodsmoke.
Bread.
Animals.
A river nearby.
Then sound.
Wagon wheels.
Hammers.
Someone shouting about cabbage.
He smiled.
The road curved.
Oxland appeared.
Kaylor stopped.
He had returned to cities after war.
Returned after death.
Returned after victories.
Returned carrying enemies' blood.
Returned to cheering crowds.
Returned to people who thought he was someone he no longer believed himself to be.
This felt different.
The city was not waiting for him.
A gate guard was arguing with a farmer.
Two children ran past carrying a hoop.
A dog had decided the center of the road was an appropriate place to sleep.
Nobody noticed Kaylor for nearly a minute.
He liked that.
Then the gate guard looked up.
His argument stopped.
“Kaylor?”
Kaylor raised one hand.
The guard stared.
“You're back.”
“Yes.”
“Everything all right?”
Kaylor considered.
That was a remarkably large question.
“Yes.”
The guard looked past him.
“Did you find what you were looking for?”
Kaylor glanced down the road behind him.
“No.”
The guard frowned.
Kaylor smiled.
“I found something else.”
The guard clearly wanted to ask.
The farmer clearly wanted him not to because there remained an unresolved cabbage-related issue.
Kaylor entered the city.
He passed familiar streets.
Familiar buildings.
People began recognizing him.
A few waved.
One called his name.
Kaylor returned the greetings and kept walking.
He knew where he was going.
That was new.
The Manticore's Tail stood exactly where it had before.
Kaylor stopped outside.
The sign creaked gently above the door.
He could hear Fendor inside.
Of course he could.
“I am telling you, if the spoon becomes completely invisible, its value increases.”
Isamu answered.
“It becomes useless.”
“Rare and useless are not opposites.”
Kaylor stood very still.
Isamu.
Home.
He opened the door.
Fendor had the transparent spoon in one hand.
Isamu was seated across from him.
Hexen stood behind the bar.
Nethnarel had spread papers across two tables.
All four looked toward the door.
Kaylor stepped inside.
Nobody moved.
It lasted only a second.
Still long enough for Kaylor to notice.
Then Fendor said, “Well. Look what wandered in.”
Kaylor closed the door.
“Isamu.”
Isamu stood.
“Kaylor.”
“You're back.”
“So are you.”
They looked at one another.
Then Isamu crossed the room.
Kaylor expected a handshake.
Isamu hugged him.
Kaylor froze.
Fendor looked delighted.
“Oh, this is excellent.”
Kaylor slowly put one arm around Isamu.
“You missed a dragon.”
Isamu stepped back.
“So I have been told.”
“Repeatedly,” Hexen said.
Fendor pointed at himself.
“History matters.”
Hexen came around the bar.
He embraced Kaylor without any apparent concern about dragonborn armor.
Nethnarel remained beside the papers.
Kaylor looked at her.
She folded her arms.
“You took a long time.”
“It was a walkabout.”
“That is not a measurement.”
Kaylor smiled.
Fendor's expression changed.
“Did he just smile?”
“No,” Nethnarel said.
“I saw it.”
“You see things that aren't there.”
“Not smiles. They're rare.”
Nethnarel crossed the room.
For one uncomfortable second Kaylor thought she might also hug him.
Instead she hit his chest with one fist.
Not hard.
“You left us with the Crystal.”
Kaylor looked toward the papers.
“What did it do?”
All four answered at once.
Kaylor listened for approximately five seconds.
Then held up one hand.
“Start over.”
Fendor pulled out a chair.
“You should sit.”
Kaylor did.
He realized with some surprise how good that felt.
Hexen brought him food.
No one asked whether he wanted any.
That felt good too.
Then Nethnarel explained.
It took nearly an hour.
Kaylor ate through most of it.
He learned about the floating water.
Cold fire.
Transparent spoon.
Breathing wall that Fendor remained legally committed to denying had breathed.
Elemental tests.
The brief equilibrium when fire, water, earth and air had been arranged around the Crystal.
Isamu's return.
The Sage's warning.
The ten runes.
The sealing platform.
Unity.
The possibility that the Crystal was not a treasure from Thorax but an unresolved piece of whatever the Oslan had attempted to contain.
