I wanted to go to the philosophers immediately but Faske insisted that I spend at least a day in the city preparing myself. He lamented about the impatience of youth when I told him I had spent the entire journey planning how to impress them. Appearance, he insisted, was one of the most important qualities in a candidate. I found it amusing he said this while patting his prodigious gut, but when he showed me my reflection in a mirror I conceded he may have a point.

We stayed at an upscale tavern named Heaven’s Gate. On the first day. I sipped lavender tea while I watched musicians perform in the common area. I tried to ignore the voice in the back of my head telling me I was wasting valuable time.

I brought the book on introductory philosophy, intending to read through it once more, but as the day wore on I set it to the side. Remembering the wild look in my reflection’s eyes, I surrendered to the soothing effects of the tea and the music. The bards sang of summer love and the innocent joys of life. It wasn’t until I finally relaxed that I realized how close to the edge I was.

Faske was right. Constant studying and exercise had pushed my body to its limits. My jaw ached from grinding my teeth and a heavy dullness had settled into my muscles. Experimenting with my power left me in a fugue as my mind attempted to make sense of my overlapping memories. Best not to focus overly much on piecing together a coherent reality. Whatever was happening, happened.

I succumbed to the simple pleasures of living. After a while the musicians stopped playing and Faske joined me for a lunch and a few words. The philosophy book received some attention and in my relaxed mindstate I actually understood most of what I read.

After a few hours an older woman took a seat next to me and struck up a conversation about the book. I wondered what her motive was as she reminisced about her academy days studying philosophy and somehow moved on to her life story. In the end I wrote it up to a much more relaxed atmosphere between strangers in the city, and she paid for my tab and even bought me a delicious plate of thinly sliced raw fish unlike anything I'd had before.

She eventually wandered off, thanking me for listening. Likely I had not said more than a dozen words myself, but there was comfort in such a simple, pleasant encounter. New musicians took over as the night wore on, playing rowdier tunes. The alcohol started to flow and I waved off a server who offered me some wine, wondering how old they thought I was, or whether they cared.

After finishing my day with a hot bath I felt almost like my old self. My eyes closed the second my head hit the pillow and the next morning I woke up with a smile on my face. Soon enough dark thoughts fluttered at the edges of my consciousness.

Careful not to wake Faske, I slipped out of bed and went through the motions of my morning routine. I had to admit the giant’s advice had been sound. If I had gone to the philosophers immediately they would have seen a young man on the edge of the abyss. Even if I joined their ranks their impression of me would have been forever tainted.

Faske knocked on the door. After entering he gave me an appraising look and nodded. “Better.”

I returned his nod. The giant and I had not spoken much over the past couple weeks but I felt as if we communicated as much as necessary. His reserved demeanor had taught me more than any of the philosophical nonsense I had studied during our journey. Despite his grumbling and solemn stares there was something comforting about his presence, something solid. After living around garrulous folk like Everett and my father I had never before considered the value of silence.

In the afternoon we headed towards the home of the philosophers. When I asked the giant what he knew about them he shrugged. My heart pounded in my chest as I considered what lay ahead. For the past sixteen years my life had followed a comfortable routine. I had never truly faced the unknown. What if the philosophers saw right through my tricks? How could it be simple to fool those who studied the mind and soul?

I took a deep breath and focused on my surroundings. One of the core teachings of the philosophers was the concept of mindfulness, to live in the moment and ignore the mind’s attempts to sabotage itself. The streets of Odena offered plenty of distractions.

I followed behind Faske, allowing his bulk to part the crowd. Commonfolk passed us, their faces blank as they tread the familiar paths of their lives. Faske moved out of the way of a group of women with powdered faces and dark rings of kohl around their eyes. They wore voluminous robes, striped black-and-white, and when they passed I noticed each of them had a wooden stave strapped onto their back.

Faske paused and watched them disappear into the throng. “The Lunatic Daughters. You would never see them in Velassa. Nony doesn’t take kindly to pagans, especially ones that worship the moon.”

As we walked through the city he named more bizarre figures I had never seen before. Rosegolds lounged on the porch of a high-end brothel, men and women who moved with casual sensuality as they puffed husk-pipes and brushed each other’s hair. A Narahven bowed to Faske, which was apparently a challenge to unarmed combat. The giant ignored him.

