“I am only a teacher, not a magician; but if I do nothing, there will soon be no children left to teach.”

-Erick Sinclair, quoted by Raz Shvets

In “Words we heard in the Desert”.

2046 CE.

Etyslund: Day

“Looks like you’re on water filtration duty, Marga!” Luca shouted triumphantly.

Marga grumbled and stood up, but there was a slight smile on her face as she did so. Across the village green, she saw Eksha ushering a group of strangers into the town. Refugees and stragglers from one of the southern villages, closer to Invictus’s border, no doubt. It had been months since Marga heard from the monastery at Kivv, but every missive indicated that the Invictan Empire’s reach was expanding, and that they were searching everywhere for Mirshal operatives. Marga’s breath caught in her throat as her eyes met with one of the refugees. That woman looked haunted, almost numb, in a way Marga had seen far too many times. Marga glanced down at Luca, who must have seen a fraction of how troubled she looked. “You’re too good for that job, are you?” Marga shook her head vigorously, laughed, threw down her remaining cards, and turned away, adjusting her hat and vest as she started off.

The smile fell off her face as soon as she was away from the card table, and her pace was quick, quicker than it would normally be.

Marga followed the path, unmarked but so well-trodden she could see the subtle impressions in the earth and the places where the grass was thinner and the dirt more tightly packed. The path led to a small pen behind old Beira’s house where the town’s water filtration units were kept. The newer units, the ones shipped in from Kivv, were in perfect shape and easy to use – the canisters were marked around their necks with yellow cord. The older ones, the unmarked ones, the cobbled-together ones – these worked just as well, of course. But they were much more difficult to use, required more constant adjustments.

Marga appreciated having something to do with her hands during a task like this, so she set aside the yellow-wrapped canisters and pulled the others, the old, the tried and the true ones, into a pile. The main collection barrels were stacked from here all the way around the corner of Beira’s house, filled with uncleaned water. Many yards of hose lay coiled and resting on hooks dug into the outside walls of the home. Marga thought she heard Beira moving around inside; the old woman must have noticed that someone was out there starting the task, and she’d be expecting her own reservoir to get refilled first.

Marga chuckled, knowing she didn’t even have to ask Beira what she needed. She attached the hoses, each side of the canister taking one end of a different rope, the opposite end of one rope fastening into a collection barrel, the end of the other pushed onto the valve for the house’s reservoir. With a twist of Marga’s hand, the filtering canister activated, and water began to flow. As she waited for Beira’s reservoir to fill, she started readying the hoses for the town’s main water store, by the gathering-hall. The longest hose was just long enough for that trek; and by the time she had it fastened and had attached the largest of the old filtration units, the one readying Beira’s water was already stopped for some reason. Marga readjusted it, sat down nearby, and waited.

It only took a few minutes for the reservoir to fill, and she only had to make a few adjustments to the filtration unit during that time, but in the interim Marga had precious time to think. Already there were voices and music from within the gathering-hall; those strangers from outside the village, including the one Marga had made eye contact with, were in there with Eksha. Kamila and Hilda were there too, she recalled – she wasn’t sure how she felt about Hilda, still a teenager, going with Kamila on one of the older girl’s drinking binges, but Hilda was her own person. There wasn’t anything Marga could do, and besides, she had to let that girl make her own mistakes.

She’s going to be a Reaper. Life’s not going to be any simpler for her than it’s been for me.

And besides, who was she to judge? Marga herself had been a serial carouser, once. And there was no shame in that, she reminded herself.

Luca and her old-fashioned sensibilities are rubbing off on me, aren’t they?

After she was done with Beira’s reservoir – she could already hear the water running lightly inside – Marga took a longer hose to create a second connection to the main reservoir. She adjusted the first, then went back to her station to fill up some smaller, more easily portable barrels to carry to individual houses later.

In the distance, she heard a rumbling like motors. Marga rubbed at her hare tattoo, remembering the time one of her comrades had leapt astride a stolen motorcycle and dared Marga to race him. She’d outrun the machine for a while, but the magic of her tattoo quickly wore out and drained her energy, and in the end she lost that race. But it was certainly a good run, a challenge she and her Reaper companions had spoken of, and laughed about, for years after that.

But now he was…

Don’t think about it

Marga shook her head and made herself chuckle a little. This was Etyslund, not the highland tundras of Monsilinee. Marga was among friends. Safe. And for all those she’d lost once, she had succeeded, and honored their memories to this day.

But…

Motors. Marga reminded herself that there were no motorcycles in Etyslund. No motor vehicles at all, in fact. The last time she’d seen a vehicle such as that was outside of Kivv, when she had gone to retrieve Hilda from her aspirant training, the first round to pick out those who, years later, would be offered official acceptance into Mirshal’s ranks. Hilda had been so pleased; she’d learned so much about magic, about the Aether, and about the Desert. Marga’s daughter was as eager to give her all to preventing the apocalypse from reoccurring as Marga herself had been, at that age. It was both sad and inspiring, and made Marga’s heart swell with pride.

But motors.

