In Between

Metacarn is a Guardian, accustomed to deadly danger. But someone new stumbles in his way. Fighting Mentors is one thing, but dealing with a frightfully talented eight-year-old girl is quite another.

Skellech shouldered the door open and then quickly closed it against the wind. The warmth inside enveloped him, and the tension from the long trek up from the mill began to ease immediately.

“It be real stormy out there, Skell,” said Ania as she passed by balancing three platters of food.

“Aye,” he replied. “Fierce stormy it is.”

He stomped his feet and removed his coat, heavy with rain, and hung it from a peg.

The food smelled great.

“What’s fer dinner?” he asked.

“Mutton, taters an’ ale,” Ania replied over her shoulder before turning back to the customers she was serving.

Skellech rubbed his hands together, breathing warmth into them as he glanced around the room.

Teriel and Gronner were seated together, as usual. Munder sat hunched over his platter growling at anyone who came too close and that clown, Finiorn, was seated with a half a dozen youths from Senlow Town. The storm must have caught them before they could make their way back home.

Skellech’s face lit up when he spotted Pieten warming himself by the fire. He headed towards his friend but checked himself in time and immediately veered away when he realised that he would have walked right past that insufferable fool, Gretrol.

Skellech was no coward, or at least he kept telling himself so, but the last thing he wanted after twelve hard hours at the mill was to deal with that troublemaker. He steered a roundabout path, noticing out of the corner of his eye that Gretrol also seemed in no mood for a confrontation.

Just as well, he thought.

“Skell!” Pieten said as he dropped onto the bench alongside his friend. “Why so late? Did the millstone crack?”

He grunted in response.

“No such luck. Emier had a big order today, is all. Couldn’t get out any sooner, and then the storm…”

“Aye, not what we expect at this time of year, is it? Brought in a lot of riffraff with it.”

He finished with a snort, for emphasis.

“Ye mean them Senlow lads?”

Pieten nodded.

“And then some…” he said just as Ania dropped a tankard in front of Skellech.

“So, are ye eating tonight, Skell?”

He placed his order and when she left he turned back to his friend.

“What ye mean?”

“Look back there, in the corner. Jest don’t be too obvious ‘bout it,” he made a small gesture with his head.

Skellech picked up his tankard.

“To an easier life!” he said and as the two tankards clanked together he darted a look behind him.

He needn’t have bothered with stealth, for the man who sat there was wearing a wide brimmed hat and hunched as he was over the bench, would not have noticed if a bull had entered the inn. He seemed to be sleeping.

“Who is he?”

“Don’t stare like that, ye looking for more trouble?

“He’s asleep! So, who is he?”

Pieten pulled a face.

“No one knows. Came out of the forest earlier today. Emier’s wife saw him.”

“Out of the forest?” Skellech asked with a troubled frown.

“Aye! And what’s more, he came alone and on foot.”

Skellech stared at the newcomer again.

“On foot?”

Pieten looked annoyed.

“Are ye jus’ going to sit there an’ repeat everything I say?”

Skeggech ignored the jibe.

“Is he addled?”

“How should I know? Maybe.”

“Has anyone spoken to him?”

“No one save Ania, when he ordered food.”

“I’m surprised he had the coin … looks like a bit of a vagabond to me.”

“Ye’d look much the same if ye jus’ crossed the forest! Sure, he’s been sleeping rough and probably stinks like a sty, but if ye look close ye’ll see. Good clothes and sturdy boots. He ain’t no vagabond, more like a fugitive’s what I thinks.”

When Skellech finished his pint, he signalled for Ania to bring him a fresh one.

As she delivered it, he took a hold of her wrist to prevent her from moving away.

“Did that stranger over there say anything when he spoke to ye?”

Ania raised her eyes from the hand around her wrist.

“Nothing,” she whispered. “And I wouldn’t be telling ye if he had. He’s just an ol’ man. He’s paid’s all that matters, and he’s entitled to be left alone.”

“I don’t want to pester him,” Skellech protested. “Jus’ curious, is all. Did he say where he’s from? Where he’s going? I’ve heard he walked out of the forest.”

It was clear that Ania already knew this. Nevertheless, after a quick glance around she moved closer to Skellech and spoke in a soft voice.

“What surprised me was that he coughed up for three days board.”

She straightened and shrugged.

“An’ that’s all I can tell ye.”

The object of Skellech’s curiosity sat unmoving, head drooped, chin resting on his chest seemingly oblivious to Skellech’s approach.

“Ah, pardon me manners, sir…”

As this still elicited no response, Skellech leaned closer with the intent of touching him, perhaps even giving him a little shake. But the man raised his head slowly and met Skellech’s gaze.

Ania had spoken truly, the man must be at least seventy, the face was as wizened and lined as one might expect at that age. The cheeks were sunken, and the skin sallow, but the eyes that stared into his might just as easily have belonged to a wolf.

For a moment Skellech quailed before their unsmiling intensity.

“Are ye alright? If ye’re unwell…”

Skellech felt unnerved by the man’s lack of response. Unnerved but undeterred. He leaned in, proffering a hand.

“Name’s Skellech, Skell to those who knows me…”

The stranger looked at the hand but made no move to shake it.

“You should be careful who you offer that to,” he said instead. “If you’ve a mind to keep it, that is.”

The voice was anything but old, it was sharp with an edge of steel. Skellech detected a trace of an accent, but not being a well-travelled man, he was unable to identify it.

Still, this was not the reaction he had expected.

“Just trying to be friendly, is all,” he protested.

What is wrong with him?

Then, as the threat in the other’s words sunk in, Skellech stepped back.

“Ye know what?” he said in a loud voice, attracting the attention of several other patrons. “Ye can go to hell fer all I care!”

And with that he turned and stormed back to his seat.

Metacarn almost smiled. Almost, for it would have been a mistake to do so. After all, he had just established a safe perimeter in this crowded tavern. It would not do to undo this achievement by betraying humour or humanity. He needed this wall he had created around himself. Now no one was likely to accost him again, at least for a while.

He glowered at the faces still turned in his direction until all eyes averted, then he pulled the brim of his hat down over his face and resumed the task he had been engrossed in.

Metacarn closed his eyes and brought the tips of his fingers together under the folds of his cloak, safely hidden from prying eyes. He felt the shimmer of energy that accompanied the connection of left and right, the alchemical surge that followed the meeting of opposite polarities. Then the other link �" the one that every other being on earth also possessed, though most did not know it �" pulsed.

The pulse was a blast of awareness that would have utterly overwhelmed him had he not expected it. This was where his training was indispensable, it kicked in and anchored the experience, absorbing most of its impact. Even so the expansion and the cascade of sensations that ensued were so intense, so visceral, that they never ceased to amaze him.

He was always left breathless with awe.

His Sight shifted radically. He could see everyone in the room even through his closed eyelids and past the rim of his hat. Each one glowed like a candle in the night. Energy emanated from them and passed between them as they interacted with each other.

Some, sitting alone, still leaked energy outwards whenever their attention was drawn to others in the room. The maid was a prime target for this, as she moved through the tavern several grasping tentacles shimmering with orange and red fire trailed after her. The constant shifts in the patrons’ attention, in their thoughts or feelings, created threads of energy that crisscrossed the tavern setting the whole building abuzz with bright filaments that danced and surged in ever-shifting patterns.

Metacarn, had he chosen to, could have paused to read every subtle interaction. He did not, because he had neither the time nor the inclination. His true purpose did not even lie in this room.

He drew his focus back into himself, and then abruptly expanded it outwards once more with more power so that it went beyond the tavern walls, expanding rapidly into the outside world. In moments his reach had encircled the entire village.

Each house pulsed with the fire of its occupants. Animals too were in the mix, and even the trees and the stones. The river’s flow at the outskirts was like a dark and unreadable leaden road, punctuated by the occasional sparkle where a fish prowled or slept.

For the most part Metacarn filtered out what he did not need to see, until most things receded into an iridescent background leaving room only for the imprints he sought.

His vision continued to expand as his seeking crept, more cautiously now, into the very forest he had emerged from only this morning.

Gradually, stealthily, he travelled north with the Sight until it engulfed the great woods all the way to the mountains. There he stopped.

There was no sign of pursuit and having ascertained that, he had to be content. To push further was to risk betraying his whereabouts, and he had no desire to lure the Others to him.

Assured of his concealment and anonymity, Metacarn turned his attention to his other pursuit �" the true reason for his journey to in this backwater.

No sooner had Metacarn begun than even his considerable powers of concentration was broken by the raucous revelry of a bunch of newcomers just entering the tavern.

Excessive noise had this effect on him. This shortcoming, although accepted, was nevertheless a flaw that sometimes - like now - undermined his endeavours. With a sigh he surrendered his quiet questing and raised his head to the newcomers.

It was obvious that the predominant sentiment amongst the new arrivals was one of all-pervasive relief. These people had barely averted some disaster. Their laughter bordered on hysteria and the volume of their exchanges was masking some recently exposed feelings of mortality.

They spilled into the tavern and spread to fill most of the empty spaces. Good business for the inn keepers, not so good for Metacarn’s purpose.

He was about to stand and seek the relative quiet and privacy of his own room, when four of the new arrivals landed at his table.

“Did ye see Lorenz’s face when he saw the fire comin’ down the river at ‘im?” a burly man who sat down on the opposite side of the trestle said. “Have ye ever seen panic like that, and in a man his size?”

A younger man gave Metacarn a cursory glance as he took the seat right next to him.

“Aye, I did,” he answered. “And I’ll also never forget the look on Frioll’s face for as long as I live.”

Skellech, the man who had previously tried to accost Metacarn, approached again. He made it a point to frown at Metacarn before addressing the others.

“What happened?”

The four turned to look at him.

“Some very strange goings on at the river, is what, the likes of which no one’s seen in living memory,” the one opposite Metacarn offered.

“Count yer good stars ye weren’t there,” the young man alongside him added. “Or yer ticker might have missed a beat or twenty!”

This provoked an inordinate bout of laughter.

“So, what actually happened?” Skellech asked again.

“The river caught fire, that’s what,” said the one across the table peering at Skellech as though daring him to express incredulity.

“What, just like that?” he obliged. “Water caught fire without anyone’s help?”

“Ye calling us liars?” this came from the last man to join them, a reed of a fellow with bad teeth and a lazy eye.

Skellech raised both his hands, palm out.

“I’m just asking what happened,” he countered in a whining tone.

The younger man answered this time.

“We doesn’t really know what happened, not exactly. We was just unloading Franer’s supplies from the barge at the narrows when we saw the fire sweeping downstream towards us. Flowing with the same speed as the river, it was.”

“True to the devil, burning water is what it was,” this from the man opposite.

“Took the barge, the dock and the warehouse. We tried to save what we could, but once the river was lit there was no getting to it. Anyways not much point carrying buckets of burning water, was there … so no use even trying,” finished the younger man.

This was troubling news for Metacarn for he well knew that there was no such thing as a coincidence. He wondered if the fire had been meant for him. Had they hoped to catch him on a boat? Was that their solution? Burn him to a crisp? Yet something else troubled him, he had not sensed anything amiss with the river during his scry.

“When did this happen?” he asked of the man alongside him.

All five turned to look at him as though they had only just realised he was there.

“Before the storm hit,” said the one across the trestle. “A few hours back when it was still day. Took us all this time to stop the flames from spreading.”

That was a relief, at least nothing was amiss with his Sight.

In that moment a tingling sensation in the back of his neck alerted him that he was being Seen.

His head snapped up and he looked quickly around.

The sensation faded as quickly as it had started.

He saw nothing.

No one.

One of the men was speaking to him, but Metacarn was no longer interested in anything they might have to say. He stood up and, ignoring those around him, he climbed over the bench determined to find the source of this intrusion.

Then he felt it again.

This time it was right behind him.

He whirled around, but halfway through the movement the sensation faded again.

He completed his spin and for an instant he caught a glimpse of a face peering intently at him from behind two patrons seated some three tables away.

Then it was gone. Vanished as if it had winked out of existence.

But the connection had lasted long enough for Metacarn to retain an impression. The eyes had been big and round, young and fey.

Startled yet also curious, he began to make his way through the crowded room, but by the time he rounded the last table, there was no one there.

He snarled in exasperation. Too many things were happening simultaneously, and he was not sure that he could deal with them alone.

He turned with a sigh made his way to the bench where Ylgran, the innkeep sat cleaning tankards and asked for a taper. Lighting it from the lamp next to the stairs, he made his way up to his room, unlatched the door and went inside.

It was a simple room with a narrow window. It was furnished with a bed, a chair, and a small table with a water basin and a clay candleholder into which he wedged his burning taper.

The sounds of the tavern seeped up through the floorboards and were nearly as loud up here as they had been downstairs. He removed his cloak and threw it over the bed to assist the two thin blankets in keeping him warm. He pulled off his boots and collapsed, fully dressed, onto the bed.

His plans to continue what he had begun below were soon forgotten.

Metacarn had never thought of himself as a snorer, but that was precisely what he was doing within a few short minutes.

He had decided to awaken early and his discipline ensured that he did.

He was not normally prone to self-recrimination, but his first impulse when he opened his eyes was to chastise himself for his lack of progress.

The tavern was dead silent.

The taper had long since gone out and it was still dark outside.

Cussing quietly, he got up and went to the window.

Nothing, not even starlight. The sky was likely still overcast, although the rain seemed to have stopped �" which was good.

He made his way back to the bed, sat down, closed his eyes and opened the Sight.

Apart from the subdued shimmer of people sleeping nearby there was no activity. Of these there were more than he had anticipated. Clearly some travellers had decided to spend the night in the inn rather than brave the elements. Most of the shimmers were in adjacent rooms, though a couple - probably the innkeep and his wife - were downstairs.

It was time to get started on the next phase of his task.

He sat in darkness and slipped into the Deep, the trance state that allowed him to see all energies, even those commonly invisible. Once that was established he moved into the Vast.

The world morphed around him. Barriers dissolved like illusions. Unlike the limits of his physical eyes, in the Vast, his vision could stretch all the way to the horizon, and if he needed to go further than that, he could send the Sight outward to soar like an osprey above and beyond the visible rim of the world.

He had to find the Keeper, even if the Keeper did not want to be found.

The future depended upon it.

The sun rose and crossed the sky, and then set once more. It was only after it rose a second time that Metacarn gleaned the location of the Keeper.

During that time, he had not moved once. Not to sip, nor to eat, nor even to relieve himself. Those aspects of existence were of no consequence when moving in the Deep or searching through the Vast.

The Keeper was ludicrously far away. It was one thing to seek in the Vast, and quite another to embark on the physical journey required to reach the same destination. Yet he had no choice.

First and foremost, he had to ensure that none of the Others were closing in on the Keeper. If they found the Keeper before he did … well, that was not really a thought he wanted to entertain.

He had two days left to erase all traces of his own passage, so he had better get started.

He climbed out of bed, opened the door to step outside and … almost tripped over the form lying across the threshold.

“What…!”

It was a girl, a young girl.

A moment later he realised that this was the girl who had spied on him yesterday.

He recognised the eyes the moment she looked up at him.

Her face was round. Her hair short, red and unruly.

Metacarn found his tongue.

“What the heck are you doing here? Come to think of it, what were you doing skulking around yesterday? I saw you, you know.”

It occurred to him then that she could not be much older than eight.

The girl’s face, initially filled with surprise and alarm, quickly resettled into a fierce little scowl.

“Shows what ye knows! It weren’t yesterday, it were the day before. And I’m not doing nothing, I’m just … having a rest,” she finished, unconvincingly.

She was right, he had been roaming in the Vast all day yesterday.

“Get up then, and be on your way,” he said, nudging her carefully with his boot. “Go rest someplace else.”

The girl moved, but only as far as the opposite wall. She sat there, arms crossed tight, still scowling defiantly.

“Well, what do you want from me? Coin?”

She glared even harder, like he had just offended her.

He threw his hands up in frustration.

“I don’t have time for this!”

He turned, latched the door shut and stormed towards the stairs.

“I knows what ye do,” she said in a defiant yet tremulous tone. “I’ve seen ye do it. Ye can see what’s true, not like everyone else…”

Metacarn stopped. He felt a pain in his chest, like his heart was about to explode. He composed his expression before turning to face the girl.

“What did you just say to me?”

His voice sounded odd and frail to his own ears.

The girl’s angry mask was dissolving, washed away by tears that streaked down her cheeks.

“I knows what ye are…” she said with finality.

Metacarn wondered what god he might have displeased. Was there no end of complications in this forsaken backwater? He sighed and made his way back to the girl.

“Why don’t you just go home?” he asked, his voice turned kindly, despite his previous vexation.

She looked at him and shook her head.

“I’ve no home to go to.”

She blew her nose on her sleeve, then took a deep breath.

“I wants to go with ye…”

Metacarn shook his head.

“No, I am sorry, I cannot take you…”

“Why not? I’m jus’ like ye…”

He frowned again.

“What on earth do you mean by that?”

“I can see what others can’t, is what I means. Jus’ like ye do.”

He shook his head. He had no idea how the girl had found out about his ‘ability’, but what she was saying now was plainly absurd.

“You can’t, it’s not possible. Girls can’t do what we … what I do.”

He was sure that she would argue, try and prove him wrong. She had identified him as someone who might be willing to help her, someone with the heart to so and would not give up easily.

But argue she did not. Instead her eyes rolled up into her head and her chin dropped onto her chest, and then her body crumpled sideways to the floor.

Metacarn opened his mouth, but no sound came out, instead he felt irrefutably drawn towards a Join, and not one of his making. He had just the time to drop to his knees when his own eyes also rolled heavenwards, and as he collapsed, he once again stepped into the Deep.

She was already there, waiting.

Her physical form lay sprawled on the floor while her true self stood over the body, eyes piercing into his.

I told you.

“There,” Trivantana said. “I have him, now.”

There was silence while Saralian veered in his direction.

“Are you sure? Where?”

“Yes, I am certain, although two sigils have been used, and I do not recognise the other.”

“Show me!”

Saralian could be like that, testy even when success was afoot. Trivantana had little choice but to overlook the slight.

“Come here and I will.”

He felt the presence of the other as he complied. When the connection between the two Mentors became firm, Trivantana pointed with his mind and a subtle arrow shot towards the location of their quarry.

Saralian sucked in a breath.

“He went through the forest!”

Trivantana made no reply �" it had not been a question.

“This is it, our chance! We have to release a Swarm,” Saralian added. “And we must do it now.”

Trivantana blanched.

“Are you sure? But a swarm will wipe out everything in the radius of…”

“This is bigger than that!” Snapped Saralian. “Can you not see?”

The Mentor’s face was red with fury and a single vein on his temple was throbbing.

“If he reaches the Keeper before us, we will have lost! The whole of humanity will be lost, consumed by a Quickening they are not even remotely ready for!”

