Yannick Oswestry strode down the marble floor to the large oak doors of the Archbishop’s office.

“Excuse me,” said a voice.

A thin, bald man in the robes of a priest materialized, positioning himself between Yannick and the heavy oak doors.

“Can I help you, father?” asked the priest. “Are you lost?”

“I’m here to see the Archbishop,” he said. “She’s expecting me.”

The priest folded his arms and gave a pained smile. “I’m sorry, but the Archbishop isn’t available right now. Could I take your name, sir?”

Yannick sighed. His feet hurt and his back ached from the journey down to Camberton. He ran a hand through the stubble across his chin. More than that, he was old. Too old for these kinds of games.

“Tell Eskalisa that I’m heading back to Lanherne,” Yannick said. He caught a flicker of the priest’s wide-eyed expression as he turned on his heel, heading back to the building’s entrance.

He was halfway out of the building before the priest caught up with him, ushering him through the heavy doors.

The office was dark but for a low gas lamp burning on the desk. Yannick caught a hint of sweet smoke.

“You may leave us,” said a sharp voice.

The priest bowed and left the room, shutting the ornately carved doors as he did so, sealing Yannick into the darkness.

There was a slight cough from the desk. Then he heard footsteps. With a resounding clatter, the interior shutters were forced open, bathing the room in morning sunlight.

The room was a large one, at least by the standards of Wulfric Hall. This building was never built to be the centre of power for an entire nation, but it tried nonetheless. A large, pre-Schism wooden carving of the continent hung on the left wall. On the right, overstuffed bookcases and a suit of dark armour stood sentry by the other, darkened window.

“Sit, friend,” said the Archbishop, waving her hand as she ambled from the window to the desk.

Yannick took a seat opposite the elaborate desk and stared hard into the woman behind it.

“You’ll have to forgive the darkness,” she said. “I was up long before dawn and I am loath to announce my nighttime presence to the world.”

“How long has it been? A decade?”

“Two.” She spoke crisply, taking puffs from a long, thin pipe. “And two years.”

“You look well,” Yannick said.

Eskalisa arched an eyebrow by way of response.

It wasn’t a lie: the fresh-faced youth he had taken into the Tower was gone, true, but she’d been replaced by something much more substantial. The same emerald green eyes, but how the face around them had changed! Trenches of worry criss-crossed her cheeks. The real difference in the old, Yannick thought, wasn’t as banal as just grey hairs or wrinkles. Young Eskalisa had been a low-ranking cleric, eager to please and with a nervous habit of wringing her hands. The woman in front of him now was one oozed authority from every fibre of her being: when she spoke, others listened.

“You’re an Archbishop now,” said Yannick, noting her tricorn hat.

“I’ve been one for the last seven years. I’ve been at Wulfric for the last three.”

It was Yannick’s time to look surprised. He’d lost touch with Camberton politics, but from Archbishop to Lord Archbishop in four years? That was a fast ascent indeed. He wondered, briefly, where he could have been if he had stayed with the guild.

Eskalisa exhaled wreaths of sweet smoke. Emerald eyes pierced through the cloud, watching him like a hawk.

“Did you invite me here for a reason, Esk?”

“You wouldn’t have come if there wasn’t one?”

“No. And you bloody well know it.”

Eskalisa smirked.

“Out with it, my lord, so I can go home.”

Eskalisa ignored his tone. She stood up and walked over to the large relief carving on the wall.

“You’re up here, aren’t you?” she said, pointing to the Northwest corner of the map. “Just a day’s ride from the Duchy of Kestria.”

Yannick rolled his eyes as he stood up. “Try three. It might not be nearly as far as Camberton, but it’s almost as long through those hills.”

“It’s a lot of riding between Kestria and Sandingham City.” She turned back to him, eyes burning. “It would take, oh, perhaps a week?”

“Is that what this is about?” he asked.

Yannick was beginning to remember why he’d left Camberton all those years ago. Paranoia about the Commonwealth of Sandingham, Cambercia’s rival to the south, had reached a fever pitch. They’d watched as a family of Sandingham merchants were burnt alive by a mob just outside of Wulfric Hall. The Order had broken up the mob, but not until the family were already dead. Ricard, usually steadfast in his opposition to retirement, had agreed to leave shortly afterwards.

“A week,” said the Archbishop. “A week is all it would take a week for Sandingham forces to reach Kestria.” She traced a line across the map: from Sandingham City in the south, up the Old Road and across the border, then north to Camberton and finally west through the entirety of Cambercia, before stopping at the tiny Duchy of Kestria.

