There are no safe paths in this part of the world. Remember you are over the Edge of the Wild now, and in for all sorts of fun wherever you go. -- J. R. R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

The kingdom was prepared when the monsters attacked again. Defeating them and driving them back for the third time was an easy task. Soon the last monster's corpse was burnt and the wards were repaired again.

No one expected the next invasion to come from their neighbouring kingdom. No one expected the new invaders to be other humans.

The king and queen of Avallot had just made their first public appearance after spending the invasion fighting at the head of the army. The common people were just beginning to pick up the pieces, rebuild their homes, and go on with their lives. As for the mist-shrouded Laoivere Mountains and the school of magic built somewhere amidst them, who knew what was happening there? Only magicians and magicians-in-training could find their way through the mist. The school's teachers had retreated back behind their wards as soon as the kingdom was safe. And the Great Mage Guireth-melaðr-hremón[1] had disappeared into Sólbjǫrgvegr[2] after slaying the largest monster.

On one side Avallot bordered the sea. The monsters crawled through a hole in the sky, a gap between the realms, directly above the beaches. Some were said to have taken up residence beneath the water. To the north and west were the impossibly tall Laoiveres. And to the south was the kingdom of Miavain.

It happened so suddenly. A horde of people came up from Miavain. People who walked for miles without stopping. People who took no notice of anything around them. People who acted more like walking corpses than real live people. They swept across Avallot in less than a day, leaving a trail of destruction in their wake. Buildings and fences were no obstacle to them. If they couldn't climb over them, they would smash them to pieces with inhuman strength. They followed the lead of a man in green armour riding an eight-legged horse.

They only stopped when they reached the capital. None of the crowd sat down or showed any signs of tiredness. None of them paid any attention to the angry complaints of the people whose houses and businesses they'd destroyed. None of them followed their leader into the royal palace.

Queen Lanlinn was waiting for him with her sword in her hand.

"Who are you and what do you want?" she demanded.

The knight didn't raise his visor. His voice filtered out, strangely distorted by the metal. "Light the eagle flare."

Lanlinn laughed in his face. "I can defeat an enemy army without summoning a Great Mage."

"I have no quarrel with you or your kingdom. My quarrel is only with Guireth-melaðr-hremón." Perhaps it was only the helmet, but Lanlinn had never heard an anganedted sound so much like a curse. "This army with me is entirely under my command. They have no thought except what I tell them to think. And unless Guireth-melaðr-hremón comes here in person, I will tell them to kill everyone in this city. Then everyone in the surrounding countryside. On and on, until there is no one left alive in this kingdom. So I repeat: light the eagle flare."

The royal palace had twelve flares in the light-tower. Each summoned one of the twelve Great Mages. Guireth-melaðr-hremón was associated with eagles, and so the one to attract her attention was called the eagle flare. Lanlinn lit it while the green knight stood by. Any normal man would have taken his helmet off long ago. Armour was neither comfortable nor meant to be worn for hours on end -- except in a battle, of course. Yet he made no move to remove it. If the heat and stale air bothered him, it was impossible to tell.

High above them the flare exploded into the shape of an eagle. The signal hung there for hours, able to be seen all through the kingdom. It was even visible in Sólbjǫrgvegr, the dimension Guireth-melaðr-hremón had built for herself when she became a Great Mage.

They waited. And waited. An hour after the flare was lit, an icy wind swept through the palace. It blew open the doors. It tossed aside curtains and tapestries. It chilled everyone to the bone. And when the wind had passed by, a third person stood on the light-tower.

Mages were the most powerful of all magicians. They were next-door to immortals and could face the Fair Folk themselves without fear. Their lifespans were so long it was impossible to tell how old any of them really were. Guireth-melaðr-hremón looked like a woman in her twenties. She had looked that exact age for as long as anyone could remember. In her long blue skirt and red blouse, both embroidered with flowers, she looked no different to any upper-class Avallese young woman. There was only one thing about her that showed how different she was. Her eyes were a shade of blue far more vivid than any Spiritless'[3]. And they glowed.

The knight unbuckled his helmet. He lifted it off to reveal a young man barely out of his teens. Lanlinn blinked and looked from the mage to the knight. At first she mistook them for brother and sister. Both had long black hair. Both had abnormally pale skin. And both had the exact same glowing eyes -- though his were gold instead of blue. On a closer look she realised they weren't as alike as they seemed at first. The mage was considerably taller than the knight. Her eyes were larger than his, and her face was longer and more pointed. Their only non-superficial similarity was their magic.