Trivantana’s hand was trembling.

“But a Swarm will…”

“Oh, for the love of the Unnamed, just DO it,” screamed Saralian. “RIGHT NOW!”

“What am I to do with you?” Metacarn asked.

“Take me with you.”

He snorted and shook his head.

A girl who can journey in the Deep?

What was he supposed to do with that? It was unprecedented. It was meant to be impossible. Was she an aberration, or maybe … the vanguard of another Change?

Change was so rare that Metacarn had not experienced one in his lifetime. Changes were the kind of things you read about in disintegrating scrolls. Even the Elders had not seen any in their remarkably long lifespans.

They had gone outside. The storm clouds were long gone, and a higher and much thinner cloud layer now covered the earth. Sunshine cascaded at brief intervals, constantly changing the brightness of the day.

“So, yer going to take me?”

Metacarn just looked into her fey eyes and quailed.

“What is your name?”

A smile brightened her face.

“Elfrel,” she said, raising her chin.

“I have to go on a long, hard journey, Elfrel. One that will likely kill me. How can I take you with me? Tell me that. How can I keep you safe if I cannot even be sure that I can do that for myself? And if I take you, the chances of both of us dying are much higher than if I go alone. So, I am sorry, I cannot. I simply cannot.”

Then he made himself watch as Elfrel’s expression crumpled into disappointment, her lip trembled, and her eyes filled with tears.

“I don’t care about that! I still wants to go with ye!”

Metacarn took a deep draught of air and hardened his expression.

“I said no. Look at me!”

She looked, unable to resist his command.

“I cannot, and will not take you! But here is what I can do. I will come back for you, after all this is finished. If I’m still alive, I swear to you…”

Elfrel jumped up.

“No, ye won’t come back. No one ever comes back. Yer like all the others. All you do is promise, promise … but yer a lier!”

She turned and ran off fast, heading towards the river.

“Yer all liars! All of ye!”

He wanted to call after her, but he bit down on his lip and cursed his weak heart.

He would come back for her, regardless of what she thought now. He would show her that Guardians can be trusted. That he was not like all the others who had let her down, whoever they had been.

He stood up, closed his eyes and banished the heaviness from his heart.

It eased reluctantly.

It was time to focus on the issue at hand. He had to delete all traces of his passage, and the best way to do that was to make it appear as though he had met his end here. It was not the first time he had done it, nor was it likely the last. But it was a terrible ordeal, one that always demanded a heavy price. It was not unlike dying and, in some ways, it was far worse. When he emerged from the transmogrification, his appearance would be utterly changed, as would the sigil that he used when he accessed the Deep.

He would be utterly unrecognisable.

Yet he had grown attached to this older body, for it conveyed a fragility that simply did not exist. It was easy to underestimate him, and that was a boon for a Guardian. He would miss it.

He turned his attention to what was needed for the transmogrification. He already had the more arcane ingredients, such as the nexus crystal and brimstone powder, but had never bothered carrying the more common items like salt or distilled liquor as these could always be sourced in all environments where humans thrived.

He returned to the inn and asked Ania, the maid, if she could procure what he needed.

“Yllgran’s out at the moment, but I’ll ask him when he gets back, I’m sure he’ll have everything ye needs, ready and waitin’ for ye in the morn.”

Metacarn secluded himself to his usual corner spot with a tankard of mediocre ale �" this was nothing more than a decoy that lent him a semblance of normalcy. In fact, he never touched ale or wine. He had no need for it.

The tavern was mostly empty, it being still early, and would not fill for several hours yet, so he decided to use the Sight to find the best path possible for the journey ahead.

He had only just entered the trance-state when he felt it.

A keening energy that disturbed every quarter of the Deep. Confused, he looked for its source, but the noise seemed to emanate from every direction at once. He expanded his awareness, then - as a sense of foreboding engulfed him - he saw.

Metacarn exited the Deep with such shocking abruptness that he knocked over the table as well as the bench he was sitting on. The tankard of ale clanked to the ground spraying foam in all directions and he heard Ania’s startled cry.

A moment later he was racing for the stairs with a speed that belied his age.

He slammed the door to his room open, stormed inside, grabbed the pack resting on the chair, then he flew back down the stairs.

In his mind he was already opening a door, and he cast a sending like a bolt of lightning through it, one that conveyed just one word.

One name.

Elfrel!

No reply.

Moving both in the physical and in the Deep simultaneously was not impossible, just extraordinarily taxing. Cussing like a mariner Metacarn raced out of the inn and cast questing lances in all directions.

Elfrel! Elfrel!

One came back. Not so much in the form of a word, but more like a wordless question.

It was enough.

Metacarn singled out her direction and then shifted.

He appeared within a hundred spans of where the girl stood, looking at him wide-eyed, responding to his urgency and his fear.

“Come!” he shouted and shifted again, reducing the distance between them to just a few spans. Already he could feel it closing in.

Elfrel ran bridging the gap between them, blind panic in her eyes.

They were almost within reach of each other when the sky darkened and a sound like the world being rent in two filled his ears. The moment their hands connected Metacarn shifted a third time. It was a desperate measure, hasty and unconscionable, and one that could have gone wrong in a score of different ways. But it was either that, or certain death, and against odds like these, even a slender chance of survival was a boon.

They vanished and instantly reappeared elsewhere, some five feet above the ground, which was a lot better than five beneath. Carried by their momentum they dropped and tumbled through the bracken just as, behind them, a myriad detonations shredded the air and a fierce wind swept over them. Incongruously the gust went towards the detonations - not from them.

Eyes still wide with alarm, Elfrel clung to Metacarn.

“All is well,” he lied.

Not entirely a lie, for in at least one sense, it was true. They were still alive, how could that be not considered a good outcome.

“It is over.”

“What is it?” she asked.

He hesitated.

“It was a Swarm.”

She searched his eyes, looking for what he was not telling her.

“The danger is past, you are fine.”

“But what about all them others, all the people in Galibren?”

He almost asked her what she meant, then realised she was referring to the village behind them. He had not even bothered to find out its name.

“Forget about it!” he said, hardening his voice once more. “We cannot stop. We have to leave.”

She pulled away from him.

“Are they dead? Are all of ‘em dead?”

Damn child, the incredulity in her voice was tearing him in half.

He came to a decision.

“Yes, Elfrel. They are all dead.”

Her cry alerted him. He grabbed her arm before she could tear away from him and return to the devastation that he knew was all that was left of Galibren.

“No!” she sobbed. “Let me go!”

“NO!” he shouted. “You said you wanted to come with me, and now you are. But you must walk away from this, you must do it now. There is no going back! Did you think I was joking when I said it was going to be hard, that we might not survive? Well, now you know how hard it is. So, make up your damn mind. Are you going back to certain death or towards a chance of life? Up to you.”

He was shocked by his own harshness. He would never talk like this if there was any other way, but there it was again: no choice. And he had much larger concerns than this. If they were to survive, she had better learn to defer to his orders, or she would end up getting them both killed. If that was the case, better if she died right now.

Surprisingly Elfrel calmed at his words.

She looked at him with a new expression. Was it trust? She wiped at her eyes with both hands and then nodded.

“I’ll do as ye ask.”

Metacarn searched her gaze for a few long moments.

“Good. Remember this moment. Don’t forget it. I will lead you though this, I will hold your hand, but if you waver even once, I will let you go. And you know what that means now, do you not? It will mean the end. I have someone to find, work to do, I will not allow you to hinder me or slow me down, do you understand?”

She sniffed and nodded, but her eyes were clear now. There was no conflict or confusion in the way she looked at him.

“I won’t,” she promised and then suddenly beamed a smile. “I’ll help ye.”

He nodded, his expression serious.

And in this way, their agreement was sealed.

They had gone less only half a league when the world began to darken.

Metacarn stumbled, barely able to lift his feet off the ground.

Elfrel, noticing this, tried to prop him up, which would have made him smile if he could have spared the energy. He looked for a suitable place to spend the night.

They stopped in the lee of a large tree and rested there.

They had nothing to eat and were ill-equipped for the journey. Metacarn had an empty skin in his pack. He pulled it out and gave it to Elfrel.

“See if you can find some water, but make sure it is not pooling. Running water is what we need.”

She was gone for so long that he thought she must be lost.

He was dozing when a voice spoke in his ear, making him jump.

“Drink,” she said.

He drank his fill and then immediately went back to sleep.

He had woken only once during the night. It was bitterly cold and Elfrel was snuggled up against him, asleep. He covered her with part of his cloak and draped an arm around her. His intention was to keep her warm, but soon realised that the exchange was mutual.

He drifted back to sleep.

“No, we cannot Shift like I did yesterday for two reasons,” Metacarn was saying. “One, it would tell anyone who might be searching for us exactly where we are and, two, I simply do not have the energy to do it again. I will not have that kind of energy for several days yet.”

Metacarn, could not believe how exhausted he still felt. It was late, around mid-morning when he finally decided that it was time to move. What he really wanted was to sleep for a week.

They set out, descending steadily, looking out for the road that led to Brime. The forest was not terribly dense here, but still the trees blocked most of the view. They could not see very far at all.

By the sounds of it Brime was about eight leagues to the north-east, if the girl’s gauge of distances could be relied upon. That was a two-day march in his condition, but there was no alternative, and they needed supplies.

He was not in a talkative mood, mostly because he was too tired to think, and he needed to think.

The other reason for not Shifting or for not entering the Deep �" the one he had omitted to mention �" was that he wanted to reinforce the Others’ belief that the Swarm had killed him. Winking into the Deep right now might not draw another attack �" he was sure that they did not have the resources to command two Swarms this close together �" but it would irrevocably betray the fact that he had survived, and then the hunt would resume.

He was under no delusion that it was not already on. If these Mentors had any sense at all, they would hope for the best, but assume the worst. It would not require a genius to see that sending someone to Brime �" just in case he had survived �" would be to their best interest.

So Metacarn did just that, he assumed that there would be someone waiting for them when they reached the village.

He had two days to work out what to do if his suspicion proved correct.

“Can I ask a question?” she said.

“Please, do.”

“Who sent that Swarm?”

He walked on silently while he mulled over an answer.

“They call themselves Mentors, but we just call them the Others.”

He kept his gaze straight ahead, at the ever-deepening barrier of tree-trunks.

“Why’d they send it?”

“They tried to kill me.”

A longer silence.

“Why?”

Metacarn sighed.

“Because they believe I want to destroy the world.”

She was silent for a long while, but this time the silence was followed by a statement instead of a question.

“They must be evil,” Elfrel said.

“Many believe so, but they definitely do not.”

“How can they think they’re not? They’ve killed a whole lot of innocents!”

She was getting herself worked up.

“You asked if you could ask me a question. I’ve answered three. Let us make this a rule: no more than three questions at a time. Agreed?”

She was quiet for a while.

“How often?” she demanded.

“How often what?”

“How often can I ask you three questions?”

Metacarn had to suppress his laughter before he could give her an answer.

“Let us make it three times a day, shall we? Three in the morning, three at noon, three at dusk.”

He glanced at her and she nodded.

“Agreed.”

The sun was more or less overhead.

They stopped for a rest and to drink.

“Do you want to destroy the world?”

He looked at her sharply.

“No, of course not!”

Elfrel bit on her lower lip.

“Why do these Others think that you do?”

“Hmm, good question. And one without a simple answer, you are getting good at this real fast, are you not?”

He thought for a while and the girl waited.

“Guardians and Mentors see things very differently,” he said at last. “Mentors want to protect the world from too much change. Guardians want to protect the world from stagnation.”

“What does that word mean?” she asked and then exclaimed, “Aw!” as she realised that she had inadvertently used up her third question.

Metacarn grinned.

“Stagnation is a failure to develop, progress or advance. It happens when things do not change often enough.”

Dusk crept up on them accompanied by hunger and exhaustion.

They drank water until their bellies felt full.

Metacarn was grateful that at least they had been spared being rained upon. The nights were cold enough as it was.

“Would ye kill to stop stagnation?” she asked after a time

Metacarn raised his eyebrows at this question.

“Are you asking me if there is any difference between us and the Others?”

“Would ye kill to stop stagnation?” she repeated.

“Very well. No, then, I would not.”

“Not even a Mentor?”

Where did she get these questions from?

He thought about that for a time.

“I do not know,” he admitted in the end.

He had thought of killing them at times, especially when some of their actions made his blood run hot. But truth was, he just did not know if he had it in him. And likewise, he did not know if he had it in him to not kill them under any circumstances.

“But I can tell you this, I have not killed any of them yet.”

“I’ve one more question.”

He nodded.

“Go on.”

“Who ye trying to find?”

Metacarn groaned.

“A Keeper,” he said, and offered no more.

Elfrel tried to wither him with a look.

“That’s not fair! Ye just trying to get me to ask another question, only I can’t! I’ve used up me three already.”

“Rules are rules,” Metcarn countered. “But not to worry, you’ll get three fresh ones in the morning.”

She sulked for a while, but eventually she found her way under his cloak and together they fended off the cold for a second night.

She asked him no questions in the morning and he wondered if she was still sulking.

They got moving quickly on account of the cold but had gone only a few hundred paces when they came across the road. That alone lifted the girl’s mood no end.

Metacarn was in awe of her. She seemed remarkably stoic despite her young age. Even though she was hungry, cold and scared, she had not complained even once whereas his own moodiness he attributed to exactly those same causes.

“The Keeper is the one who holds the Balance,” he volunteered at last. “There is ever only just one Keeper, and whichever side finds him first will have a great advantage over the other. If we reach the Keeper first we will use the Balance towards change, if the Others catch him, they will use it towards stopping change.”

“How do they carry this Balance?” she asked.

“Inside them, they are the Balance.”

She walked in silence for a time, her expression one of furious concentration.

“Who does the Keeper prefer? Guardians or Mentors?”

“Neither,” Metacarn replied. “The Keeper avoids both.”

“Why?”

Why indeed. These were questions that had plagued him as well, way back in the beginning, when he was still in training. Most of them got cuffed out of him by his teachers, so it was a difficult thing to explain, especially to a child, and moreover given that sometimes he was not sure that he understood it all himself.

“Because they are the Balance, they avoid everyone equally. It is part of what they do and what they are. It is like when you play hide and seek, the one hiding does not hide from one and not from another. Their aim is to NOT be found, by anyone. The Keeper is exactly like that.”

“And whoever finds them, wins,” beamed the girl reverting briefly to concerns more congruent with her age.

“Exactly,” he said. He was sure that he had botched that explanation, but it was the best he could do. Still the girl seemed content with his answer and asked no more of him.

She was really sticking to his three-question rule.

They followed the road as it meandered through the woods until it descended towards a narrow valley still some distance ahead.

It took them the better part of the day to reach that valley, but when the road spilled them out into it they were rewarded by their first sight of the town of Brime. Its buildings straddled the side of a hill and from this distance it appeared a lot bigger than Galibren.

“We will be eating soon,” Metacarn said, but to himself he thought, if we make it.

The village was still a few hours away, but now he no longer trusted himself to come up with any kind of a plan before reaching it. If the Others had beaten him to it there was precious little he could do about it. If there was to be a confrontation, he was ready to fight. Perhaps though he should distance himself from the girl, prevent her from being involved.

She was skipping ahead, already savouring her first meal in … he did not even know when she had last eaten.

“Elfrel!” he called to her.

She turned to face him questioningly.

“I have a fresh answer to one of your earlier questions,” he announced.

She made her way back towards him.

“Which one?” she asked.

“The one about killing Mentors.”

Her expression was serious and alert.

“Have ye decided that you’d kill them to prevent the stagnation?”

He shook his head.

“No, but I would kill them to protect my life,” then he added, "and yours, for that matter.”

Elfrel made no response but fell into step alongside him, trying to match her stride to his.

“Me too,” she admitted after a while.

They continued in silence.

The day had turned sombre. Fresh cloud cover had blown in to hide the late autumn sun and the land ahead looked as though the whole world was being weighed down under some oppressive force.

It mirrored Metacarn’s disposition exactly.

Ah, to hell with it!

“I want you to go ahead and scout for me,” he said abruptly. “Do you think you can do that?”

“What do ye mean?” Elfrel asked.

There was hesitation in her voice.

Metacarn shrugged and decided on transparency.

“The Others might be waiting for me. They know who I am, but they don’t know you, do they?”

He winked at her and she responded with a tentative smile.

“What do ye wants me to do?”

Metacarn unshouldered his bag, rummaged inside for a few moments and then produced a coin. A big silver one. She stared at it. Clearly, she had clearly not seen one this close before.

“I want you to go and look for an inn �" a nice looking one, nothing ratty, in fact the best inn you can find �" and I want you to book a room with two beds. Speak only to the innkeeper, and do not give the money to just any maid or kitchen scullion. Tell the innkeeper that your father sent you ahead because he is too old to move fast. And then order some food for yourself. Just be sure that he gives you the right change, tell him that if he tries to short change you, he will have to deal with me when I get there. And tell him I can get very cranky when my leg hurts.”

Elfrel smiled and closed her fist around the coin.

“Oh, and don’t wait for me to eat. I’ll come along as sure as I’m certain that the coast is clear.”

She thought about it for a while as she studied the coin in her hand.

“What if it isn’t?”

“Isn’t what?”

“Clear.”

“Well, I won’t lie to you … I really have no idea what I will do if they are there, waiting. But I will think of something. All you have to do is to wait for me to join you. All right?”

She nodded.

“So off you run now, I’ll get off the road and approach Brime from a different direction. If the Others are there they will be definitely keeping an eye on the main road.”

The girl nodded, still reluctant, but did as he instructed.

Metacarn watched with a heavy heart as Elfrel ran towards the buildings.

The weight of responsibility had moved well beyond the girl’s immediate safety. He did not want to let her down. But if anything happened to him, what would become of her?

Damn child weighs me like a burden, and one I can no longer shrug off.

He turned his attention to the village and began to study the best approach.

It seemed to him that most of the houses were on the eastern flank of the hill, where the slope was easy both on legs and cart-wheels. There were worked fields to the east and the south. The western flank looked much steeper and seemed an unlikely approach. There was a wilderness beyond it, and uncleared land dipped and rose as far as his eyes could see. No one should mark him if he circled around and approached from that direction.

He proceeded to do just that.

Elfrel slowed down as she neared the township.

She had never been to Brime, had only ever heard it mentioned by people who had just come from it and from others about to venture there. She was in awe of its size. It was really big, and somehow that made it even scarier.

She did not know anyone in Brime.

The only person she now knew in the whole world was back on the road where she had left him.

She felt alone for the first time since meeting Metacarn and did not like it. Not one bit.

She reached the first houses just as a young lad with a long stick came down the main road, whistling and shepherding a herd of goats. Elfrel had never seen so many goats all at once and she could not take her eyes off them. They bleated as they passed, looking back at her with their big strange eyes

“Whachyer lookin’ at?” the lad asked, and feigned to strike her with his rod, only he did not, and she did not even duck at the threat.