“If I’d known you were going to spin me your tales about Sandingham, I wouldn’t have taken your letter. I was wrong to come here,” Yannick said. He stood up, his knees creaking in protest, and made towards the door.

“The Duchy of Kestria will declare war upon the Commonwealth next month,” she said.

Yannick stopped.

“They’ll march straight for the border, of course,” Eskalisa said. “And that will be war. The Commonwealth will have no choice but to invade Cambercia to defend itself from the Duchy. They’ll take every inch of Camberton they can under the guise of containing the Kestrians.”

He turned back. She was still examining the relief carving.

“Of course, you probably aren’t interested. Tall tales, aren’t they? You’ll be fine up here in Lanherne. It was Lanherne, wasn’t it?” She tapped a dot a few inches away from the Kestrian border. “Except you might be rather in the way here, don’t you think?”

There was only way into Kestria by land, and it was straight through Yannick’s adopted home, the village of Lanherne. The village itself had grown out of a small collection of inns that serviced merchants making their way to the hermit kingdom of Kestria.

“Is that what you brought me here to do? Scare me?”

“Not quite.” Eskalisa returned to her desk and sat down. She dipped her quill in a pot of ink. “My dear mage, I’ve brought you here to stop Kestria from declaring war.”

“The Duchy is always threatening to announce war,” he said.

“I see retirement hasn’t clouded your insightful political analysis too much. But you should know, the Duchy has changed since you retired. The more sanguine royals have died out.”

He nodded. He remembered something about Prince Deckard, the crown prince, passing on.

“The next generation has emerged. Young snakes with plenty to prove. Too young to remember the Border Wars. They’ve managed to modernise their army, too. Our sources tell us that the popular feeling among the aristocrats is that they could take on the Commonwealth. And win.”

Yannick snorted.

“I know, I know. Arrogant fools. The standard play: rattle their sabres, whip up public opinion and then step back from the brink and somehow claim it’s a victory. But this time, there is no doubt they will declare war.”

“Different?” asked Yannick.

“The Duchy is claiming that Sandingham has kidnapped Prince Rallo.”

“Deckard’s heir?”

She nodded.

“Maybe it’s a good thing,” Yannick said. “The Duchy might find a more amicable line.”

Prince Deckard had been a warmonger: an arrogant, obnoxious man keen to wet his beak in the Border Wars. He’d only been held back by a lack of Cambercian support.

“I realise that you’re keen to defend Sandingham out of some misplaced sympathy, but the remaining heir is the problem. Prince Willem is sown from his father’s seed. He’s desperate to prove himself militarily, and the kidnap of his older brother provides just the right pressure. Unless he marches into Sandingham, the court will become restive.”

“And you think this kidnapped one, Prince Rallo, you think he’s any better?”

“Quite the contrary. He’s nothing like his brother. He’s been the loudest voice against war in the Duchy since he was a boy. He even speaks Cambercian.”

Yannick scowled at the Archbishop. “Is this what your whispering greyfaces tell you?”

Eskalisa affected a look of polite confusion as she shuffled the papers on her desk. “Not at all. He dined with me at Wulfric Hall last year.”

Time changes all things, he reflected. It wasn’t long ago that Kestria had beheaded Cambercian diplomats.

“Willem has probably got him locked inside one of his own dungeons,” Yannick said. “You know what those snakes are like. The worst enemy of a Kestrian is another Kestrian.”

“Our greyfaces believe he’s being held in a Tower,” said the Archbishop. She squinted at a ledger. “The Suthsea Tower, to be precise.”

The words struck twin chords of horror and fascination in Yannick’s heart. It had been a long time since he’d thought of the Towers. The last remaining structures of the Old Ones, dotted across the continent. They were laden with powerful relics too - and enough safeguards to kill any would-be adventurer.

“Father,” cursed Yannick. “You’re sure of this?”

The archbishop nodded without looking up from her documents. She lifted the candleholder, now redundant in the bright morning light, and carefully poured a drop on to an envelope.

“The Commonwealth’s archivists have found a way into the Suthsea Tower and also discovered a method for keeping individuals inside them,” she said.

“You’d be better off sending one of those greyfaces to Kestria,” Yannick said.

“The Kestrians have a rather good method of sussing out greyfaces, if you’ll recall,” Eskalisa said, punctuating the sentence with a stamp of the bishopric seal on the envelope.

“More reliable than getting someone out of that Tower.”

She shook her head. “We need someone who can bring the Prince back. Otherwise, Kestria will declare war.”

