The red moon slowly advanced through the starry sky and its pale glow turned the world below it into a mosaic of light and darkness. Night had fallen long ago and chilling coldness permeated the air, together with unnaturally feeling silence. Ehrir wasn’t used to Nalevas being this quiet and he found the lack of sounds (besides the winds’ songs and his own breathing) quite disturbing.

He was standing in the shadows of one of the buildings against the mansion’s walls, crouching with his back against the cold stone and trying to remain as hidden as possible. There weren’t many people to be hiding from, though, and yet he wasn’t moving even a muscle. The ongoing gathering of mages made the manor’s guards more alerted, not to mention their size being tripled. If they found him in this position, just lurking around and sticking to the shadows, Ostrias’ emblem wouldn’t be enough to save him from some unpleasant questions.

The Undone One remained still almost two full hours and the urge to curse whatever cruel god made him be there became bigger and bigger with every minute. If he only knew that Ahor would take so much time…

Unexpectedly, a familiar silhouette emerged from the thick veil of shadows surrounding Ehrir.

“You’re here. Good”, whispered Ahor, his voice almost indistinguishable from the whistling wind.

“You could’ve come a bit earlier, you know? My legs are numb”, said Ehrir. He tried to stay as calm as possible, but still gritted his teeth. He was annoyed with the man in front of him. “Did you at least get the friggin’ thing?”

Ahor nodded, but not in a happy or optimistic kind of way.

“I did… This won’t end well, I’m telling you.”

“It will. Have some hope. I’ll return the book in no time” Ehrir tried to smile slightly, but his face was numb from the cold and it turned into an unsettling grimace. Ahor looked at it and shook his head.

“Gods, what have I gotten into?” he asked remorsefully. It was tough enough for Lantor to get him participating in their plan, but the man was still pretty unsure about it.

“Come on and give me the tome already.” Ehrir’s tone was grave. He thought about threatening the sorcerer, but he couldn’t know his true level of strength. Maybe carrying out the threat would be impossible to begin with.

Ahor hesitated for a little bit before finally taking a small book out of the pouch on his waist. It was worn out and plain-looking, no more than a hundred pages long and with dark cover. There were some words upon it, but the Undone One couldn’t read under the moon rays. He quickly grabbed the book and put it in his coat’s pocket.

“Be gentle with it”, warned him Ahor with a grim voice. “It has been through its fair share of hardships and is probably five times older than my master himself. It would probably collapse to a bunch of yellowy pages if you just slam it onto a table a bit too harshly.”

“I’ll keep it in good condition”, promised Ehrir. He had the full intent to do so – this decaying relic was more than damaged and fragile already.

“You better do it. The master will kill us both if he finds out I’ve taken it and damaged it on top of that”, Ahor sighed and shrugged his shoulders as if trying to reconcile with the situation. “I should go now. Take care.” After these words the apprentice turned around and sank into the shadows again without giving Ehrir a chance to say anything.

The Undone One waited a bit, almost expecting the guards to show up at any moment. When he became sure everything was calm and quiet, he got up and approached the mansion via a roundabout way. The two armed men at the gate exchanged glances when they saw him under the gloomy light of their lanterns. Most of their suspicion was erased when they recognized the Ashen Gaze’s symbol, but the curiosity still remained.

“Excuse my rudeness, sir… But why do you come at such a late hour?” asked one of them.

Ehrir tried to force a smile upon his face.

“I’ve just been… With a woman, you know?” he answered while trying to sound at least a little bit drunk.

One of the guards grinned at his words.

“Good for you, sir. But before we can let you in, we need to know your name.”

Ehrir quickly provided them with answers. The two men knew his name and let him pass peacefully.

The mansion’s gardens were illuminated by dozens of lanterns, torches, glowing crystals and a bunch of other magical lights. There were guards patrolling around, but otherwise it was quite calm and quiet. There was almost a surreal feeling to this sight.

Countless little noises filled the building itself, which was dark and cold. Someone was loudly sleeping in one room, prayers came from another and a quiet moaning – from a third one. All of these could be heard from Ehrir’s room alone. Once inside of it, the Undone One sat at the corner of his bed and took one of the shining crystals on the table besides it in his right hand. Then he got the book out.