“Git off, yer daft girl!”

Elfrel did not respond. After they had passed she turned to watch the lad and his animals as they continued down the hill.

She almost walked into a man as he stepped out of a doorway.

“Woa!” he exclaimed. “Careful where yer going, lass.”

She said a quick ‘sorry’ and tried to scuttle away, but the man grabbed her by the arm.

“Wait! I’ve never seen you in these parts, where you from?” His eyebrows knitted together into a frown as he peered at her more closely. “What yer doin’ here, eh?”

He had a big nose with tufts of yellow hair sticking out of the nostrils. His eyes were too close together and one of his teeth was black.

She did not like the look of him and wondered if he was one of the Others.

She hoped not.

“I’m here with me da!” she said, resorting to Metcarn’s story, and tried to sound as innocent as she could. “He’s coming up the road behind me, he should be here in a minute…” she said and started to turn, pointing back the way she had come.

As the man looked into the distance, the grip on her arm relaxed, and Elfrel seized the opportunity. She broke away and sped up the hill at breakneck speed.

“Hey!” she heard the man exclaim.

But that was the last she heard from him. No shouting. No sounds of pursuit.

Still she did not slow down until the road veered and she saw several people milling around the street, going about their business. A number of them were women, and that felt somehow reassuring.

One group, the largest, drew her attention. As she neared it she saw that most of those gathered were engrossed in listening to a reed of a man with pale eyes set in a weathered face. He wore a straw hat that was beginning to fall apart.

His words became intelligible as she drew closer.

“…was nothin’ left, I tell ye. On me poor mother’s grave, I swares it. I thought I’d done somthen stupid, then. Maybe got meself lost, but nay! I walked round an’ round an there was nothin’ to it, the whole place was gone, I tell ya! Gone, like the moon did that night when the blackness took her…”

Elfrel slowed down to hear more.

“Whadyoudo?” asked an older man, squinting hard as if he could hardly see.

“What did I do, ye ask? Well I turned ‘round and came straight back ‘ere, is what I did! There be nothing left in Galibren, there be no one left either. Not a soul! And everthing’s charred-like and black with soot. What else was I ter do? What would you ‘ave done?”

Several voices piped in asking questions, demanding explanations or expressing scepticism.

“Ah, yer just pullin’ our legs, Spruge…”

“Aye, and why would I be pullin’ yer stupid leg?”

“No, no,” said a respectable looking man wearing a doublet. “Tis the third time I’ve heard this. It can’t be just his invention…”

Elfrel walked away.

She had started to tremble.

Hearing about her town had loosened something inside her.

Marching here with the old man, it had all started to fade, like a bad dream. Like none of it had even been real. Hearing strangers talking about it brought it all back, and somehow made it feel more real now than it had when she was there.

Despite herself, Elfrel could no longer hold back the tears, and for a time that was all she could do. She walked the streets of Brine and cried.

She did not notice the young woman watching her until she approached Elfrel.

“What’s so wrong, little one?” the woman asked in a kindly voice. “What’s happened? Why are you crying?”

At first Elfrel could not answer. She was shaking, and her teeth were chattering so badly she could not even shape the words. But the woman consoled her and even hugged her and that’s when Elfrel could no longer hold it all in. It blurted out of her in a torrent.

The woman at first did not understand what Elfrel was saying, but when she heard that she had just come from Galibren, she blanched.

“Oh, you poor child!” she said and held her tightly. ”You dear, poor child!”

Some passers-by began to ask what the matter was, and the woman told them. One thing led to another and before long there was a knot of people pressing around Elfrel, asking her what had happened, what she’d seen, what had caused it.

The relief she had felt at the initial outpouring of grief was suddenly gone. She looked at the press of faces surrounding her, demanding from her, wanting to know. She saw that some were frightened, and others were angry.

The young woman tried to reason with the mob and fend them off, but she was outnumbered and pushed away until Elfrel lost sight of her.

Elfrel screamed.

It had an immediate effect on the crowd. Several took a step back, for none of them wanted to be seen as responsible for causing a child distress.

Then a voice sliced through the gathering like a warm knife through butter.

“Stand aside, good people. Stand aside.”

The man who walked through the opening he had just created with his words was tall, well dressed and intensely serious. He attempted a smile as he leaned down to look at Elfrel, but she felt no warmth or kindness in his eyes. He was nothing like Metacarn.

“I thank you for your concern,” he said to the crowd, but his eyes were fixed on her all the while. “You can be on your way, now. I will make sure that this child is taken care of.”

“And who are ye?” asked the woman who had tried to help her.

The man turned towards her and pierced her with a dark look.

“If you must know, my name is Saralian, and I am here to investigate what has befallen Galibren. You may rest assured that this young girl is in good hands. My assistant and I will make sure that she is looked after while we investigate what has transpired in that village.”

Elfrel’s knees almost gave way when a hand landed on her shoulder, the fingers tightening into a firm grip.

The two men took her down a side street. The tall one led the way, the other kept a hand on her shoulder, likely to prevent her from running away.

Elfrel sought desperately for a way out of her predicament. She could not run. She considered biting the hand that held her but was far too terrified.

She did not know what was happening, but of one thing she had no doubt �" these were Mentors. The Others that Metacarn was trying to avoid. The same ones who had destroyed Galibren and had killed everyone there.

Elfrel was not dumb, she was street-wise �" or at least she had been in Galibren. Here in Brime however she was not so wise. How could she be when she knew nothing and no one? She considered asking these men questions, of protesting, of screaming for help. In her desperation she even thought of pretending to faint, and using that as a pretext for invisibling, of entering the Deep, as Metacarn had called it. But if these were Mentors �" and she was certain they were �" then invisibling would probably be the worst thing she could do. Metacarn had thought it impossible that a girl could do what he did. If so, maybe these Mentors believed the same thing, that girls were incapable of it. If she did it now, she would not only betray Metacarn, she would betray herself in the worst possible way.

One thing that Elfrel had learned long ago was that when you knew something that others did not, it gave you power. Power over them, and over the world around you. Secrets were powerful things that allowed you to survive. No use throwing them away to the likes of these Mentors.

In this way, little by little, Elfrel steadied herself and became less frightened and more confident. She did not show it, of course. Only a total fool would have done that. Let them think what they wanted. If they thought her weak or terrified or even stupid, those things would give her a degree of power as well.

The tall man, the one who had called himself Saralian, stopped before a house with dark windows and rapped on the door. Elfrel saw a flicker of light move beyond the window pane, then the door opened, and an old woman peered out at them.

“We need the room now, good woman,” he said.

The old woman nodded, but then hesitated at the sight of Elfrel.

“Come now,” urged the Mentor. “We do not have all night!”

Somewhat reluctantly the crone moved aside to let them pass, she closed the door behind them and then led the way through the darkened house into a room with a table and chairs. She lit two lanterns with her taper and set these hanging from hooks on either side of the spent fireplace. Then she left closing the door behind her.

“Sit,” Saralian ordered.

Elfrel did as she was told.

The other, the one who’s hand had steered her through the streets, bent over her and she got her first good look at him.

He was younger than Saralian, not as tall, but broader in the shoulder. His hair was long and slick where Saralian’s was short and severe. His eyes seemed sympathetic, but there was something like a weakness in them that Elfrel found disturbing, though she would have been hard put to explain why.

He smiled in a kindly fashion.

“Are you hungry?”

Elfrel was surprised by his voice. Where Saralian’s was stern and cutting, his was musical and calming. She liked it, though she did not like her liking it, not one bit.

She made no sound but nodded in a frightened way.

The man withdrew, left the room, and left her alone with Saralian.

“I hear that you have come from Galibren. Is that so?”

Elfrel nodded.

“Speak up, child. I need to hear the sound of your voice.”

“Yes,” she squeaked after a pause.

“Good. Now here are some things that I want you to understand before we get started.”

He had this unnerving way of beginning and ending each sentence with silence.

Elfrel nodded again.

“Excellent, I think we will get along quite well. Especially if you understand what I am going to tell you next.”

Silence. Elfrel found herself holding her breath.

“If you lie, I will know it. If you do not tell me something that you should have told me, I will know that too. If you try to protect anyone, I will know it also, and if you try to distort the truth in any way whatsoever, I will know it. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, sir,” answered Elfrel, nodding, her eyes downcast.

“Look at me when I speak to you!”

She raised her eyes to look at his. They drilled into hers with a force that left her gasping.

“Do you understand what I am saying?”

Before she could answer, the door opened and she broke eye contact for the briefest moment with the pretext of looking at who was entering.

Elfrel knew full well who was at the door, but needed to look away to muster herself, and break the spell that Saralian was trying to force upon her.

He had just tried to convince her that he could read her mind and see every thought, that he was capable of comparing her thoughts to her words, and that he would spot any difference between the two. But Elfrel knew that he could do no such thing. Oh, his eyes held power, she could see that much. They held the power of making her believe that what he was saying was true, and if she had been any other little girl, he might have succeeded.

But she was not and succeed he did not.

In the fraction of a moment between looking away and looking back again, Elfrel had freed herself of his yoke. When she looked again into his eyes, the submission in her expression was a device of her own creation, not his. It was the first lie that he would fall for.

The first in an endless set of lies that he would believe completely.

The other Mentor placed a platter with cheese, salted fish, along with a crust of bread and a mug of milk on the table in front of her.

Being famished was not something she needed to pretend, yet if the food had arrived earlier while she was still under the Mentor’s spell, she would have been unable to eat it.

Now was a different matter.

Yet before she could avail herself to anything, Saralian pushed the platter away.

“First some questions, and then, if I am satisfied with your answers, the reward.”

Metacarn’s detour meant that he reached the town when the shadows were already growing long, and the sun was hovering low over the roof tops.

No one paid him any attention as he entered Brime, another boon of his current appearance: older people were virtually invisible.

He walked through the town in a meandering fashion that allowed him to explore each of the side streets that sprung from the main road. He found only two inns, and only one of those that looked even remotely passable, the rest were just alehouses where local field-hands and shepherds spent their meagre incomes in exchange for stupor.

He walked up to a man busy spreading fresh straw across the common room floor.

“Me daughter came up ahead of me to book us a room,” he said, affecting the local parlance. “‘Ave ye seen her?”

“Sorry ‘pa, I hasn’t. I’ll ask me wife, but I ain’t seen no one meself.”

He turned towards a doorway and hollered.

“Sania, has a young lass booked a room with you earlier?”

A woman’s disembodied voice replied in the negative.

The man shrugged by way of apology.

“She might’ve gone to The Brimey Rose instead of coming ‘ere, that’s down the hill, an’ across the way.”

Metacarn left to check at the Rose, but a tight feeling was starting to spread across his chest.

As anticipated the Rose yielded no better results and now Metacarn began to truly fret. Dusk was creeping into the sky and he had no idea what had become of Elfrel.

Should he use the Sight?

He was tempted, but of course he would not do it.

Back on the street, he looked up and down at the darkening world, wishing he could penetrate its many mysteries. Wishing he could find the girl.

Trivantana looked on as Saralian questioned the girl.

Most of Saralian’s questions followed predictable lines. The girl, skittish and teary at first slowly settled and began to answer more intelligibly.

When did she leave Galibren? What did she see? Where was she when it happened? What did she think happened to her village? Why did she come to Brime?”

This last question produced the most interesting outcome.

“I decided to come ‘ere cause the others went the other way.”

“What others?” asked Saralian.

“It was two men - a young one and a real old one.”

“Tell me about these two men.”

She shook her head.

“Can’t tell ye nothin’ ‘cause I hid when I saw ‘em. I hid until they was gone.”

“Why did you hide?”

“’Cause I didn’t like them. They was angry ‘bout somethin’.”

“Angry about what?”

“I don’t knows! They was too far for me to hear them. But I was scared they’d caused what had happened to Galibren, so I didn’t want them to see me.”

“Did you see where they went?”

She nodded.

“They set out for Senlow Town.”

“So, you went in the opposite direction?”

“Aye, that’s one reason I came to Brime.”

“Is there some other reason?”

“’Cause Brendiar lives here.”

“Who is Brendiar?”

“Me uncle. Me mum’s brother.”

“Where does he live?”

“Somewhere in Brime,” she replied, and then thought to add, “I don’t knows where, but I wants to find him!”

Clearly, she had been just outside the circle of destruction caused by the Swarm. Her description of the blast was accurate, and it seemed reasonable to Trivantana that she had been too scared to go back into the village to investigate.

So, the only real information that they had gleaned from her was the account of the two men, obviously Guardians, who had survived the Swarm. That fact by itself generated a host of other questions, but not any that the girl could answer.

Aside from this, Saralian’s questioning had yielded little of value. Trivantana was secretly pleased.

Having run out of questions the two Mentors left the girl alone in the room to eat and met in the room adjacent.

“So, what do you think?”

It was so unusual for Saralian to ask for his opinion that Trivantana was taken aback for a moment.

“It is good that we know where the Guardians have gone, it will make it easier for us to track them there.”

“What do you think of her?”

“The girl? How would I know? I believe she has told us all that we needed to hear.”

Saralian stood silent and nodded.

“Or maybe just all that she wants us to believe?”

“What? Oh, really Saralian? Sometimes I think your cynicism knows no bounds.”

Saralian nodded.

“We will let her go when she finishes the food, but I want you to keep an eye on her when she leaves.”

Trivantana groaned.

“You really want me to follow her? It is nearly pitch-black outside.”

Saralian grinned for the first time in days.

“Then it should be easy for you to merge with the shadows.”

Elfrel paused in the middle of a mouthful of food and strained to hear what the two men in the adjacent room were saying. She supposed that the topic was likely to be her. But the surge of voices that had initially drawn her attention had softened once more into an unintelligible mutter, so she resumed eating.

She had been mulling over what she had told the Mentor and was feeling quite pleased with herself. To begin with she had resisted his snare, and then she had even convinced him that Metacarn was heading towards Senlow Town.

Still it had been a strange experience, and now her head hurt from thinking so much ... or maybe that was from something else? She was not sure, but thinking had never really hurt that much before, so she thought it likely to have been caused by something else.

The Mentor’s questions had frightened her, for she did not know what answers she should give, which might be right and which wrong. Yet, despite her fright, whenever he asked, she had somehow known exactly what to say. She did not even think about it.

The right answers had just felt right. She could not have answered incorrectly even if she had tried.

The door opened, and the tall Mentor re-entered the room.

“Have you had enough to eat?” he asked, pleasantly enough.

Elfrel looked down at her platter and nodded.

“Good,” said the Mentor. “Because I have asked you all that I needed to ask, and now you are free to go.”

Something was wrong.

Elfrel felt it in the same way that she had intuited the correct answers to his questions. She looked up at the Mentor, and felt once again the pull of his eyes, as if they were drawing her into some kind of trap.

“Do you have anywhere to go?” he asked.

Elfrel nodded.

“I need to find my uncle…”

“Tonight? In the dark?” he shook his head. “I do not think so. Look, you were delayed because of us, if not you might already be cosy and warm in your uncle’s house. So, take this eagle, it is more than enough for you to pay for a room till morning.”

Instead of giving her the coin, however, he placed it on the table between them.

Elfrel looked at it for a long moment before reaching out and taking it.

Saralian walked to the door, opened it, and turned to her.

“Do you not wish to go?” he asked.

She nodded and stood up hurriedly, as though fearful that he might change his mind. The Mentor opened the front door for her, waited until she slipped outside, and then closed the door behind her without another word.

Trivantana lurked in the deeper shadows across the way and watched.

When Saralian closed the door, the girl looked about as if she did not know where she was. Eventually she made up her mind and walked uphill towards the centre of Brime.

The Mentor followed her from a safe distance.

Inside the house, Saralian returned to the room where he had questioned the girl and sat down in the chair she had just used. It was still warm.

The Mentor folded his arms on the table and rested his head on them before slipping into the Deep. His true form stood up from the chair and walked through the walls until he was in the street outside. He saw both the girl and Trivantana, one following the other, and followed them both. This was far too important a matter to be left in his companion’s incompetent hands. Now he would see exactly what would happen next.

Elfrel’s sense of wrong grew stronger with every step that she took. The temptation to do some invisibling became overwhelming, except she also knew that doing so might well make things a whole lot worse than they already were. She had a pretty good idea of what felt so wrong, she felt as though someone was looking at her, following her maybe? She could feel it as clearly as she felt the cold.

Something was happening to her. Something was making her aware of things that she should not have been able to know. It had begun after her encounter with Metacarn. The Guardian’s effect on her had been profound. She did not understand it, but knew that she had to follow him, that he carried the answers to all of her questions, even the ones that she did not yet know to ask.

But where was he? She wanted to know his whereabouts because she wanted to avoid him until this feeling of wrongness passed. He was the one in danger, not she. She was being used as bait, but he was the prey. The Mentors were hunting, of that she had no doubt.

Elfrel also wanted to warn him. So, the question she needed to answer was, how could she contact Metacarn without alerting the Others of his presence?

She decided not to go to the better inn, for the very reason that Metacarn had instructed her to go there. He was likely already there himself by now, waiting for her.

If the feeling was gone by morning, she would look for him then.

So, she made her way to The Brimey Rose in the dark, followed all the way by wrongness. She forced herself to walk slowly, as if she did not know that she was being followed.

The innkeeper looked terribly annoyed, until he saw the silver coin. If he marvelled at this eight-year-old wanting a bed for the night, he kept it to himself. He gave her some change, a taper and a blanket, and then walked her over to a pallet in the corner of the common room.

Others were already asleep nearby. One was snoring so loud that she wondered if she would ever be able to fall sleep.

Elfrel lay down and closed herself to the noise, and in no time was fast asleep.

Metacarn on the other hand could not sleep.

He tossed in his bed seeking a decent night’s rest, but worry kept needling his brain. He knew that he could not do anything about the situation without compromising everything but knowing this was no help at all.

Eventually he did fall into a fitful slumber, and immediately awoke inside a vivid dream.

He dreamed that he saw the girl, Elfrel, sitting at a table between two men. He knew the men but could not remember their names. It was like he was floating up near the ceiling directly above the table.

He felt short of breath. His hands were clammy. Any moment now one of the men would look up and see him, and then … something terrible would happen. He knew not what it would be, exactly, but it was bound to be something unpleasant.

Yet the men did not look up. They just kept asking questions of the girl. The same question, over and over, in a hundred different ways.

The girl did not seem agitated or frightened, and Metacarn did not understand why.

Then she looked up and smiled.

At him.

Metacarn started, and suddenly felt like he was falling.

The girl was looking at him, smiling, but the men seemed unperturbed by this behaviour. They did not even look up to see what she might be looking at.

The girl’s eyes grew wide, as if she wanted to draw his attention to something.

