

Birthright

The Technomage Archive, Book One

B.J. KEETON
Copyright © 2013 B.J. Keeton

This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

Ebook Edition, Text Updated December 2013

All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the authors, except where permitted by law.

Cover Design by Falon Yates
Books by B.J. Keeton

Steampunk Novels:

Nimbus: A Steampunk Novel

 Stratus: A Steampunk Novel

The Technomage Archive Trilogy:

 Birthright (The Technomage Archive, Book One)

 Lineage (The Technomage Archive, Book Two)

 Legacy (The Technomage Archive, Book Three)

If you would like to find out about new releases by B.J. Keeton, please sign up for his mailing list at http://bit.ly/bjkemail

Your email will never be shared or sold, and you can unsubscribe whenever you want. You will never get more than two emails a month.

For my Daddyo –

He never said one bad word, even though I wrote thousands of them.
Prologue

The cut didn't bleed, but it hurt.

Ceril pulled away from the loose soil he had been digging in and looked down at his hand. His eyes welled up with tears when he looked at his hand. He could see straight to the bone.

That was never a good sign. The lack of blood was probably worse, though.

"Gramps?" he yelled. "Gramps!"

From across the garden his grandfather yelled, "Huh? Whatcha got?"

"I think I found something," Ceril said.

"Oh yeah? Like what?" Gramps said. He stood up, patting his hands together to clean the dirt off as he walked across the garden.

"I don't know," Ceril said, "but it cut my hand." He reached into the dirt and pulled again, this time with his other hand. He fell back and yelped in pain. No blood came from the second wound, either. "Twice. But I'm not bleeding. Is that bad?"

"Not necessarily," his grandfather said. The old man rushed to Ceril's side and knelt down.

"Why would you reach in again, Ceril? It already cut you once."

"I thought you'd want to see what it was," the boy said, "so I was going to try to pull it out. It didn't move much, though."

"Lesson learned?"

Ceril nodded. "Lesson learned."

"Now let me see those hands," Gramps said.

Ceril held them out, palms up, so Gramps was able to see just how deep the cuts were. Whatever was in the ground had sliced clear across his palms. From what he could see, the edges were cleanly cut, and not torn. Whatever had done it was incredibly sharp. "Those are mighty deep, Ceril. How do they feel?"

He looked at Gramps and wanted to cry, but he wasn't a kid anymore. He wasn't supposed to cry at pain. "I'm okay. My hands hurt, but not too bad." Tears welled up in his eyes as he said it.

"Can you move your fingers?" Gramps asked.

Ceril moved his fingers. "Yeah."

"Then it's nothing I can't fix," he said. Gramps reached over and grabbed one of the trowels with which Ceril had been digging. "What happened?"

"I was just digging, and I hit something hard. A rock or something. I couldn't pry it out, so I thought I could reach in and pull it, maybe. Get a better grip."

"Not the smartest thing you've ever done, boy," Gramps said with a smile. "Let me see what the culprit is and then we'll get you inside and doctored up, alright?"

Ceril nodded. Gramps dug carefully around the object that had cut Ceril's hand. He cleared away the loose soil. As he dug, he revealed a long piece of golden metal, half-buried in front of them. The exposed areas glinted in the sunlight.

"It's a sword," Ceril said. "I wouldn't have guessed that. Is it yours, Gramps?"

The elderly man's forehead wrinkled. "Sit tight, let me get this out of the ground, and I'll get you inside and fixed up. It looks like you found yourself a new story for tonight, maybe for the rest of the summer."

"Really?" Ceril asked.

His grandfather grunted to affirm. "You'll really like this one, too."

Ceril loved his grandfather's stories. They were the best part about coming home for the summer. The two of them would sit by the window at night, full from eating a dinner they had not only cooked, but had also grown themselves, and Gramps would tell Ceril story after story about kings, warriors, gods, devils, and places the boy had never even thought to dream about. Ceril thought that if this new story was really good, the pain in his hands might almost be worth it.

The old man dug around the blade in the ground, careful never to come into contact with the edge of the golden metal. He extracted it and then escorted his grandson back to the cottage they shared. The whole time, Gramps was very careful to hold the excavated sword as carefully as he would a newborn child.

***

Dusk was falling on the cottage. Ceril had sat and watched the first of Erlon's suns fall below the horizon, and now the second was following suit.

Ceril bounced his leg up and down absentmindedly.

"Would you mind stopping that?" his grandfather asked.

"Would you mind stopping that?" Ceril said as he looked down at the bandage Gramps was wrapping around his injured hands.

"There's no need to be rude, Ceril. I'm just about finished."

"Just about? I've been sitting here for hours. My whole body is asleep."

His grandfather smiled and tugged at the bandages he had just tightened across his grandson's hands. Ceril winced. "Well, not your whole body. Your mouth is a little too awake." The old man stepped back and said, "I think that'll do it. How does that feel?"

Ceril flexed his hands. They were stiff, but only barely hurt. Whatever Gramps had done worked well enough. He wiggled his fingers. "I think they're okay. Took long enough."

Gramps glowered at him. "Not my fault. I'm not the one who stuck my hand back in the ground to get cut a second time."

"Yeah, but you could have just put some pseira on it," Ceril said. "You didn't have to sew my hands."

His grandfather, though Ceril loved him dearly, cared little for technology and allowed almost none of the luxuries of what he called "outside life" into his home. Ceril usually loved spending his summers in such a simple home, but tonight he was in pain and wished for nothing more than an injection and a smear of pseira that would heal his hand by morning. Instead, he had been sewn like a pair of pants. It would be at least a week before he could move his hands freely again. His grandfather's distaste of technology did not typically affect him like this. It usually wasn't much more than missing the new episodes of his favorite holovids.

"I'm going to take that as your way of saying 'thank you,'" Gramps said.

"Thank you," Ceril said. His gaze traveled across the room to the sword they had brought in from their garden. Even in the low light, it shined. The handle was thicker than on any other sword Ceril had ever seen. Ceril walked over and inspected the blade, mostly to distract himself from the stiffness and mild pain in his hands.

Ceril asked, "So what story were you talking about, Gramps? You said you had a new story for tonight." The excitement was obvious in the teen's voice, no matter how he tried to mask it.

"Well, I was thinking about it after you found the sword. You've heard of the Charons, haven't you?"

Ceril cocked his head in a gesture of vague recollection. "Technomages?"

"Well, this," Gramps said as he picked up the sword, "is a Charon's sword. And the Charons were just another name the technomages went by, the one they called themselves."

"Really?" Ceril asked.

"What do you know about the technomages, Ceril?"

Ceril thought hard and shook his head. "Nothing, really. Some of the kids at school say they were the ones who built Ennd's Academy. They say that's why there are so many neat things around campus that you can't find anywhere else. The teachers tell them to stop spreading rumors."

Gramps nodded. "What about history class? Do you ever cover them in class?"

"We did a unit on mythology last year, and we read like three different versions of the myth of Vennar. The weirdest one was from Yagh."

Gramps laughed. "I bet it was. Three, huh?"

Ceril nodded.

"Well, they're not just legends, Ceril. The Charons were as real as you or I." The old man paused for a second and walked over to the window. He stared across the garden and Ceril watched him lightly run his hands up and down the blade of the sword. Eventually, Gramps said, "The thing is, though, I don't know why this was in my garden. Ternia isn't exactly the center of the technomage world. Even back then, it was more than a little off the beaten path." He left the window and sat the sword back down on the table. Ceril reached for it, but his grandfather slapped his hand away. "Don't."

"Ow!" Pain shot up Ceril's arm from the newly sewn wounds, but he got the message: Don't touch the sword. He looked at his grandpa and said, "So you'll tell me about the Charons tonight?"

Gramps considered for a moment. His already wrinkled brow furrowed while he cleaned up the mess he had made when sewing Ceril's hand. "I guess I can. It doesn't really surprise me that Ennd's hasn't taught you any of this." He walked over to the window and looked out into the darkness. "The school has been all about progress for so long, they might as well just erase history altogether."

"What do you mean?" Ceril asked.

"Nothing," his grandfather said. "Ignore me. I'm just a damn old fool, thinking about things he shouldn't." The old man wiped his eyes and sat down at the table. "But yes, Ceril, I'll tell you as much as I can about the Charons. After you cook me dinner."

Ceril laughed and held up his hands. "With these?"

"Always finding some way to get out of work, aren't you, boy? Guess I'll have to do everything myself. Why don't you go and rest for a few. I'll call you when it's ready."

Ceril rushed into the other room and flung himself face down on the bed as Gramps went into the kitchen to start chopping up fruit and vegetables for their salads.

Just then, a chime sounded from the back of the house.

"What was that?" Ceril yelled from the other room.

"Message of some kind," Gramps said. "I doubt it's anything important. Never is."

Ceril got up and went back into the kitchen. "I didn't think you had any of the 'Nets out here, Gramps. I thought you hated them."

"Oh, I do hate them. I hate them more than you probably know, but they're a necessary evil. Sometimes, people have to get in touch with me, or the other way around and there's not exactly a good way to do it other than the CommNet. Especially when those people are from as far away as Ferran or Yagh."

"I didn't think you had any friends," Ceril asked.

His grandfather chuckled. "I'll have you know that I certainly do have friends. But they're just as old and senile as I am, so they can't remember they're my friends." The old man sat the knife down that he was using to chop vegetables, and he walked toward the back of the house. "I had better check and see what that was. Might be one of them remembering they owe me money."

He came back a few minutes later. "What was it?" Ceril asked. "Are you rich now?"

"Hardly," Gramps said. "Apparently, Ternia's long summer has not quite extended to the rest of Erlon. Ennd's expects you back a week from tomorrow."

"What?" Ceril said, and stood up. "I thought that wasn't for another month, at least!"

