Far to the north, two shapes in green and blue resided upon a rocky hillside. The stars hung like glass shards in the limitless black above; the wind sang in the distance, and all was serene. The Sheriff sat beside a campfire, cooking a rodent skewered on his sword. A bundle of supplies lay at his side, and two horses slept next to a tree at the edge of the firelight.

Looking much like a larger version of the bundle, but in green and black military uniform instead of ordinary grey linens, was the body of the Traitor. Cloth strips bound a deep stab wound in his chest. He breathed shallowly, chest rising and falling in time with the flicker of the fire, but soft breaths were better than none at all. His head rested on a rolled-up green cloak covered in dark stains. A pile of black armor was stacked at his side; the torso plate had a hole through the center. The dagger responsible for this puncture mark sat on top of the pile, steel blunted from the force of the near-fatal blow.

The Sheriff had been helping set up a police task force in a southern province when word of chaos in the Capital had reached him. By the time he returned home, thousands were dead, and the city was scarred with a path of ash. The Sheriff had rushed into the palace, fighting his way through the rising flames. Even the Sun King himself had not survived the rebellion. Only the Marshal of the East, now named Traitor to the Sun Kingdom by the rumors, had still clung to life—and then only barely. The Sheriff had promptly taken his injured colleague to the wilderness, fleeing Sun Army loyalists who would seek to avenge their slain King—fleeing one fanatical loyalist in particular, if the Sheriff were to be exact. The Marshal of the West’s dagger was uniquely recognizable for the intricate glyphs etched down its blade in some arcane language of the Northern Mountains.

The Sheriff gazed into the campfire before him, imagining how it would feel to scoop the orange wisps of flame into his hand. The Marshal of the West had shown him this simple trick countless times, citing it as the simplest of basics, the fundamental barrier-to-entry after which all other skills would spring forth. With sufficient technique, willpower, and practice, any student of the Fell Magicks should be able to accomplish it. The Sheriff extended his hand.

“Ah!” It hurt.

The Marshal of the West had never flinched from the sting of open flame. Pain was only a prison to the weak. Mastering his will, the Sheriff thrust his hand back toward the campfire. The flames retreated from his hand, cringing from the seared flesh instead of embracing it. When the Sheriff could bear the heat no more, he snatched his hand back and curled up around it. A soft whimper escaped his mouth. How had the Marshal of the West held fire in his hand, on his sword—or even on his head, if the legends were to be believed—without even a hint of discomfort?

The Sheriff tugged a cloth strip from his bundle and wrapped his hand. As he worked, his eyes fell upon the Traitor’s prone form. The rumors claimed that the Marshals of East and West were exact mirrors in power and prowess; if holding a fire was such a basic technique, surely the Traitor would know it. Surely he could teach it to the Sheriff.

The Sheriff lightly poked the Traitor in the shoulder. To his surprise, the Traitor woke with a gasp.

“You... you are... Sheriff? I yet live?”

“Didn’t think you had it in you to break your oaths and end a legend,” said the Sheriff, turning back to the campfire. The rodent stuck on his sword was almost cooked.

A soft sigh escaped the Traitor. “Oaths are merely words; they have no more power than we permit them. I did what needed to be done. Anyone in my place would have done the same.”

The Sheriff scoffed. “The Marshal of the West didn't. I definitely wouldn’t. Not if it meant my head. That’s a fundamental difference between us.”

The Traitor shuffled upright just enough to lay a hand upon the Sheriff’s shoulder. Kind tourmaline-green eyes twinkled in the firelight.

“It need not be,” the Traitor said.

During the second week of voluntary exile, the Traitor grew strong enough to stand, and the Sheriff fashioned him a wooden stave to lean upon as he hobbled about the hillside. Although the Traitor’s injuries healed without complications, he still had considerable trouble swinging a weapon or lifting heavy weight. Nevertheless, the Traitor practiced his polearm skills with the stave every morning.

Nearly a month into exile, under the rustling treetops of the hill that had become his new home, the Traitor grew solemn in the midst of an evening practice. He cast the stave onto the dark ground, pressing a hand to his heart.

“Twice I have sworn my flame to another’s lead; twice I have found that leadership wanting. I see now why the Sages remain in the mountains, distant from the world below.” The Traitor looked to the sky, and a million points of starlight reflected like pine needles in the depths of his eyes. “No more shall I follow a mortal’s whims. No more war under my command, no more needless suffering and destruction by my fires.”

The Traitor dropped to his knees, arms outflung to the vast black above.

“Hear my oath, O Stars—from this day forth, I shall serve the will of Nature alone.”

One day, the Sheriff asked of the Traitor what he had begged of an Alchemist long ago: teach him the fire arts of the Northern Mountain Sages.

The Traitor utterly refused.

“The Marshal of the West was right: you are not ready. As my old master once said, ‘The student must study before the teacher can teach.’ Only one who has already learned to Seek can truly grasp the power of flame. Besides...” The Traitor turned away, bowing his head, “Such power is a burden I would not wish on anyone. Least of all a novice who has barely grasped the arts of steel.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” When the Sheriff received no answer, he grabbed the Traitor by the shoulder. “What’s wrong with my sword skills?”

The Traitor sighed, carefully disengaging the Sheriff’s hand from his shoulder. “If you have to ask...”

But the Sheriff could not accept refusal once again. He had saved the Traitor’s life. The very least that the Traitor could do was repay him in turn. The Sheriff had lost every major battle that he had ever fought; if he met a less merciful opponent than the Alchemist-turned-Marshal, what then?

The Traitor was not impressed.