She shook her head from side to side and started to shape words with her lips.

Metacarn saw that her lips were moving in a cyclic and repetitive pattern but he could not work out what she was saying.

Elfrel persisted.

She nodded towards the two men as she said a word.

Metacarn finally got it.

They.

Then the second.

Are.

The third took a little longer until Elfrel pointed to her eyes.

Watching.

She pointed to herself, and the words all fell together.

They are watching me.

This was followed by more which she enunciated slowly and patiently without making a sound.

Wait.

Do. Not. Come. For. Me.

I. Will. Come. For. You.

Metacarn awoke with a gasp, as though he was suffocating. He poured himself a mug of water in the dark and pondered on what he had just experienced, the dream that was no dream, and Elfrel’s words, imprinted indelibly in his awareness.

This girl was incredible. He had never met anyone like her.

He felt a shiver course through his frame.

He recognised the Mentors now that he was awake. And though he felt frightened for her, she had not appeared frightened in the least. Further than that, she had shown him that she was doing things under their very noses, and still they could not see or understand what she was getting up to.

She really did not need him.

But it seemed now that he needed her.

It was way past the midnight hour when Trivantana returned to the house. He found Saralian sitting at the table in the room where he had questioned the girl.

He was looking up at the ceiling as though there was something up there that had disturbed the Mentor. Trivantana looked up.

Nothing.

“She did nothing. She went nowhere. She did not meet anyone. She just got herself a bed in the common room of The Brimey Rose. I froze my balls for absolutely no reason. I hope you are happy.”

Saralian did not shift his gaze from the ceiling.

“What are you doing? Have you lost something up there?”

Like your wits?

But, of course, he did not say that. It would not have been good for him if he had.

Saralian finally looked at him.

The man is insane, Trivantana thought, not for the first time.

“I know you might think that I’ve lost my mind,” said Saralian. “But I have a strong feeling that we have been duped by an eight-year-old.”

His emphasis on duped was so strong that it sent shivers down Trivantana’s spine.

Nevertheless, he sat down opposite his fellow Mentor and assumed the linking position. Saralian did likewise and soon the physical world around them began to dissolve.

What replaced it was a barely lit, cavernous hall of stone.

Trivantana had been here countless times �" every time the Mentors had been summoned to report or receive instructions �" but each time felt as unsettlingly as the first.

He invariably experienced a sense of anxiety that was both oppressive and exhilarating, the kind of feeling that �" Trivantana imagined �" must be what a devout monk would experience at the prospect of imminent death and the subsequent meeting with one’s god.

The Mentate greeted them with customary silence.

When he did speak, his words simply appeared in Trivantana’s awareness in much the same manner as his own thoughts did, except that the emanations exuded by the Mentate’s words oozed with a power that felt at once like a nourishment and a flailing.

Report.

This was not a conversation, for Trivantana had no idea what Saralian was saying. What transpired with the other Mentor could not be evaluated or compared to his own assessment, hence the sensation of being stripped. No one would dare risk concealment, it was unthinkable. Furthermore, these encounters lasted for as long as the Mentate required them to.

Trivantana allowed his consciousness to open and to spill out all that he had perceived since launching the Swarm.

He felt the Mentate prying through his mind, a torrid sensation of violation and careless damage that lasted until, satisfied, the Mentate pulled away. Trivantana was left trembling with exhaustion yet also breathless with a nameless pleasure.

He both dreaded and longed for these encounters and had recently come to realise that he would not be able to continue to exist without them.

You have prevaricated long enough, was the Mentate’s conclusion. You will return to the task at hand. Forget about the Guardian, he is of no consequence. Your use of the Swarm has attracted considerable attention. It would have been justified if it had succeeded, but you have failed. Do not even think of Swarming a second time. Your focus must be on finding the Keeper and claiming the Balance for our cause. Now go. Prevent this Quickening.

And just like that it was done.

Trivantana opened his eyes and looked at his companion.

Saralian’s face was flushed and beaded with perspiration, but his eyes filled with contempt at what he still saw lingering in Trivantana’s nauseating expression.

Metacarn allowed himself to sleep till it was full light outside and only then climbed stiffly out of bed. He made his way down to the common room.

He sat in the mostly empty hall and ate corn cakes and tea.

Time and again his mind went to Elfrel.

He was beginning to view the girl in a very different light. His initial perception of her as a burden was now largely gone. Elfrel she had surprised him with abilities that he could not even begin to comprehend. One thing was clear, no one had trained her. It was as though her skills were natural and not a result of initiation or induction. This made no sense to him.

She lacked the very discipline that he found so indispensable. For Elfrel it seemed irrelevant. Her spontaneous and natural curiosity appeared sufficient to steer her consistently in the right direction, like a built-in rudder.

And the thing that above all else drove Metacarn to distraction was the easy trust with which she accepted her gifts.

He was also beginning to question the nature of their encounter. His training had caused him to understand that in the grand scheme of things there was no such thing as an accident or a coincidence. Everything was interlocked in a disproportionately vast puzzle that the mind �" for all its wonders �" was unable to predict, understand or unravel.

That was what the domain of the Vast was for, where the mind’s analytical functions became suspended and where the true essence of all existence revealed itself to the discerning journeyman.

So, what if she had been sent to him as a tool, an unexpected source of aid? What if he was meant to help her reach some destination, and not the other way around. What if she was the real purpose of his journey? He would have to reveal her existence to the other Guardians at the earliest opportunity and Metacarn could already feel the ripple of consequences that that revelation would produce.

He shook himself from pointless wondering.

Whatever else he did, he could not abandon his search for the Keeper. His mission remained unchanged, only now he needed to accommodate the presence of this remarkable child.

Elfrel walked into the hall and squealed at the sight of Metacarn. She ran up to him, threw her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek.

He awkwardly pushed her away, holding her at arm’s length.

“Well, at least you do not look any worse for wear. So, have they have stopped watching you?” he asked.

She nodded and settled into the chair opposite him.

“I don’t know for sure that they was watching, but something didn’t feel right. Then after I went to the inn and laid in my bed, the wrong feeling went away.”

“And nothing more since?”

She shook her head.

“Good! Now tell me everything that happened after we separated,” he said, and she did, in a rather breathless sentence that rambled on and on.

“What about the dream?” he asked when she finished telling him all about her encounter with the Mentors.

“Oh, ye remember it?” she said looking pleased and surprised. “That was good fun, wasn’t it?”

“But how did you do it?” he pressed.

“Well, I had to warn ye and let ye know I was safe. So I just thought about ye real hard before I went to sleep. Then I dreamt of the Mentors, and then I saw ye up there and then I felt like I might be able to let ye know what was happening, so I did…”

“But why not speak instead of mouthing the words? It took me a long time to work out what you were trying to say.”

Elfrel looked pensive and slightly troubled.

“I don’t know why, except it felt like the right way to do it. I knew you was real, but I didn’t know if they was real or not. I didn’t want to risk it…”

Metacarn laughed. He had been hoping for an explanation, but now realised that one was not likely to be forthcoming. He thought of saying that if the Mentors were real they might also have been able to lip-read, like he did, but decided to drop the matter.

“Well, anyway, I thank you for warning me,” he said.

Elfrel just smiled.

“Would you show me the house they took you to?”

The smile vanished. Maybe he was asking too much.

“Look, never mind. Just tell me where it is, and I will go and take a look myself.”

“But what if they’re still inside?”

“I have a strong feeling that they are not.”

Reluctantly she told him where it was.

“Good, now you stay right here. I will be gone a little while because I also need to get some other things done.” A thought occurred to him, so he voiced it. “Do you still want to come with me?”

Elfrel nodded energetically.

“Good!” he said. “We leave Brime in the morning.”

Metacarn watched the house for a time before approaching and knocking on the door.

An older woman opened it.

“What yer want?” she asked.

“The two men staying here…”

She made to close the door on him, but his boot stopped it from shutting.

“I know them,” he continued. “Are they in?”

“No, they’re gone, left during the night. What you want ‘em fer?”

“Yesterday they brought a little girl here, did you know about that?”

The woman would not meet his eyes.

“Ah be a widow. They offered good money an’ ah couldn’t turn em down. Ah’s sorry, ah didn’t knows what ter do.”

“It is alright, maybe you can do something now. Show me the room where they took the girl.”

The woman nodded and led the way.

Metacarn walked around the table, touching the surface with the tips of his fingers. He looked up at the ceiling, at the place where he had hovered in the dream that was not a dream.

He shook his head in disbelief at the accuracy of the dream vision. The room was identical to the smallest detail. A faint smell of cloves lingered in the room.

“Did they leave anything behind?” he asked.

The woman shook her head.

“Nothin’.”

Metacarn walked to the fireplace and looked at the grate. It was clean of ash save for what looked like a burnt piece of parchment. He touched it and sniffed it.

“Thank you,” he said, and left the house.

He went into the town centre to get what he required for the journey ahead.

It was still light when he returned to the inn.

Elfrel was in his room, fast asleep in the huge bed.

He did not wake her, instead he dropped his supplies in a corner and then returned below for some food. While he waited he retrieved a scroll from his bag, unrolled it and splayed the vellum on the bench top. He studied it carefully for a time and then put it away when his food came.

He ate slowly, thinking about all that had happened, and about all that might yet happen.

He would leave using the Sight until the last possible moment, but he would need to do so before they set out. He needed to get an accurate fix on the Keeper who could have covered quite a bit of ground in the four days since his last scry.

The following morning after an early breakfast, the old man and the young girl left the inn, Metacarn hauling a heavy double-sack across his shoulders.

“How are you going to carry all that?” she asked.

Metacarn led the way around the back of the inn.

“I will show you just as soon as we fetch our horse.”

Elfrel’s mouth dropped open at the sight of the chestnut stallion that the Guardian walked out of the stable. It was a beautiful and stately creature with a white star on its forehead.

“Have you ever ridden?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“Well, about time you did then,” the Guardian said.

He hefted the double-sack over the horse’s back, behind the saddle so that it hung just short of the animal’s flanks. He then extended his arms towards Elfrel in an inviting gesture.

“Would you like some help in getting up?” he asked.

Elfrel was silent as they rode through Brime. Metacarn imagined that she was probably overwhelmed and maybe even a little scared of being on a horse.

It was not the most comfortable way to ride, with her in front and him, immediately behind, but what was the alternative. It was either this, or walking, and this was infinitely better than walking given the distance they had to cover.

Metacarn had risked going into the Deep that morning. He had not been especially careful, even so he had limited his search to the area where he expected to find the Keeper. It took a little while of searching, but he eventually found the man. He was about sixty leagues to the south-west and, if the terrain was favourable and their luck held out, it would take them less than ten days to catch up. He considered that an acceptable length of time, given the circumstances.

Elfrel gripped onto his forearms for dear life. She was obviously scared of falling, but that would ease as soon as she acclimatised to the constant motion.

He was a big horse, not as fast as Metacarn would have liked had he been alone, but he had chosen him for strength rather than speed. He needed a horse that could handle the weight of two riders as well as their supplies. In any case, the supplies would diminish daily, steadily reducing the weight the horse would have to bear.

He had folded a blanket in front of the main saddle to give Elfrel more padding, but he knew that saddle soreness would be inevitable.

“Tell me about yourself,” he said.

Largely his intention was to distract her by taking her mind off the experience of riding, but the truth was that he had also been wondering about the girl’s past and family since the day they had parted ways.

He became concerned when she did not speak for quite some time.

“Elfrel, are you all right?”

She nodded, but still she did not speak.

He turned to look behind them. The town of Brime was already half hidden behind the steep side of the hill as the path skirted the edge of the woods. No one was behind them.

He decided not to press her, and gave her the room to talk on her own terms, when she was ready.

Elfrel had been dreading this moment. She had avoided talking about herself and her past, and when Metacarn had not asked her any questions, she had concluded that he was not interested �" which suited her just fine. The problem was that she truly did not want to lie to him but could think of no other way of answering him without doing so.

Elfrel was grateful that they were riding, and that he was not able to look her in the eye.

“I was born in Galibren,” she started. “Me ma an’ me lived in a tiny house just outside the village. She had a small plot that she worked �" all she could manage by herself �" an’ also sowed and harvested for other people when the season was right. Sometimes she did odd jobs around the village. A hard worker, she was, an’ folk liked her for that. Good with her hands, she was, and knew how to make things grow right. We was happy, until she took ill.”

Metacarn kept quiet.

“When she died, some men came to take her body away for burial. They didn’t know what to do with me, so they found a family what couldn’t have children, an’ they took me in. I stayed for a week and then ran away.”

“How old were you?”

“Six. But I already knew a lot of things. Like invisibling, or like knowing what people were thinking and the lies they told and the things they tried to keep hid and where they kept them hid. My ma, she’d taught me how to be with animals. I liked animals, an’ they’ve always liked me. When I needed to stay warm I’d sneak into someone’s barn when they wasn’t looking, and I’d sleep with their animals. That’s what I did all through last winter. I also knows how to milk cows and nanny goats, so I always had milk to drink if I got too hungry.”

“Did you ever get caught?”

She shrugged.

“Once in a while.”

“Did anyone ever help you?” he prodded.

“Sometimes people were kind to me, but most times they just shooed me off. Once I got a beating…”

“What about clothes? And other things that cost money?”

And after a short silence:

“I stole what I couldn’t get by other ways.”

Metacarn was unconvinced. He asked himself how a six-year-old �" even a remarkably gifted one like her �" could survive all by herself. He could not see how it was even remotely possible.

The first time he had laid eyes on her she had not looked like a filthy street urchin who had been sleeping rough for two years. Not even close. And he had seen plenty worse than her in his travels.

Those children were not unlike other animal strays, snarling, hissing and biting being as much a part of their vocabulary as a good assortment of foul-mouthed words. They were more often than not too far gone to be redeemed into the social order and destined to live sordid lives of thievery and prostitution.

Elfrel was nothing like them.

Nevertheless, he decided not to press her. If the story she told him was what she wanted him to believe for now, let it be so.

In time she might come to trust him with the truth.

“What about this invisibling of yours,” he asked instead. “How did you come by that?”

“I’ve always been able to do it. When I was small �" when my ma was still alive �" I used to do it every time I went to bed. Used to do it instead of sleeping for a little while every night until I got real good at it. Once me ma died an’ I was on me own, I started invisibling to steal things that I needed or wanted. I found out where people hid their coins, some of the hidey spots were clever, but most were just plain daft. Anyways, I always only let meself take a few of their smallest coins, never the big ones and never everything they had…”

So engrossed had Metacarn become in her story that he almost missed the sign pointing to the track through the forest. It was a crude symbol carved with a knife into the lichen-covered stump of a felled tree.

He turned the horse towards the new path, but then thought better of it. There was grazing aplenty here at the edge of the woods. Likely more than they would find once they were in the forest.

He dismounted and helped Elfrel do the same.

In no time he had a fire blazing merrily and water bubbling in a pot to which he added small pieces of smoked meat along with tubers, onion and salt.

“So, that’s how you used the Sight to survive,” he said. “I’ll have to teach you how to do other things there as well, if you are interested.”

Elfrel’s eyes shimmered with excitement.

“Can I ask a question?”

“At least three,” he replied.

“Why are there Guardians and Mentors?”

He shook his head.

“That is too big a question, Elfrel. It would take a hundred answers to answer you completely. You are not asking for a single answer, really, you are asking for a history.”

“Awright, who was here first, then?”

“What do you mean?”

“Was it the Mentors came first or was it the Guardians?”

Damned child, he cussed silently.

“I do not know. It was a long time ago, when no one alive today was even born and even much older than that. I can tell you this, though. Both sides say that they were here first, and they cannot both be right, can they? So, who knows?”

She thought about that for a moment.

“Who was the first Guardian?”

It was going to be a long night.

“That Guardian used his Sight this morning,” Saralian announced.

Trivantana, riding behind him, did not reply. They had set out while it was still dark and had been travelling all day. He was tired.

He was also angry. Which was not unusual, he always felt angry with the other Mentor’s attitude and his bloody-minded obsessions.

The dry weather made riding tolerable - he could not have endured riding in the rain. The road was narrow, but in decent condition. At present it was following a stream along the valley floor, the landscape around them was picturesque. He had no idea how to account for the despondency of his mood.

They had looked at their options and had decided to take the road. It was the long way, but it was faster than following meandering tracks. Trivantana had assessed that they would catch up with the Keeper in under a week, baring the unforeseeable.

“He’s travelling with that girl, you know?” Saralian continued. “I cannot understand why, for she will slow him right down. We are likely to reach the Keeper before he is even half way there.”

“Did the Mentate not say that you should forget about him,” Trivantana finally said. “That he was of no consequence. Why do you persist in flaunting orders? It will be your undoing one of these days.”

Saralian made a snort of disgust.

“Do you really think that the Mentate cares so much for blind obedience? He cares only for results. Do you think he will strip me of rank or have me punished if we bring back the Balance and a Guardian’s head?”

He barked with harsh laughter.

“You are such a fool, Trivantana!”

“Whereas you just like killing for the sake of it!” Trivantana snapped back. “I know you, I have seen your heart and it is blackest night. You would have liked to have killed that child last night had it not been in your interest to let her go…”

Saralian shrugged without turning.

“My heart might be black, but yours is fetid, festering like an open wound. I know what you would have liked to have done to her, and the death that I dispense would have been merciful in comparison to that. You are a vile creature, but the Mentate has uses for men such as yourself. Just remember to remain useful.”

They rode on in silence, both men seething in their passions.

“Very well,” Metacarn said. “I will tell you. His name was Alagrael. But I can tell you very little about him because only legends and myths have survived from the time when he walked this earth. All I can tell you is what I have heard. Alagrael lived in a terrible time when all the people everywhere were ruled by a single man. A man who commanded all the Kings and Queens of the world.”

“What was his name?” she asked

“No one knows his true name, but they all knew him as the Overking. All the rulers were frightened of him, for he had won his title by doing terrible things and no one had the courage or indeed the power to oppose him. Until Alagrael.”

“What did Alagrael do?”

Metacarn took a moment from his story to stir his soup and taste it. He pulled a face and added some ingredients to the pot.

“Every year a High Council gathered to discuss what should be done to keep the Overking appeased. All the rulers met in a grove surrounded by a great circle of warriors who prevented admission to commoners. Alagrael chose just such an event to appear in the midst of all the gathered Kings and Queens. None knew how he had managed to encroach on such an exclusive event. They cried out, and called the guards. Warriors rallied before their cries. But none of the warriors could touch him, for as soon as they tried Alagrael would vanish.”

Elfrel clapped her hands.

“He invisibled himself!”

Metacarn gave her a knowing nod.

“Eventually they had no recourse but to listen to what Alagrael had to say.”

