Fresh pain stabbed into Arrin’s bloodied mind, waking him. He was still sitting, bound this time with knotted rope, the Minister’s prying fingers still pressed to his forehead. He whimpered as the pain throbbed and swelled, threatening to consume every thought, every feeling.

“I was once like you,” Ambrose spoke, calm and cool as Arrin’s mind screamed from his searing touch. “Ignorant to the true nature of this world. Blind as we all are. Imprisoned by our own beliefs. Perhaps wondering why I continue to cause you such pain?” The Minister shrugged. “You will die, regardless. And he will live. Your father. Such a man the Rebellion will need, and I must know if he can be swayed. Now, let’s move onward, shall we?”

Arrin’s head felt as if it would burst apart, and he howled hoarse as the vision overtook him. Something inside Arrin’s mind awakened then. A font of power he did not even know existed now flooded open, numbing his burning mind with a setting dream of...

...hands. A man’s trembling hands holding one smaller hand. A girl lay wrapped in her blankets, just a youngling. A girl who could not walk, who should have been dancing in the sun, instead wracked by whatever illness had taken her.

She gave a weak smile. “Don’t cry, papa. This is like that time when I had that really hot fever, right? I don’t feel hot though. Just… cold.” She shivered through the blankets.

Arrin felt the man’s face force a smile. “Of course. This is just like that fever. You will be restored, just as the Gods’ Will when they cured you. Rest now, Gilda.”

“Okay…” She murmured, “Papa? How come mama doesn't visit anymore?”

The man stood still, the door halfway open as his hand clenched to his side. “Mama is praying for you every day. She will be here when you are freed, and soon.”

He exited, closing the door, a man clad in the white robes of the Medicium bowing just outside.

“Well?” he seethed. “What of my daughter?”

The medicus wavered before him. “Prelate Ambrose, the condition of your daughter... is something we have seen before, though only rarely. It is not something that can be bled out, nor any remedy known to stall nor recover from this ailment.”

Ambrose grabbed the man by his collar. “You are the brightest of the Medicium, so they say. I have waited too long for you to see Gilda. How can you cure her?”

“There is no cure.”

“There is,” Ambrose whispered. “There is.”

He turned away suddenly, his scarlet robes whirling with his movement. Arrin’s vision flickered and darkened into shade and torchlight. Ambrose crept past the shadowed corners, halting before such passing guards, then treading over moonlit marble to face a door. It looked of no importance, just an ordinary wooden door that clicked open by the key Ambrose had deceived, appeased, and if needed threatened to obtain. He entered the Royal Librarium.

It was a room larger than his own home, steps leading down to a level lined with tables topped with hooded lanterns, surrounded by shelf upon shelf taller than a tall man. Stained arch windows over the second story filtered the moonlight with color that fell to the floor below. He stepped down to light a lantern with the two sparkstones held above its mantle, cursing under his breath until the wick eventually lit. He held the lantern out to a shelf. There were no books, but tablets of stone so dark they seemed to devour the already faint lantern light. He peered closer, handling one such tablet that glimmered at his touch. White light runed the thin pane of blackened stone. The runes were Glyphic, Ambrose realized, able to fully understand its words. He dragged a finger upwards, and the text moved with his touch. Arrin could feel his confusion, his fear… his growing anger.

“Not quite what you were expecting?” a low voice spoke soft behind him.

He spun round to find a man hooded in the black robes of the Arch Council with burnished bronze epaulets, a crimson sash hanging from his left shoulder to his waist. A Magister.

Ambrose took out a dagger scabbarded to his belt, pointing it unsteadily to the Mage with his free hand. The man’s mouth twisted into a closed smile. He stepped closer. The Magister laid one finger over the shaking dagger. He paused at the blood that beaded from his fingertip, holding it out for Ambrose to see. He wiped his finger against his sanguine sash and held it out once more in the lantern light. The cut was gone, the wound healed, leaving not even a scar. Ambrose lowered his weapon.

“We have been watching you for some time, Prelate,” the man whispered. “Not many have stepped foot into this place, least of all a mortal. You’ve done well to reach this far.”

“The text states… this artifact…” Ambrose said. “Everything the Faith ordains is a lie. This isn’t lore. This is mankind’s history.”

“Yes, it is, and it is not the knowledge that can save your daughter. We can save her, together, with your help. We need a man such as you.”

“Who are you? And why help me?” Ambrose questioned.

The man smiled, this time baring teeth. “Who I am is of no importance. You, however, are cunning. Resourceful. You know your way around people, having coerced yourself up to this point. Your daughter can be cured, Prelate Ambrose, with your service to the Empire.”

“What must I do?”

“Join the Godless. Join the Umbrans that steal our people away in their Enlightening.”

“I… do not understand.”

“You do not have to, Prelate. If you merely serve, your daughter will be saved. Take this Scryer.” The Magister produced a silvered locket in each hand, round and seamless, offering one to him.

“Open it.”

Ambrose unfolded the locket. Light shimmered out, forming a scaled down form of the Magister from his waist up. He saw that he in turn was illuminated in the other Scryer. With a flick of the Mage’s hand the locket clicked shut once more, Ambrose following his action.