"Time has apparently gotten away from us more than we realized," Gramps said. "You know what this means don't you?"

Ceril nodded. "That I'll never learn about the Charons and that sword."

"Not at all. We'll just have to work double hard in the garden during the day," Gramps said, "so we can finish early and have more time for the stories at night."

"Can we do that?"

The old man nodded. "This harvest should be bigger than it has been for years. And we've expanded the boundaries enough, I suppose. It won't be quite as big as I had hoped, but if we hit it hard enough these next few days, it should be fine. What do you say?"

"Sounds good to me," Ceril said.

"Good," said his grandfather. He picked up the knife and pointed it at Ceril. "Now go rest, and I'll call you when I'm finished here."

***

The next week passed in a blur. During the day, Ceril did what he could to help with the garden, despite his injured hands, and at night, he and Gramps settled in and discussed the technomages who had made the golden sword. The stories weren't all that different from what he had heard in school—ballads of soldiers going to war, stories of kings and nobles working with the Charons to advise the quickest path to peace, epics about technomage heroes using their Flameblades to fight off monsters or bandits. He learned that the swords were called Flameblades because of the fiery aura the technomages could summon around them. The biggest addition to the stories he knew was Gramps' explanation for why some cultures viewed the technomages as gods. Gramps told Ceril that the strongest technomages were able to build whole cities using nothing but their hands and their minds. One technomage, Vennar, had apparently built Ennd's Academy by himself, just by thinking about what he wanted it to be. Ceril was sure there was more to it than that. Some kind of technology had allowed him to do it (he was a technomage after all), but Gramps didn't mention any of that.

And no matter how far-fetched it all sounded, Ceril absorbed every word of it. Gramps knew what he was talking about when it came to history.

Eventually, the morning came for Ceril to head back to Ennd's Academy. Ceril was rushing around the cottage, frantic to make sure that he was not forgetting anything important that he needed to bring with him. He stacked the last of his bags by the door and turned toward his grandfather.

"Can I bring the sword with me?" he asked. "I want to show Swarley!"

"No. And it would probably be better if you didn't tell Swarley or anyone else about it, either."

"Why not?" Ceril asked.

"It's complicated, Ceril. Just remember that not everyone understands the Charon legends like I do. Not everyone has the same stories about them. That mythology class should have taught you that."

"What does that matter?"

"It just does," Gramps said. "Just don't tell people about finding the sword. Please."

"Not even Swarley?"

"Not even Swarley."

"Okay, if you say so." Ceril agreed. He didn't like it. He told Swarley everything. But if Gramps said he shouldn't brag about finding a Charon's Flameblade in the garden, then he wouldn't. Probably.

The shuttle descended from the Skylane just then, as if to punctuate Gramps' request. Ceril grabbed his bags and handed them to the shuttle's pilot, who put them in the luggage compartment.

"Is that all?" the tall, skinny man asked him.

"I think so," Ceril said. "Let me go back in and check one last time."

"Make it quick," the pilot said.

Ceril nodded and ran back into the cottage. He found Gramps in his bedroom. His back was to the door, but he looked like he was holding the sword, the Flameblade. The light in the room looked funny. "What's that?" Ceril asked.

Gramps whipped around, but he wasn't holding anything after all. The light in the room was normal now. Ceril blinked. Maybe he had imagined it.

"What's what?" said Gramps.

"I thought I saw the sword. The room looked funny."

"Afraid not," Gramps said. "I packed it away last night after you went to bed. May contact one of the museums about it; see if I can donate it."

"Really?" Ceril asked.

"Just a thought. Anyway, are you ready now? All loaded up?"

Ceril nodded. "I think that's everything. Unless I can take the sword and show Swarley."

"Not a chance," Gramps said with a smile. "You be good, okay? Write me when you can, and have a good year. This is going to be Phase II for you, right?"

Ceril nodded again. "I'm nervous about it."

"No need to be. It's still the same school. Just a different part of the same old thing you've been doing."

"I guess," Ceril said. He let his grandfather lead him through the house and out to the waiting shuttle. Neither of them was fond of long farewells. They both knew how the other felt. And they both knew that while they would miss each other, they would have another summer together soon enough.

Gramps leaned down and hugged Ceril tightly, gave him a firm handshake, and whispered some sage-like, grandfatherly advice in his ear. Ceril then stepped onto the shuttle that would zip him back to Ennd's Academy, away from the only place in the world where he honestly felt happy.
Chapter One

"You are not ready."

That was it. "You are not ready," then silence. Ceril Bain looked around at the other returning students milling about quietly. They were all apparently still listening to the subsonic speakers in the lobby, which meant none of their welcome messages were so short. So why was his? And what wasn't he ready for?

Ceril had never met Ennd's Academy's new headmaster, so how could he say that Ceril wasn't ready? And more than that, Ceril wondered just what it was that he wasn't ready for.

Maybe he would find out soon. Probably tomorrow at Presentation.

Ceril figured there wasn't much use just sticking around the lobby, so he weaved through the crowd of still-listening students toward his new Phase II dormitory.

The P.A. system disturbed him, anyway. Ennd's faculty had never actually explained how the announcements worked, and that bothered him. The faculty tended to skirt around conversations about the technomages or their artifacts. If he weren't a historian's grandson, he might not have even heard of Vennar.

Well, maybe it wasn't that extreme. Everyone knew about Vennar. He was Vennar. Who didn't know about him?

Ceril stepped into the elevator at the end of the curved hallway.

"Hello, student. Welcome back to Ennd's Academy. Where are you traveling today?" The automated attendant's voice was soft and chipper. Ceril liked talking to the elevators. It made him feel like one of the technomages.

"Phase II, please."

After a moment's pause, the elevator said, "Of course, student." Ceril hadn't even realized they had been traveling when the doors reopened onto a different view than Ceril had expected. He stepped out of the elevator, ignoring whatever it was that the automated attendant was saying.

For the past five years, Ceril had grown used to Ennd's Academy. He had learned the hallways and the decor, and he liked to think he knew his way around pretty well. But as he stepped into the new Phase II area, he felt like a tourist.

Which, Ceril supposed, he kind of was.

He was standing in the middle of the hall when a hand touched his shoulder. He whirled around to see Swarley Dann's smiling face. Ceril returned the smile, and the two boys embraced.

Swarley had grown over the summer—enough so that Ceril couldn't call him his "little buddy" anymore. Swarley now stood a good head taller than Ceril, and he had bulked up quite a bit. He looked more like a man than he had before, which made Ceril feel like a child in comparison. He kept his embarrassment to himself and asked, "So you're lost too, huh?"

"Not lost," Swarley said, smiling, "just a little misguided. I saw you just standing here, staring at the Library. I thought it was the least I could do to say hello. So hello. And since we're going to the same place..." His eyes glinted mischievously.

"You're lost, too, huh?" Ceril repeated.

"As a crow in a fishbowl."

***

"This place looks so funny, Swarley," Ceril said. The boys had been wandering around the halls for what had to be hours, looking for their dormitory. "I'm not even sure if we're in the same school anymore."

Swarley said, "I know, right? I don't like it. It's just so...I dunno what. I mean, Phase I felt so cozy. I felt safe there, you know?" He slapped the sandstone wall and slid his hand across the border that divided it from the brushed-steel paneling beneath it. "But this? It's just so cold."

"It's sterile," Ceril said, hoping he had used the word correctly.

Swarley nodded. "Yeah, that's it exactly. Like a—like a hospital."

"Weirdest hospital I've ever been in," Ceril muttered.

The boys walked a little further down the hall, and Swarley pointed into an alcove. Every hall in Phase II seemed to be decorated the same way: statues in alcoves. The statues in this one stood twice the size of Swarley. "Who are these guys?"

"You don't know?" Ceril asked.

"And like you do?" Swarley replied.

"Well, no. How could I?" Ceril stood beside Swarley and stared into the alcove.

"Whatever," Swarley said, "but I bet they're old."

"You think? I bet they're technomage artifacts."

"That do what? They're statues of people with animal heads cut out of big pieces of rock, Ceril."

"They could be artifacts."

"And you might be the prettiest person in the hall right now, but that doesn't mean it's true."

"I'm just saying," Ceril said. "They might be. We don't know."

"No, we don't," Swarley said. "Come on, let's go. I want eventually to find out where we live. My feet are starting to hurt."

"Yeah, and I think we go left up here when the hall ends. There should be an elevator to the dormitory level."

"How do you know that?" Swarley said. "You've been as lost as I am."

"We've passed the sign for it a couple of times already. You've been walking us in circles."

"I have done no such thing."

Ceril just nodded and started walking toward where he thought the elevator was.

"It all looks the same to me," Swarley said. "Lead on, man." He followed Ceril down the hall and toward their dormitory.

***

Ceril opened the door to the room he and Swarley had been assigned. The first thing he noticed was the gigantic, curved window that filled an entire wall from floor to ceiling. They were being housed in one of the higher towers on campus, which gave them a pretty spectacular—and unobstructed—view of the night sky. The moon shone brightly into the room and cast a surreal light across the unfamiliar space.

"We must have been wandering around for quite a while," Ceril said, peeking out the window.

"Must've been," Swarley agreed. He fell backwards on the nearest bed and sighed. "This'll do. I think I can handle this."

Ceril did likewise and found that the bed was much softer than the one he had slept on for five years of Phase I. "Yeah, I like it, too." He rolled over and something jabbed into his side. In the moonlight, he could just make out the corner of the suitcase that was jabbing into him. "Lights," he said and rubbed his ribs. "I think this is yours."

He tossed the suitcase onto Swarley's side of the room, and his friend responded with an "oof" and a "thanks for that" before throwing Ceril's bag over to him. Until this year, Ennd's staff had transferred students' luggage to their rooms and unpacked it. This time, however, they were not unpacked, which meant the boys could finally choose which bed was theirs. It was a small luxury, but until that very moment, the boys had never been given a choice about anything regarding their time at Ennd's Academy—no say regarding class schedule, roommate, or even when they wanted to bathe. Their two hours of daily recreation were even determined by the staff.