Pagans from uncivilized territories, heretics, the impure and the unclean, all of them found sanctuary in Odena. There were no hostile stares, no grumbling. The lullaby of Vasely’s presence wound through the streets like a gentle breeze.

The innkeeper had given us directions to the home of the philosophers. They lived in the Verdant Gardens, a vast botanical landscape in the middle of the city, fed by a natural hot spring.

Guarding the entrance was a marble statue of a physicker, a flower in one hand and a scalpel in the other. The occasional botany student knelt amongst the countless herbs and shrubs, carefully attempting to identify medicinal plants hidden amongst their inert and poisonous cousins. Deeper within the Gardens we came upon an arboretum of strange trees. One of them, a gnarled monstrosity with a lightning-hollowed trunk, loomed over the others. A smattering of autumnal leaves sprouted from its branches in defiance of the cycle of life.

A small hut had been erected in the shadow of that great tree. A stream of pure water burbled behind the building, winding between the trees to nourish their ancient roots. It seemed to me an oasis that the city had been built around, a slice of the world hidden inside of a civilization which had twisted wood and stone to its own ends.

A philosopher sat with his feet in the river, the bottom of his honey-colored robes bunched around him. A sword pierced the soil beside him, tilted at an angle where he would be able to reach across to grab the handle at a moment’s notice. It should have been a tranquil sight but when I looked at the man I felt a sense of unease. Perhaps I was merely nervous about my future, but his perfectly straight back and bare weapon lent him a martial aura that made me hesitate.

“Boy,” said Faske. The giant looked down at me, showing a few teeth in what I imagined was an attempt at a smile. “This is a hard world. No shame in breaking every once in a while. If you need anyone, you know where to find me and my brother.”

I stared at the philosopher’s back. There was something unyielding about his posture. This was not a man that would break. A tempest could sweep through the arboretum, tearing those ancient trees out by their roots, and still he would still sit there, just like that, the river water whipping around him in a frenzy.

I nodded at the giant. I kept my true thoughts unvoiced. I would not break. One day I would reach a point where I didn’t need anyone. I wouldn’t need a protector to guide me through the streets of some foreign city. On that day no corrupt god, let alone his disciples, would threaten me or mine. I think Faske sensed my resolve and approved.

Our farewells were silent, a clasping of wrists.

The world around me seemed etched out in perfect clarity. This, I thought, was mindfulness. I was aware of the tension in my shoulders, the heaviness of my tongue, the whisper of the wind around me. The giant shuffled into the distance. There were a lot of words I could have said to him.

I walked towards the philosopher. He turned toward me sooner than I expected.

His features were sharp---aquiline nose, strong chin---but the tranquil expression on his face softened the edges. His thin lips stretched into a smile as I approached. I should have felt at ease but I found something about him disturbing. Pale scribbles of scar tissue traced along his exposed skin, as if he had rolled through a briar of devilthorn.

“You seem so purposeful.” He had a sly voice, the kind you would expect from an elder brother about to deceive his sibling.

I clasped my hands in front of me and bowed my head. “Do I have the privilege of speaking with a philosopher?”

The man rose to his feet and brushed the soil from his robes. In one smooth flourish he pulled his sword from the ground and sheathed it at his side. Even I could realize the blade was of superb quality as it slid home. “You do.”

“I wish to join as an apprentice.” The words came out with surprising confidence. The man blinked a few times then glanced back at the river. Silence stretched between us as he pretended I had never said anything. “Are you accepting new disciples?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t think so.” He offered me a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “We already have eight from your generation. Of course we historically have gone out and invited promising candidates. If we accepted every rich child that was dropped off by his guardian, well, we’d be a veritable guild.”

I set my pack down and sat at the edge of the river. I removed my boots and socks before submerging my feet in the water. It felt like the right thing to do. From what I knew about philosophers, they were the sort that would test others from the beginning. They had carved out their place in the world through their deep understanding of the mind and soul. One did not need to wield some powerful weapon or control the elements; better to be the ideal that they pledge themself to. Even the Archons could be influenced by the words of a philosopher, and through the gods they could change the consciousness of the world.