“Do not reveal this artifact to anyone,” the Magister warned. “Its value is worth more than its weight in diamonds. We will contact you when you are alone and away from any eavesdroppers. First, you must journey to the Rhine Lands, through the Crossroads.”

“That would take weeks at least,” Ambrose objected.

“Your daughter will be cared for by the Blessed.”

“You Mages all act as if you’re Blessed by the Gods,” Ambrose sneered. “If the Empire is founded by lies, how do I know your power can even save Gilda?”

“You don’t,” the man stated. “You will listen, and you will follow my words. Or you may entrust your daughter to the blank-faced Fates. What shall you do? Choose.”

Ambrose bowed his head. “I follow your word.”

“Good. Then listen closely.”

Arrin’s sight shifted and whirled, colors and sensations hanging by a thread of memory, sewn back together into a web of being.

He was walking now; Ambrose was, his leatherbound sandals chafing against his cracked heels, lagging with his wooden staff. The road ahead was wide and paved with once smooth black stone, now crumbling and fissured as the Age it had been built upon, the Age of the Mythic before they Fell from the Gods’ grace. So it was said. So it was supposedly remembered.

His walking stick tapped tiredly over the stone path. Grass sprouted between the cracks, woods shadowing every side. He felt something tremble within the leather pouch tied to his belt. Ambrose stepped off the road, slumping against a tree further into the forest. He took out the Scryer, still throbbing with unknown power in his hands, opening it.

The Magister sparked to life in his palm, still hooded in his black uniform.

“The Umbran priests are headed in your path. You know what you must do.”

Ambrose nodded. “What of my daughter?”

“See for yourself.”

“Hi papa!” Gilda’s head appeared, brown curls of hair, her eyes blue and bright as the clear sky. “Is this magic?”

Ambrose sagged to the earth, letting out a sharp exhale. “What trickery is this?”

His daughter’s hand reached up to him, flickering and fading. “Pa, I’m real! Are you? You’re so small.”

He stood suddenly. “Gilda. I’m here. I’m here, dear one!”

Her figure formed then as the Magister’s had, from her waist upwards. Her eyes, so clear, now brimming with tears. “The Magistar says I can’t see you for a long time. Where are you, papa?”

“I’ll be back soon, I will. Where is mama?”

“You were right, pa. She came back after the Magicmen healed me! But they have to come every day. Magistar told me to tell you that it’ll come back if they don’t. He said to do what he told you, and you can come back! Come back, papa!”

Ambrose nodded, shaking with his breath. “I will soon, I promise. Can you give the magic back to the Magister?”

Her form twisted into the Mage’s.

“We have fulfilled our word,” the man intoned. “Now fulfill yours. Stay on the road ahead, and remember who you are, what you’ve done, and why you do it.”

“Of course. I will do what must be done.”

His image vanished, Ambrose clicking the Scryer shut once more.

“I must do what will be done,” Ambrose murmured, rising with his staff.

Hours faded away along his path on the ancient road. He uncorked his flask, taking a swig of its earthy aftertaste from the leather that had leached into the water it encased. He paused at the line of figures in the distance, walking towards him. He ambled onwards.

The figures were hooded and cloaked in what must have been a once rich black cloth, now tattered grey. A mule laden with supplies followed in between each figure holding its reins to form a linked caravan. Ambrose knelt against the hard stoned road, raising his hands out to them.

They stopped before him.

“Are you the great bringers of the Enlightening?” he asked.

The man in front swept back his hood. His ebon face held bright brown eyes that squinted down upon Ambrose with what he recognized as... pity. His head was stubbled with his face, strong bridged nose and blocky features with his tall, broad figure.

He knelt in turn, raising Ambrose to stand with him and said softly, “There is no man greater than another, friend. It is just what we choose to do with the greatness within us.” His Cadish had a cadence Ambrose had never heard before, melodic yet guttural in some wording.

He merely nodded.

Another stepped aside from the line, revealing their face. A woman, shaven in head as the man, her skin lighter in tone, soft bronze. She spoke in a language that was harsh and rhythmic, words twisting with her anger.

The man nodded, turning back to Ambrose.

“Your red robes, though faded, are of the Faith. Why would you choose to abandon their ways?”

“I devoted my life to their cause. My daughter.” Ambrose glanced down. “One day she grew ill. So ill that all I could do was pray to the Gods.” He met the man’s stare then. “They did not answer. I wish to know what could have saved my daughter. I do not wish this to befall upon any. I wish to be Enlightened.”

“What is your name, friend?”

“I am Ambrose, line of Quilling.”

The Umbran man nodded. “I am Davu, the seventh. You may travel with us, Ambrose Quilling. Come, walk beside me.”

Memories faded and sped in Arrin’s mind. They spent their journey mostly along the Crossroads. They would stop in between at a hamlet or village, but never as large as a town or city. Sometimes they were driven away. Others paid no heed, and those that did was when they stayed, for a day at least, never more.