Phase II was supposed to be different, and so far it was. Not only did they get to choose who they lived with, they got to choose their own beds, and at Presentation tomorrow morning, they would choose their primary area of study.

Now that the lights were on, Ceril could see that the room was sparsely furnished with maroon linens on both beds. The beds sat on opposite sides of the room, and there was a large, two-sided desk dividing the room in half. The walls, floor, and ceiling shared the motif of the rest of the Phase II campus: tan stone and brushed-steel.

"I'm not sure I like this room," Swarley said. "It still feels just as sterile in here as it did out there."

"Get used to it," Ceril said. "This is home for four more years. At least. Maybe longer, depending on your Rites."

After a few minutes of lying still, Ceril couldn't take it anymore. He popped upright and braced himself against the mattress. "Oh, Swarley!" he almost shouted. "I forgot to tell you what I found last week!"

"A sense of humor? A lick of common sense? What? I'm dyin here, Ceril."

"A Charon's sword."

"Shut up."

"No, really. I did. I found a technomage sword in the garden—"

"Shut up," Swarley repeated.

"No!" Ceril said excitedly. He stood up and leaned against the desk so he could see Swarley better. "After that, Gramps spent the rest of the week telling me about Vennar and the other Charons. That's what they called themselves. Charons. Cool, huh?"

"Not even a little," Swarley said, sitting up and frowning.

"What's the matter with you?" Ceril asked. "I thought you'd be excited for me. I mean, I found a Flameblade! An artifact!"

"Are you an idiot, Ceril?"

"I think we both know the answer to that," Ceril said, trying to joke around with his friend. Swarley wasn't having any of it. What was his deal?

"My gods, Ceril, you should know better than to just blurt something out like that right now."

"I seriously have no idea what you're talking about, Swarley."

Swarley sighed. "What happened, Ceril?"

"I was working in the garden when I hit something hard in the dirt. I thought it was a rock, you know, so I reached in to dig around it so I could pull it out of the ground, and I cut myself." Ceril's voice was getting higher and higher as he spoke faster and faster. "Gramps came over, and he saw that it wasn't a rock. He told me it was a Flameblade. After that, he told me a lot about the Charons."

"You mean to tell me that you found a Flameblade in Ternia? In your garden?"

"Uh-huh!" Ceril nodded vigorously. "Gramps said a technomage could make it catch on fire, but that the fire wouldn't burn anyone the technomage didn't want it to. And that the color of the fire—"

Swarley interrupted him again. "Did it ever catch on fire with you?"

"No," Ceril said. "But I'm not a technomage."

"What about Gramps?"

"He's not either, Swarley."

"Then how do you know it's a Charon's sword? Did you look it up on the 'Nets?"

"Well, no," Ceril said. "Gramps doesn't have anything but basic CommNet, but he said that he only knew of a couple of these swords ever being found across all of Erlon, you know? He told me that all the rest of them might have been lost. He said that ours might be the only one left. How cool is that?"

"Really? The only one?"

Ceril nodded.

"Ceril, do you know how ridiculous this all sounds?"

Ceril hesitated. It hadn't sounded ridiculous at all when Gramps had said it. Of course, nothing sounded ridiculous if Gramps said it. "It's true, Swarley."

"I don't doubt you found a sword, Ceril, but it's not a Flameblade."

"How do you know?"

"Did it ever caught on fire for you?" Swarley asked. "Once?"

"Well, no," Ceril admitted.

"I don't want to be the one to say it, bud, but I think your Gramps is pulling your leg."

"Why would he do that?"

"To have some fun with his gullible grandson? It doesn't matter why, anyway." Swarley said with a small grin. He leaned up on his mattress and looked Ceril dead in the eyes. "And, um, make sure that you don't mention it around school, all right? Especially to the teachers."

"Why not?"

"Ceril, really?"

"What?" Ceril demanded. "I mean, Gramps told me not to tell you, but I did. And it's fine. The world didn't end or anything. So why are you telling me not to tell anyone else? Why are you acting like this?"

Swarley's shoulders dropped. "You don't have the 'Nets when you're at your Gramps' house."

Ceril furrowed his brow. "You're being a jerk because I don't have the 'Nets over the summer? Swarley—"

"No," Swarley said. "I don't mean..." He sighed. "You haven't heard, then."

"Heard what? What are you talking about?"

Swarley got off his bed and sat down at his side of the desk. "Hold on," he said, "let me find it." He manipulated the terminal for a few minutes, and when he was satisfied with whatever it was he had found, he leaned back and let Ceril watch the first newsreel he had seen since before the summer began.

Above the desk, a hologram of a woman began to discuss what she called "the first in what is sure to be a series of unprovoked attacks from a terrorist organization led by someone called the Untouchable." Ceril sat down on Swarley's bed and leaned forward as the image of the woman faded away. It was replaced by a video of a playground scene. "Please be advised," the woman's voice continued, "the images you are about to see are incredibly graphic. Viewer discretion is advised."

Kids were screaming and running around, probably toward their parents. Parents were yelling for their children, but only a few actually found them. The camerawork was bad; it was obviously a quick video someone had taken with their tablet or PDA.

But that didn't matter. The quality of the video wasn't important. What it captured was.

The video zoomed in, and Ceril covered his mouth with his hands as he watched. A group of men and women were wearing long, purple robes and holding golden swords. Swords that looked an awful lot like the one he found in Gramps' garden.

Ceril swallowed audibly.

There were maybe half a dozen of the robed figures, and they were all bald, even the women. The men had identical, chest-length beards that were dyed a garish blue.

And they were all using their swords to kill the running children. If there had been only one weapon, he would have assumed someone had stolen the sword from Gramps. After all, Gramps had said theirs was probably the only one. Ceril watched as the cameraman whipped the camera around the scene, catching parents and children being gutted, stabbed, dismembered, and eviscerated.

"Swarley, what the hell?"

"Just watch, Ceril."

Ceril did. The swords that the robed killers held were glowing now. One of the women cut through a man's arm, and her blade flared yellow. She turned around and immediately sliced a running mother down the length of her back, while the glow around the sword pulsed blue. As the mother fell, she covered her son with her body in an attempt to protect him.

Her body shook as she lay there, and Ceril realized she was weeping. The video tried to zoom in further, but it just distorted the image. Ceril thought he could see the woman with the yellow-blue sword rush toward her and plunge the sword downward.

Even in the low-quality video, it was easy to see the sword penetrate through her body and into her son. The sword's aura erupted in a flare of color as the bald killer shrieked. She laughed girlishly as she pulled the blade from the corpses she created.

The cameraman, who had been silent until this point, let out a whimper, which caught the attention of the largest of the men. His head whipped toward the camera. He wiped his sword against his leg, but the red-purple fire around its blade didn't seem to singe his robe at all.

That was exactly the way Gramps described the sword he had found. Ceril swallowed again, but didn't dare to blink.

The large man with the Flameblade screamed something unintelligible at the man behind the camera, who then turned and ran. The next few seconds of video were hectic and unfocused. Then there was a crash, and the camera fell to the ground, focusing sideways on a tree. A booted foot stepped into frame, and the bald man's face appeared soon after as he crouched to peer into the lens.

He said, "Your generation has tried to hide the past for too long, and the time has come to make things right. The Untouchable will no longer allow you to feed the world the scraps of your technology." He held up the glowing sword. "You technomages will either remove yourselves from the shadows and put Erlon back on the path toward its destiny, or we will pull you out and put it there ourselves."

The face moved out of frame, followed by the boot. There were a few seconds of silence and then a whuffing sound off screen that ended with a pop. The video ended, and the hologram returned to the woman who had introduced the horrifying clip. Swarley paused the holovid before the woman could begin her commentary.

"Hey!" Ceril said. "What was she saying?"

"About how horrible it all was, and that no one knows what's going on. It doesn't matter," said Swarley.

"Then what does?" Ceril yelled. "Why did you show me that?"

"Because it's all that anyone has talked about for the last month, Ceril. I knew it was going to be tough at Ennd's this year because of the technomage rumors these terrorists stirred up—did you know my parents almost wouldn't let me come back?"

"No," said Ceril. "How could I? I'm glad they let you."

"Me, too. I just never expected you to come in claiming to be a technomage after this!" He waved his hand at the area of the room where the hologram of the woman still floated.

"I never claimed to be a technomage!"

"But you said you had one of their swords, which might as well be the same thing. It sounds a little too close to the weapons those people used to kill all those kids, man."

Ceril was silent. He leaned against the wall and banged his head lightly against it over and over. "Yeah," he finally said. "It sure does."

"Did yours glow like that?"

"No," said Ceril, perhaps too quickly.

"What about the rest of it? The color of the metal, the sword itself, you know?"

Ceril thought back to the garden. He could see the gold blade glinting in the sunlight as though it were in front of him. "It looked just like the ones in the vid," he said.

"So. This sword, this Flameblade of yours. Where is it?" Swarley asked. His voice was even, without inflection. Ceril thought Swarley sounded a little more menacing than he had ever heard him.

"Gramps kept it. Said he might contact a museum about displaying it," Ceril said.

"Right," Swarley said. "And you said he didn't know about this attack at all?"

Ceril shook his head. "How could he? You know how he feels about the 'Nets."

"Okay. Well, at least you didn't bring it here. The sword, I mean."

"He wouldn't let me."

"Smart man," Swarley said. He just stared at Ceril with his lips pursed.

"What?"

"I dunno. I'm just saying all of this kind of weirds me out."

"Yeah. It does me, too," Ceril said and closed his eyes. "I'm not a terrorist, though. I'm not a killer."