It was a rare manuscript about the secrets of Manipulation and specifically the branch of alchemy. Ahor had acquired it from his master, effectively stealing it while the older sorcerer was sleeping (just as Lantor’s plan dictated). The book was pricy and probably very treasurable for the said master, to a degree that he wouldn’t give it willingly to his apprentices. The words upon its cover were Werfaen ‘ Nabrinbor te vq-i Tarana, which meant “Manipulation, alchemy and their secrets”, but Ahor also called it „the tome of transmogrification”. Ehrir quickly flipped through it. It was written with a shaky, unsure kind of handwriting and had barely any kind of schemes and illustrations to it. Even the ones present were hardly understandable, cluttered and complex in their outlook. It was able to give Ehrir a headache in no time.

But still he pushed on. He read through strange sentences, new and obscure terms, unknown words, bizarre diagrams and theories that seemed pretty crazy on first glance. His Emhaelic had become good enough to understand most things, but often whole paragraphs became a strange and indescribable blobs of text. The hours went by in a painful crawl and at the end he could barely keep his eyes open. When the first rays of light for the day kissed his room’s windows, he was done with the book, but was still trying to grasp its contents fully. The will to just lie down and sleep for a solid twelve hours was overpowering him, but he had to do one more thing.

Ehrir silently took out a silver coin out of his pocket. He held it between his fingers, played with it, looked at it… And then he closed his eyes and stood still. He quickly had gotten accustomed to wearing gloves to hide the Brand and his bare hand’s touch to the metal let a slight shiver run down his spine, for some reason.

To change something to a condition to keep soul energy inside of it (or to transmogrify an item, as the book proclaimed) was a fairly complicated process. A sorcerer had to let his power flow through the chosen object and then picture it in his mind just the same as in reality… but able to hold magic. Then he had to take another strand of his might and use it to Change the thing itself according to the picture created in his mind. Ehrir would have to do all these things simultaneously to achieve the wanted effect. It was tough to do – both on paper and in reality.

The Undone One focused and started following the tome’s guidelines. It took him a lot of tries to get right just the first two steps. To imagine an object exactly the same as the one before him and yet different was a troublesome task. He felt a speck of happiness when he finally did it correctly. But the final goal remained far ahead.

To let his energy both flow through the coin and yet to grab and use some of it proved to be seemingly impossible, but that changed after a painfully long half an hour. Then he had to use the right amount of might. And that meant a lot of it. Every time he tried he felt success steadily creeping closer and closer.

Ehrir did it on what felt like his hundredth attempt. The strand of power, the energy of his soul flowing through the metal, the mental image that was almost burned in his brain in the dozens of previous tries… It all somehow clicked and fell in harmony. And then… the coin Changed.

In an instant Ehrir’s power going into the silver stopped evaporating. With a steady pace it entered it, filled it and then came back to the Undone One only to repeat this process as long as he held it between his fingers. And it continued to store some of the power when he put it down and left it in his pocket.

He achieved it. It was probably something to be proud of, just not right now. Ehrir was tired.

“I guess the path to creating weapons that can shatter castle walls… is open now, huh?” he uttered to himself mockingly before lying down and sinking into a deep slumber. It was a black void without dreams. And it was better that way – he was too tired for any kind of visions, memories and such shit.

***

Ehrir woke in the beginning of the next evening in a remarkably uncomfortable position, but with clear mind (and sweat all over himself). He had left the book on the table next to his bed, but the glowing crystal didn’t have such luck. He smashed it into four pieces while rolling in his sleep. It was a definitely a waste (and a pain, considering he had to gather what was left of the damned thing and clear it up, not to mention the cuts in his clothes that the sharp pieces left). His bed was a mess, too, in addition to his clothes. But the coin was still holding his energy and that was the important thing.

He got up and tried to make himself look decent enough for going outside. He saw the single sheet of parchment lying above his fireplace almost immediately. Its handwriting was elegant and curvy.

“Dear Ehrir,

You were sleeping, so I didn’t dare to wake you up. I saw your little book, though. It is quite a boring thing, to be honest. It isn’t surprising – the author is (or was, rather) uninteresting chap, although I probably shouldn’t say bad things about him (he’s been dead for more than a century now). Anyway, I don’t know where you’ve stolen it from, but I’ll keep quiet about it. You can treat me to a bottle of good ale sometime instead of thanking me for it.

I came to say one thing – I can’t wait anymore. I’m thinking about ordering my forces to move out tomorrow. But I’d like to discuss some things with you first.

Sincerely,

Ostrias Haelum, your humble master and also an extremely beautiful man

P.S. – I sound like an ass, I know. But I warned you about that already.”

Ehrir made a confused expression. Asides from the book, the fact that the Ashen Gaze wanted to meet with him was unexpected, even without the irony that the letter reeked of. What could the elder mage want now?

Well, there was only one way to find out.