The possibility that killing Thorax had ended the dragon while leaving the deeper imbalance unfinished.
Kaylor finished eating.
Nobody spoke.
He looked around the table.
“You waited for me.”
Isamu answered.
“No.”
Kaylor looked at him.
“We were going without you if it became necessary.”
Kaylor absorbed that.
Fendor leaned back.
“Very touching, isn't it?”
Kaylor looked at Isamu again.
“Good.”
Nethnarel frowned.
“Good?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because if the world requires me personally to continue existing, we have made a terrible mistake.”
Fendor pointed at him.
“He learned something.”
Kaylor looked at the scattered diagrams.
“What do we know?”
Nethnarel began listing facts.
Kaylor stopped her.
“No.”
She stared.
“What do we know?”
Nethnarel understood the distinction.
“Thorax is dead.”
“Yes.”
“The Crystal is active.”
“Yes.”
“Its effects correspond broadly to the five categories represented by the runes in the Ageless Tower.”
“Yes.”
“The effects are increasing.”
“Yes.”
“The Sage told us to use the runes, sealing platform and unity.”
“Yes.”
“We did not.”
Kaylor nodded.
“That seems important.”
Fendor spread both hands.
“We skipped the instructions.”
Kaylor stared at him.
“That is surprisingly accurate.”
“I've been waiting days for proper appreciation.”
Hexen placed the transparent spoon on the table.
Kaylor picked it up.
“What happened to this?”
Fendor took it back immediately.
“Mine.”
Kaylor looked toward Hexen.
Hexen shook his head.
“Don't ask.”
Nethnarel pushed one of the diagrams toward Kaylor.
“There's something else.”
Five symbols.
Kaylor looked.
“Fire. Water. Earth. Air. Chaos.”
“Yes.”
“Five.”
“Yes.”
He looked around the table.
No one said anything.
Kaylor counted anyway.
Fendor.
Hexen.
Nethnarel.
Isamu.
Himself.
Five.
His eyes stopped for a moment on the empty space between Isamu and Hexen.
There had been a time when Grazim would have occupied it.
The thought landed softly.
Not because it hurt less.
Because Kaylor had stopped expecting pain to prove love.
He looked back at the diagram.
“You think this is about us.”
Nethnarel shook her head.
“I think it might require multiple people.”
“Five?”
“Maybe.”
“Each one using an element?”
“No.”
The speed of her answer made Fendor smile.
Nethnarel continued.
“We have no evidence for that. I refuse to invent a symbolic assignment because the numbers look convenient.”
Kaylor nodded.
“Good.”
Fendor looked insulted.
“I had suggestions.”
“No,” everyone said.
Fendor leaned back.
Isamu tapped one finger against the word Nethnarel had written beneath the diagram.
UNITY.
“We've been discussing what this means.”
Kaylor looked at him.
“And?”
“We don't know.”
Kaylor nodded.
Fendor groaned.
“You two are exhausting.”
Isamu continued.
“But I don't think it means five bodies occupying five circles.”
Hexen said, “Not only that, anyway.”
Kaylor studied the word.
Unity.
Thorax's voice returned from memory.
Friendship as weakness.
Loyalty as vulnerability.
Chaos consuming everything that held them together.
Kaylor had answered him with violence.
At the time, violence had been appropriate.
It still was.
Thorax was dead.
Kaylor regretted none of those hammer blows.
But perhaps the dragon had misunderstood them in exactly the same way the Oslan misunderstood power.
He had assumed unity meant dependence.
That friendship weakened an individual because it created something that could be threatened.
Kaylor looked at his friends.
“What if unity just means none of us gets to do it alone?”
Nethnarel stopped.
Hexen nodded slowly.
Isamu said nothing.
Fendor looked around.
“That seems unpleasantly plausible.”
Kaylor pointed toward the diagram.
“The Oslan were masters of magic.”
“Yes,” Nethnarel said.
“They still failed.”
“Yes.”
“The Sage warned against mastery.”
“Yes.”
“So maybe the platform isn't something one person controls.”
Nethnarel looked toward Isamu.
He was smiling slightly.
“What?”
Kaylor asked.
Isamu shook his head.
“Nothing.”
“That isn't true.”
“You got there.”
“Where?”
“Balance before power.”
