“So, how do we do this?”

A day and a half had passed since Len’s last conversation with Craig. In spite of how much better she’d been feeling after her initial rest, she’d needed longer than she’d expected to fully recover and was still getting a feel for things again. The trio had continued their work in the meantime, gathering enough to keep their expenses covered. Kila had offered to sell the sword, which would’ve fetched a pretty copper, but Len had gone a bit soft when the human started blubbering about how that sword had been in his family for generations. No sense further humiliating him while he was mostly cooperating.

“Well, I don’t know, really,” he said.

“What do you mean, ‘you don’t know’? Craig, I want to be very clear here: I’m keeping you around to teach me this stuff. If you can’t do it, you’re gonna find the relative comfort you’ve got right now disappears real quick.”

“Hey, I’m not trying to be stubborn. It’s… difficult.”

“Explain,” she said darkly. “Fast.”

“Well, the way Mantras work is that you’re tapping into something else’s power. Dad never went into too much detail about it but he said that for each power you get, you have to bind yourself with a contract. The stronger the power, the stronger the binding.”

“And how does one go about this contract stuff? This a deal with the devil sort of situation? I thought he was on my side.”

“No, it’s not with a devil, it’s… something else.”

“How ‘bout you try a little less with the vagaries and little more with the specificity. I might have all day, but if you keep wasting my time, you won’t.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” he snapped. “It’s a little hard to explain a being that’s beyond both time and space and who somehow was more annoyed with the fact that I was talking to it than at the fact that I was breaking major Crusader laws to do so. These things are weird, Lenore.”

“What the heck does ‘beyond time and space mean’?”

“Hell if I know, just something my dad mentioned. Look, I know the rune needed to start the ritual, but after that it’s all on you what happens.”

“Your entire part in this teaching process is gonna be drawing a rune?”

“Well, no. There’s more I can teach you if you don’t get driven mad or rejected, but this first part is up to you.”

“Wait… driven mad? That’s a possibility?”

“Oh yeah. About three in ten fully trained Crusader has their mind shattered by the binding. They end up getting used as fodder troops until they die. Pretty gruesome stuff, really.”

“And what are the odds of someone untrained in these ultra secret crusader techniques holding it together?”

“No idea. Dad said that his blood would be enough to keep me safe and he was right. I’m not sure when the last time someone who didn’t have some connection to the Order tried it. You’re more than welcome to back out.”

“See, this is stuff you might have mentioned to me before I bragged to Kila about how I was gonna finally be coming back with some properly impressive magic arts.”

“So you DO want to stop?”

“Nah, screw it. I’m still not completely convinced that I actually AM sane, so I suppose it wouldn’t be the greatest gamble to make.”

“That… actually sounds like the absolute worst mindset to be going into this in.”

“Yeah, probably, but what can ya do. Let’s get on with it.”

He looked at her skeptically for a moment then shrugged and crouched down in a simple squat. He began tracing a strange symbol on the ground that looked at first like an arrowhead, but grew increasingly complex with each motion. Eventually, he drew another symbol in the air above the first with that strange glowing trace.

“All right,” he said. “Last chance to back out.”

“Nah, I’m in it enough, I suppose. Any advice?”

“Yeah, don’t piss it off.”

“Craig, you and I are going to have a real long talk about being more specific when this is done.”

“Well, can’t say I’m too worried about that,” he said, a dark smile flashing across his face. “Goodbye, woman.”

Then all she saw was blackness.

* * * * *

She wasn’t sure how long she was engulfed in that blackness. Could’ve been minutes, could have been days. She felt her grip on reality distort a bit, like she should be panicking but instead she just marveled at the oddness of it. It was kind of nice to have a moment’s peace. Had this all been a trick? If it had, he was likely getting slaughtered by the trio. She’d ordered them to wait at the ready if he pulled something and she doubted they’d have taken kindly to having their only chance at survival snuffed out. Still… she hoped she wasn’t dead. That’d be damned inconvenient, especially if this was all there was to the afterlife.

“Anyone there?” she asked to no one in particular, mostly to see if she COULD speak.

At first there was no answer, the black all around her remaining cold and uncaring to her plight. Slowly, a shape began to take form, a different black against all the other. She felt it more than she saw it, an oily presence that seemed to be both around her and inside her head.

“You’re not one of mine,” it said in a bemused-sounding voice.

“You’d be surprised how often I hear that,” she muttered.

“Coy. Clever. Wasteful.”

“I suppose I am. What of it?”

“You’re the one who came to my domain, Namethief. Be wasteful with your time all you wish. Do not be wasteful with mine.”

There was a sternness to the voice that managed to convey a terrible amount of malice that was held in check only by whim. In spite of herself, Len gulped.

“Sorry, I really don’t know much of the rules here. The guy who helped me get here wasn’t the most reliable sort. Craig Vendersomethingorother. Kind of a jackass.”

“Ah, the Venderbrandt whelp. He should not have done that. He already tread upon thin earth. He will suffer the consequences. Now, Namethief. What is it you request of me?”

“Erm… help, I guess? I want to be able to use that Mantra thing that he had.”

“The Mantra is a gift I made to the Crusaders. It has a specific purpose. Unless you have an interest in joining that order, it is not for you.”

“Well, I’m pretty sure they’re not going to let a dark elf into their ranks just so she can do well at a Grand Proving.”

“Likely not, Namethief,” the thing said, a chuckle resonating inside her skull. “But the Mantra isn’t the only thing I can grant… provided you have something equal to offer.”

“Well, what exactly can I offer you, oh mighty pitch black something?”

“You can offer me a story, Namethief. Explain to me how you came to be, for I sense it’s a tale worth hearing.”

For all the strangeness of the thing he kept calling her, it did make a certain sort of sense. Deciding she had no better options, she told him everything.