He paused then to taste the soup while Elfrel pleaded for him to continue. He feigned complete absorption in his task as he carefully ladled soup into two wooden bowls. Afterwards he parted a chunk of bread in two and gave a piece to the girl.

“Eat,” he said.

As soon as she complied he resumed the tale.

“’The time has come to overthrow the Overking,’ Alagrael said, and this created such an uproar that Alagrael could not speak. He waited until it abated, and abate it did, for even though the words he had spoken had terrified the rulers of the world, they also addressed what each had secretly dreamed of: to be rid of the Overking and to become once again free.”

Metacarn spooned soup into his mouth. Elfrel who had been listening with wide eyes and open mouth now blinked several times.

“What happened then?”

“Hmm, what happens now is that I am eating my dinner and then we will have an early night, because tomorrow we will have an early start and, if someone deserves it, she may hear the story continued when we stop for dinner.”

“Oh!” Elfrel lamented, but then smiled and continued eating her supper.

The girl was already asleep next to the spluttering fire when Metacarn sat on his bedding, crossed his legs, braced his head in his hands and slipped into the Vast.

Once there, he sent out a signal.

It was a subtle wave of awareness that he hoped would go unnoticed by the Others, but even if it was noticed, they would not be able to uncover its meaning.

Then he simply waited.

As time had little meaning in the Deep, he was not sure if the answer came quickly or slowly. Responses as subtle as his own began to wash in, some from relatively near, others from incredibly far. He waited until the tally of connections felt right, then he shaped the wave into words.

We need assistance.

What manner of assistance?

Two Others are closing on a Keeper. They must be stopped.

What is your position?

I am closing in as well, but they may reach him first.

You said we, now you say I.

I have a companion, she is not a Guardian.

Leave her.

I cannot.

You must.

I will not and yet still I require aid.

There was a long silence, which in the Deep was not at all tedious. Then…

Very well. Two of us.

Who?

The two names came in separately as each Guardian identified himself.

Peleiadan.
Sauctrun.

How long?

The intercepts will occur at different times.
The earliest in three days. A third intercept will also be attempted on the Keeper himself.

Having accomplished what he had set out to do, Metacarn remained in the Vast for a time, drawing power from the swirling expanse of empty possibilities. It was nourishment he sorely needed. Amazingly he was still recovering from the Shift he had made with Elfrel.

Next, he turned his attention on the Others. This time he was unafraid. He knew they had committed a breach by summoning a Swarm. They would not be permitted to do so again �" the Mentate would not allow it. Not because of any misguided humanitarian sentimentality, Metacarn was certain that the Mentate suffered from no such misgivings. It would simply be enforced because it was against natural law in the manifest world and it could come back to undermine the Mentate’s vision and the intent of his order. That was all.

He found them. They had chosen the road, a longer journey but swifter travel. Each had horses. They were sleeping. Metacarn wondered if they would also be seeking assistance.

He supposed that they would.

And with that, he left the Vast.

Elfrel was asleep, the flames a dance of shadow and light upon her peaceful face. Metacarn watched her for a while, then he too slipped inside his bedding and closed his eyes.

“How did you become a Guardian?”

It was the afternoon of the second day since leaving Brime. They had emerged from the woods in the morning and were now skirting the edge of a sheer drop. The west was wide open to their scrutiny, but as unattainable as if it existed only in their imagination.

They had just passed a third rivulet that leaped over the side to shatter against a spur that followed the ridge’s contour, far below.

Metacarn was looking for a way down, but nothing worthy of consideration had revealed itself yet.

“My father was one. I did not know it, of course. He had kept that to himself, until the day he did not return home. I waited for three days. Then a man arrived, he asked me my name and told me that father was dead. He told me to pack what I wanted and to come with him.”

Even as Metacarn retold the story, the memories surfaced. The fear and sadness and the grand mystery of it all.

“What happened to your pa?”

“Never was told exactly, but I pieced it together later, as I learned what being a Guardian entailed. He had probably been set upon by the Others, and lost.”

“What about yer ma?”

Metacarn sighed.

“Your, not ‘yer’,” he corrected. Then, when she did not respond, he continued.

“I never knew my mother. She died when I was born.”

“Did the others kill her too?”

“No, I did.”

Elfrel spun around in the saddle so quickly that he hastened to reassure her.

“Something went wrong with the birth. It happens sometimes. They managed to save me, but not her. My father said that she’d lost too much blood for anyone to do anything.”

Elfrel was quiet for a long while.

“Why is giving birth so hard?” she asked eventually.

“I have asked myself the same question many times.”

“I’ve seen lots of animals being born,” she continued in a despondent tone, “and they don’t scream an’ carry on like women do.”

He remained silent.

“I don’t want ter give birth,” she said in the end. “Not ever.”

“Then make sure that you do not.”

Ahead he saw a place where the ground afforded them a relatively easy descent.

They had set up camp underneath the second tree in a row of four enormous figs. The tree’s roots were large and sinuous, coiling about the ground like tentacles.

Metacarn had lain down in the fold where two massive branches forked away from the trunk. Elfrel had placed her bedding on the ground between two of the giant roots. When she lay down she simply vanished from sight.

They had already eaten and the sky beyond the canopy was beginning to yield to the night. The cacophony of a thousand large birds who had alighted in the trees made conversing almost impossible. Yet with the onset of darkness even the birds gradually yielded to silence, night’s favourite companion.

After a time, there was only one cry left that endured long after all the others had ceased. A lingering mournful call followed by silence, repeated over and over.

“Can you tell me some more about the first Guardian?” she asked during one of the silences. Metacarn waited for the call to sound again before answering.

“Very well, then. I shall.”

He waited for a span.

“Where did I finish the story yesterday?”

“When Alagrael was talking to all them kings and queens,” she reminded him.

“Ah, yes. So Alagrael informed the gathered rulers that he had forged an army that would free the people from the tyranny of the Overking, and who would afterwards continue to protect them from any who sought to control them through fear. When the rulers demanded that this army submit to them, he refused. The Overking �" he said - had come into existence precisely because all powers had become subservient to him. So, the Guardians would be subservient to no ruler, to no single power. Any who had cause to, could summon them, whether they were strong or weak, rich or poor, noble or common.”

The world beyond the trees had been swallowed by the dark. The light of their small fire seemed like the only bubble of light left in the world.

“The rulers were not pleased by what they heard, but they were in no position to argue. None of them had the power to defeat the Overking alone. None of them could access the Deep. Perhaps they thought to corrupt Alagrael with power and position after he had rid the world of the Overking. But if that was the case, they miscalculated. The Overking was not so easy to overthrow. The war that ensued lasted a long time, and though the Overking was eventually vanquished, by the time that happened, only the descendants of the original rulers still lived.”

“What happened to Alagrael?”

“No one knows for certain. I have heard different stories. In one the first Guardian vanished when the Overking was defeated. Some claimed they saw him die in the final battle while others alleged that he had retreated to a lonely forest to live the rest of his days away from the trappings of power. A few even believe that he lives to this day. Others that he now exists only in the Deep, awaiting another crisis in order to return and save the people of the world once more. And there are those who say that he lives only in stories and legends, to inspire men to be more like him.”

Elfrel was so quiet that Metacarn thought she must have fallen asleep. He should have known better.

“What of the Mentors then? How did they come to be.”

“I do not know,” he said. “All I know is that the Mentors have a very different story of the vanquishing of the Overking. They say it was not Alagrael who did so, but a being they call the Mentate.”

“The Mentate?”

“That is a question for tomorrow, little one.”

He was rewarded with a small, disgruntled complaint that was followed by silence.

He was dozing when her voice reached into his torpor.

“Metacarn?”

“Yes?” he sighed.

“Thank you for telling me this story.”

“You are welcome.”

Elfrel dreamt, and knew that she was dreaming.

In her dream she saw a magnificent figure sitting proudly upon a white stallion overlooking the valley where she and Metacarn had stopped to set up camp. She pointed to it, and the Guardian looked, but then shook his head. He could see nothing.

Suddenly, a light blazed from the other end of the valley. Elfrel turned towards it, but it was too bright. It faded slowly, but the blaze had burnt an after image in her eyes and she was blinded for a short while. When she was able to see again the grassy slope at that end of the valley had turned black. A thunder of hooves hammered the earth until the ground trembled beneath her. An avalanche of riders swept down towards them, drawing swords that ignited with fire as the blades were freed from their scabbards.

Elfrel screamed to the Guardian beside her, but even as she turned toward him she saw that he was not Metacarn. He had a younger face. Two horizontal scars gouged the left side of his face. Elfrel turned away, looking for Metacarn, instead she saw a stately man on a white horse launching himself against the black tide.

“Metacarn, Metacarn,” she called out, wanting to alert the Guardian to what was happening. “Metacarn!”

“I am here,” answered his voice and a hand shook her awake.

She opened her eyes to his smile.

“You were dreaming,” he reassured her. “You were calling me in your dream.”

She truly wanted to hold onto him, to feel the comfort of touch, but she did not. Could not.

“They was coming down the mountain in their hundreds. They was wanting to kill us all. Then there was a man on a white horse…” she stammered, for suddenly she could no longer remember any more of the dream.

“All is well, Elfrel,” Metacarn said. “Nothing has happened. It was a dream. Maybe a bad one, eh? But nevertheless, just a dream.”

He stroked her head and then withdrew.

“Go back to sleep.”

Elfrel closed her eyes.

The magnificent man on the white horse was looking directly at her, his eyes blazing with love.

She felt his love in her heart.

The morning was wet.

A fine rain was falling, too dense to be mist, yet too fine to behave like proper rain. It fell in slow waves, that felt like delicate caresses against the skin.

Trivantana was readying his mount and did not know where Saralian was. Nor did he care. If he was here he would probably sense that something was amiss and would begin his usual relentless probing.

Trivantana did not have the stomach for it, not this morning.

The dream had left him gasping for air. He knew that it did not bode well. Not for him, not for Saralian, nor for the Mentors.

In the dream he had seen that girl again. She had sat on a great horse and her eyes had blazed like suns. And as she looked at him, Trivantana had felt himself disappear, as though he was of no consequence.

A nothing.

He did not know what it meant, but he nevertheless felt that it was a true dream.

He felt tears beginning to well at the memory.

He tightened the saddle straps angrily.

“Breathe out, damn you!” he said, slapping the horse’s flank, causing it to react with a stomp and swish of his tail.

“No use taking it out on him,” Saralian spoke softly, materializing out of the drizzle.

Trivantana did not look at him, focussed on adjusting the straps.

“Any developments?” he asked.

Strangely Saralian did not prod him for the cause of his mood.

“Yes,” the other replied. “The Mentate is converging other Mentors towards the Keeper. I believe that this is building up to be quite a confrontation, the biggest in some time.”

When Trivantana failed to respond he continued.

“It seems that the Guardians are determined to do everything in their power to make this Quickening happen. Of course, the Mentate will not suffer it.”

“What will happen if they succeed?”

Saralian paused for a moment, musing.

“I am not sure. I suppose we will lose some traction over future events. Maybe it could be our end. Only it will not be. We shall prevail, just you wait and see.”

It had rained all morning and the girl was trembling. Among his supplies he had an oiled blanket large enough to cover them both, but while it kept them relatively dry, it did little to dispel the cold. He needed to build a fire.

Metacarn had spotted the large old hemlock tree some distance away and as they drew up to it he saw that the ground near the trunk was dry, a cosy spot to light a fire and get some food into them. The hemlock’s trunk was split in three, creating a small nook that was however far too small to be of any use.

He dismounted, inspected the site and verified that it was indeed as dry as he had hoped.

Within minutes they were both huddled around a spluttering fire that billowed smoke towards the dark grey sky. There was no helping it, most of the fuel he had found nearby was drenched.

The meal consisted of salted fish and dry bread and they consumed it in silence.

Metacarn was listening to the woods, to the trickle and drip of water that accentuated the preternatural silence that shrouded them.

Suddenly he felt a fiery sensation course down his spine. He leaned back against the tree and slid into the Deep.

Three things became immediately apparent. The first informed him of a Guardian’s imminent arrival from the north. The second was that two Others approached at speed from the east, their paths bound to intersect with the Guardian’s. The third was his realisation that the Mentors would reach the Guardian before him.

He had to do something and quickly. He sped a warning bolt of energy at the Guardian to alert him, then severed his connection to the Deep and ran for the horse.

“Elfrel, put that fire out. Grab some bushes, crawl into that cleft and hide yourself. Keep quiet and still and wait for my return.”

Then he was mounted and speeding north as fast as the terrain allowed.

Elfrel did not say a word. She did exactly as Metacarn had instructed. She scattered the fire, stomping and kicking at it until it was spent. She gathered wet leaves and sticks and proceeded to spread them over the burnt patch of ground.

Her heart in her throat, Elfrel pulled some shrubs from the surrounding undergrowth, crawled into the nook between the trunks and pulled the foliage over herself. She knew she had done a good job, because she could hardly see anything from inside her hidey place. If she could not see, then anyone standing outside would certainly not be able to see her.

She listened and waited.

Metacarn flew.

Pushing the horse as fast as he dared, he tore through the wet woodland towards the Guardian, resorting to the Sight to adjust his bearing. The Guardian had picked up speed, which indicated that he had become aware of his predicament.

The Masters were closing in like vultures.

As Metacarn’s chestnut crested a ridge he got his first visual of the situation. The Guardian’s speed up the slope was reckless, but was not enough to outdistance the Mentors.

He saw them through the downpour coming in from the east, one moving towards a point ahead of the fleeing Guardian, the other making for a point much farther ahead, in case the first one failed.

Metacarn spurred his horse into a full canter and visualised his blade’s sigil. He raised his hand just as the weapon materialised and snatched it out of the air.

The dazzling light that flowered over the fleeing Guardian informed him that the man was doing the same. The Mentors did not use sigils to this purpose, instead they summoned their weapons through chants. Even now their song summoned smoke above each Mentor, quickly coalescing into two dark scimitars. The weapons’ curve a cruel promise of suffering.

The first Mentor and the Guardian locked weapons as their mounts slammed sideways into each other, the rebound causing both animals to fall. Both riders leapt clear of the horses and pirouetted towards each other with deadly precision.

The second rider decided to double back and aid his companion instead of intercepting Metacarn. He understood all too well the man’s reasoning. If they succeeded in dispatching one Guardian together, then the odds that they might prevail over the second were dramatically improved. And Metacarn could not press any more speed out of his horse, he knew that the poor creature was approaching his limits.

Eyes fixed on the unfolding drama ahead, Metacarn noticed the change in the pulse of time.

The men’s movements slowed to a point where they appeared more like a rehearsal than actual combat. Even the downpour had slowed until individual droplets became visible, cascading languidly onto the world.

Twenty more heartbeats, and he would be upon them.

But the Guardian under attack did not wait the twenty heartbeats.

His luminous blade slid past his opponent’s, struck the hand guard causing the Mentor to recoil and then swung in a graceful arc to pierce the Mentor’s heart.

The Guardian then drew back his blade to meet the second attacker’s onslaught.

Yet before he could complete the turn, his head was parted from his trunk.

The Guardian’s head summersaulted slowly through the air and a spurt of bright blood fountained after it.

Before it hit the ground Metacarn’s weapon almost cleaved the surviving Mentor in two.

Three riderless horses fled the immediate vicinity stopping some distance away to graze in the gently falling rain.

Elfrel waited just as Metacarn had told her to.

She disliked waiting nor did she like not knowing what was happening. The temptation to follow the Guardian was great, but she did not yield to it. To begin with she did not know where he had gone and secondly, she did not dare use the Sight.

She waited.

A little time later she smelled smoke.

The smell became stronger, so she parted her bushes a little to see what was happening.

A tendril of smoke was rising from the ground and wafting towards her. She must have missed an ember in her haste and it was gradually rekindling back to life.

Elfrel stepped from her refuge to extinguish it. She was stomping it out when she heard a sound behind her.

She whirled around but she saw nothing.

A moment later she heard a voice.

Metacarn? Back already and looking for her?

Then a second voice answered the first and Elfrel scrambled for her hideout.

The two voices drew closer and Elfrel froze.

“Are you certain?” asked Trivantana.

“Yes,” Saralian replied. “Of course, I am. I do not speak just to amuse you, you know?”

“I do not see how…” he started, but his companion had brought a finger to his lips.

Saralian opened his Sight and saw immediately where the girl was hiding.

“We should stop here for a little while,” he announced and dismounted.

He tied his horse to a fallen log.

Trivantana followed suit.

“Look at this,” Saralian said. “A hemlock tree. Did you know that they are the perfect shelter in a storm?”

“Really?” asked Trivantana without enthusiasm. He was wet, hungry and tired and he was still in the company of the most unpleasant Mentor that he knew. He could not even be bothered to feign enthusiasm.

“Yes, hemlock trees are quite unique.”

Saralian reached for a frond and drew it towards him.

“Look, all the needles point downwards and away from the trunk so that the rain flows down and out. Very little reaches the base. There is no better shelter if you get caught in a storm.”

As he talked he slowly reached for the bushes that grew around the base of the trunk.

Trunks, he realised, as he noticed the way the hemlock split in three.

And then, with a swift movement, he yanked the shrubbery aside.

Metacarn was inspecting the dead Mentors, but they did not carry anything of significance on them. He had not really expected them to and would have been greatly surprised if they had. Still, it was what needed to be done. There had been some notable exceptions to this rule down the centuries.

He made his way to the slain Guardian and pulled the sigil from what remained of the man’s neck.

He studied it.

It was Pleiadan.

He sighed, and opened his Sight to search for Sauctrun, the second Guardian who had been dispatched to assist him.

Some assistance.

He did not expect the man to be anywhere nearby, but as he made a first sweep he saw three imprints where there should have been only one.

To Metacarn it felt as though his entire body had suddenly turned to granite.

There were two Others with Elfrel. He recognised her imprint clearly enough, he was familiar with her energy. The Mentors were the very same that had intercepted her in Brime.

For the time being, Elfrel was unharmed. But if the Mentors thought that she was important to him, that could soon change.

Then something terrible happened.

Elfrel’s imprint winked out and was gone from sight.

He could no longer see her.

Metacarn’s vision darkened and for a moment the entire world reeled around him.

Then with a roar of grief and fury and pure hatred, he leapt on his horse.

They have killed my Elfrel.

They had killed her, just like that. And now they had better kill him also or what he would do to them would undo him as a man, destroy him as a Guardian.

They have killed her!

It was all he could think, over and over, as he rode back to her.

To where he had abandoned her.

To where she had died.

Saralian stared speechless at the empty space where the girl should have been.

To where she had been only a few moments earlier.

He looked beyond the tree, even though he could not see how she could have possibly gone through the tangle that barred the way there.

Nothing.

She was gone.

Saralian snarled.

Trivantana spoke but Saralian ignored him and resorted to the Sight. It had been the Sight that had told him where the girl was, and the Sight was infallible.