Marga stood up and peered over the edge of Beira’s house, and it was then that she saw the motion at the top of the hill. An enormous, four-wheeled bike of sorts, each tire as large as a person, and on it were three human figures. Each wore the metal-slotted armor, circled helmet, and red-painted ornamentation of Invictan soldiers. The one driving the vehicle whooped as the thing sped down the hill, barely touching the ground, then as the slope increased, lifting off entirely and crossing the distance to the ground in only seconds.

It crashed into Mikkel’s house with a sickening crunch of clay bricks, and Marga saw – her heart falling – as massive cracks formed in the walls of that little house. The vehicle, followed by another, crunched into the ground, sending the people nearby scattering and screaming, and the motors wound down, their riders coming to a halt and jumping off their metal steeds.

Marga looked over to the gathering-hall. Those strangers… either they’d been followed by the soldiers seeking this village, or they’d been scouts and the Invictans were already aware of Etyslund’s location. How? Could they have surveyed the area from the skies? Did they have scanning technology? Were Hilda and Kamila okay in there?

I have to warn Stepan.

I have to warn Hilda and Kamila.

Where is Aleks? He’s at home… right?

I…

Marga’s mind raced. The gathering-hall was full of people, and if the strangers were suspicious, Eksha would take care of them. With Hilda’s help, there would be no problem. Surely a few Invictan scouts couldn’t stand toe to toe with an aspirant Reaper. Aleks? He knew every machine in the village by heart, so surely he must know that those motors couldn’t have been Etyslund’s own. Stepan?

Stepan was the one most likely to get in the way of these soldiers, whoever they were, without the strength to stand up to them or the wiles to escape from them. Whatever else happened, Marga needed to make sure all her family was safe. All of them. So that meant…

She turned towards Stepan’s library, at the other end of the village, and ran, leaving the water filters still running, until one by one the old, cobbled-together devices jammed and stopped. She ran under the cover of confusion, trusting the chaos of the moment to cloak her move and her intentions. She could see the soldiers raising their spears, could hear them beginning to shout. In the doorway of the gathering-hall, she thought she saw one of the strangers. She didn’t see Hilda or Kamila in her brief glance there – they must still be inside.

One of the Invictan soldiers shouted: “Hey, everybody! Listen up! This village is now under Invictus occupation, in the glorious name of the Empire! Cooperate with us and you will not be harmed! We are only seeking Mirshal’s members!”

I knew it – bastards!

As she ran, Marga prayed to the world itself that she would not be noticed among the chaos, and made for the library.

When she arrived, she stumbled into the main hall and gave Stepan a real start – under normal circumstances, she would have laughed at seeing her husband drop a heavy book onto his foot. Right now, there was no humor in Marga’s heart. She closed the door fast behind her and turned toward Stepan. “Invictus is here,” she said.

Stepan lurched and opened his hands. With a loud thud and a plume of dust, a tan-covered book crashed onto the floor. Stepan turned around with a quick motion, blinked. His mouth opened slackly and his face grew clammy. Heat began to rise in Stepan’s cheeks – the heat of fear. It was several seconds before he was able to form words coherently. By then Marga had already crossed the space between them and placed her hands on his shoulders.

“You have to run, Marga. They’re going to be after you more than anybody.” Stepan pulled back from Marga’s touch, reaching for the book on the floor.

Marga shook her head, stepping forward to keep one hand on Stepan’s shoulder. “I can’t keep going back on the road again every time things go south somewhere. And you can’t guarantee the kids’ safety here all by yourself. Either we get everyone out or I’m staying.” She spoke with confidence that she did not feel.

“Marga, you’re the most important person here by far. I’ll take care of Hilda and Kamila and Aleks, you worry about yourself. As far as anybody knows, I’m just a simple scholar. We don’t know that Invictus cares or even knows about the Sowers to begin with, and even if they do! You’re the one they want. And Hilda, for that matter!” Stepan spoke more and more quickly as he went on, his voice nearly tumbling over itself. He stopped, and standing up with book in hand, turned to look Marga in the eyes. She saw there a quivering glimmer. “And aren’t you scared, Marga?”

“Of course I’m scared. Our enemies are here and even if they don’t know our names or our faces, they know that we’re here. But maybe there’s something that can be done… some way to prevent this from turning into a bloodbath.”

“You can’t be serious. What are you going to do?” Stepan’s voice was pleading now, desperate.

Marga wanted to scream in frustration. She forced herself to breathe, in, out, slowly. “If they come here, don’t let them know I was here.” When she left, Stepan tried to stop her, ran in front of her and held out his arms as if to block her, but she stepped past quickly, evading him with the merest fraction of the hare tattoo’s power.

She stepped out into the afternoon sun in the village. No one faced the doors of the library, and she shut the gates behind her quietly, holding a finger over her lips just before closing Stepan out of her sight. She turned and walked toward the village center, steeling herself with every breath, muttering the Words with each exhale in case it became necessary to fight or to flee.

She reminded herself silently: To preserve life is the highest law.

And she heard the gunshot, saw Eksha fall to the ground, saw the cloud of smoke around the one who appeared to be a captain.