The tide of the winter season withdrew two weeks after the hunt, making way for spring. Darronin continued to watch our lessons, but now had his son and an advisor in attendance as well. In reflection, it was obvious what the baron considered, but I was none-the-wiser for I did not yet have full knowledge of Corindrian’s assignment for his visit to Temini.

During one lesson, Nominon asked if I could instruct him, a request Corindrian firmly denied, giving to no amount of begging from the young noble.

“Young lord, I cannot fulfill such requests from you to learn the art of magicks.” Corindrian said, “My students both gave up much for my time, and to task them with training you, let alone safely, is not something I would ask of them. Do not further request tutelage from me or my students, lest you draw my ire.”

Corindrian’s refusal was stren to such an extent that I expected Darronin to be upset with the mage. However, rather than responding with anger and stubborness the baron further scolded his insistent son.

“Child,” the baron addressed his son, “your eagerness is not welcome here. As the archmage has told you, his students have given up much to reach their advanced skill in a dangerous art. You are impatient and impetuous if you believe you will conjure sylvan hounds and flaming lizards within your first year of study. Sooner you would be to mis-cast a spell and perish or fall gravely ill, than to do such things. Sooner you would be tempted to those ill-gotten and dreaded magicks than to pursure the virtuous path of study. In time you will grow patient and virtuous, but for now you are too young and ambitious to pursue magicks safely. Do not pester them again.”

Darronin’s address ended with him striking and dismissing his son in anger, uncharacteristic of the lord’s controlled and calculated demeanor. Still, even through his lashing anger one could tell that he was a virtuous man, for he feared impatience and the pursuit of the arts only viceful mages pursue. Perhaps, however, the anger was the result of that consuming and wretched war and its promises of glory and power.

As the snow melted, revealing the woodland thicket and the spring sea of evergreen horizons in Temini, one could sense it was less beautiful and untouched than before our arrival. The sky was more gray now than in winter. The trails and grass were muddy and difficult to tread. The forest grew darker and thicker. Fog settled in nightly, almost as if to consume the houses of the barony. Children went missing, and a mild illness spread among the region. Not deadly or as contagious as the plague that had afflicted Arimens years prior, yet potent enough to linger at the edge of every stray cough, every whisper, and each time we saw the baron.

Troubled and anxious, the baron requested my presence alone behind the locked doors where him and Corindrian typically spoke. Darronin’s sitting room was sparse, containing only a few large chairs and a low table set on a rug, all which placed before a smoldering hearth. He offered me spirits and wine, which I refused. Synwye had taught me that alcohol clouds the mind and I knew the baron would not have summoned me unless he sought my expertise and my full faculties, for he was not a trivial man.

The man spoke more plainly than his typical mode of speech, for he did not have to be as cautious of his words within his private domain.

“Nayinian, I am grateful you have answered my request for an audience, I know you and your colleague Ornookian are busy with your many studies.” Darronin spoke.

“My lord, my gratefulness most certainly exceeds yours to have received an audience with someone such as yourself is a unique honor I have yet to experience.” I told the baron.

Darronin looked at me with heavy and exhausted eyes, before continuing onwards to his reason for requesting my presence.

“My son has spoken enthusiastically of you. He told me you were knowledgeable about plants, herbs, and illness. He said your knowledge most likely surpassed most in the region. At first I made his words out to be mere exaggeration as many young men are prone to do when they are enamored with a woman. However, I spoke to Corindrian to ask of your background in medicine, and he spoke just as highly of your ability. He said you successfully treated a strange plague that had ravaged the city of Arimens. This is true, yes?”

I told him that it was true. I was skilled in apothecary, as I had trained in that craft before I left my village for Arimens so that I could study magicks.The baron then asked a risky feat of me.

“As you are knowledgeable of illnesses and cures and herbs and plants, then I need your aid in ridding my lands of that nuisance plague. The knowledge of disease comes natural to you, and it would be wasted if you did not help me in this matter. If I am to involve my domain in the war and take favors from mages, then my lands must first be rid of that omen of Decay. Your display during the hunt has assured me that you will be successful in these matters, if requested.”