They would set up their caravan round the center of whatever commune they had entered, assembling a flat faced tarp supported by a hidden collapsible frame to stand over them all. The people would look on, gathering eventually to the small crowd that was their village. Sullen, haggard eyes that spoke their mistrust for such strangers from stranger lands.

Davu would always be the one to speak.

“Greetings, friends. We wish to give you a show of our magic. Anyone who stays, and listens, will have a silvered piece at the end.”

Some turned away, but there would always be those whose eyes glittered with newfound curiosity.

“Show us you have the coin!” they would call out.

Davu would hold out one silver coin in his hand, disappearing within his closing fingers. Such a coin would buy months of a full belly. Most, if all stayed.

Like a moving painting of uncanny detail, color bloomed into the sheet of canvas cloth. Clear water rippled along the tarp. It would always be the same image, the same scene, moving with its hidden magic, its hidden meaning. The crowd would stare, mesmerized by such sorcery.

“Water, the substance vital to us all,” Davu declared. “None of you have nearly enough of it. How many miles do you trek each day to fetch well water, or a nearby stream if fortunate?”

The scene faded into an image of a stoned well, familiar in the larger village squares and absent of such a luxury in such smaller settlements as this.

“We don’t need your devilry here,” someone would spout. The majority, however, would always be keener for their coin in the end.

Davu would entrance them with his knowledge concerning the world of Orr, its shaping and the life inhabiting it, each subject with a moving picture from the standing tarp. He would speak of the Elder Forests, the lands of the sylven, where trees loomed to pierce the sky and beasts of prodigious size lived under. Of the dwarven mountain range of Ryzark, where dwarfs climbed its peaks with their bare hands, or wrestled with bears that loomed over men and tamed them as mounts. Of the Isles, each island a nation into itself, from Vinnith, where wine was sweet as the fair skinned women that lived there. Of Shen-La, a nation still in its infancy, just independent less than a century from Haol, its turquoise waters gifting its namesake for their Sapphire Coast. And Haol, the nation that surrounded the Twilight Forest; towering trees of pink, blue, and yellow leaves, hued as the nightly heavens themselves.

Ambrose would always see the glazed-eyed wonderment of the villagers. There was beauty in what had been shown, and all recognized that as well.

Davu would end his speech, the last image turning back to the rippling of water from the beginning.

“What you all must want, however, is water. What if I told you we could make a well for you not far off from here?”

Some would jeer, others would call him a liar, most remained silent.

Davu would smile then. “We have already made the well for you. If you would follow me. Then, you shall have your coin.”

He’d stride ahead, the crowd clearing a wary path from him. A few hundred paces away was a circle of Umbrans round the newly built well. It was never made from stone, but seemingly darker obsidian, dark as the stone of the capital. Of the fallen Cities and artifacts, all Mythic in nature. It sprouted from the earth not as a circled stonework with a roped pulley and pail, but as a piped spout.

Davu would gesture to the well. “This is a well pump. Its mechanism is more efficient than a traditional stoned well, with cleaner water. See here.” He would push and pull its lever, clear water escaping from its spout. “As promised, here is your coin.”

Sometimes the crowd would form a line. Sometimes the crowd would swarm the line of Umbrans that held them back, and Davu would call out, “Please! You will all receive your coin!”

And they would. Every man, every woman, every child, clutching their sole silver in their hands.

They would return back to the village center, and by then everything would have been packed away, all ready to leave at a moment’s notice.

Sometimes there would be those who would ask them of the wonders they had shown, even those who thanked the Umbrans for their kindness. The Umbrans repaid their interest with seemingly ordinary baubles. A white cup, said to clean water it held for an hour’s span. A bag of seeds said to grow even in the harshest earth.

Some would speak in hushed tones of a loved one fallen ill or recently wounded. To those Davu would send the Umbran woman. Imani was her name. Ambrose would follow, carrying her bag of medicines and instruments. The Umbrans would never separate from their group alone, yet he always was the one to accompany her.

There were such cases where it was children hot with fever, shaking in their beddings of hay. Their parents would watch, usually just the mother, as the father was often absent. The Umbran woman would coax the child to sit up from their bed, her touch to their forehead always stilling them. From the leather satchel Ambrose took out a white cup and an equally white vessel, akin to a tea kettle if it were cylindered. Imani unlocked the vessel through whatever hidden mechanism, pouring clear amber liquid into the white cup, bringing it to the ill stricken’s mouth.

Their eyes would flutter open, now lucid and awake, as if from a half hazed dream. Their loved ones would weep openly, embrace the just-cured, or embrace them in turn. In the end, they always thanked Imani.

Some would ask how they could repay her.

She would answer, “There is a land, where I am from. What you know as Umbra. It is a place where you will no longer fall ill, where you will no longer know hunger, nor thirst. Where you will gain knowledge of how to never know these things again.”

They would ask, “How can we go there?”

Imani would give them each a black orb, tiny in their palms.

“Swallow just one seed of ken,” she would bid. “Should you accept this, it shall let you through the barrier of what you name the Sundering. One day, you shall hear our call. Only those given this shall hear us. Follow our instructions, and you will be one step closer to Enlightenment.”