In a village far west of the Capital, there lived a fellow who liked to think of himself as an Alchemist. His neighbors, back when he had lived among neighbors, thought of him as someone to be avoided—and so they did just that, leaving the village devoid of human life save for one.

This fine afternoon, the Alchemist had decided to gather firewood for his furnace. It had rained the previous day, but the Alchemist saw this as only a minor setback. Besides, the air always smelled cleaner after a storm. His wheelbarrow was now approaching three-quarters full of branches, and the shadows of evening had just begun to bleach color from the world.

Motion in the distance caught the Alchemist’s eye. A small herd of figures were approaching along the narrow wooded path. They were too tall to be deer, and too large to be wild dogs or any of the other animals that frequented this part of the forest. As they approached, the Alchemist nearly dropped his wheelbarrow. Humans. He had last seen one nearly two years ago. The travelers held no torch or lamp. He squinted at them, but it was too dark to see more than their vaguely human silhouettes. The Alchemist heard splashes and a tired groan; one traveler must have stepped into a puddle.

The Alchemist reached into the wheelbarrow for wood. He tied a handful of reasonably dry twigs to a larger branch and secured the assembly with twine from his pocket. A splash of clear liquid from his flask soaked the bundle. He dipped two fingers into another pocket, coating them with dark powder. Next, he snapped his fingers under the twigs. The makeshift torch ignited. The fuzzy trees and dark path around him sharpened into well-defined shapes. At the edge of the torch’s illumination, the travelers halted before the sudden light.

Five soldiers of the Empire stood before the Alchemist. All five wore the bold colors and unweathered garments of the Imperial City Guard from some distant hub of civilization—distant enough, perhaps, to not know why the Alchemist now dwelled in solitude in the deep forests at the Empire’s western border. The one in the center wore a captain’s gold stripes on his collar; the others were undecorated. At the back of the group, one soldier gripped the arm of a sixth man: an arrested Fugitive. The man’s head was lowered, but no amount of cowering could hide the purple bruise covering one eye and half of his face. His arms were bound with ropes, his dirt-stained grey robes were frayed, and he looked mere seconds away from collapsing.

“Welcome to my humble village, good comrades,” said the Alchemist, nodding to each of the six guests in turn. “How fares the weather in the East?”

The five soldiers stared at this backwoods recluse who dared greet them as equals. Hair the color of autumn leaves was tied in a common laborer’s topknot, and his rugged beard looked singed at the edges. From the shadows of his face, two eyes shone like embers in the torchlight. He wore a peasant’s rough woolen attire, yet he carried himself with the arrogance of a noble.

“Your village?” The captain’s mustache twitched in grave disdain. “Seize him!”

Three soldiers drew weapons and charged at the Alchemist. Surprised, the Alchemist dropped his wheelbarrow and torch. Firelight fluttered across the ground, casting long shadows behind trees and people alike. The Alchemist dodged the first soldier’s mace, letting momentum carry the man into a roadside puddle. He evaded the second’s sword, tripping the soldier into another puddle, and stepped sideways. The third assailant stuck a spear through an unfortunate tree.

“Why do you attack me? I have committed no crime,” the Alchemist protested.

The captain pointed his finger at the Alchemist. “Insolence! Your village harbored a traitor to the country, yet you still claim that you are innocent? A liar as well as a criminal! Surrender at once and your life may be spared.”

“You would call me a traitor?” The Alchemist’s voice grew low and serious. Both hands slipped into his pockets. One emerged with a flask, and the other came out coated in dark powder. “I, who spent years fighting the Empire’s enemies.”

The mace-wielding soldier charged again. The Alchemist’s head turned, power shining in the depths of his gaze. Bringing both hands up, he hurled the contents of the flask. A ribbon of fire arced forth, spattering across the soldier’s head and torso. The human torch fell to the ground with ceaseless screams, but no amount of flopping around in the mud could extinguish the Alchemist’s flames. Shadows danced across the trees as the burning soldier thrashed blindly.

“I, who was exiled for doing that very job—serving the Empire.”