Again, there was nothing there. He did a quick sweep of the vicinity. She had vanished.

“The Mentate had said to forget about them,” Trivantana reminded him.

Saralian closed his eyes and resisted the impulse to run the imbecile through there and then.

As she listened to the approaching Mentors, Elfrel felt a cold sweat beading on her brow. She did not want to face them. She dreaded their presence and their touch. Even their voices drove a knife of fear into her belly.

They had found her! She knew as much even though the tall one avoided talking about her. He was getting closer; his talking was just a decoy to disguise that he was drawing ever near.

What would Metacarn do?

Elfrel closed her eyes and opened her Sight.

She saw the Mentor reach towards her. No more time to think.

Elfrel pressed her eyes shut even tighter.

No! she thought and willed herself away.

Willed herself gone. Vanished.

She felt a sensation then, as if a wind had sprung up from nowhere and had breathed right through her. There was a sudden darkening, a contracting, as though she had fallen into a deep underground cave, and then an explosion, a sense of rapid expansion followed by a deep stillness, an immeasurable silence.

Elfrel opened her eyes.

She had no idea where she was.

The shrubs, the hemlock tree, the Mentors and the woodland were gone, as was the sky and the earth and everything else familiar. Instead what she saw was an intricate web of interwoven gossamer threads. They were as fine as spiderwebs and shimmered with constantly shifting iridescent hues.

Elfrel reached for the nearest, and that was how she discovered that she had no hand. The awareness disturbed her until she reasoned that just because she did not see it did not mean that it was gone.

She continued extending her invisible hand and was rewarded with a deep strumming sound. Reassured that she had actually felt the strand, and that it had responded to her touch, she tried some of the others.

Each strand produced a different tone, some pleasant, others discordant.

Delighted by this, she proceeded to play with them, gravitating towards those she liked and avoiding the ones that jarred.

She ignored the voice that questioned what she was doing, and the other voice that still demanded to know where on earth she was.

After a while she noticed that she could strum the strands with her eyes closed, and then she saw that she could play more than two at the same time.

That gave her pause.

Maybe she was not using her hands after all.

She gathered more strands, but as she plucked and strummed at them, the complexity of sounds she produced made it difficult to keep in harmony. She then began to release some strands until the sounds hummed sweetly and harmony was restored.

It was so beautiful that she felt tears form in her eyes and trickle down her face.

Somewhere that was not here, she still had eyes, still had a face.

She stopped strumming and the melody gradually wafted into a tranquil silence.

In that silence, she remembered.

Metacarn.

Saralian stared at the empty space where the hemlock tree trunks cleft in three.

“Impossible!” he roared in fury.

What was it with this girl? Who was she? How was it possible that he could be thwarted by a slip of a child. She put him in a murderous rage.

“Where did she go?” Trivantana asked.

Or maybe, he thought, I could butcher this idiot first…

But then Saralian sighed.

It would not do. Killing his companion would assuage nothing, it would just create more problems. And he really did not need more problems.

“I have no idea,” he retorted sharply. “I saw her with my own Sight just before I parted the bushes and then … this. Nothing”

“Do you think it is possible…” Trivantana hesitated.

“Do I think what is possible?” snapped Saralian turning to glare at the other.

Trivantana shrugged.

“Maybe the girl has some abilities? Powers?”

“And there it is,” countered the Mentor pushing Trivantana out of the way, as he made for his horse. “Do you know what the Mentate would do to you for even saying what you just said? If you decide to pursue heresy your life will be short indeed.”

I will make sure of it, he thought.

Another shrug.

“I’m not saying she has, I am just asking, that is all.”

But his voice was feeble, having just realised his mistake.

“Well, what if the Guardian did something to her…?” he continued tentatively.

“Like what? Spirit her away?” Saralian said as he vaulted onto the saddle. “The Guardian does not have that kind of power. Come on, we have a Keeper to catch.”

Trivantana hurried to his own horse and by the time he was mounted, the other was already riding away.

Metacarn was riding hard when he heard the music.

He did not slow immediately, but it certainly got his attention even though it wafted in and out, as though it was coming from some distance, and the breeze was trying to steal some of the notes.

Curiosity won, he pulled on the reins and strained to listen.

Once more, he resorted to using the Sight.

He noticed that the two Mentors were moving away, but that did not really interest him. What completely captivated him was a shimmering in the air where they had just been, where Elfrel had been.

Suddenly alert and galvanised with hope, the Guardian spurred his horse forward again.

As soon as he reached the hemlock tree, he re-engaged the Sight and now saw that Elfrel was precisely where he had left her.

He jumped to the ground and walked towards her, inexplicably riven by anger.

When he reached her, he saw that her chin was raised to the sky and only the whites of her eyes were showing. Her hands were moving, her fingers seemed to be plucking at something only she could see.

She was elsewhere, and wherever that was, it was also the source of the haunting music.

Metacarn sat down opposite her and watched.

His anger dissolved, washed away by the melody.

He recognised where his fury had stemmed from. He no longer harboured any doubts about his willingness or indeed his ability to kill. He had already killed, and now he knew beyond doubt that if something important enough was threatened, he would not hesitate.

Then, consumed by the living mystery in front of him, he stopped focussing on himself.

He was looking directly at Elfrel when, some time later, the girl opened her eyes.

The first thing she saw was Metacarn. He was staring at her, and his expression was both heavy and wistful.

“What happened?” he asked after what felt like an eternity where they both simply stared at each other.

“I went … somewhere.”

His only reaction was to blink.

“Do you know where you went?”

Everything seemed so slow. Elfrel did not feel like talking. She could still hear the music’s echo, that subtle tapestry of sounds, and still saw all the intricate and beautiful threads. She wanted to close her eyes and be back there, though she also longed to take Metacarn with her, so she could show him.

She nodded.

“I went In Between.”

Metacarn nodded.

“In between what?”

“Not what. In Between where and when. In Between the Deep and the Vast.”

The Guardian frowned. All that he ever knew and believed in, was unravelling.

Metacarn sat watching over the girl.

Elfrel had fallen asleep. It was still raining, the earlier drizzle having now settled into a steady downpour. Outside the perimeter of the tree, the world was drenched.

He watched for an age, as if by doing so he might be able to uncover her secrets. For he no longer had any doubt that her presence in his life was deeply meaningful. But that meaning continued to elude him, for it seemed entirely beyond his ken.

Her breathing was even, slow and deep. But there was no real rest for her, even in sleep. Her fingers twitched and her eyes darted this way and that beneath closed lids.

With a sigh he stabilised his body and then proceeded to slip into the Deep. Once there he sought the other Guardian, the one named Sauctrun.

Upon finding him, he spoke without preamble.

I have a situation.

Explain.

Guardian Peladian is dead. The two Mentors who slayed him are also dead. But two others are now converging on the Keeper.

He hesitated. What could he say about Elfrel and what she had done �" what she could do?

I am with the girl.

Then trying to pre-empt the other’s reaction he added.

I no longer have any doubt concerning her importance.

You were instructed to leave her.

Metacarn ignored the reminder.

Her powers are greater than ours, greater than the Mentors’. But she is also vulnerable.

A long silence, then

You must be mistaken about the girl.

I am here. You are not. You have not seen what I have seen, you cannot speak of what you do not know.

This is a matter for the Council.

And until then?

The Keeper is our priority.

Metacarn left the Deep. He could not get through to the other Guardian. He was wasting his energy even trying. He looked at Elfrel.

She was still sleeping, and he did not know what to do.

Elfrel knew that her body was asleep. She also knew that she was no longer with Metacarn and was back where she wanted to be, in the In Between.

She did not know why, but the pull to return had been irresistible �" as strong as the pull to breathe was, back in the world of lies. She knew that she was still connected to her body, for she could feel it �" and yet, simultaneously she felt strangely free of her body, as though she was no longer restricted by its limitations.

It was different, this time. She was not surprised even by this. This was not the kind of place that she could imagine would ever become predictable.

For a start, she knew that it was not even a place as such, that was something that could only be limited to the Vast. Yet it was also unlike the Deep, where the experience was one of going so far within that eventually everything came within reach. This was both, and neither.

Elfrel felt like a swallow, soaring through the air. There was nothing but air and wind and currents, and she flew where she wanted, free, now sweeping upwards on giant thermals, now plummeting like a stone. Everything was within reach, there was nowhere she could not go, and every choice she made rippled with effects and consequences, cascaded with infinite outcomes and it was all within her … no, not control, it was more like an allowing … it all fell within her allowing. Elfrel experienced possibilities that she could never put into words, nor even attempt to explain �" not even to herself.

In the end, it was not tiredness or boredom that gave her pause �" for those things could never exist here �" it was a memory. For she had come here with purposeful intent this time.

She had come to aid the Guardian. This man who had allowed her to accompany him on his journey despite the weight of his mission and numerous misgivings.

She wanted to give him something and had come to believe that she had found something.

Here, in the In Between.

Sauctrun was right, the Keeper was their priority. He had to try to catch up to the Others and stop them before they reached him. Yet he could not leave without Elfrel.

Neither could he let her sleep here by herself, so he approached and shook her shoulder gently.

“Elfrel, we must go.”

She did not stir.

He tried again, a little more forcefully.

Still no response.

He stood up and looked around, as if an answer might unexpectedly present itself in the world around him.

When he looked back down at her he did so just in time to see Elfrel’s body shimmer with light and then vanish.

He cursed loudly and knelt to touch the spot where she had been only moments before.

Nothing.

He used the Sight.

Nothing.

She had done it again. She was gone.

Elfrel expanded as she flew.

Being formless, she could shift herself at will. It was not even a physical sensation; it was more like a response to a thought or intention.

The insubstantial took on substance and form. Her intent created possibilities that were impossible in the world of her body.

Where awareness had previously seemed subservient to substance, the opposite was now true. Where her awareness went, substance followed, like a stone that had no choice but to fall back to the ground.

Setting her exhilaration aside she remembered to focus and willed herself to find what she had come here for. She also remembered that she needed her body if she wanted to be seen, so she ordered it to come, and it came.

As she materialised before the lone traveller, Elfrel realised that she had not considered the effect that her sudden appearance would have.

The woman had been traipsing through the rain, head bent against the elements, studying the ground for the next placement of her feet, when she became aware of Elfrel. She looked up and with a cry of dismay, stepped back and fell as though she had been physically pushed.

“I’m so sorry!” Elfrel cried out rushing to her side. “I didn’t means to scare you, honest I didn’t!”

Elfrel saw the woman’s expression shift from surprise to curious wonder. She was not exactly old, but neither was she young. Her face was lined and the skin of her neck was starting to wrinkle and sag a little. Her eyes were aquamarine and kind.

Elfrel smiled and reached towards her with one hand, asking the question that she was burning to know the answer to, for she had not anticipated a woman.

“Keeper?”

Now that Elfrel had vanished again, Metacarn could no longer linger. He had to find the Keeper, and once he made this decision everything became simple.

He left some food and a skin of water in a bag and hung this from the hemlock tree for Elfrel to find, if she ever returned.

He then used the Sight and verified the Keeper’s position.

He found him quickly enough but was also shocked to see how many others were converging upon him, all of them closer than he was. He did not stop to identify or count them, that was not important. What mattered was that he played his role to the best of his ability.

The outcome was likely already out of his hands, anyway.

Soon he was riding towards the Keeper with as much speed as he could muster.

Caliandra had not expected to be intercepted so soon. She knew that both Guardians and Mentors were after her, but what was this? A child?

Nevertheless, a question had been asked, and she must reply.

“Yes, I am she who bears the Balance.”

“They thinks you’re a man.”

The woman laughed.

“Aye, that does not surprise me, though it will surprise them. But what of you, child? What have you to do with all of this?”

Elfrel hesitated. She had been aware of the question. She had not really thought about it, that was not her way.

“I’m Elfrel,” she said, looking at her feet. “I’m not sure what I am, but I don’t has a name like ye, I’m no Keeper or Guardian, I’m just…”

But she was unable to complete what she had started to say, for she felt the power of the In Between writhe right through her. She stared at the Keeper, her eyes wide with surprise, her mind overwhelmed by a knowing that a part of her believed had to be wrong, that could not possibly be right or true or…

“I’m the Change that’s coming,” she said in a gush of words and in a voice that did not even sound like hers to herself.

“I am the Change that is coming,” she repeated, unable to stop her mouth from uttering the words. And this time there was more certainty than the first.

“I am the Change that has been foretold,” she stated a third and final time and Elfrel gaped at the Keeper, horrified by what she had just spoken.

Caliandra, the Keeper, blanched and felt the girl’s answer pierce her like the iron tip of an arrow. When she had uttered those words, the girl’s eyes had flashed with immense knowing and uncontainable wisdom. But as soon as the words were uttered, she looked once more like a child.

The woman and the girl stood in the rain, water drenching their hair and running like torrents of tears down their faces. Lightning flashed overhead, and the peal of thunder that followed a heartbeat later seemed to rend the world in two.

Caliandra mustered her resolve and her courage. She reached out for the Change and placed both hands on the girl’s shoulders.

“Then the Mentors must not be permitted to find you.”

She said this more for her own benefit than for the girl’s, for now the Keeper perceived her own task in a new light.

Elfrel shook her head.

“I don’t think they knows what I am…” she said, reverting to her customary way of speaking.

“How long have you known?” Caliandra asked.

“Since just now. Since yer … since your question.”

The Keeper nodded. Things were happening faster than she knew how to account for. This was a time for unprecedented happenings.

“Are you alone?”

“I’m alone now, but I’m also with Metacarn. He’s a Guardian.”

“Can you take me to him, now?”

Elfrel beamed with excitement, but a moment later she frowned.

“I hope so. I will try.”

“Hurry,” Caliandra urged. “I can feel several others closing in on us.”

Elfrel nodded and took the Keeper’s hands in her own.

Saralian was livid.

That pustule of a child was doing it again. She was ahead of them, and with the Keeper!

Was she going to be everywhere they went, meddling with their affairs? Interfering and undermining all their work?

“Hurry!” he yelled at Trivantana. “They are just ahead, if we are quick we will be the first to reach them. Once I touch the Keeper and draw the Balance out of him, you can have what’s left. Hellfire, you can have them both!”

“Both?” asked the other Mentor. “Are they both here?”

“Just … look for yourself! Now hurry, all speed!”

Saralian leaned forward in the saddle and cantered towards the crest of the next hill.

Behind him, Trivantana followed suit.

Using the Sight, he also saw the two forms, just up ahead.

How was this possible? How was she doing this?

The girl kept slipping between their fingers like quicksilver.

But Saralian’s words had reached him and found their mark. The thought of getting his hands on both the Keeper and the child was purely delectable.

Burning with anticipation he spurred his horse even faster.

Elfrel held the Keeper’s hands and slid into the In Between.

The Change, she thought. I am the Change. What did that even mean?

Then the time for thoughts was past as she stepped into a world of fire.

Flames soared all around her in a furious conflagration. She breathed the fire into her lungs and breathed it out stronger, fiercer, renewed. Like a dragon of an ancient tale, she opened her wings and drew her body with her. And with her body, the Keeper’s.

She felt the woman’s terror at being engulfed by flames and then the startled surprise that she remained unharmed.

Elfrel surrendered to the flames and soared through the inferno like a fire-wraith, a mythical salamander, the ancient elemental of the burning element that sought to transform whatever it touched. Unstoppable, she grew and sped, pursuing her destination with relentless power.

When they reached the place of emergence, Elfrel willed herself released from the flames, and she and Caliandra slipped out of the In Between.

Metacarn’s horse would die if the Guardian continued to push it so.

He had to slow down. If the horse’s death would have served a purpose, he might have condoned it, but this was pointless. The distance was too great. He knew he could never make it to the Keeper before any of the others did, be they Guardians or Mentors.

The only thing that gave him pause was that maybe a battle would ensue, and if nothing else he might take part in that, and maybe his arrival would boost the Guardians and maybe they would prevail.

Maybe … so many maybes.

His entire mission had gone awry in so many ways, he could not even begin to count them.

And what of Elfrel?

He almost turned and used the Sight to see if she had returned to the hemlock tree, but then decided against that as well. In a little while, if his horse did not die under him, he was likely to need all his resources for a confrontation. There was no point in squandering them now just to satisfy his curiosity. For even if the girl had made it back to their camp, there was precious little he could do about it until after this was over, until the Keeper had been either reached or lost.

In that very moment, just ahead, a blackness opened in the air perhaps ten spans in front of him.

This is it, he had time to think, the end.

He had no reason to think otherwise when fire erupted from the rent in the air, spewing flames with a downward force that crisped and blackened a great circle of grass and set several shrubs alight.

His horse reared with the last of its energy, and then collapsed sideways. Metacarn had the instinctive presence to leap from the saddle and rolled a few times before he found his feet.

As he stood he summoned his weapon’s sigil, but then failed to catch the sword and it fell harmlessly to the ground. He gaped, scarcely able to believe his senses. It was Elfrel who stood in the middle of the charred ground, holding an unknown woman by the hand.

“No!”

Saralian could not believe his eyes.

“No, no, no, no, NO!”

Trivantana did not have to ask what was wrong, it was obvious. The Keeper and the girl were not where they were supposed to be. Not wanting to attract any more of his companion’s ire, he resisted the temptation to ask where they were. Instead he opened the Sight and looked for himself.

He found them way back, the way they had come, only now instead of two there were three of them.

How had they got there? There was no answer to that.

Who was the third?

He pushed the Sight.

They had found the Guardian.

This last fact took a few moments to sink in.

They had found the Guardian.

The Keeper was with a Guardian.

Suddenly Saralian’s lamenting made perfect sense.

Saralian had sat down on the wet ground, in the rain, his body toppling over as he went into the Deep.

Trivantana thought he might do the same, but then checked himself. Better that he keep watch and scan the surroundings for others, Mentors or Guardians.

He found plenty of both, although all of them seemed just as baffled as they were.

Trivantana turned back to the elusive trio but now he could no longer find them at all.

Elfrel took a deep breath of cold air. While the fire had not harmed her it was delightful to breathe this damp air once more and feel rain on her face.

A glance towards the Keeper revealed that Caliandra was also relieved.

The Guardian looked at her, his jaw slack with shock. His gaze was that of a man who had just witnessed the impossible.

His unclaimed weapon lay on the ground next to him. Even as Elfrel looked at it, it shimmered and vanished.

She took a step towards the Guardian.

“Come. We have to go,” she said.

He did not seem to hear her. His eyes were fixated on Caliandra.

“Is this…”

“It’s the Keeper, yes, but now we must go. You two can talk when we get to where we’re going.”

“Which is … where?” he managed to say, his eyes fixed on Caliandra.

“Far from here,” Elfrel responded, exasperation creeping into her voice. “Come on! Please, Metacarn. Let’s go…”

Elfrel crossed the remaining distance.