After a small pause that Ceril might have imagined, Swarley said, "I know."

"Neither is Gramps."

"I know that, too, Ceril. Of course, I know that. But no one else here does. And after that—" he gestured again to the hologram floating above the desk, "you really shouldn't mention the Charons, the technomages, or that sword to anyone. I wouldn't even make a reference to the technomages or their Artifacts that kids think are all around the school. It's just...just a bad idea, you know?"

"Yeah," Ceril said. That's all he could say. "Yeah."

"Now I have to get some sleep," Swarley said. "Presentation is tomorrow morning. Get off my bed."

"Yeah, it is, isn't it?" Ceril said. He had barely even thought about Presentation since he had been back at Ennd's. Ceril went to his side of the desk and set the alarm so that he wouldn't oversleep and miss Presentation. Or worse: be late.

Once he was satisfied that his alarm was reliable, Ceril settled into bed. Every time he closed his eyes, though, he kept seeing the mother and her child being impaled by the Flameblade.

"Oh, and Swarley?" he said.

"Yeah?"

"I appreciate the heads up. I really had no idea."

"Sure thing, bud. It's what I do," Swarley said.

The two boys lay there in silence for a while. Ceril tossed from one side to the other, unable to sleep. He said, "And thanks for not thinking I'm crazy."

"Oh, I think you're crazy, Ceril. I just don't think you're a terrorist."

"Still, thanks."

"Mmm hmm," Swarley said. The next sound Ceril heard was his roommate snoring. He hoped that he would be soon, too. He lay his head on his pillow and lulled himself to sleep by replaying the events of the previous week in his mind.

Chapter Two

The next thing Ceril knew, sunlight gleamed through the wall-sized window at the head of his bed. Only one of Erlon's twin suns had risen so far, which meant it was early. He sat up and grunted; his neck ached, and so did his shoulders. He grimaced as he tried to work the stiffness out.

Ceril was bent double over the side of his bed, stretching his back when Swarley came back into the room, already fully dressed. He opened the closet door, stood in front of the mirror, and attempted to get the slightly snug dress uniform to fit correctly over his summer growth.

His dress uniform. Oh, no.

Ceril threw himself out of bed, ignoring his aching muscles, and rushed to his bags and began digging through them for his own uniform. Swarley was already dressed, and that had to mean there was less than ten minutes before they had to be in the Library for Presentation. Ceril had known Swarley for long enough to know that he was notoriously last minute; punctuality meant nothing to him. If he was already up and about, then there was no way Ceril would have time to shower and groom himself for Presentation.

"Why didn't you get me up?" he asked Swarley, as he found the last piece of his uniform and headed for the door.

"Eh, you were sleeping," Swarley said. "Finally. I knew you'd get up when you heard me come back in." Swarley tugged at his collar. "Relax. We still have over half an hour before we have to be in the Library for Presentation."

"What?" Ceril said, stopping and turning back toward his friend. "You're never early for anything."

"Phase II means more responsibility, Ceril. My dad said that if he hears about me losing any marks for tardiness this year, he'll pull me out of Ennd's and make me go to that military school my uncle teaches at. I'm a lot of things, Ceril, but a soldier I ain't."

"Me either," Ceril agreed. Nothing in the world sounded worse to him than being a soldier.

Ceril's alarm began to scream and ended their conversation. The noise validated Swarley's claim they still had plenty of time.

"See?" Swarley said. "Not going to be late for Presentation. Now, does this collar look okay?"

Ceril grunted as he pushed past his roommate to head to the showers. How was it that Swarley had become the responsible one? He had always been the responsible one, waking Swarley up every day for years. He had even thought at one point that the boy couldn't understand how alarm clocks worked. His friend's newfound initiative unnerved him a little, but he didn't know why.

Thankfully, Ceril was able to find the showers quickly. Every student at Ennd's had to be immaculate for Presentation. Hair, teeth, breath, nails, clothes—everything about them had to be perfect. Or at least that's the way it was during Phase I. Ceril assumed nothing had changed for Phase II.

***

He had assumed wrong. Everything had changed.

Stepping into the Phase II Library sent Ceril reeling. He followed the crowd of other returning students through the doorway to Presentation and felt a soft wafting of air as he crossed the threshold, which made his skin tingle and his ears pop. His eyes even began to water from the harsh light beaming from the center of the room.

Ceril found himself standing on a narrow metal platform overlooking a gigantic, upright cylinder of a room. The cylinder continued up and down as far as Ceril could see—miles above and below ground. The center of the room was a pulsing beam of light that shifted color almost imperceptibly. One moment it was green, then while Ceril watched, it became orange and blue and yellow without him ever actually seeing it shift.

The metal platform Ceril was standing on connected to a spiral ramp, which followed the outside walls of the cylinder like the threading on a screw. Bookshelves lined the walls too, and paralleled the ramp up and down. As the students filed into the Library, some of Ceril's classmates paused for a second to acknowledge that they were in a new place, then kept on moving either up or down, taking a spot in line and waiting for Presentation to start.

Ceril, though, couldn't just write this off. This wasn't just some new place, some new Library. There was something completely different about this room from anything he had experienced during Phase I—maybe his entire life. He just couldn't quite place what it was.

Stepping out of line so he didn't cause a fifteen-student pile-up at the doorway, Ceril leaned over the guardrail in front of him to see if he could spot the top or the bottom of the room.

Not even close.

Now, the Library at Ennd's Academy—for all phases, I through III—was part of the central spire, a tower easily ten times as large as the one his and Swarley's dormitory was in. But even it wasn't large enough to hold this.

Which meant there was only one explanation for how this room could even exist: Instancing.

There had always been talk among the students at Ennd's that most of the school was Instanced; that different wings and sections of the campus were actually in the same space, overlapping and right on top of one another. They just couldn't see, feel, touch, sense, or interact with anything not in their own Instance.

It sounded crazy, but it was a story that had to do with the technomages, so Ceril had to hope there was at least a little truth in it. Now, seeing the vastness and physical impossibility of the room he found himself in, crazy didn't seem so...well, crazy.

Ceril knew that two entirely separate buildings like the Phase I and II Libraries could not very well be in the same place at the same time any more than Swarley could put his feet right where Ceril's were without pushing him out of the way. It was impossible.

Except for how Ceril was standing in a monstrous well of proof that it wasn't. His heart began to beat faster as he accepted what was going on. For the first time, he was undoubtedly in contact with a technomage artifact. If it had not been Presentation, he would have squealed in delight.

He couldn't wait to tell Gramps that his stories were actually true. There were technomages! There were Charons!

That thought led to another, and eventually Ceril forgot entirely that he was in the Library for Presentation. His mind raced from the sword he had found in the garden, to the video Swarley had shown him the night before, to the implication this Library held about all the wonderful artifacts and technology he would discover during Phase II.

He was jarred out of his daydreaming by a hand grabbing him by the collar and pulling him upright. He whipped around to face a rather portly teacher with square glasses, shoulder-length hair, and an immaculately pressed faculty robe. Ceril recognized Professor Nephil at once.

The teacher frowned at Ceril, then pointed to an empty spot in the line of students. Each of them already faced the center of the room and stood at attention. Ceril's awe at his discovery of Instancing must have made him stand out. With a nod, Ceril joined his classmates in line.

"It certainly is breathtaking isn't it, Ceril?" asked the professor.

Ceril knew better than to respond. He stood at attention and waited like he had been trained to do during Phase I.

"But," Nephil continued, "that is no reason for being out of line and not at attention. Stand here and wait for Presentation to begin." He glanced down at the tablet in his hand and tapped the screen twice. "Where is Swarley Dann?"

Ceril blinked. He didn't know. They hadn't even come in together this morning, what with Swarley being ready ahead of time and all. Ceril looked around and found his roommate in line a little way around the cylinder's ramp. Ceril pointed in his general direction for Professor Nephil.

"Thank you, Mr. Bain," said the teacher and walked toward Swarley.

The beam of light in the center of the cylinder came to life and seemed to solidify. Inside it, a man floated in midair directly in front of Ceril. He flickered once before stabilizing. If the man had not flickered, Ceril would have never known he was looking at a hologram. It was by far the most advanced hologram Ceril had ever seen.

Ceril looked around, and all the other students were staring straight ahead, as though someone were directly in front of them, too. Some of them were talking. The floating man, Ceril assumed, operated on the same technology that the P.A. system did.

"Hello, Ceril," the hologram said.

"Hello," Ceril replied. He made eye contact and kept his arms at his side. He had never been anything less than perfect at Presentation during Phase I, and he was certainly not going to change that now. Especially after Professor Nephil hadn't punished him for being out of rank.

"I'm Gilbert Squalt," the man continued. "I'm the new headmaster at Ennd's."

Each student had their own private meeting with the headmaster this Phase? After the unsettling welcome message he had been given yesterday, speaking to this man in private was low on Ceril's list of priorities.

"I hope the morning has found you well," said Headmaster Squalt.

"Yes, sir. Well enough," Ceril said. He was trying to keep his voice from cracking as the hologram's eyes inspected his uniform. He knew he had put it on properly, but with the headmaster's attention on it, he knew he was going to get reprimanded.

"Good. I'm very glad to hear that, young man. So tell me, what do you expect out of Phase II?"

The question took him aback. Ceril wanted to say, "To know what I'm not ready for," but he didn't. Outside of that, he had no idea what to expect from Phase II. He knew what everyone else knew: it was the time when students at Ennd's specialized in an area and began training for their future. Gramps had gone to Ennd's once upon a time, he had said, and even he wouldn't tell Ceril anything about the nature of Phase II beyond that.

"I suppose, sir," he said, "that I expect to learn." His voice rose at the end of the sentence, as though it were a question.

The hologram grinned. "How very generic, Ceril. Though, I would certainly hope so. This is a school after all. Could you be more specific?"