Guireth-melaðr-hremón sneered at the knight. "Naohurgua."

"Saedanzu," the knight said in an equally cold voice.

Never before had Lanlinn heard adults so casually use each others' laulnítr names[4] in public. Especially not with such contempt.

With a flick of her wrist Guireth-melaðr-hremón conjured up her soul-weapon. Lanlinn's eyes widened. The ice-sword Saungrafn was famed in story. Minstrels and story-tellers attributed miraculous feats to it, even when not wielded by its owner. Some even claimed it was sentient. The Great Mage had used it to slay monsters only two days ago. Seen up close it looked like it really was made of ice; ice with a pale blue centre. The temperature plummeted as soon as the mage called it to her.

The knight unsheathed his sword. It looked like just an ordinary longsword. The most notable thing about it was the pommel. It was carved into the shape of a heart. Lanlinn rubbed her eyes. She could have sworn she saw the carving expand and contract like a real heart.

"We'll destroy the city if we duel here," the mage said.

The knight laughed sharply. "How nice of you to care about other people's lives now. Where was this compassion eighty years ago?"

Strange though it seemed, the glow of the mage's eyes briefly dimmed.

When magicians duelled in earnest they did so in their own realms, behind carefully-constructed wards so no stray magic could destroy the land around them. As far as anyone knew no mortal had ever seen a duel between two mages. Rumours abounded about what might happen if they ever did duel. Most of those rumours said they could reshape reality at will.

Only the two participants witnessed the duel between the Eagle Mage and her former student. They fought with magic, with swords, and with their bare hands. For a week, two weeks, almost three weeks their duel continued. They fought long after any sane people would have given up. They fought long after both of them were injured and exhausted, even with their magic to heal them, and neither would admit defeat. A hundred years of hatred, jealousy, cruelty and treachery lay between them, and it drove them on and on.

Not even mages could fight forever. Not even half-attinðau[5] could shrug off wounds indefinitely. On the mountaintop in the middle of Sólbjǫrgvegr, the mage slipped and fell. The knight's sword plunged into her chest before she could regain her footing. At the same minute she raised her sword and rammed it straight through the knight's left eye.

Sólbjǫrgvegr belonged only to Guireth-melaðr-hremón. No one could get in or out without her permission. And when she died, the realm crumbled to nothing.

Magic was a strange thing. It was a tool of its user, yet it had something that could be called a mind of its own. As the mage died the last flickers of her magic combined with the last flickers of the knight's and the spirits of their swords. Magic might have a mind of its own but it wasn't truly sentient. It didn't matter to those two types of magic that their owners hated each other. All that did matter was keeping their owners -- and therefore themselves -- alive.

They communicated with impressions rather than words.

This is wrong. Try again?

Yes. Again.

The kingdom was prepared when the monsters attacked again. Defeating them and driving them back for the third time was an easy task.

At least, it should have been.

In full armour, the metal pure white and as icy as her sword, the common people could easily believe the bards' wildest tales and imagine Guireth-melaðr-hremón was Kalrínmorn[6] descended from the land of the gods. She fought at the head of the army, charging headlong into danger with wild abandon.

She lopped off the largest monster's leg. As it roared in pain she raised Saungrafn to deliver the killing blow.

The monster's head exploded. Its blood rained down on the mage and the soldiers around her. For one critical minute everyone was distracted. The mage took off her helmet to see what was happening.

A knight in green armour stood on the monster's corpse. He took off his helmet at the same time she did. The two of them stared at each other, ignoring everything around them.

Horrified eyewitnesses reported later they saw the mage smile. Some claimed she said something to the knight. Then she raised her sword and drove it into her own chest. Legend said Saungrafn could pierce the strongest armour ever forged. Its deadly sharpness worked just as well on its mistress as on her enemies.

The knight screamed. He leapt off the monster and fell to his knees beside the mage. She lay in an ever-widening pool of her own blood. Even in death she still smiled; a mocking, triumphant smile.

One soldier was near enough to hear what the knight said. She repeated the words later. "I'm the one who has to kill you. I can't have revenge unless I kill you!"

Few people believed the soldier's account of the knight's words. Why would anyone want revenge on a Great Mage? What had she ever done to harm anyone?

Whether the soldier was right or not, no one could deny what happened next. The knight picked up his own sword and tried to stab himself. His blade bounced uselessly off his armour. Before anyone could get close enough to stop him he pulled Saungrafn out of the mage's chest and stabbed himself with it.

Wrong. Try again.

Earlier?

Earlier.