The Alchemist deflected the swordsman’s wild attack with a tree branch. The blade became stuck in the thick wood, and the Alchemist wrenched the weapon out of his opponent’s grip. He caught the sword by the handle, spinning it about expertly, and cut the soldier down in a flash of reflected orange.

“I, who now live in peaceful exile, in full accordance with the Military Council’s decree.”

The Alchemist rounded on the spearman still trying to extract his weapon from the tree. Panic lent the spearman strength, and he gave a mighty tug that finally freed the spear from its wooden target. Weapon held aloft, he charged at the Alchemist with a resounding war cry. The Alchemist first cut the spear in half, then cut the spearman in half.

“I have obeyed your Empire’s every request. On what grounds do you call me the traitor?”

The captain then realized that his commanding voice had failed to deter the Alchemist in the slightest. He drew his ceremonial sword: a polished, silvery blade inlaid with gold where the Alchemist’s stolen sword was rust-speckled steel. The Alchemist met the captain’s first blow, and both blades rang with the sound of their clash. At the second blow, both weapons shattered in a hail of metal shards. The captain gaped at his broken sword in astonishment. In this moment of distraction, the Alchemist put the remnants of his own cracked blade through the captain’s neck.

The last soldier had taken off, running for his life. By now, he was over fifty paces away, well out of range of melee weapons. The Alchemist hurled a shard of broken sword at the fleeing soldier. In the distance, a body dropped to the ground and did not move again.

The Alchemist waited, but none of his opponents resumed the attack. He looked around. Three soldiers were in various states of dismemberment. One had been impaled: a quick and relatively painless death. The burning soldier still lived, gasping rather painfully as his skin warped and blistered. The Alchemist put him out of his misery; it was not reasonable to inflict cruelty upon a man simply following his superior’s orders, however misguided. Obedience was a commendable trait among the common folk.

“Such disrespectful travelers, insulting a fellow before even exchanging greetings. No common decency…”

The Alchemist sighed, retrieving his empty flask and makeshift torch from the ground. The latter had extinguished in the fight, but the head still felt reasonably dry, and the twine bindings remained intact. He re-lit it off the burning soldier. The wheelbarrow had overturned in the fight, spilling its contents across the wet ground. The Alchemist sorted the branches into two piles: dry and muddy. The reasonably dry branches went into the wheelbarrow tray again, filling it to two-thirds capacity, but he would have to come back for the other wood tomorrow. As a final step, he wedged the torch shaft into a corner of the tray to illuminate the path.

A little down the path, the Alchemist hit a bump in the road. It groaned. He stepped around to the front of the wheelbarrow. The Fugitive was lying on the ground. Judging by the muddy streaks on the path, he had been trying to crawl toward the Alchemist’s village. A few sparse rooftops were just visible in the distance. The Alchemist took a branch from the wheelbarrow and poked the Fugitive. The man flinched and raised his head.

“Help me, mighty sorcerer,” begged the Fugitive. Many had spoken that word in the Alchemist’s presence—help—but usually it was a call to some unknown higher power, accompanied by a desperate wish to be rescued from a certain Alchemist’s sorcery. Rare was the person who asked the Alchemist himself for help, yet one pitiful Fugitive dared.

“I am but a Scholar far from home, lost and injured. My fate is in your hands,” the Scholar whispered. In his prone position, the dark bruise around his eye stood out starkly, giving him a pitiful countenance.

“You came with those who called me a traitor. Why should your fate be different?”

“My life is meaningless, but I have unfinished business in this world.” The Scholar’s gaze flitted past the Alchemist, peering to the vast horizon beyond, where the setting sun’s orange glare had dimmed enough to reveal the first stars of evening. “If I perish, I fear that no one will dare challenge the Empire’s flawed ways.”

For long seconds, the Alchemist stood in silence. The Scholar’s resolve did not waver.

“I understand. You live for a higher purpose,” said the Alchemist. He handed his torch to the Scholar, who grasped it with bound hands. Stepping to the side of the path, he overturned the wheelbarrow. Two hours’ worth of branch-collecting tumbled across the ground.

The Alchemist deposited the Scholar inside the wheelbarrow tray, where the Scholar flopped with significantly less packing efficiency than the load of firewood. After removing the Scholar’s bindings, they set off for the village once more.