The baron did not realize the difficulty and danger of curing a sickness with magicks, for it is dangerous to reach beyond the veil for healing magicks as Decay is always close by for those who make fatal errors. Yet, not wanting to disappoint the baron, and wanting to return to Arimens so I could be with Ynguinian, I accepted the baron’s task without complaint.

Corindrian was not pleased with my eagerness to engage in such lofty pursuits, when herbs would do fine, but seeing that this may lead to the success of our mission in Temini he guided my efforts closely. However he did not lead, for his domain was weather and he trusted my spellcraft in the domain of sickness and healing. My knowledge of apothecary made it less laborious to craft the necessary magickal utterances in the first language. For that reason I was also less likely to craft flawed language when it came to spells of this nature, and thereby draw attention of the thirteenth saint and Decay and bring woe upon myself. Kalitian and Knowledge were my guides, and deftly they steered me away from a fate similar to that when I had touched the yew, nightshade, and water hemlock.

Two weeks it took, to craft the baron’s requested spell, and no more than two weeks did it take. Any longer, and the language for the spell would have changed, for the nature of disease is that of constant change. I knew if my words were no longer proper I would bring woe upon myself, and so an untested spell I took to meet the baron’s summons that morning.

The foyer of the baron’s manor was full of his staff, his servants, and his guard, all of whom had been touched by the illness. Coughs and sniffles permeated the marble halls of the home (for Urostian prefers stone to wood) as I found myself within the throng of those ill who served the baron and his dominion. For they were not nobility, they still treated me and the other mages with suspicion. The plague was not helping our reputation within the Temini Barony, but that was the problem I had been requested to solve, and soon, I figured, we would no longer have to put up with the whims of the Temini ruffians; content in Arimens once more reading tomes from master Corindrian’s library. Darronin addressed his staff and servants and soldiers with the same dignity and repose he had shown to the nobility and Corindrian.

“As many know, an illness has befallen my staff and my servants and my soldiers. It is a strange spring for the barony, and it has been a strange winter as well. For the first time in many generations the walls of this estate have housed mages. This was not upon my request, nor would I have allowed it under normal circumstances, for all of these lands know of the dangers of unchecked spellcraft. Do not mistake, however, those unvirtuous and unrefined practitioners who practice the thirteenth saint’s foul magicks for the guests who have called Temini their home these past months.”

The baron took a pause in his speech, for the room was tense at the mention of magicks and the region's history with foul magicks. His denizens respected the virtuous man for more than most subjects of aristocracy, and ceded the air for Darronin to continue his address.

“I have summoned you, my faithful denizens, as a matter of trust. As many of you know, my relationship with magicks and spellcraft has changed during my guests’ visitation, and with that I urge you to reconsider what you know of most mages and warlocks. I have asked the talented mage Nayinian, who is knowledgeable of medicines and illness, to craft a spell to eliminate this nuisance plague. If you do not wish to have a spell cast upon you, I understand. A man’s life is not something to be trifled with, and foul magicks have haunted the imaginations of Temini since long before any of our times. However, if you trust me as your superior, as a caretaker, and a man I beg of you to stay. If I have your trust in all matters, then so should Nayinian, master of alms.”

I could see the doubt on the many faces of the throng. They had every right to leave that room and to continue onwards with their doubts and worries of spellcraft. Darronin, however, virtuous and trustworthy had won them over time and time again. If the virtuous baron trusted me, then their trust extended to me. It was then I understood the power of Virtue, which the baron fortunately still possessed. Once those summoned had made up their mind, I began to cast my spell to eliminate the illness.

This spell, unlike those of the hunt, was not one to show prowess and impress, for the magicks were far too dangerous to complicate in such a manner. The only thing I could give to the spell was my total and unwavering focus. Each word I spoke related to that illness’s nature, and to its eradication. Each motion of the hands required the utmost precision, for to throw caution to the wind when shaping the void beyond the edge of the world would have been to bring woe upon myself and this plane.