So I ignored his rejection and relaxed. After a few minutes he sat beside me and dipped his feet in the pristine waters. We enjoyed the slow decline of the sun, hours passing in an endless moment. I thought of nothing, only experiencing the world around me, the unfurling of time as the shadows of the great boughs shifted across the ground, and the sun flared purple and orange as it collided with the horizon.

At one point I felt that strange power flicker in the back of my mind. I acknowledged it without attempting to understand it.

The Archons could accomplish miraculous feats because of how well they understood their domain. Nony could conjure an inferno because he had a nearly complete mastery of the essence of fire---what formed it, what was its purpose. If he achieved a perfect understanding his soul would become a flame itself, and he would become one with each ember that flickered across the world.

As nebulous as fire may be, it pales in comparison with time. Nony was supposedly divine and had spent centuries honing his skills. I barely understood the present, let alone the past or the future; at my age a decade seemed like an eternity. Yet as we sat there in silence I felt myself living in the moment. The mental exercises from my book had prepared me to enter that meditative trance.

“Why do you wish to become an apprentice?” The man’s voice crashed through the silence of the past eight hours. I had wondered how long it would take him before one of us spoke. I gambled that he had more important things to do than sit beside me, while I had little more than a coinpurse and an empty future.

I could barely make out his silhouette beside me in the moonlight. “I respect the mind and the truths that the philosophers seek.”

“And why should we teach you these truths?”

We went back and forth for a while. I tried to speak in the vague and mysterious dialect of the philosophers. Often I rambled a nonsensical answer and the man would sigh or lapse into silence. I felt my power drifting in the back of my mind, closer than ever, as if waiting for me to reach for it. Whenever I sensed I had made a misstep I would reverse time and offer a better answer.

Though it was a simple application of my power I had to use it more frequently than I would like to admit. The philosopher would have laughed me out of the arboretum if I didn’t have this advantage. After the tenth reversal I felt the familiar throbbing of a migraine at my temples. As the night wore on I was able to get a feel of the man’s psyche. He seemed to approve of the tenets of Ivarius, an ascetic who believed that self-reflection was an act of purification.

No doubt he thought there was something strange about my behavior. A true philosopher would be able to see through the illusions of some sixteen-year-old boy. But there were no rules to our conversation. He was attempting to determine whether I met the minimum requirements to succeed as an apprentice, nothing else. His questions became more esoteric until I could even begin to formulate an answer to a question like which iteration of reality are we?

After that question I shook my head and no more questions came. His face was like a mask, barely visible in the soft glow of the moon, but I had the impression I hadn’t convinced him quite yet.

“Why did you want to be a philosopher?” I said.

The man chuckled. When he spoke he dropped the sly tone and high-class mannerisms from before. “That’s an interesting question to ask me in particular. Many of my brothers would say that they felt some divine calling. Some of them sought power for selfish or noble ideals. I’m a bit different. My father was a nightman. They paid him five copper a week to clean out privies and cesspits. He would come home right before sunrise and drink himself into oblivion, absolutely reeking of human filth. He slept on the floor because my mother couldn’t stand his smell.

"Like all children I idolized my father. I saw him as a great man and in the brief periods of time I saw him awake we would talk about all manner of things. He had taught himself to read and was very eloquent. He had a little library that he treasured, mostly books thrown out because they were beyond repair. There were a few treasures he found abandoned around the city at night. His favorite was a copy of Machineries by the great inventor Veracles. Once he told me he had thought up an improvement to the printing press, something to do with hand moulds. I was nine and had no idea what he was talking about at the time.

"He did nothing with it, of course. He thought nobody would care about a nightman who thought he was a better inventor than Veracles. He slept on the floor and drank himself into oblivion and five years later he died from a horrible sickness. My mother didn’t want to be around him in his final days so he died alone---except for his library, I suppose. She always said I had my father’s mind so she dropped me off here, specifically where I built this hut. Back then the philosophers used to take pity on lost children and they accepted me into their midst.

"So, what does this story tell you about me?”

I said the first thing that came to mind. “Nothing.”

The philosopher nodded and clapped a hand on my shoulder. “My name is Brother Augur. Come, get some sleep. You will have a busy day ahead of you tomorrow.”