Leaves fell around Pyl and me as we walked the curving path that circled my plateau. Some of the trees near the edges of my plateau weren’t taking well to their new elevation and had begun to drop leaves as though it were Autumn already. The wind carried them in curling loops, fluttering about like a flock of silent birds.

The path was well made by my apprentices. The stone path was made to look as though it were well-cobbled so the grooves would provide traction, and a waist-high wall was at the edge to prevent falling. It was only wide enough for a single wagon to travel up and down, a good method to stop all but the smallest hydra from traveling it.

To my side, Pyl had a gloved hand brushing against the stone face of the cliff, smoothing the surface as we walked. It was at my request that he learned [Earth Manipulation] so that he could move the massive stone barrier at the bottom to allow for traders and the like to come and go. A request he accepted immediately, for reasons that were soon becoming startling clear as he spoke.

“It’s not that I have none of my previous desire, Nemon. It’s that I am now separated from all my emotions. My joys and my hates. My happiness and anger.” Pyl pulled his gloved hand from the tan stone and held it out to me as if an example. “Even the stone that I can see brushing beneath my fingertips doesn’t feel like anything. I feel… nothing at all.”

His words concerned me, and I could only worry at what such a lack of emotion and sensation might do to a man. The end of my staff struck against the stone walkway in time with my steps, and the sound echoed against the rock as we walked, “I see. That must be frustrating to know what something should be like, yet no longer is.”

Pyl shook his head, and I glimpsed a new mask beneath his black robes. It was a wooden thing, painted yellow with dark spots for the eyes and mouth. It looked as though the wood were untreated, and the paint applied in the sloppy splashes a child might make. “No. There is no frustration either, for that is another feeling. Everything just… is. Or was. I can understand now why Loralie and the others would not respond when we called to them through the mirror.”

“Oh?” I might have missed a step when he mentioned her name. I was doing my best not to think of the woman.

“This new body has its merits and demerits alike, yet it leaves me at an impasse. I want for nothing, and have no desire for anything. I could lay in my tomb today and not move for a century, I think. I appreciate you asking me to do this for you, or I know that I should. I think I would stand unmoving without direction. That you continue to try to guide me reaffirms my past belief that you are a good person.”

I ignored his assertation of my moral standing, it wasn’t a topic I wanted to consider any time in the near future. “I was hesitant to ask this of you. Such a duty is beneath you. I fear I have failed to consider that this responsibility was being performed by my assistants before sending them away. Alderman Kine could do this as well, but the man hasn’t been himself since Rhaela’s imprisonment.”

Pyl didn’t respond to my comment and instead placed his hand back on the stone to continue his practice at earth manipulation. Since his change in form, the man would enter and leave a conversation seemingly at random. Something that left me a bit baffled at first, especially when compared against the excitable fellow he used to be.

It was like this we traveled down the plateau, though I felt a bit impatient at the task. My last assistant, Jax, would be arriving this afternoon. Giving him new instructions was the last item I needed to accomplish before setting out towards Laxtoni and finishing my task of lifting towns onto plateaus—a task I was eager to see completed.

When we reached the entrance, a massive wall of stone cut across the pathway, its placement still high enough to prevent most creatures or people from climbing the side. I could hear horses and people waiting on the other side. I looked to Pyl and saw the man was standing next to me without a hint of movement. It was a bit unnerving, and I considered briefly inquiring about the possibility of him pretending to breathe before discarding the thought.

“Do you think that you can move this much?” I asked instead. He had been practicing the whole trip down the plateau, yet it was a large amount of stone that needed to be moved here. I wasn’t certain how his mana reserves worked in his new body and feared that overexertion might lead to an unexpected true death.

“Not yet.”

I nodded and ran a hand through my beard as I focused on the spell. The thick stone wall was the height of three or four men, and it had been melded into the cliff face. Rather than moving the entire wall, I used my [Earth Manipulation] to create a tunnel through it.

“Ah. I planned to move the entire wall like an enormous door. That is a much better option,” Pyl commented while I worked.

It didn’t take long before I was done, and four 4th Tier [Knights of Sena] rode through the tunnel first. Their horses looked well-rested, and their armor polished. They brought the scents of oils and metal with them, stronger even than that of their horses. I couldn’t see their faces behind their helms, but their movements contained an excited energy about them.