She took a moment to marvel at her certainty.

She was feeling so different, completely transformed. Confident. She welcomed it, for it felt as natural as breathing, but at the same time it was also utterly baffling. How was it that she had not felt like this before? What had caused this change? And yet, now that she felt it, this confidence felt like it had always been there, always just within reach.

Elfrel extended her hand towards Metacarn, and he reached for it automatically.

The moment their fingers touched, she opened the In Between, and dragged them both into its unfathomable dimensions.

As Elfrel took his hand, Metacarn sucked in a sudden breath as he was seized by a sense of incomprehensible speed.

He fell into a deep black well awash with stars, small dazzling beacons made even brighter by the deepest night that surrounded them. He had no clue where Elfrel was bearing them, all he knew was that the void was immense. Despite their speed, nothing else appeared to be moving until a gigantic dark sphere appeared directly ahead.

They descended towards it at an astonishing velocity and for a moment he felt that they were doomed to smash into it. Instead, they passed so close to the sphere’s rim that Metacarn saw the strange jagged ridges of mind-defying cliffs, swirling cloud-like vapours, and oceans of amethyst and sulphur hues.

A blue sun dawned on the horizon, lancing cold light that deflected from the oceans in a spectrum of impossible colours. Their direction gradually changed and they curved around the great sphere, gathering speed only to break loose on the far side and be plunged once again into the enfolding vastness of night, plummeting towards an unmoving and unreachable cluster of stars.

Metacarn felt eviscerated.

Surely, he was dying. Surely these were the visions of a man whose entrails had spilled onto the earth and who was just waiting for the compassionate hand of death to descend and close his eyes.

This could not be real.

But in the next moment they fell into a black tunnel that swallowed the heavens. In this place devoid of stars, their speed gradually lessened until they came to rest on firm black sand.

Here a new sound.

At first Metacarn did not recognise it.

Upon its third repetition he identified it.

The sound of a wave crashing and hissing as it broke up along the length of a smooth, long beach. The pungent smells were of salt and seaweed.

Metacarn allowed himself a small weakness, he dropped to his knees, leaned over on the sand, and vomited.

“You look older,” he said to Elfrel.

She nodded and beamed at him.

“I feel so too.”

He shook his head. She even sounded different.

“Who are you?” he whispered.

She did not answer immediately. Not because of hesitation �" there was no hesitation left in her �" but because she wanted him to really hear her answer.

“I am the Change.”

He did not say anything for a long time, though his lips moved wordlessly. Tears spilled down his weathered face.

“I felt it in you, you know?” he finally articulated. “I really felt it.”

Elfrel looked at him with eyes so clear that a new wave of emotion threatened to overwhelm him.

I am getting too old for this.

“Now you two have to do something, yes?” Elfrel asked, looking between him and the Keeper. “You’ve got something for him, haven’t you?”

Caliandra nodded.

She extended a hand towards the Guardian.

“Take it,” she said.

But now it was Metacarn’s turn to hesitate.

He shook his head.

“What will happen to you? When I touch you?”

Caliandra stared into his eyes, her own expression cold.

“Just do it. You have to take it!”

The Guardian looked at the Keeper’s proffered hand.

It was his purpose and his mission. He had been chasing it for so long and now it was being offered to him, willingly. The Keeper was not fleeing, this was not like some horrid hunt.

And the Keeper was a woman.

Why had no one ever told him that?

“Is the Keeper always a woman?” he demanded instead.

Caliandra frowned.

“What does it matter? Just take it, damn you. Do it before something else changes.”

“It matters to me,” he responded. “I need to know if I was lied to. I must know.”

“Yes,” Caliandra nodded. “It is always a woman. Only women bear the balance.”

They had lied. Why had they lied?

Elfrel touched the Keeper’s arm.

“How do you know that?”

“I was raised with a Keeper’s knowledge.”

“Then you don’t know, you only think you know.”

The Keeper frowned.

“Of course, I know!” she snapped, outraged. “It is the Keeper’s Lore!”

Elfrel shook her head in turn.

“Metacarn, you tell her.”

He obliged.

“Only men can travel the Deep and the Vast.”

“So?” asked Caliandra.

“So, I’m not a man,” Elfrel offered.

Caliandra’s gaze moved from one to the other.

“What does that mean? Of course…” she stopped short. “Oh, do you mean that you can…”

Elfrel nodded.

“Yes, I can. I can do both.”

Caliandra closed her eyes.

“I am so tired. I have been through much. I do not wish to continue anymore.”

And as she said those words she spun towards Metacarn and clasped the Guardian’s hand.

Metacarn froze.

He heard Elfrel gasp, but nothing else happened.

Time seemed to stop, but that was just an illusion created by their unfulfilled expectations.

Nothing changed.

Nothing?

Caliandra had clearly expected something to happen, as had he; yet nothing had followed from their contact. Nothing had left the Keeper, and nothing had entered him.

Caliandra who had been staring at their clasped hands, finally raised her gaze to meet his eyes. She seemed completely lost. Bereft. After a few moments she let go of his hand, turned away and walked towards the ocean, her shoulders heaving with silent sobs.

Elfrel went after her and placed her arm around her.

Metacarn felt empty. The nothing seemed to have entered him and claimed his inner world as its domain. He could not even think.

He empathised with the Keeper’s distress. Had everything they had been told been a lie? Or was it all part of the Change? The Change that Elfrel was, that the girl was heralding?

He looked at her now as she comforted the older woman.

She did look different. She looked older. Still a young girl, but no longer an eight-year-old. Her demeanour had completely transformed. She held herself differently and exuded a confidence that neither he nor the Keeper any longer possessed. Had she harvested what they had lost? Had she somehow grown from their loss?

Metacarn felt shamed by the thought, because it was laced with jealousy. He looked beyond them both, to the black pool of the ocean ceaselessly lapping against the shore.

Unbidden, the words of his teacher arose inside him.

Surrender is the most important thing to master because it marks the difference between a life of peace and one of turmoil, between tranquillity and torment. It is a simple thing, and it is the hardest thing. Because you cannot think it, you must become it.

Metacarn closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

Caliandra was facing an unexpected ending.

She thought she was going to meet it with the Guardian’s touch, but when that had not happened she realised that it was not her destiny to end so.

The ending she faced as she turned away from the Guardian was much worse, it was the end of a purpose whilst she yet lived.

When the girl touched her, she felt a shiver course right through her, far more than she had experienced from the Guardian’s touch. Being comforted by a child, even one that heralded the Change, was the sweetest of things. It loosened all her pent-up grief and her fears. Her tears flooded from her eyes and fell upon the sand to merge with the ocean.

The significance of this was not lost upon her.

When she was spent she steadied herself and turned to the girl.

“Thank you.”

The girl, Elfrel, the Change, smiled back.

Caliandra took a deep breath.

“So, what do we do now?”

She had expected an answer from the girl, so was taken aback when the Guardian spoke.

“We continue on our journey. You go back to Keeping the Balance, I will be the Guardian of the Change, and she…” he paused to smile at Elfrel, “…well, she can just continue to unfold.”

Caliandra was about to protest. She could never go back, could not continue as she had all this time. She did not have it in her. But something unspoken, within the Guardian’s words gave her pause and she re-evaluated what he had said, perceiving it in a different light.

Did it really matter that the rules had changed? Did it matter that she no longer even knew what the rules were exactly? Sure, she could go on Keeping the Balance, after all, that was her training. It had been all that she had known, until now.

So she nodded.

“Yes, I can do that.”

Even though the path forward is not laid out as clearly as I had been led to believe.

Metacarn grinned and turned to Elfrel.

“You realise that you will need to guide us, do you not?”

For just a moment the hesitant eight-year-old was back. But then, just as quickly as it had come, the fear receded from her eyes. They rolled up into her head as the Change left them to look for a way forward.

So, this girl is more powerful than the sum of you.

The Mentate’s summary was brutal but accurate.

She has single-handedly transported the Keeper away from under your noses and taken him to the Guardian. And there was nothing that either of you could do to prevent this?

Saralian knew it was a rhetorical question, but he could not ignore it.

No, Lord. She Shifted, and for a small while we were able to see the three of them together, but then…

But then, the Mentate interrupted, you would have me believe that all three vanished so completely that you were unable to locate them anywhere. How convenient! Maybe I should endeavour to take this girl in my employment and be rid of the two of you.

Now this was the kind of question that demanded silence. For one could never contradict the Mentate, and yet to agree with him would be to agree with their ‘dismissal’. Of course, it was not really so much a question as an overt threat, for the only dismissal possible for a Mentor was death.

This is disturbing news, a female Keeper and a girl who can Shift and enter the Fold? These things are without precedent. And yet I wonder what is really happening, for the Quickening has not yet occurred. Do you not think it odd? This means that despite your incredible ineptitude, all is not yet lost. Remember, this is the only reason that you two still live. In my magnanimous generosity I grant you a final opportunity to redeem yourselves. Find these three, capture the girl and bring her to me, and I will reward you. Fail me and you had best take your own lives for if you return empty handed before me again…

The Mentate had no need to elaborate.

What of the Guardian and the Keeper? asked Saralian.

The Mentate peered into him as though he was searching for his soul.

Kill them. Take the Balance from the Keeper if you can, but if she no longer has it �" as I am beginning to suspect �" then just be rid of her. Be rid of them both, and I care not by what means, just do it. In this you shall have aid. I am sending other Mentors with you. Use them well, there will be no other chance.

Saralian smiled for the first time since being summoned to this audience.

That was better: free reign. They could go for another Swarm or a Blooder, heavens, they could even resort to a Dreadfal. No limitations, just the way he liked it.

Elfrel slipped into the In Between effortlessly, eager to experience what new turns it had in store for her, and to discover who or what she truly was.

This time moving through the fold was like navigating peaks and troughs of emotional hues. She plunged at first into a turquoise melancholy twilight and from here into an exuberant indigo awareness that morphed and changed and pulsed with every movement she made. She rippled there for a small eternity and then was plunged into a cauldron of scarlet and vermilion with shocking dips of pewter and jet. Darkness enfolded her for an eon. When she was once more ready for the light she erupted into it with sun bursts of gold and blinding white.

Time? Inconsequential.

All that mattered were the eruptions of passion and the expansions of awareness. These spoke to her in pulses of light and warmth and frigid lances of ice and heady, thoughtless comprehension.

When she emerged, she knew.

But she also knew to keep what she had discovered to herself.

Metacarn gawked at Elfrel, but she just returned his gaze evenly.

“I cannot allow it,” he said as calmly as he could, but the tremor in his voice betrayed him.

Elfrel smiled and cocked her head.

“You cannot allow it?” she repeated.

“No.”

Her emphasis on the word ‘allow’ was not lost on him. She had every right to question his authority. Seniority did not come into this. She had proved herself to him often enough that he knew full well that he should defer to her in every way, but he just could not do this. He simply could not forget that she was a child and he an old fool who should be protecting her, not the other way around.

He knew all this, and still he could not bear to acquiesce to her will.

“How will you stop me, Metacarn?” she asked, and he knew he was stumped.

“Oh, I know that I cannot. But I will not allow you to act on this without letting you know that I categorically forbid it!”

Caliandra watched their exchange with undisguised amusement.

“There you are, Guardian, you have forbidden it. Now she can go right ahead and do as she damn well pleases.”

Elfrel took his hand in hers.

“It’s not that I don’t want your counsel. It’s more that I really don’t need it. You can’t advise me in this because you can’t see what’s needed, but I can, and this is what I need to do.”

She was right, of course.

Gods, she even sounded different. She was the Change, but it was all changing too fast for his liking.

Trivantana had not fared well during the encounter with the Mentate. His greatest challenge had been to avoid the thoughts what he would normally have upon hearing something that he knew to be incorrect and wrong. But the Mentate could never be wrong, and to perceive error in him was paramount to suicide.

He had twisted himself completely out of shape trying to steer his thoughts into less dangerous directions. And now he trembled with exhaustion.

“Did you hear that he is giving us aid?” asked Saralian.

Trivantana nodded.

“Did he say how many?”

“No, he did not. But the number of Sigils that are opening up in this very moment suggest a significant number indeed.”

Puzzled, Trivantana accessed the Sight. They numbered in the hundreds!

“The Mentate was serious when he said that he wanted that girl,” Saralian said. “And he has tasked this to us, not to anyone else. Certainly, he is providing aid, but he has promised a reward if we succeed. This is a great honour.”

“And oblivion if we fail.” Trivantana pointed out.

“Yes,” Saralian agreed. “Failure is not an option. Now, where are they? Let’s merge with the others and do a thorough sweep. I want this accomplished by sundown.”

Elfrel left The Guardian and the Keeper on the shore and slid into the In Between to find herself in a dazzling dimension of light. Light was everywhere. Even with eyes closed there was only an infinity of lights. All were incandescent, and yet they were different as well. Their hues varied, as well as their size and frequency.

Elfrel too was a being of light as she travelled towards a nameless destination. As always seemed to be the case, her volition was not required. Thought or intent did not come into what she did, for they were only shortcomings that could mislead her and send her reeling towards catastrophe.

She erupted into the world of form.

Night shrouded the forest, but even as she reached out with her senses, several entities reached for her, seeking to intercept and capture her.

Mentors.

Elfrel eluded them, but there were so many. She knew it was only a matter of time before an intercept would connect, and so decided to make it happen herself rather than become a victim to it.

The first Mentor had barely time to turn before the Change touched him, and he ceased being a Mentor. Three others fell to the same fate in rapid succession.

Elfrel danced between them like a forest falcon. Though she was small, and they were large, her agility was phenomenal, and in comparison their reactions were languid.

She did not stop even when she knew that they had begun to work in unison against her. She wove through them like lightning, bringing light and terrible transformation to all she touched. The Mentors’ web grew in complexity as they joined the task in ever-increasing numbers. Soon now, she would be caught.

And finally, it happened.

The Mentors caught her and held her like a fly in their web. And even as she was caught Elfrel felt one coming for her, just like a big black spider.

She quivered a few times and then lay still.

“Do not go near her,” Saralian cautioned. “Whatever you do, do not let her touch you. We have already lost too many.”

They would hold her until they could take her to the Mentate, and then they would collect their prize. Or rather, he would collect his prize, for he had no intention of sharing it with Trivantana.

Saralian could hardly credit that he had captured her. For a moment there she had seemed invincible and uncontainable. Still, it took the efforts and focus of hundreds of Mentors to hold her captive.

One thing still plagued him, though. Who was she? He had been asking this question from the moment she had fled with the Keeper, and eluded his attempts at capture.

Still, she was his now. And it seemed that despite her considerable powers she was not immune from pride and arrogance. Why else would she have tried to face so many Mentors at once. It had been a colossal error of judgement on her part, or a case of blind over-confidence in her own abilities.

No matter. She was his now.

“We have caught her.”

Trivantana’s gleeful announcement irked him, but he curbed his reaction.

“That we have.”

“Shall we take her to the Mentate?”

Saralian stifled a smile.

“Hmm, too risky. We cannot hope to contain her by ourselves. We will hold her here and let the Mentate know that we have her. Perhaps he will see fit to come to us, this once.”

It was a dangerous plan. One that he would not allow himself to entertain fully. As usual he needed to curb all conscious thought, anything that might betray his deepest ambitions and �" more to the point �" his awareness that these were finally beginning to materialise.

The Mentate did not have anything against rampant ambition, as long as it did not directly threaten him. In truth, he did much more than tolerate it, he thoroughly endorsed it. It was the ambition of the Mentors, his acolytes, that drove them to do things that they might otherwise rebel against. The more ambitious they were, the better he could control them. But their longings had to be contained within certain parameters, and these were laid out by him alone.

Saralian did not care so much what Trivantana knew, and had it not been for the Mentate he might have divulged or bragged about his plans to his companions. But as things stood, revealing himself to anyone now would have been fatal for two primary reasons. The first was that whatever Trivantana knew, the Mentate could just as easily also know. He would pluck it from Trivantana’s feeble mind with shocking ease. The second was that once a thought made it into words, it was no longer possible to mask its existence.

Therefore, Saralian spoke to his fellow Mentor with the same care as if he was talking to the Mentate himself.

When had she stopped thinking like a child?

Elfrel felt the sphere of her understanding expand.

She was aware of the gathering of Mentors and was not even slightly daunted by their number. For around each she now recognised the taint that had shaped each into what they had become. The wounds that covered their pristine core had grown like cankers to shape daunting and impenetrable walls of separation that were strengthened by their beliefs, prejudices and judgements. In a word, they were enslaved by fear.

Terrifying and abject fear.

These walls were as thick and as complex as the masks that they generated for themselves.

She saw clearly how a single instance of damage had compounded into an intricate cascade of self-deceit and lies, and that these had rippled out into the surrounding world to generate an endless chain of catastrophic consequences.

Unbidden, she remembered the love she had felt in her dream of Alagrael, the first Guardian. She was feeling it again now, arising within her in response to the damaged ones who were even now closing on her.

One was denser than all the others. This one was so bent upon concealment that even she could not penetrate past his barriers to glimpse at the source that lay dreaming at his core. There was something familiar about him, something that �" she knew �" would become immediately apparent when she lay eyes on him. For some reason, however, he did not wish to be seen.

Then another presence revealed itself. This one was not only denser, but also consuming �" as though it wanted to devour everything it could in order to grow and expand.

So, you are the one who has impeded my Mentors.

Elfrel did not respond. But she felt his energy prodding her like a tentacle, testing her boundaries, her defences. Questing for chinks, flaws and any other vulnerabilities.

Elfrel opened herself up and the energy went right through her.

She knew this had startled him, for he had not anticipated it.

My, you are so young, he said at last. What are you doing here, all alone? Are you not frightened?

It was a prod of a different sort, the kind designed to elicit a reaction.

Elfrel remained silent.

I am still unsure of how to deal with you, he continued. I mean, your feats are very impressive! If what I have been told is true you can access both the Deep and the Vast, and yet you are female, a mere slip of a girl. How can this be, I have asked myself repeatedly? You can Shift, and you can even access the Fold, the space In Between spaces where all things meet. And now you have even managed to undo quite a few of my Mentors? How could you possibly do that?

Silence. She could feel his impatience inching incrementally towards intolerance whenever she met his questions with silence.

Someone has trained you, have they not? How else can you �" this phenomenon that you have become �" be explained otherwise. Surely you did not form spontaneously, in isolation, without being seeded. No, there is an intelligence, a will, that is lurking somewhere behind you, that has taught you all that you know.

Puppet, move aside. I wish to speak with the puppet master?

Every question of his was barbed, intended to hook into her energy, to elicit a reaction. The hallmark of a master manipulator.

Even if she had wanted to, Elfrel could not have responded because not even one of the questions he had asked was true. So she merely watched as his patience was eroded and his judgement clouded, for this was not a man accustomed to being ignored.