The kidnap of a crown prince, however unlikely, was certainly a casus belli for Kestria. The consequences of such an act hung unspoken. Scenes from the border wars rushed to his mind: burning farms, three bloated corpses swaying from an oak tree, children with missing limbs shambling along a dirt road. He pushed the pictures from his mind.

“I’m flattered, Esk, but my Tower days are long behind me,” Yannick said.

“You seem to do a fine job tending that orchard, despite your age.” She paused, raising her hand to her chin as she squinted at the document in front of her. “Quinces, is it?”

“Have your greyfaces been spying on me too, Esk?”

She put the quill down and steepled her fingers, looking at him.

“You might not be part of the guild any longer, but you’re probably the most powerful.”

“I’m the oldest. That doesn’t mean I’m the strongest. It means I’m the most sensible. I haven’t cast more than a cantrip in a decade. It’s a little less of the charmed life, but it means I’ve kept all my marbles.”

“I’m well aware of the theory, Yannick.”

“It’s not a theory. It's a fact. Just because the guild won’t accept it doesn’t mean it isn’t true. Show me one active mage of my age who isn’t a slavering mess.”

“Fine. Can we accept that I’d rather like a mage who was cunning enough to get to an advanced age without ending up in the Lunaryam?” Eskalisa said.

Yannick stared at her. “What are you not telling me? There’s plenty enough younger mages who’d be desperate to cross the border and invade a wild Tower.”

She stared back for a moment, the cool green eyes giving nothing away.

“Fine,” she said. “There’s bigger forces afoot here. I need this done quietly.”

“You don’t trust the Guild?”

Her eyes narrowed.

“What about the Constabulary?” asked Yannick.

She said nothing.

“Your paranoia has reached new heights. You don’t even trust the Order itself, do you?” Yannick asked.

“In your retirement, this city has changed. I trust no one.” The earlier humour was gone: she now spoke with a cold certainty. “I need someone who is no longer with the Guild. An outsider. Someone who can’t be sold out to the Sandingham Guard for a few gildings.”

Yannick laughed bitterly. “And so you can deny all knowledge of me once I’m caught, is that it?”

“You’re assuming that you will fail.” Eskalisa said. “That’s not a luxury I can entertain at present. I need you. This republic needs you. Even bloody Sandingham needs you. If you don’t stop this war, people will die from both sides of the border.”

Yannick said nothing, weighing up the Archbishop’s words. The possibility of war had seemed so distant back in Lanherne - impossible, even - but here in the rotten heart of Camberton, it now seemed almost inevitable. He could return home, forget the machinations of the Order and live out the remainder of his life.

But for how long? If war was coming, it would ravage him too.

Ricard would have jumped at the chance, he knew. He had been a reckless man, a lover of danger through and through. Underneath though, there had been a sense of duty, if not patriotism, to his fellow man. He had longed to right the world of its wrongs, to leave it a better place than he had come into it. In the end, it was Yannick’s caution that had pulled them out of Camberton, and probably saved both their lives.

“No,” he said.

The Archbishop’s face didn’t change. “I thought you might say that. I implore you to think about the lives that rest on your refusal. Thousands of them. We are both old enough to remember the Border Wars.”

Yannick hesitated.

“You’re sure about this?”

“You wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t,” Eskalisa said. He looked at her and saw the young priest she had once been. Those eyes were pleading with him, he realised. It was terror, the kind that had seen the horrors of war, that stared back at him.

“I’ll need a team,” he said.

“Anyone you need - except the Guild. The coffers are open.”

“I’ll need a warrior and a priest. Perhaps a monk. And a scout.”

“Would a Dusken Knight suit?” She looked over Yannick’s shoulder. “Sister Virgil, please come.”

Puzzled, he turned around to see who had entered the Archbishop’s office.

The enormous suit of armour shrouded in shadow by the bookcase began to move.

It approached the desk and stood to attention, the black armour now visible in the light. It wore no helmet, revealing a pale face and short crop of blonde hair. The lower half of its face was covered by an armoured faceplate, rendering it impossible to read the expression. The Knight was a good head taller than Yannick.

“Sister Virgil is one of our most devoted Knights,” said Eskalisa. There was an edge to her voice.

“I’m not having a babysitter,” Yannick.

As the Order’s band of warriors, the Dusken did not fall under the jurisdiction of the Guild, the Constabulary or even the army. They answered only to the Archbishop. They acted as her fists - as enforcement as often as protection.

“Sister Virgil will be under your command.”

Yannick looked up to see the big Knight staring back at him with a pair of dead eyes.