"Y-yes, sir. I expect to learn about agriculture," said Ceril. "I'm from Ternia, sir, and I want to learn what I can do to return to my grandfather and help him with his land. Maybe help him expand it to a full farm. We have already started by doubling the size of his garden this summer."

"So you expect to specialize in agriculture, then?"

"Yes, sir. I think so."

"Interesting," the headmaster said. "A good choice."

Ceril beamed.

"But I'm afraid that choice is not up to you."

"Excuse me, sir?"

The headmaster folded his hands in front of him and said, "We choose for you, Ceril, based on last year's End of Phase aptitude examinations and a cumulative interpretation of your five formative years at Ennd's."

Ceril folded his own hands behind his back momentarily, but moved them back to his side as the rule entered his mind unbidden: During Presentation, you should stand at attention, with your hands at your sides at all times. His ears and cheeks felt warm, and he couldn't help but feel a little sick at his stomach.

"We choose for you," the headmaster continued. "That way, you can be sure that you are well suited for whatever field you pursue. If we were to allow you to choose your specialization, then there would be some very poor professionals out there doing their jobs primarily for the love of it. And I don't think I have to tell you, but that is simply not an efficient use of resources."

Ceril was speechless. He had his future planned out, or at least he assumed he had. He wanted to spend his life working with his hands, feeding people, helping people, and being with the little family he had. He just wanted a simple life. However, the headmaster's declaration stopped his plans in their tracks.

You are not ready. The headmaster's P.A. address came back to mind. Ceril began to understand it a little better. He took a couple of deep breaths to make sure his voice didn't break or sound rude, and said, "What would you have me study, sir?"

The headmaster laughed, and as he did so, the hologram bounced slightly up and down. Ceril would have been amazed if he weren't so disgusted. "I would have you study nothing, my boy. It is not my place to interpret a student's future. The committee would have you study—" The hologram froze. The headmaster's eyes darted to the left, and he stared at something that was obviously not in the same Instance as Ceril, then the hologram disappeared.

Ceril blinked and looked around, but did not relax. The other students were still chattering away in their own, private meetings with the headmaster.

After a few seconds, Headmaster Squalt reappeared to Ceril. He looked toward Ceril, but not at his face. At his feet. The headmaster spoke slowly, choosing his words carefully. "What...is that, Ceril?"

Ceril looked down and his jaw dropped at what he saw: the golden metal of a Flameblade.

That was impossible. Gramps had made him leave it at home. It had to be another hologram, and this was just a test for Phase II. "I'm sorry, Headmaster. What is what?"

"At your feet. What is that?"

Ceril looked down again. He blinked three or four times. The sword was still there. "I'm not sure what you're talking about, sir," Ceril said. As he stared at it, the sword seemed to gain a slight glow, a hazy green aura.

Headmaster Squalt's brow furrowed and his lips pursed. He stared at Ceril and said, "I think you do. Do not lie to me, Ceril."

Ceril looked down again. "Um, i-it looks like a sword, sir."

"Yes, Ceril. Yes, it does," the hologram said. The headmaster became distracted again and quickly turned to look at something behind him. He said, "Would you mind telling me why there is a sword lying at your feet at Presentation? A sword that—unless I am terribly mistaken—was not there a few moments ago?"

"I wouldn't mind at all, sir. I just don't know," Ceril said.

The headmaster's voice came back stern. "Have you ever seen this sword before, Ceril?" The headmaster looked behind him again. Why is he doing that? Ceril wondered. Was he nervous or angry? Why was he so twitchy?

"I'm not sure, sir," Ceril said. It was not technically a lie. The sword looked like the one he found with Gramps, but he had left that one in Ternia with Gramps. It couldn't be the same sword. On top of that, it looked like the ones in Swarley's video, too, and Ceril sure wasn't going to mention that to the headmaster.

"You're not sure?" Squalt said. Ceril thought the man's tone mocked him.

"No, sir," Ceril said. "I'm not sure. I have seen a sword kind of like this one, but there's no way I can say it's the same one." Ceril swallowed and said a silent prayer that honesty would indeed be the best policy here.

"And where have you seen such a similar sword?" asked the headmaster as his attention once again moved from the sword at Ceril's feet to whatever was behind him.

Ceril said, "At my Gramps' house, sir."

The headmaster visibly tensed. He asked very deliberately, "Was it this sword, Ceril?"

"I'm not sure, sir."

"Did you bring that sword with you to school?"

"No, sir," Ceril said. His response was immediate. He hadn't. That was the truth. Maybe he was going to get out of this by telling the truth after all. Maybe he wouldn't have the new headmaster think he was a murderer and a terrorist on the first day of school after all.

"Are you sure?" the headmaster inquired. "Are you sure you did not bring it with you?"

"Yes, sir," Ceril said. "Absolutely."

"So this is not the same weapon that set detection sensors off in your dormitory last night?"

Ceril flinched. What detection sensors? He hadn't heard any alarm. "I don't know what you mean, sir."

"Of course you don't," the headmaster said. He turned around again. With his back turned to Ceril, he said, "Ceril, can I ask you to please reach down and pick up the weapon?"

"I'm sorry, sir?"

Headmaster Squalt did not turn around. "I asked you if you could reach down and pick up the weapon."

Sweat began to bead on his forehead. His heart beat harder and faster, and he could feel every beat in his ears and cheeks. His stomach churned, and he thought for a moment that he was going to vomit. Through gritted teeth, Ceril asked, "Why?"

"Just do it, Ceril," the headmaster demanded.

Ceril took a deep breath and leaned down to grab the hilt of the sword. The moment his hand wrapped around the hilt, the light green aura flared. The light green was much brighter now, and a hint of purple was mixed with it. The effect was unlike anything Ceril had ever seen before.

No, that wasn't quite true. He had seen it once before: the video of the terrorists. Their swords glowed like this as they killed those people. As they killed those kids.

The headmaster looked at Ceril in fascination. He stared at the sword, but his attention was soon drawn away from Presentation again. This time, the headmaster stood up and reached for something behind him. When he returned, Squalt held a sword that was very much like the one Ceril was holding, only the headmaster's sword glowed a much less intense orange and brown.

"Ceril, I am going to need to speak to you in person immediately, if you wouldn't mind. Do you know the way to my office?"

Ceril shook his head. "No, sir."

"I will get Professor Nephil to escort you, then. And please, be discreet with your weapon. If you would like, you may return it to your dormitory on your way here."

"Yes, sir," Ceril said. He had no plans on returning it to his room.

"I'll see you soon, then," the headmaster said. The hologram flickered and disappeared.
Chapter Three

"What does the headmaster want?" Ceril asked Nephil as they walked out of the Library.

"To meet with you in person."

"About what, professor?"

"If I had to guess, Ceril, it would be," Nephil pointed at the gold sword in Ceril's hand, "that. I am sure that he will want to fill you in on the details himself."

As Ceril left the Library, he felt the same wet, tingling sensation and felt the same waft of air as he had when he had entered. Nephil turned toward him as the Library door closed. He said, "Would you like to leave that in your dormitory before you meet with Headmaster Squalt, Ceril?"

Ceril's mind raced. Which was the right thing to do? Walk into the new headmaster's office holding a fiery, green sword? Would that be threatening to him? Not from someone as young as Ceril, surely. But he thought back to the video of the Charons from the night before, and he knew otherwise. On the other hand, if this was the same sword as he had found with Gramps, then he didn't want to leave it out of his sight. He wasn't even sure if he could, the way it appeared during Presentation and all. He weighed both sides and eventually said, "No. I don't think so."

Professor Nephil's facial expression never changed. He just said, "Did your roommate see the sword, Ceril? Did you show Mr. Dann?"

"No," Ceril said. "He didn't." It wasn't a lie. Swarley didn't see it. He had heard about it, but he certainly did not see it.

"Did you tell him about it?"

Crap. "Yes, sir," Ceril admitted.

"And did he know what it was?" Nephil asked.

Ceril decided to be bold. "A sword? I am not quite sure how he would have missed that we were talking about a sword."

"Don't be smart with me, Ceril," Nephil snapped.

"I'm sorry, professor. He said it was a Charon's sword," Ceril said.

Nephil nodded and that was the end of it. He said nothing else on the subject. Ceril was unsure of whether he had just doomed himself and somehow incriminated his best friend, but he did not want to press his luck either way, so he kept quiet.

"You got that at your grandfather's house, did you not?" Nephil asked.

How did he know that? Ceril thought about it, then said, "Yes, sir."

"It should have stayed," Nephil said, "at your grandfather's house, buried and forgotten. And if not that, at least locked away in a trunk somewhere. But the place it should not have been is here at Ennd's, least of all with you." His words were harsh, but his tone was not. Ceril was slightly taken aback. He felt as though he was being scolded, but he couldn't be sure. Nephil seemed more resigned and worried than angry. Anxious, maybe. "Either way, Ceril, it's here now, good or bad. Come along. The headmaster is waiting."

Nephil turned toward the door to the Library and opened a panel in the wall beside it. Ceril couldn't see what was behind the panel very well, but he did notice a screen, a keypad, and more than one dial. Nephil manipulated each of them, and Ceril heard a whuff-pop as the teacher closed the panel and opened the door to the Library.

"After you," Professor Nephil said as he held the door open for Ceril and waited for him to step through.

***

The previous headmaster of Ennd's Academy had taken ill quite suddenly over the summer and the Board of Regents had replaced him with Gilbert Squalt. There were rumors that it was temporary, but there were also rumors of its permanence. Suffice it to say that no one really knew what was going on with the headmaster's job at Ennd's. In either case, Headmaster Squalt was making himself quite comfortable with his accommodations at Ennd's.