“There he is! We can take him now!” The third one to pass through eagerly whispered to the others.

Behind them, a fifth man called out, “Gentlemen, if I may remind you, that my duty should be carried out first.”

The third knight looked back and snorted, but it wasn’t long until they were spread out before me. The four men sat atop great warhorses, and each had a weapon drawn and ready. The fifth man to emerge from the tunnel was shorter than the others. He dressed in the colors of a royal messenger, and held a scroll in his right hand that he pressed against his rotund chest. He had a small, well-oiled beard that had been combed so much it lay flat on his face.

“Alderman Nemon Fargus?” he asked with the dignity and tone I would expect.

“I am Nemon Fargus,” I answered curiously as my eyes flicked back and forth between the man and the knights. Each of the knights was of a high enough level to threaten most nobility. A 4th Tier knight was a dominating force on the battlefield, the skills granted by the class designed almost entirely for killing. Not killing mages, in most cases, but normal soldiers couldn’t compete even if fighting twenty to one.

The messenger sat straighter and with a quick jerk of his hand unrolled the scroll to read it aloud. “By the order of his royal majesty, King Sena, you have been found guilty of refusal of a lawful order, disruption of trade and tax, conspiracy to commit treason, and seven other petty offenses. You are hereby stripped of any noble title, any lands and wealth are to be conceded, and you are ordered to submit yourself for summary execution. Do you submit?”

The man stopped in his reading, and looked around the scroll he held up to see my response.

Summary execution? Was this a jest? I didn’t imagine that Alred was in good enough condition yet to put together a trick this elaborate. No, something told me this was all too serious, and I would not be submitting life to pay for crimes I didn’t commit. I shook my head. “No.”

The messenger nodded to himself as if he expected as much, and then continued reading. “Then you are declared an outlaw by the king and kingdom. You will no longer be afforded protections under the laws of this land.”

The messenger rolled the scroll up and turned to the four knights. “Gentlemen, thank you for your consideration.”

The knights needed no further acknowledgment it seemed to charge me with the intent to kill. Polished iron reflected the sun, and their horses breathed heavily as they began to yell. “For Sena!”

I had many options at my disposal to respond, from simply flying away to electrocuting them all, but I found myself a little stunned. Not that I was worried. My wards were strong enough that should they get close they would simply be flung away. I had been declared an outlaw? After all I had done for this country?! Even now, I was preparing to travel for days on end just to cast spells to keep the citizens safe!

Then, my surprise calmed as I began to piece things together. The King had made peace with Mirktal recently, but I had already received news of that. That this messenger and these knights were here, meant that he must have sent this message shortly after, but before I had cursed him with Loralie’s spell. It made the feelings of guilt I still harbored about using the curse melt away, and I found myself more at peace with it.

The Knights were almost upon me, and I pointed my staff in their direction. Chain lightning should work very well on men in iron suits. Yet as I began to manifest the spell, I saw a billowing cloud of smoke, darker than I had ever seen, cover the lot of them. Horses and men screamed, and then I could hear the sounds of bodies falling to the stone beneath us. I looked to the side and saw Pyl standing there with his mask removed.

The smoke, if that is even what it was, was still flowing outwards from his visible skull. It lasted just a moment or two longer before the smoke stopped and began to flow back into him. When the clouds began to be removed it revealed the withered bodies of man and horse, the four knights no longer among the living. I felt a bit uncomfortable at the sight and glanced between it and Pyl. The man had returned his mask to his face with no one else the wiser. I, though, promised myself to immediately update my defensive wards to protect against such magics as soon as I was alone.

Across from us, the royal messenger looked on, his face twisted in fear. Behind him, another messenger arrived, this one wearing Duchess Eiston’s colors. The new messenger was quick to clobber the old in the back of the head with the very scroll he looked to be delivering, before riding forth. He didn’t even look back as the other man slid from his horse and fell to the ground. This new messenger, a young man with a big smile, dismounted from his horse and approached me offering a scroll in hand.

“I bear a message from Queen Eiston, for you Count Fargus.”