“A kindness is not done for the promise of repayment. There is no debt,” said the Traitor, and pity shone in eyes the color of sprouting grass. However, a trace of guilt soon came over his expression. “I cannot in good conscience leave you to die at my brother’s hands. I will help you fix your swordwork.”

“There’s nothing wrong with my swordwork,” the Sheriff insisted, and he stormed off into the forest. In his offense, he brought neither a weapon nor his travel pack.

The elements soon forced the Sheriff to reconsider. During the thunderstorm, the Sheriff thought long and hard. If he had learned anything from the weary years that came before, it was that any skill could be useful in the future. Rumors praised the Traitor’s martial skill throughout the land; the Sheriff would be a fool to pass up such a freely offered opportunity. By the time morning arrived, the Sheriff swallowed his pride, made up his mind, and dragged his sodden self back to camp.

“Teach me,” the Student asked, humbling himself before his new Teacher. Water dripped from his drenched clothes and hair, casting him as quite the pitiable figure. “I want to learn.”

“Do you know how the Mountain Sages take apprentices?” the Teacher asked one evening, stirring the coals of the fire pit.

The Student did not, but he hoped that such a tale would help him understand the Teacher’s power, and thus improve upon his own budding proficiency in the pyrotechnic magicks.

In a voice of reminiscence, the Teacher began. “Long ago, a ball of fire fell from the sky above the northern mountains. The mountains spat fire intermittently for decades, and each eruption was worse than the last. One autumn, the skies turned black with soot, and the sun was not seen for many months. When the skies darkened, the crops withered, and the livestock followed soon afterward. That year, a famine struck the towns in the valley. In one town, there lived a small boy with his mother, father, and brother. The boy and his brother begged for food in the streets, but there was little to be found. Just as their family’s crops had died, so had everyone else’s. One day, the boy asked his mother why the famine struck—‘The Sages have abandoned us,’ said the mother.”

“‘Sage,’ the boy repeated, and he thought of the herb.”

“‘Not that sage. Old Sages, from the mountain,’ the mother explained. And so the boy understood that there was something special about sage from the mountain, something that could fix the famine. A few days after that revelation, the boy went out at night to fetch water from the well. When he returned with a bucket of water, he heard his parents arguing and weeping: ‘...no food...’ ‘but the children...’ ‘not enough for everyone...’ ‘nothing we can do...’ ‘have to make a choice...’”

“The boy knew that food was scarce. With two growing children to feed, their family had been struggling more than many of the neighbors. But he knew of one way to lessen their burden: a way to ensure that everyone in the family had more to eat, a way to keep his parents from having to choose between the two boys, a way to keep his brother safe. He left the water bucket on the doorstep, along with every coin and scrap of food in his pockets, and walked off toward the mountains. If sage could indeed resolve the famine, then the boy resolved to find it and use it to protect the world.”

The Teacher chuckled. “Of course, it was not sage-the-herb that the boy found on that mountain, but a true Sage-Curator-of-Ancient-Magicks. The Sage found the half-starved boy sleeping in a hollow tree. After seeing the power of the Sage, the boy begged his rescuer to teach him how to protect the world below... and, many years later, he had learned all that the Sage would teach. Years later, equipped with the knowledge of the ancients, he descended to the world once more to fulfil his mission. The rest is history.”

The Student nodded when the tale finished. “Good story, if unoriginal. I’ve heard another version with a few different details. The way I heard it, the boy asked his father why the famine happened. The father said, ‘It’s because of the rats.’ And when the boy was confused, the father explained: ‘Big rats. Big, fat rats. They eat what isn’t theirs to take.’ So the boy climbed the mountain to learn how to get rid of the rats. He found a Sage whittling a flute by the rock pools, and he bugged the old fellow with questions until the Sage agreed to teach him something useful. In the end, however, he couldn’t let go of his attachments to the world. The Sage told him, ‘If you still love the mortal realm, after all that you have learned from me, then begone from my domain.’ The boy was sad to hear this, but he respected his master’s wishes. That day, he left the mountain and never looked back.”

“Another version? I never heard of such...” The Teacher asked, frowning at the Student. After a moment, however, the Teacher’s eyes widened. “Indeed, there must be another version of this story.” Misery flickered in the Teacher’s gaze as he stared into the embers of the fireplace. He waved a hand through the flames and drew it back, cupping a wisp of light in his palm. Orange flickered to green and back, unsteady despite the stillness of his hand. “Just one other version.”

Fingers curled, and the handheld flame extinguished. The Teacher brought that fist to his chest, pressing it to the bandages over his heart, and did not speak again that night.

At last, the Teacher could teach no more of swordplay; the rest, the Student needed to discover on his own through time and experience. The Teacher prepared to depart for the Ashlands, where he planned to further study the magicks of nature among the volcanic mountains of the Northern Sages. He took only a horse, some food supplies, the clothes on his body, and the knife that had almost taken his life—the latter for sentiment alone.

The Teacher would no longer wield a weapon—after all, what need had the Sages for crude implements of wood and steel. Hence, he bequeathed his armor and weapons to the Student, as the youth would undoubtedly make better use of such in battles to come. Even with a near-fatal hole through the breastplate, the remainder of the armor was of the highest quality and would surely serve the Student well in future conflicts.

“Use your gifts wisely,” the Teacher advised. “I cannot teach you more, for you already have all that you require.”

Disappointed, the Student nevertheless understood that his Teacher’s resolve would not be swayed. The Student expressed profound gratitude for the Teacher’s teachings, yet his time as a forest dweller had come to an end. The Capital called once more, with its grand cities and grander prospects for advancement; where chaos and revolution had torn the nation apart, a capable Sheriff might achieve heroism by helping the new Crown restore order to the land.