“And if I turn down this generous request?”

“Don’t be foolish.”

She was right - if this Dusken Knight was anything like the others he’d seen, she was better than anything he’d find on the open market.

“I’ll need a priest. A good one, not one of those wilting, wide-eyed types who have never seen the outside of a cloister.”

“Not like me, you mean?”

“Apologies. I didn’t mean to offend.”

“None taken. I was what you describe. But I’m afraid I cannot give you the pick of the litter. Word travels, even among priests.” She stood behind her desk and shouted. “Jeran!”

A moment later the doors opened again and the priest who had let Yannick into the room entered. He bowed to the Archbishop.

“My lord?”

“Shut the door. And come here.”

The man did so with a servile air. When he approached the desk, he bowed again.

“You will accompany master Yannick on his travels to the Commonwealth. You will tell no one of this. You will provide him with any services he may require. Is that understood?”

“Perfectly, my lord.”

“Jeran, is it?” Yannick said. “Tell me, have you ever seen battle?”

“No, master.”

“Have you been inside a Tower?”

“No, master.”

Yannick sent a sidelong glance to the Archbishop but she ignored it.

“Jeran is my personal secretary. He is a most capable healer, and quite adept at potions. Most importantly, I trust him with my life.”

The man bowed again and Yannick rolled his eyes.

“Fine. I’ll find my own scout.”

Yannick walked the streets of Camberton with something like nostalgia. The afternoon sun danced along the crowded, cobbled streets. It had been a long time since he’d had to prepare for a quest, and he found himself almost enjoying himself.

“I must admit, master, that I am rather excited by the prospect of exploring a Tower,” said the priest.

Yannick grunted and pushed his way through the crowd. “I wouldn’t be.” He cast a glance over his shoulder. He’d drawn the line at the Dusken Knight accompanying them through the streets. The Knight would stick out like a sore thumb, but he couldn’t deny she would have carved them an easy path through the crowd.

“No, o-of course,” the priest said. “But I have been reading about it.”

The Archbishop had insisted, however, upon the priest. Eskalisa had also given him their coin, with strict instructions not to hand it over to Yannick.

“About what?” Yannick said.

“The Suthsea Tower. That’s what they call it.”

“I never said we were going to Suthsea,” Yannick said, eyeing the priest. “How did you find out?”

“The Archbishop has kept me abreast of developments,” said Jeran, a prim note in his voice.

“I see.”

Yannick said nothing more as he walked on, quickening his pace now. The priest rushed to keep up.

“One of the least explored Towers,” said the priest. “It seems it was only entered after the Schism, so there is little about it in the library.”

They took a turn into a quieter alleyway now. Yannick counted a dozen paces before turning back and looking at the mouth of the alley. A small girl stood where they had just been, trying to look inconspicuous and failing terribly.

Yannick turned to the priest, smiling. The priest looked confused and smiled back. Yannick said nothing and walked down the alley, coming out to another of Camberton’s lesser arteries.

He walked straight up to a stall and blithely examined a sheet of leather closely, to the priest’s utter bewilderment.

The girl followed, weaving between the customers and retiring market traders.

“How much?” Yannick asked the leather seller.

“Whilst you are of course in charge of the finances of this expedition, master, I am not sure this will serve us in our…”

Yannick turned away and crossed to a vegetable seller on the other side of the street. He made a point of examining a bunch of sorrel. Without moving his head, he looked to his right. The girl stood over a butcher’s stand, staring at a bowl of minced meat. Flies buzzed around its greying edges.

“You know,” he said, turning to her. “Looking at bad meat is a rotten cover.”

She jumped half out of her skin and turned to him, wide-eyed. She was older than he’d thought. She was short, but she was a grown woman. She stared up at him with dark, almond-shaped eyes. Then she moved, quick as a flash.

Jeran yelped as she tugged the small sack of gold coins free from his belt. She turned and began to sprint into the milling crowds.

“Thief!” cried Jeran. “Thief!”

By chance, a pair of blue-tunicked constables were wandering through the street, right in line of the woman’s route. They turned at the priest’s cry and were able to block her flight.

But the woman was faster. Without missing a beat, she tossed the heavy bag of gold coins into the face of one of the constables. He roared in pain. Then she turned on her heel and sprinted off in the opposite direction. The other constable followed, running after and shaking his alarm bell furiously.

The priest gawked at the scene for a moment, before approaching the injured constable with the broken nose. Yannick slipped forward and picked up the bag of coins, before using the commotion as an excuse to get away from the priest.