His office was huge, with an incredibly high, domed ceiling and round walls that were covered in bookshelves and display cases. On the shelves and in the cases, there rested a rather eclectic collection of sports memorabilia, weaponry, books, and holovid screens. It was, to Ceril, as though whoever owned the office couldn't decide what his favorite pastime should be, so he indulged in them all. One rather large screen was directly opposite the headmaster's desk. It was being retracted as Ceril and Professor Nephil entered the room.

Ceril felt another wet, tingling sensation upon entering the headmaster's office. His eyes were drawn to seating area to his left, where Squalt had a couch, chairs, and tables set up like a small living room in the middle of his office. They looked comfortable.

"Ceril!" the headmaster said. He rose from his desk and stood with his arms spread like he wanted to give the young man a hug. "So glad you are here. I've been looking forward to having this conversation since they told me I would be taking over the headmaster's position here."

Ceril couldn't help but notice how large the man's lips were; they made his grin go petty much from ear to ear. Is this really the same man from Presentation?

"Make yourself at home," the headmaster said. He gestured to the seating area Ceril had noticed. "We really should be comfortable for this talk." His eyes darted to Professor Nephil and then back to Ceril. He was addressing the professor as much as he was the student. Squalt was the first to sit, which signaled to Ceril and Nephil that it was okay to do the same.

Ceril fidgeted as he sat. As comfortable as the couch looked, he could find no position that suited him. The atmosphere should have been much more relaxed in here than it was at Presentation, but it really wasn't, at least not for him. Professor Nephil, who had been so rigid and stern on their way in, now leaned comfortably in the soft chair. Headmaster Squalt reached over his head for something that was resting behind his chair.

His sword. The orange-brown glow was gone, but the gold blade shined brightly in the sunlight shining through the large windows. The headmaster settled into his spot and smiled at Ceril.

As though on cue, the headmaster's sword began to glow once again. Squalt sat holding the sword by the hilt with his left hand, while the blade lay across his lap. The aura around the blade looked like fire, and it got brighter the longer the headmaster sat there. It couldn't have been fire, though, because his clothes were not being burned off his body, nor was there any indication that he felt the unpleasant sensation of the sword burning its way through his legs. That's how Gramps talked about the Flameblades, Ceril thought.

"Tell me, Ceril. What do you know about the Charons?" Squalt asked.

Ceril's eyes never left the blade. "Not a lot, sir," he said. He knew that he had to be very careful to not let what he and Gramps talked about spill into what he told the new headmaster.

"Why don't you indulge me?" The grin had not left his face.

Ceril shuffled in his seat a little. "Well, they lived a long time ago," he said. "I think I remember that some people looked up to them like, umm, like they were gods. That's where the myths came from. We read the one about Vennar in history last year, three versions, I think. Professor Winters said there might be a few poems written about them that say that Charon was just...just another name for the technomages, but that not everyone believes that. P-professor Winters said some of the legends said the Charons used actual magic, and not science like the mages," Ceril said. He stopped and looked down, then added, "That they weren't pretending."

He had always loved the idea of technomages, that there were things on Erlon that only the best or smartest people could understand and use. He had loved reading about technomages since he was young. But now that he was talking about them out loud, he felt childish and silly.

"I see," Squalt said. He bounced his leg up and down as he looked at Ceril. "That's it?"

"I think so, sir," said Ceril. "Like I said, most of what we studied was that one myth. It was only a part of the unit."

"Did you happen to learn about their weapons?"

"N-no, sir," Ceril lied. "Not really."

"Then," said Headmaster Squalt, "I take it that you had no idea that this," he stood up and pointed the sword at Ceril's chest, "is a Charon's sword? Or that the one you're holding—" Squalt stopped midsentence when he saw that Ceril wasn't holding onto his sword any longer. "Where is your sword, Ceril?"

Ceril held his palms face up and looked at them. "I don't know," he said honestly. He had come in with the sword, and he was sure he had never let go of it. Yet, it was not in his hand, nor was it beside his chair or at his feet. The young man hopped up and looked all around the chairs and couch. "I really have no idea, sir."

Ceril looked at Professor Nephil, who had a slight grin on his face, as though he thought the whole situation was mildly amusing, but not actually funny enough to laugh at.

"Interesting," Squalt said. The headmaster didn't say what about it was interesting, though. Instead, he moved directly in front of Professor Nephil and handed him the orange sword. The aura immediately shifted colors, from the orange-brown it had been, to a bright blue laced with a silver swirl that constantly rotated from hilt to tip. The headmaster took the sword back and the color became the subdued orange-brown once again.

He then held it out for Ceril to take, but the young man would not take it.

"It's okay, Ceril," Professor Nephil said. "Just hold it for a second." It was the first thing that Professor Nephil had said since they had been in the office. The smirk on his face was almost reassuring enough for Ceril to believe him. Almost.

"I-I..." Ceril said. "No, no, thank you."

"It's okay, Ceril," Squalt said. "Nothing bad is going to happen to you. I just want to test something out with my sword, since we've already seen how yours reacts to you."

"What do you mean?" Ceril asked. "It's not my sword. I-I..." His voice trailed off.

"Take it," the headmaster said. He offered him the sword again. "Please."

Ceril hesitated, but eventually reached out and took hold of the sword's hilt. Again, the blade shifted color. This time, the blade glowed with the bright green and purple that the now-vanished one had at Presentation. The aura was larger and brighter than it was when either Squalt or Nephil had held it. Ceril shoved it back toward the headmaster, but fumbled and dropped it on the floor instead. The glow immediately faded. The blade glinted gold, but nothing else. Ceril wanted to ask what was going on, but the words were stuck in his throat. He just stared at the sword instead.

The headmaster bent down and picked up the sword. He walked slowly around the perimeter of the room and secured the sword in the empty spot on the wall behind his desk. He then sat down, leaned forward, and steepled his fingers. "Ceril, you're a very special young man, do you know that?"

Ceril was silent.

"I am afraid, however, that you will not be able to study agriculture at Ennd's during Phase II."

That news was enough to break Ceril's silence. "But..." he muttered. "But...Gramps..."

"Instead," Headmaster Squalt said, rising from his seat, "you will train as a Charon. You seem to have an innate connection with Flameblades that I haven't seen in years, if not decades or longer. Have you, Lim?"

"No," Professor Nephil said. "Not in a great, long time."

"I can't say if that connection will be enough to get you through the training, Ceril, but it is likely to give you an advantage over other Recruits."

"I don't know what you're talking about, sir," Ceril said.

"Has your grandfather told you nothing about Ennd's, young man? About what is expected of you?"

"I—umm—he—" Ceril stammered. He recalled the stories Gramps had told him the week before. If there were Instances here, how many of those other legends had connections to Ennd's?

"Well, either way," the headmaster interrupted, "your grandfather should have told you this was coming. He, of all people, should know that you weren't going to be able to study," the headmaster laughed, "agriculture."

"You know Gramps?" he asked. Ceril's day was getting odder and odder.

"I used to. I'll tell you about it sometime," the headmaster said. "As far as the Charons and your training and all of this, I'll give you the short version right now. Once you get into Orientation, Roman will bore you with the longer, more detailed history. The man takes a special delight in just that, it seems." Squalt motioned for Ceril to sit back down then continued, "There was a civil war, a long time ago, between two factions within the Charons. Ennd's Academy was set up as a last ditch effort by one side, not just to keep their technology around and influence maintained, but to keep their ranks filled. To find new members of their order. They wanted to make sure that their research continued. Ennd's is just a front for us, Ceril. It is an elaborate recruitment tool that your grandfather—Gramps, you called him?—disapproved of. He said that the school would eventually shut down from—what did he say now? Lim?"

"I believe the phrase he used was negligence and ignorance," Professor Nephil said.

The headmaster laughed. "That was it! He always did have a way with words. Anyway, Ceril, we use Phase II Presentation to vet students' potential for joining the Charonic Archive. Having a Flameblade materialize at your feet kind of tipped us off to your potential. We had originally thought that you were not up for it, hence the welcome message I gave you yesterday." He coughed. "I didn't know what else to say, given your unique circumstances."

"What do you mean?" Ceril asked.

"In due time, son. In due time. I'm sad to say that I have seen nothing in the past five years that makes you stand out, nothing that even remotely indicates you're suitable for recruitment. However, your affinity to the Flameblade technology cannot be denied." The headmaster eyed the golden sword on Ceril's lap, frowned, and then clapped his hands together as he met the boy's eyes once again. "So here we are. We'll see how it all works out, yes?"

Ceril just blinked. He was having a hard time soaking all this in. "Are you serious?" he asked.

"Very much so."

It was Professor Nephil's turn to speak now. "You will start tomorrow morning, Ceril. I suggest that you take what is left of the evening to get some dinner and rest up. Make sure your belongings are still packed away in your bags, too, though I doubt you've had time to do any unpacking just yet." He rose from the chair and walked to the office's door. "Come along, Ceril. Let's stop wasting the headmaster's time discussing things you'll be told soon enough."

Ceril got up to leave with Professor Nephil. He looked back at Headmaster Squalt, who sat smiling at him. With the early afternoon sunlight beaming through the window behind the couch, he almost had a halo around him. He said, "Do you have any questions before you go, Ceril?"

"The sword..." Ceril said. "Where did it go, do you know? I didn't mean to lose it."

"I'm sure you'll find it eventually," the headmaster said. "These things have a way of turning up for people like you." He clapped his hands on his knees and pushed himself to his feet. "I look forward to working with you, Ceril. Oh, and I almost forgot. I'm going to need you to keep your recruitment to yourself for the time being. We strive to keep this part of Ennd's out of the public knowledge."

"Can I tell Gramps?"

"No, I'm afraid not," said Squalt. After a brief pause, he added, "I'll handle that, actually. It's been a while since the two of us spoke, anyway."

"Okay..." Ceril said. He didn't have much of a choice, it seemed. "Can I tell Swarley, though? He's my roommate. He'll need to know what's going on."