Kaylor frowned.
“I didn't say that.”
“You didn't need to.”
Hexen leaned across the table.
“The elements don't need a master.”
Nethnarel's eyes returned to the diagram.
“They need relationship.”
“Constraints,” Isamu said.
“Agreement,” Hexen said.
Fendor grimaced.
“Those sound like words people use before assigning me something dangerous.”
Kaylor looked at him.
“You'll manage.”
“I always do.”
For several minutes they talked over one another.
Not planning yet.
Testing the idea.
If the runes were positions rather than weapons, perhaps each represented a force that had to be brought into relationship with the others.
If chaos could not be destroyed, perhaps it had to be given boundaries.
If Thorax had occupied the platform as a living concentration of those forces, then his death might have removed the thing holding them together while leaving the system unfinished.
The Crystal might be the remaining concentration.
Or key.
Or anchor.
Or residue.
They still did not know.
But the direction became clearer.
Eventually Kaylor asked the question nobody had yet said aloud.
“Can we go back?”
Nethnarel looked at him.
“To Mahi Esri?”
“To the tower.”
“We don't know if it exists.”
“Then Mahi Esri.”
Hexen nodded.
“Start there.”
Fendor looked at Kaylor.
“You've been home less than two hours.”
Kaylor glanced toward the door.
Then back to the table.
There had been a time when that would have bothered him.
The road again.
Another problem.
Another obligation.
But this did not feel the same.
No god had called him.
No prophecy had named him.
No stranger had begged the Heroes of the New Beginning to save the world.
His friends had found something unfinished.
He had returned.
They were asking what to do together.
Kaylor looked at the five symbols.
Then at the four people around him.
“I just got back.”
Fendor nodded.
“Yes.”
“I would like one night.”
Fendor stared.
Then slowly smiled.
“Oh, he definitely learned something.”
Nethnarel started to object.
Stopped.
Looked toward Isamu.
Isamu raised one eyebrow.
She exhaled.
“One night.”
Hexen nodded.
“One night.”
Kaylor leaned back.
“Good.”
Fendor lifted his cup.
“To procrastination.”
Isamu corrected him.
“To patience.”
“Less appealing.”
They drank anyway.
The Manticore's Tail filled gradually as evening came.
Nobody knew the Heroes of the New Beginning had decided to return to Mahi Esri.
That was fine.
No announcement was made.
No map spread across the tavern floor.
No speeches.
They ate.
They drank.
Fendor eventually persuaded someone to play cards.
Hexen disappeared into the kitchen and emerged with something nobody trusted.
Nethnarel tried to read.
Fendor confiscated the book.
She threatened him.
Isamu laughed.
Kaylor watched.
That was all.
For perhaps an hour, he said almost nothing.
He had imagined home repeatedly during the walkabout.
He had pictured the building.
The table.
The people.
He had not understood that what he missed most was the noise.
Fendor cheating badly enough that everyone could tell.
Nethnarel arguing with him while simultaneously beating him at the game she claimed not to be playing.
Hexen feeding scraps to an animal that did not belong inside.
Isamu sitting quietly until he said one thing that made everyone else reconsider the last ten minutes.
Kaylor felt the carved wooden hammer against his pack.
He removed it.
Fendor noticed.
“What is that?”
“Treasure.”
Fendor leaned closer.
The little hammer was plainly terrible.
He looked at Kaylor.
“You've learned.”
“I thought you would approve.”
Fendor took it.
Examined the crooked head.
“Masterwork.”
“A child made it.”
“I stand corrected. Priceless.”
Kaylor took it back.
Nethnarel looked over.
“You carried that all the way here?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Kaylor considered.
“Because someone gave it to me.”
Nethnarel waited for more.
There wasn't any.
She smiled.
Very slightly.
Kaylor attached it to his pack again.
Later, as the room quieted, his gaze moved once toward the empty chair near the wall.
Not the chair.
There was no ritual to it yet.
No place permanently reserved.
Just furniture.
Still, for an instant, Kaylor saw Grazim sitting there.
Not a ghost.
Memory.
Armor set aside.
Drink in hand.
Expression already suggesting Fendor had said something offensive.
Kaylor could almost hear him.
Then the image faded.