Minutes within the chamber passed in utter silence until I began to draw the plague from the mouths of those presence. Tendrils of black fell to the floor only to coallesce to the center of the stone room in a sphere of darkness, visible. A fragment of Decay herself. Faster and faster I pulled the illness, and the louder the whispering winds became, for a goddess scorned expresses her anger in subtle and quiet ways. Once all plague had been pulled from those gathered in the foyer simply clasped my hands together and dissipated it into nothingness.

The simple nuissance-illness was no longer, and I had made no mistakes in casting my spell. This was the moment the baron’s subjects began to accept the magickal arts. Still weary, yes, but in that moment they began to learn. Unfortunately their Knowledge would not last, for that was the nature of that wretched conflict: to consume all that was fine and good and virtuous.

Darronin was pleased in my performance. Little did I understand the importance of what I had just done, for it wrought consequences far beyond convincing the baron utterly of the war effort. The spell sealed Onookian’s fate, and the fate of the Council of Arimensian Warlocks, and perhaps even the fate of Arimens itself. Yet, not yet was my own fate decided, for it was not until I drank of the first yew that I no longer controlled my destiny.

Later in the evening, the baron took me aside with what he viewed as auspicious news: he would become my new patron (thereby joining the war effort), and he wanted me to marry his son, for to marry the student of one of the Arimensian Council of Warlocks would bode great boons for his territories.

“Lord Darronin. Your offer humbles me, but I cannot accept for I signed a contract to aid the Moringian army once my apprenticeship had completed.” I objected, which the baron replied:

“Nayinian. Your contract was to aid the army for three years. Your master represents the interests of the kingdom, and if it is his wish for you to become my mage, then your contract will not be breached. No gods or saints, or paladins offended.”

He sought me, perhaps greedily. Temptations of glory had begun to afflict his desires, for a virtuous man would not look for loopholes in a contract spoken before a priest of Mentillian. Yet, he must have been virtuous still, for my next objection to this arrangement he respected.

“Lord Darronin,” I spoke once more, “I cannot accept your humbling offer, for I am betrothed.”

I presented Ynguinian’s amulet to the baron and spoke again to him.

“He trains to became a knight of Mentillian, and he is a virtuous man. I must return to him. I cannot marry your son, and this kingdom cannot be my home.”

The baron accepted this objection, for he was good at heart. Never would he insult Virtue or Paronian, who bless all marriages. Darronin was a widower, and love to him was sacred.

“Nayinian. I apologize for my insistence,” he spoke, more humbly than I had ever heard him before.

“I am a widower, and marriage and love are things that I will not interfere in. Cannot interfere in. I still desire to be your patron, but to pursue such a matter further would not only be an affront to Paronian and Virtue, but an affront to my deepest self.”

And with that, he dismissed me, and then summoned Ornookian and Corindrian. It is for this reason I was Lucky he was still a virtuous man.

However, I did not realize he would desire to give patronage to Ornookian, or that Corindrian would accept such an offer. Not until I learned of what Ornookian had given up to study magicks, that is.

Ornookian, despite moments of closeness, was never quite fond of me, for I had not given up what he had in order to study magicks. Not only had Ornookian given up years of his life study, he had also given up his freedom in exchange for tutelage.

I would later learn that Corindrian had intended to put Ornookian on the council as his replacement in several years, and had never intended to damn the young mage to a library without tomes to study in a land wary of magicks. A land where several years prior they had burned a skald at the stake for simple illusion magicks. Useless magicks. A land where Ornookian was damned to stay in and where he would eventually be burned on a ghastly pyre.

The new court mage of Temini was furious at me and Corindrian for what had happends. He called us Yularelian’s dogs. He called us curs and other foul names, and then locked himself away until Corindrian and I left Temini. The baron, having acquired his mage, agreed formally to contribute to the war efforts, having finally succumbed to Moringia’s diplomatic tactics.

As Corindrian and I left Temini in the carriage we had arrived in the forges began to spew ash and embers and smoke into the sky. The hammering of metal polluted the air as a heavy black rain fell to a muddy earth and followed us until we left the region. The land and the people of the Temini Barony had become tainted by the war between Moringia and Junumianis, and perhaps I am to blame for the fate of the mage of those wary lands with their muted and forgotten colors.