Professor Nephil said, "I would prefer that you keep all of this to yourself for the moment, if you would not mind. If and when the time comes for Mr. Dann to know about your training, we'll let you know."

"But he's my roommate! How is he not going to find out what I'm studying?" Ceril asked. He was honestly curious about how he was supposed to keep something like this a secret. "It'll probably be pretty obvious that I'm not studying agriculture."

"I don't think so," the headmaster said. "Thank you, Ceril. Professor Nephil."

And with that, Nephil and Ceril passed through the doorway back into Ennd's. Ceril's skin tingled again. The early afternoon light in the headmaster's office was gone. The twin suns had long since set, as though the headmaster's office somehow kept up the illusion of daytime.

"Is it night now, Professor?" Ceril asked.

"It would appear so," Nephil said, unperturbed.

"But how?" Ceril said. After what they had just discussed, he thought it was okay to ask the professor about Instances now. "Was Headmaster Squalt's office an Instance?"

"Yes, it was."

"But how can the sun still be up, even if it's an Instance? I thought that they..."

Nephil interrupted him by saying, "The quick answer is that time is not necessarily the same everywhere, Ceril. Five minutes here may be two hours in some other Instance. An Instance's location in space has very little bearing on its location in time, I'm afraid. I'm sure that's something that will be covered in your upcoming instruction. Suffice it to say, though, that the rumors that fill these halls about Instancing are...underwhelming."

"Oh, well, okay," he said. "And Professor?"

"Mmm hmm?"

"Swarley showed me a holovid last night. These people in it, they had swords like the one the headmaster had." Ceril gulped, unsure if he should continue. "Like the one that I—"

Again, Nephil cut him off. "The incidents over the summer, Ceril, have nothing to do with the Charons. Or more accurately, they have nothing to do with the Charons as you will learn about them and become a part of. Do you remember how the headmaster mentioned the old civil war? The one that preceded the construction of this school?"

Ceril nodded.

"Well, the people who lost that war have apparently made their way back to Erlon. And they don't really like the way we do things around here."
Chapter Four

Ceril opened his eyes. It was dark. He rolled over, pulled the blanket over his shoulder, and tucked it beneath his chin. Dark was good. It meant there was still time for sleep. Ceril rolled over and tried to clear his mind. He wasn't surprised at being unable to sleep; he was irritated by it. He stared out the window and looked at the stars. The constellations at Ennd's were different from the ones in Ternia, and he never got used to the change. He watched them slowly drift across the window and eventually felt himself doze off.

When he opened his eyes again, it was still dark. The constellations had moved, but not much. He must not have made it all the way to sleep. He felt himself doze off again, and once again, he woke up with it still dark outside. Time seemed to crawl for Ceril that night, and his body ached from the tossing and turning he had been doing.

By the time his alarm sounded just past dawn, he was already fully awake. He had been for hours. Ceril grabbed the clothes he had worn for Presentation yesterday—Nephil had not given him instructions on how to dress, but he figured he couldn't go wrong with his dress uniform—and ran to the shower with high hopes that the hot water would ease the ache in his neck and back.

As he left the dormitory, Ceril looked at Swarley's side of the room. He hadn't been at home when Ceril had finally made it back, and with his insomnia, Ceril was sure to have noticed him coming in late. There was a curfew for students, and Ceril was worried that Swarley was going to be in trouble for breaking it. More than that, though, he hoped to have a chance to say goodbye to his friend before being ushered off into whatever Phase the Charon recruits got into. Neither the headmaster nor Professor Nephil had given him any solid answer on what was coming next. For all he knew, he would be staying here with Swarley after his orientation period. But he wanted to say goodbye if that wasn't the case.

After a long shower that did surprisingly ease his muscle aches, Ceril returned to his dorm and found Swarley asleep in his bed, face down and fully clothed. He must have been up all night, too.

"Swarley?" he said. His roommate didn't stir. If he had been up all night, Ceril thought he should just leave him alone and let him rest. There were still three hours before normal Phase II classes started, and he figured that Swarley would appreciate every unconscious minute of them. Ceril gave his side of the room a last once over and gently placed the one picture that he had of himself and Gramps in the middle of the largest bag so it would be protected. He zipped up the bag.

Nephil had told Ceril that his belongings would be taken care of as long as he had them packed away, so Ceril closed the closet door as quietly as he could and headed to meet everyone in front of the Library.

"Bye, Swarley," he said. "I'll see you...sometime, man. I hope I get a chance to tell you about all of this soon. I doubt you'll believe me anyway." He waited for a response, for any kind of signal that would start a conversation, but the most he got was a muffled snore. He smiled and left the room.

Professor Nephil had given him three specific orders regarding this morning. The first was to shower and make sure he was clean. He didn't mention clothing, but he had mentioned a shower specifically. The second was to meet at the Library door as soon as possible after his shower. He indicated to Ceril that he must be there two hours earlier than he had been to Presentation.

The third order was the oddest. "Do not, Ceril," Professor Nephil had said, "eat any breakfast in the morning. Eat what you want before you go to bed, but please, eat nothing in the morning once you wake up. It just makes things easier for us all." Ceril wasn't hungry, so he had no trouble fasting. However, he did wonder why he had been asked to.

The halls of Phase II were empty as he made his way to the Library. He had expected as much. No students in their right minds would be out and about this early unless they had to be.

When Ceril arrived at the Library door, no one was there. He opened the door a crack to peek in and to see if Professor Nephil was waiting inside.

He wasn't.

Ceril did see, though, that the ramped cylinder of the Phase II Library was bustling today—unlike yesterday. Instead of students standing rigidly at attention having interviews, he saw faculty whipping past one another in a frenzy. Despite the chasm in the middle, they seemed to take no precautions not to fall as they darted around each other to get to the shelf space they needed. He gasped when he saw one gaunt young professor, whom he had never seen, take a leap into the empty air in the middle of the room. To his surprise, she bounced across the chasm to the other side as though she were hopping from one side of a fluffy mattress to the other.

As he watched in amazement, a hand came to rest on his shoulder. Ceril jerked backward and hit his head on the door he had been peeking through. He let go of the door to rub his probably-bruised head, and the Library once again sealed itself off from the rest of Ennd's with a thud-hiss. When Ceril turned, he saw that the hand belonged to Professor Nephil. Instead of the black dress robes from the day before, he was dressed in slacks and a long shirt that flared out at the waist and ended about a quarter of the way down his legs. The cut of the shirt was not flattering because of Nephil's overweight midsection.

"I guess I'm overdressed?" Ceril asked. The formality that Professor Nephil had inspired in Ceril since their first meeting dissipated as he looked at the teacher's casual outfit.

Nephil nodded. "Indeed. But it shouldn't matter. If you need to change, you will be given new clothes. I am not sure what Roman has planned for you all."

"Roman? Didn't Headmaster Squalt mention him yesterday?"

"You'll meet him soon enough," Nephil said.

"And what do you mean by you all?" Ceril asked. "Nobody else is here yet. How many of us are there?"

"Two dozen total. Though I bet a quarter of you will not make it through the classroom orientation and half of those who do will surely not make it through the physical portion."

"Twenty-four? Out of how many Phase II students?"

"Thirteen hundred thirty-seven from Ennd's alone, of which you are this institution's only candidate."

"What do you mean?"

Nephil said, "Ennd's Academy is not the only school on Erlon, Ceril. While we do have a few students from Yagh and Ferran here at Ennd's, parents in many provinces prefer their children not to attend school half a world away. To accommodate that, the Charons have set up similar institutions in Bester, Yagh, and Ferran, from which we can recruit."

Ceril smirked. He liked being part of such an elite group, even if it wasn't what he actually wanted to study or do with his life. He'd never really been special before, except to Gramps. But being the only recruit from Ennd's? A single student out of over a thousand?

Nephil noticed the pride. "Don't get ahead of yourself, Ceril. This is only the beginning. The odds are stacked against you actually making it into the program."

"And what happens if I don't?" Ceril asked.

"You will be placed back into the general population of the academy to study whatever subject you wish. I believe you had mentioned agriculture."

"So as big a secret as you and Headmaster Squalt made this out to be yesterday, I get to go back to my daily life like none of this ever happened. And you expect me to keep the secret that the Charons use Ennd's as a home base? That they're—we're? You're?—not just legends and myths?"

"Hardly. If that were the case, you would remember none of this. Not a word or a second. All you would recall is having a very pleasant talk with the headmaster at Presentation where you told him that you wanted to study agriculture to help your grandfather in Ternia. You would remember him agreeing and placing you in an accelerated agriculture program, where you would finish your studies in half the time of non-accelerated students. After that, well, I'm sure you would go back to Ternia and make use of what you learned here."

"But how is that possible?" Ceril asked. "You'd...brainwash me?"

"Nothing quite so pedestrian, Ceril. You've been watching far too many holovids, I think. I'm sure that your classroom instruction will enlighten you to the finer points of Charonic technology and procedures," Professor Nephil said.

The Library door opened and attracted both of their attentions. A large man came out of the door. He wasn't fat or even overweight, but he stood almost a head taller than Professor Nephil. He wore a tunic that matched Nephil's, except instead of a drab grey, the large man's was a metallic blue and was embroidered with a symbol Ceril couldn't quite make out—maybe a feather. Ceril had never seen anyone with such large muscles before, and he couldn't help but wonder why anyone would need muscles like that. Ceril could barely see behind him, but he was certain that what he glimpsed was not the Phase II Library.

"And here he is, Ceril. I'd like to introduce you to Roman Beckins. You two will get to know each other quite well, I expect." Nephil nodded at Roman, who returned the gesture. "How are you, old friend?"