Kaylor did not ask it to return.
He raised his cup a fraction.
Nobody noticed.
That was fine too.
Beneath Nethnarel's tower, the Crystal of Chaos waited.
At midnight, the five heroes went to see it.
Not because they had planned to.
Because Kaylor asked.
Nethnarel unlocked the barriers.
They descended.
Five sets of footsteps moved down the stone stairs.
Kaylor entered last.
The chamber was cold.
Then warm.
Then neither.
The Crystal rested at the center.
Its blue ring turned.
Red lines spiraled inward.
Kaylor approached until Nethnarel told him to stop.
He stopped.
That alone seemed to please her.
Around the Crystal remained the simple objects from their experiments.
Water.
Earth.
The candle.
The feather.
Hexen lit the candle.
Isamu repositioned the bowl.
Nethnarel watched the Crystal.
Fendor stood near the wall.
Kaylor looked around.
“Five things.”
Nethnarel nodded.
“Five forces.”
“And five of us.”
“Yes.”
“Still could be coincidence.”
“Yes.”
Fendor sighed.
“This is why nobody writes songs about scholarship.”
Kaylor looked at him.
“They've written songs about you.”
“Exactly.”
Isamu stepped beside Kaylor.
“Don't assign meaning because you want it.”
Kaylor nodded.
“But don't ignore meaning because it seems convenient either.”
Kaylor looked at him.
“That sounds like something you tell students.”
“It is.”
“Do they like it?”
“No.”
“Good.”
They stood around the experiment.
Nobody touched the Crystal.
Nobody cast a spell.
Nobody attempted to command anything.
Five heroes.
Four ordinary elements.
Chaos at the center.
For several seconds nothing happened.
Then the water became still.
The candle flame straightened.
The soil settled.
The feather stopped moving.
Nethnarel inhaled.
It had happened before.
But not like this.
The Crystal slowed.
Once.
Twice.
The red lines continued inward.
Then almost stopped.
Hexen looked at Isamu.
Isamu had not moved.
Fendor whispered, “Nobody breathe.”
Kaylor looked at him.
“That's not how breathing works.”
“Quiet.”
For perhaps three heartbeats, the entire room held.
Not dead.
Balanced.
Then Kaylor shifted his weight.
The feather spun.
The water rippled.
The Crystal accelerated.
The moment ended.
Nobody spoke.
Nethnarel stared at the five of them.
“What did you do?”
Fendor pointed at Kaylor.
“He moved.”
“No. Before that.”
“Nothing.”
Hexen nodded.
“Nothing.”
Isamu looked toward the Crystal.
“We were all here.”
Nethnarel's eyes moved from face to face.
Fendor.
Hexen.
Isamu.
Kaylor.
Herself.
Five.
She hated numerology.
She hated coincidences.
She hated conclusions arriving before sufficient evidence.
But she loved evidence.
And something had just happened.
Kaylor looked at the Crystal.
“Can we reproduce it?”
Nethnarel smiled.
Now he was speaking her language.
“We can try.”
They tried.
Again.
And again.
Most attempts failed.
Once the flame went blue.
Once the soil rose.
Once Fendor sneezed at precisely the wrong moment and blamed air.
But twice more, when all five stood within the arrangement without reaching for power, the room approached stillness.
Not complete.
Not stable.
Enough.
Enough for Nethnarel to stop calling it coincidence.
She closed her notebook.
“We go to Mahi Esri.”
No one argued.
“When?” Fendor asked.
Kaylor looked toward the stairs.
“One night.”
Fendor grinned.
“You already had your night.”
Kaylor thought.
“Then morning.”
Hexen nodded.
“Morning.”
Isamu looked at the Crystal.
“We don't take it until we're ready to leave.”
Nethnarel agreed.
Nobody objected.
They climbed the stairs together.
Five sets of footsteps.
No sixth.
That absence belonged to them too.
At the top, Kaylor looked back once.
The Crystal continued turning in the darkness below.
Tomorrow they would return to the place where Thorax had died.
Not to kill another enemy.
Not to find another treasure.
To finish something.
Kaylor closed the door.
And for the first time since the Heroes of the New Beginning had awakened beneath their own statues, all five who remained were choosing the same road before anyone else told them to take it.