Are you ignoring me, girl?

This time his tone was menacing.

There it was, the first honest words he had spoken, delivered from a place of mounting outrage.

“Your true meanings are hidden,” she said finally. “Your words are all masks, they don’t touch on the true. Your intent is harmful.”

She felt his presence draw closer, as though he could not help being goaded by her response. She felt his desire to strike her and cause her physical pain. This was because he sensed that he could not harm her with his weapons of words.

Then he laughed.

You remind me of someone I knew a long, long time ago. He spoke much like you do, another silver-tongue. I had fun with him, I wonder if you will turn out to be as much fun.

He did not wait for her response, probably already knew that one was not forthcoming.

Let me tell you how this will go. You have something that I want, and I have the power to grant any wish you may have �" no, let me amend that �" not just one, but any number of wishes. If you bend a knee to me, then the whole world will be yours. But if you oppose me, that will not go so well for you, the whole world will be taken away from you.

Elfrel felt his presence draw even closer.

What say you?

The Mentate watched the girl for a time before accosting her.

It was a troubling sight. Her body was small for she was merely a child, but the energy that enveloped her was impossibly large. It expanded in all directions for at least a score of spans, the biggest sphere of potential that he had ever seen in anyone.

He studied her carefully as he spoke, looking for weakness, and it riled him to find none. Nothing he said seemed to touch her, and it was only when he started to get angry that she responded at all.

The Mentors were holding her, so he was not concerned. What concerned him was his own desire to attack her, to hurt and destroy her. His hunger for her energy, that did concern him, for if there was one thing he knew beyond any doubt, it was that he should not touch her, or allow her to touch him. The powers that sustained him informed him of this danger in no uncertain terms. And he trusted those powers, they had borne him into what he had become, the great Mentate of the World, the champion of the Stasis. The one who shielded humankind from self-destructive hungers and aspirations, from the very tendencies that would ensure human downfall and self-destruction.

Humans were like children. They required safety and nourishment and he provided them with both. He was their saviour, the custodian of the future, and a paragon of stability.

Without him all things would cease to exist.

But he was not exempt from desires himself.

And what he wanted above all else right now was to possess this thing in front of him. The child form did not deceive him for a single moment, for he recognised his own counterpart, a power to be reckoned with, a force that could destroy as easily as it could create.

This power was vast. The same power that he had long ago perceived emanating from Alagrael, the first Guardian. The same exhilarating and feverish excitement were rekindled in him now, before this child. Her appearance of vulnerable weakness made her even more tantalising because they juxtaposed the truth of what she really was. It was nothing but a delicious lie.

She was his perfect match.

In fact, right now she was even stronger than he.

And he stood so close to her now that he was within her sphere, intoxicated by her formidable emanations.

Were it not for the containment provided by the Mentors, he could not have come this close without dire consequences.

Trivantana saw how engrossed Saralian was in the exchange between the Mentate and the girl. He was so utterly fixated that he did not avert his eyes once, not even for an instant.

It was a spectacle. The girl, suspended in the Mentors’ stasis could not even move a hair, yet she retained an equanimity that seemed absurd in someone so young. In one so trapped.

Trivantana also found it hard to steal his attention away from the Mentate. The man’s approach was like that of a raptor preparing to feast on much smaller prey, and yet there was trepidation and great caution in this approach, as though he was risking much the closer he got.

Something about Saralian demanded his attention. Eventually he could no longer resist, and with reluctance wrenched his focus away from the Mentate.

What was Saralian doing?

There was so much palpable tension in the Mentor that Trivantana tried to divine his intent. Nothing. It was almost as though his companion’s mind was no longer there, and yet…
Trivantana was certain that something was stirring in those murky depths, something that did not want to be seen, something that slipped like an eel through Trivantana’s clumsy prying thoughts.

And then he saw.

And his heart stopped.

As Saralian struck, his intent became suddenly lucid.

It was not an external action, but an inward one. Saralian withdrew his contribution from the arrayed Mentors, and a pivotal cord that had been holding the girl in stasis, snapped.

The Mentate must also have seen it, but too late.

The girl reached out with one hand, and her finger touched the Mentate in the centre of his chest.

This gesture was accompanied by a shocking keening sound.

Like a tear in the consciousness of creation.

A scream.

A howl of imploration.

Of utter terror.

Of bones turning to ash.

Of blood turning to glass before exploding into a million shards.

And through it all Trivantana alone saw the evil smile that split Saralian’s face in two.

The sudden weakening of the Mentors’ control felt to Elfrel like the opportunity that she had been awaiting. The Mentate had come closer than she had expected, so it was effortless to reach out and touch him.

But the consequences of her touch struck her like a blow to the heart.

All the Mentors she had touched had folded back into their true selves. They had ceased being Mentors but had also reclaimed their natural essence. For each it had been as though they had just awoken from a long sleep. Elfrel had anticipated a similar �" though perhaps a far deeper �" outcome for their leader, the Mentate.

What she perceived now horrified her.

As the Mentate collapsed and fell back towards the earth, riven by her touch, she balked from her accomplishment. What had she done?

On impulse she reached down towards him and tried to undo the terrible suffering that she had caused. In vain.

And suddenly she felt like an eight-year-old again, utterly frightened, out of her depth, and unable to undo the damaged she had caused.

What have I done?

And then she saw.

By touching the Mentors, she had undone something terrible that had been done to them. But when she touched the Mentate, she had undone something else. For no one had imposed anything upon him. Everything that he had done, every terrible deed of the Mentate had been chosen by him, deliberately! When she touched him, the Change had moved through him, making him aware �" conscious �" of all the ramifications of horror that he was responsible for. All reasons and excuses and justifications had stripped away, all that was left was the horror of what he had imposed on countless others.

And this was more than his soul could bear. It had folded screaming unto itself, and had collapsed before this knowing.

She had not known. How could she know? She was a child. She was also the Change, and still did not know what she really was. She had felt that only good would flow from her, but now she awoke to so much more.

Beneath her she saw a host of Mentors moving towards the fallen Mentate, and felt relieved. At least some of his own were coming to his aid, to heal him.

But she soon saw that this was not so.

The Mentors were gathering not to assist, but to devour what remained of the Mentate, to gather every fragment of him for themselves. Like vultures or hyenas, they tore at his remaining energy and he could do nothing to defend himself.

It was more than she could bear.

Elfrel hurled herself at them like a terrifying avenging Angel of Change.

Trivantana reeled.

His world had just come falling down around him for, in his own way, he had loved the Mentate. His very existence had depended upon him, on the terrible bond that had kept him subservient.

He was the only one who had seen what Saralian had done.

And in that moment, he had finally understood all of the other’s machinations.

Saralian wanted to become the next Mentate. Now there was nothing to stop him.

Trivantana also knew that his own existence was suddenly hanging by a very tenuous thread. He had no illusions regarding Saralian’s disposition towards him, that the other had tolerated him simply because to do otherwise would not have served his interests and designs.

Trivantana’s days were numbered.

Maybe even his hours were numbered.

There was only one thing he could now do to survive.

It was something that only yesterday would have felt worse than death.

The Change fell upon the feeding Mentors, touching each as it passed, dispensing terrible awakening and liberation from their former bondage.

As each awakened, they pulled back in aversion from the feeding frenzy and stumbled away disoriented.

The surviving Mentors continued to hurl themselves at Elfrel but, though they tried, they were now unable to re-engage the stasis that had, until recently, held her captive. They gradually became aware of the sheer number of their casualties, and began to avoid the place where their former Mentate languished and where the Demon of Change continued to engage in her slaying frenzy.

When a wide circle formed around her the Demon lowered herself beside the former Mentate and cradled his head. Hot tears fell from her eyes onto his face, and in time it was said that it was those tears that prevented the Mentate’s demise, that it was her tears that healed his blackened heart and withered soul.

In the midst of all this, one Mentor separated himself from the throng and approached the Demon. She saw him, but also read his intent.

The Mentor stopped before her, his head lowered.

“Take me,” he said.

Elfrel nodded and touched his hand.

When the Angel of Change touched his hand, Trivantana fell to his knees.

He had sought this, knowing full well what it would cost him. All the unholy desires and urges that had ruled his mind and heart for his entire life were now exorcised and expelled by the Change. This felt like both dying and being born, like being disassembled and then reassembled in an entirely new way. All the decay was scoured from his being, all his thoughts were stripped bare, made raw, and cleansed.

There was so much pain with it. Ironically the kind of pain that the old Trivantana would have relished in dispensing as well as receiving. No more. The pain that coursed through his being was like being burnt alive, screaming as skin fell from flesh and his brain cooked. There was no joy in this, no pleasure, no addiction. But when it finally ended �" and end it did �" Trivantana no longer knew himself.

He looked at his destroyer-liberator and all he could do was smile.

Saralian rallied the Mentors to him and they came, in droves. A part of him wanted to unleash their combined power against the Demon of Change, and yet he recognised the folly in that course of action. If he lost, all would be lost with him. He had accomplished his coup. He was Mentate now, and those Mentors who had responded to his call acknowledged him as such.

No, first he had to consolidate his position, for not everyone had rallied to his call. It would simply not do for him to inherit a divided kingdom, so the first thing he needed was to instigate the annihilation of those who had shunned him. Once all the Mentors were united under his banner, and all the others were gone, then he could turn his attention to other matters.

He had wanted his second victim to be that inept fool, Trivantana, only he could not find the Mentor anywhere. Had he fled? That would be of no surprise. Or had he become one of the Demon’s many victims? Too bad if he had. Mentate Saralian did not have time to waste searching for him, he had much more meaningful things to attend to.

He called the Mentors and gave them his first two orders. The first was to steer well clear of the Demon, the second was to begin the hunt that would rid their ranks of all dissenters, without exception.

Metacarn experienced a terrible anxiety as he watched Elfrel’s confrontation with the Mentors from within the realm of the Deep. At every step he expected the girl to flounder, to be overwhelmed and slain by the forces that opposed her. It was even worse when the Mentate closed in on her. And yet flounder she did not. She decimated the ranks of the Mentors as though they were inconsequential, achieving something that all the Guardians combined could not have achieved.

Metacarn could scarcely believe what happened when she touched the Mentate. Singlehandedly she had won a secret battle that had been ravaging humanity since time immemorial.

Then, having accomplished all this, she had vanished from sight once more and had gone beyond reach, most likely traversing the deeper Folds of reality.

When she emerged she was not alone.

There were two with her, one carrying the other. The one doing the carrying was none other than one of the Mentors who had questioned her back in Brime. Alarmed, Metacarn had started forward, but then realised that the man was no longer what he had been. That the Change had set him free.

The other, the one being carried, was none other than the Mentate himself. And again, The Guardian had to look twice. No, it was no longer the Mentate, but someone who had lost all identity. One with no name and no role, an empty vessel, barely human, incapable of speech and perhaps of cognition as well.

And then there was Elfrel.

She had changed again, and was no longer the girl that he remembered. She was a young woman now, and the expression on her face was that of one who had seen more than she would have wished for.

The Elfrel that walked towards Metacarn as the Angel of Change looked to be around sixteen. Her childish innocence had been scoured away with fire and there was no naiveté in her gaze as her glance met his.

Yet in the next moment she smiled, and his fears evaporated. For in that smile he saw that she had not been truly damaged, but merely transformed.

He almost laughed at his stupidity. How could the Change sustain damage?

“Metacarn,” she acknowledged him. Even her voice had changed, it was deeper and more resonant. He found himself bowing slightly.

“I see that you have brought the Mentate back with you. And a Mentor as well?”

“Neither is what they were,” she said, confirming what he already knew as the smile faded from her eyes.

“The Mentate almost perished after I touched him. I did not anticipate that. I really thought that he would be restored, just like all the others. And Trivantana here … well, you can see for yourself that he poses no danger.”

Metacarn glanced at the two men, nodded and then turned back to Elfrel.

“Is it over?”

And just like that, her smile was back.

“It will never be over.”

Metacarn’s face paled.

“Never?”

Elfrel walked up to the Guardian, took his hands in hers, and looked into his eyes.

“The pendulum has swung,” she said. “For now, it’s still moving towards us, so the vantage is ours, but sooner or later it must turn and swing the other way. There is a new Mentate. He is the seed of the trouble to come, just as Alagrael was the seed of the peace that flowered after his time. The Pendulum serves the Balance, and the Balance determines which way the Pendulum must swing. Ask her, she knows.”

Elfrel nodded towards the Keeper. Metacarn glanced at her, but Caliandra did not look like she was ready to answer any questions.

“But never end?” he asked instead.

Elfrel laughed, then lowered her head and kissed the back of his hand.

That startled him.

“It will end when nothing new is born, and nothing old dies. When day ceases to squabble with night. When mirrors will no longer reflect, and the great turning wheel of the stars will stop.”

“Another way of saying never?”

“No,” she laughed. “It will end when the word ‘when’ loses all meaning.”

“Elfrel, you talk in riddles!”

“Riddles are closer to truth than reason.”

Metacarn took a step back and peered at her through narrowed eyes.

“Your speech is changing as well; your use of words is … different, now.”

Elfrel considered what he said, but found no response, so said nothing at all.

Metacarn shook his head, but more in wonder than in confusion.

A moment later the Change stood and embraced them all with her energy.

“We must go back now, we have work to do.”

Trivantana followed Elfrel like a puppy.

He felt light and happy like a puppy, too.

Or like a child, open and ready for whatever she asked of him. He loved her, and that was enough. He loved that she had touched him, and he loved the terrible pain that had seared the decay around his heart and in his soul.

He had placed the body of the Mentate on the ground when his arms started aching, but at Elfrel’s signal he picked him up again.

Trivantana no longer remembered who the Mentate was or why he was carrying him, but it did not matter. The fact that she wanted him to do so was more than enough reason.

The Angel wanted them all close together for the journey so that she could maintain physical contact with each, and that was what happened now.

As soon as the contact was established, the world of sand and sea was gone, replaced by something so unfamiliar it was shocking.

Trivantana found himself falling. He looked down and saw far below him a structure shaped like one of the ancient temples. It was carved entirely from crystal. He realised with a gasp that he was inside a crystal, one of enormous proportions and that he was not falling through air, but through clear crystalline substance.

Here the light from a thousand suns formed dazzling rainbows. He fell through adamantine layers and magnificent inclusions.

Trivantana became completely absorbed in his experience, for it seemed to him that different facets of the crystal were talking to him, teaching him, retraining him into someone worth becoming. Meaning and purpose were everywhere in the crystal flows and the strangest thing was, all that truth and beauty was not avoiding him, but flowing straight into him, into his eyes, ears, mouth and brain, and then right through him.

He was overflowing with it and so lost in it that he cried out in fear when it was all abruptly taken away.

Trivantana dropped the last few feet onto a meadow outside a strange town.

The Angel of Change took the lead without hesitation.

“This is where it begins,” she announced, her eyes shimmering with visions that he was certain only she could see.

Each time she moved through the In Between everything changed.

Elfrel saw that now.

She changed, the world changed and everything �" absolutely everything changed and shifted, and her understanding broadened, and her knowing deepened.

She understood now that she was not the one who had transformed the Mentors. Nor was she the one who heralded the new.

Certainly, the Change was in her, yet she was not the Change.

Not this casing of flesh, nor this mind that thought and reasoned, not even the baggage of random habits that she had believed herself to be.

There was a simple yet great liberation in this awareness.

It went further, into the awareness that there was something deeper than all these things. Something elusive and ineffable, yet simultaneously primary and fundamental.

Everything depended upon it, for it was the one thing that did not change, even in the In Between. In fact, it grew and expanded when she went there. It became stronger. It even seemed to take on more substance when she was there, In Between.

She saw now that the In Between did not exist as a place, it was more of a non-place where everything was possible, yet also where nothing was set. Everything existed there, but as latent potential. Nothing was actual. Nothing actual existed as such.

Elfrel placed her hand over her belly, just beneath her ribcage, over the portal that accessed the In Between, and felt the cauldron of potential that pulsed there.

She would have tried to explain it to Metacarn, for if anyone deserved to know, it was he. But it was pointless.

He had to reach it by himself, he had to see it with his own eyes, feel it with his own hands, and experience that cauldron within himself. It could never come from another, it could only arise from within, from stepping into the In Between. Elfrel was certain that Metacarn would reach the same place eventually.

Yet even that certainty was of no real consequence.

Metacarn did not know it yet, but the Balance was available to him now.

The next time he touched the Keeper �" and Elfrel hoped it would be soon �" it would leap into him from her. Then Caliandra’s destiny would be fulfilled, and the Guardian would journey across the lands, restoring as he went. She knew he would derive great joy from that.

“This is where what begins?” he asked.

Elfrel pointed to the town.

“The great healing.”

“Is that what you are planning next?”

Elfrel shook her head.

“I am not required,” she said, and smiled to counter the heaviness in his expression.

“What does that mean? Where are you going?”

She did not answer him but turned to Trivantana instead.

“I want you to promise that you will tend to him,” she said, gesturing towards the Mentate.

“I will do whatever you ask, but what…”

Elfrel raised a finger to her lips and he fell obediently silent.

She faced Caliandra.

“Keeper, the Balance is still within you.”

The Keeper raised her gaze, and the Change noticed that hope had rekindled there.

“Elfrel, where are you going?” Metacarn repeated, a tremor in his voice and fear in his eyes.

She smiled a little sadly then, knowing full well that it would be hardest for him, especially at first.

She would withdraw for a time, to her true home where she would take time to just be. Where the healing powers of the earth would nourish her through her bare feet. Where the purity of the air would caress her lungs, and the beauty of the earth would enter through her eyes.

For she was, and was not, the Change.

For she was with, and without, form.

For she was young, and she was old.

For she had seen what no one could see, and yet still lived.

Her home was the great In Between where nothing could distract, where no one was wrong or could ever be right. Where the impossible lay alongside the possible, and no conflict could ever take wing. Where she could be both the Angel and the Demon of Change.

She turned to Metacarn and her eyes shone like suns.

“I go where no one else can,” she said.

And vanished.

My Review

Would you like to review this Story?
Login | Register

Stats

47 Views
Added on January 15, 2019
Last Updated on January 15, 2019
Tags: mysticism, paranormal, Fantasy

Author

Claudio Silvano

Perth, WA, Australia

About

Claudio Silvano is a Triestino, meaning that he was born in the Free Territory of Trieste before the city was handed over to Italy after WW2. He has worked as a film extra, a taxi driver, an interpre.. more..

In Between

Metacarn is a Guardian, accustomed to deadly danger. But someone new stumbles in his way. Fighting Mentors is one thing, but dealing with a frightfully talented eight-year-old girl is quite another.

© 2019 Claudio Silvano

My Review

Stats

Author

Claudio Silvano

Perth, WA, Australia

About