"I've been better, Lim. These new recruits you've got me are a hell of a group, I'll tell you that. But I don't think we'll be having much more success than usual with them, and that's a shame given all that's going on right now. Is this Ceril?" He gestured at Ceril with his thumb and a cocked eyebrow.

"I am," Ceril said before Nephil had the opportunity. "It's nice to meet you, sir."

Roman's gaze went back to Nephil. "Polite. I like that. Not at all like his granddad. But we'll see how he does." He turned back to Ceril and reached to shake the young man's hand. Roman's hand was easily three times the size of Ceril's. "It's nice to meet you, too, Ceril," he said. "If you'll follow me, we'll get you oriented to your new life."

New life? Ceril thought.

"I'll see you around, Roman," Nephil said. Roman waved and then reached for the door. It opened without a catch, but this time, instead of showing the Phase II Library, Ceril was ushered into a windowless, unfurnished metal room, filled with what had to be twenty-three other students. The other Recruits.

Roman patted Ceril on the shoulder and made his way through the throng of bodies. He waved his hand, and the floor rumbled under their feet. Ceril thought for a moment that it was going to give way. Instead, Roman was lifted a few feet into the air so that he was plainly visible to everyone in the room, even those in the back.

"Welcome," he said, "to your new lives. I'm not going to waste my time or yours by going over basic information that you are all going to get during your classroom instruction. You will learn anything you need to know precisely when it becomes necessary for you to know it. Like right now, for instance, you are here to learn your way around."

Roman waved his hand again, and the wall behind him disappeared. It did not gently fade out, nor did it flicker and disappear like most holograms. It was there one moment, and the next, the students were staring into an unobstructed view of the stars. If Ceril hadn't been standing upright, he would have sworn that he was lying on his back looking up at the night sky. He heard murmurs and gasps from the students around him. Some of them took instinctive steps backward, Ceril included. Even before yesterday's interview with the headmaster, Ceril was used to holograms. Despite Gramps' tendency to keep any tech of the kind out of the house and away from his grandson, Ennd's more than kept him up-to-date on holovids from the 'Nets. But no amount of streaming video could have prepared him for what Roman had just done. It might as well have been magic.

The magic didn't stop there. Roman turned his back to the students and the remaining three walls, the floor, and the ceiling disappeared, too. Now, everyone was just floating in a sea of stars in all directions. There was no up, no down, and no point of reference for anything except for each other.

Ceril's throat tightened up, and it wouldn't let him vocalize his fear. Some of the others didn't have that problem. He heard a couple of outright screams, a few whimpers, and maybe even a sob. Ceril looked around frantically for anything to hold onto. He reached for the tall, gangly boy beside him, but let go just as quickly as the boy doubled over and vomited into the void.

Two thoughts about that came to Ceril. The first of which was that he now understood why Professor Nephil had forbidden him from eating breakfast. Ceril was glad he listened, unlike someone else. The second was that the vomit did not land on the floor. He felt completely stable, and apparently, all of the other students did, too. No one had flown off into space just yet, at least. Even though, Ceril thought, they probably should have. He couldn't explain why they hadn't.

If the room disappearing had been an illusion or a hologram, the boy's vomit would have still pooled up on the floor. It hadn't. It just kept...falling?...into space until it was completely out of view.

What the hell is going on? Ceril thought. What have I gotten myself into?

Roman's voice interrupted his thoughts. "Let me be the first to officially welcome all of you Recruits aboard the Inkwell Sigil."

A hand raised in the crowd. A chubby girl Ceril didn't know asked, "What's an Inkwell Sigil?"

Roman smiled at her. "I'm sorry," he said. "I get ahead of myself sometimes. The Inkwell Sigil is the name of a spaceship." He waved into space off to his left. "A spaceship whose most basic function is as a location where we train our Recruits." Roman swept his arm across the group. "And it will be your home for the next six years." Roman waited for the students to get their murmurs out before he continued. "Your families will be given cover stories about your education. In a way, they will be told the truth. They will know that you have been selected for an extremely selective boarding program and that the program lasts for six years. I'm sorry to say that your contact will be limited during your tenure here, but that is temporary."

A boy with a round face spoke up behind Ceril. "I don't think my Ma will go for that, Mr. Roman."

Roman smiled, and it was the first time Ceril thought it wasn't genuine. He said, "She won't have a choice." His tone indicated that the matter was closed. He changed the subject before anything else was said. "Right now, we are traveling through hyperspace."

"What are you talking about?" asked another voice from the crowd. "Hyperspace? Did you just make that up?"

Roman was unperturbed. He was used to that kind of disrespect during these initial moments. This was a lot to take in, so he forgave the kid's rudeness. "No," he said. "I didn't. Hyperspace is pretty easy to understand. Think about it like this. Have you ever rubbed your hands together and felt heat building up? That burning sensation?"

The student said, "Well, yeah."

"Well, it's friction doing that. Now, have you ever rubbed your hands together with something between them? Like some water, jelly, anything like that?"

"I guess."

"Does it make it easier to rub your hands together? Does it stop the burning and make you not blister?"

"I guess."

"Well, think of that jelly, water, or whatever, as hyperspace. If we were to move through normal space, we'd be slowed down by what you can basically think of as friction. There's a limiting force to how fast we can go without destroying ourselves, kind of like that burning when you run your hands together too fast. However, if we coat ourselves in jelly, so to speak, we can move far more quickly and far more smoothly to where we're going without burning ourselves up from too much friction. Does that make sense?"

"So we're in a spaceship that's covered in jelly?" the student asked.

"It's not a perfect metaphor," Roman said.

"It's a stupid metaphor."

Roman laughed and said, "I can't help that. It's the best I've got. Right now, from where we are, you can't see the hyperspace envelope that surrounds the ship. Once we leave this lobby area, though, you'll be able to see the envelope through any window or porthole you look out of—a colored blur, some swirling lights, maybe." He looked at the student who didn't care for his explanation of hyperspace. "That's the jelly we've got on the ship. Other than that, we are in a completely empty Instance."

More muttering and whispering started, and Roman let it slide once again. Something didn't sit right about what Roman just said with Ceril, though.

Then it hit him: why could they see stars? If they were in a completely empty Instance, why were there stars? It just didn't make sense. And on top of that, if they were in hyperspace because it let them go farther away, faster, and with no damage to the ship, why would they have to be in an empty Instance? Couldn't they just stay in one place and not worry about hyperspace at all?

Ceril raised his hand to ask, but Roman never acknowledged him. He opened his mouth to speak once the conversation about the jelly on the ship died down a bit, but Roman started in again before he could speak.

"Okay, then. Moving on," Roman said. The space in which the group floated began to shift around the students. Stars whirled from one side of the room to another, but as one star went right, another went left, and yet others moved in and out and up and down. The whole world as the Recruits could perceive it was in flux, and the rest of the students who had ignored Nephil's warning about not eating breakfast vomited into space. The stars began to slow down and coalesce into a building or a ship in front of them. The group flew toward it, and just as they thought they were going to accelerate directly into the hull, they passed through it like it wasn't even there. So this is a hologram, after all, Ceril thought. At least this part of it is.

Now inside the structure, Ceril looked around at the translucent walls the stars had formed. The group moved through the corridors quickly, but they never took a step. The walls moved around them. If the vertigo of free floating in dead space didn't bother Ceril, the too-fast-for-indoors speed with which they were moving through the halls wouldn't either.

"Pay attention to the route we are taking," Roman said. "This is the way to the dining hall." The group floated around a few corners and eventually came to rest in the middle of a very large room furnished with long tables and multicolored chairs. "Look up," Roman said. They all did. The entire ceiling was a transparent dome through which they could see swirling reds turn into blues into purples—the hyperspace blur Roman had mentioned earlier. "Obviously, this is where you will eat while aboard."

He waved again, and the group sped up. They left the dining hall through a corridor on the opposite side of the room. The Inkwell Sigil sped around the students for a while. It whipped corridors around them so quickly—and in such rapid succession—that Ceril wondered how anyone could actually remember where to go when they were left to their own devices. He sure wouldn't be able to find his way around. Eventually, they climbed a very steep, spiral ramp, not unlike the one in the Phase II Library. This time, however, it wasn't lining the room's outer walls. It could have just as easily been a staircase.

As they circled the ramp, Roman said, "We are on our way to the dormitories now. You will each be given private quarters. You will be told which room is yours after today's orientation sessions have finished."

Private quarters? Ceril thought. What about Swarley? He bit his lip to stop the welling of tears in his eyes. Six years? He thought that was what Roman had said before. That the Inkwell Sigil was going to be his home for six years. He wondered how much contact with the outside world he was going to have, or with Gramps and with Swarley. They really were the only two people he cared about talking to or seeing, and he had kind of been thrown into all of this really quickly.

He didn't decide that he would be a Charon. He was told.

Surely, he thought, they won't make me go six years without talking to my Gramps or any of my friends.

The ramp ended, and the Recruits could see ladders that led to a small walkway that allowed access to upper and lower bunks. "I'm afraid that the rooms are not luxury accommodations, but I'm sure you will find a way to make them yours."

Their surroundings did an almost instant 180-degree turn, and the group pitched forward down the ramp. Once at the bottom, the students found themselves flying up another, almost identical ramp.

At the top, plants and flowers were everywhere. The air became noticeably fresher, and the ceiling was another dome that gave view of a green blur swirling above their heads. As the students watched, it shifted colors multiple times, and a few students gasped at the dancing colors. Ceril found his mouth hanging open at how beautiful it was.

"This," Roman said, "is the observation deck. It is one of our students' favorite places on the ship. I have a feeling that more than a little of your time will be spent here."

I have that feeling, too, Ceril thought. It's so much like home. He swallowed hard and looked around at the room, and saw that it was divided into multiple tiers. Each tier had a different type of plant, almost like a theme. The very center of the observation deck was a courtyard, and Ceril saw that part of it was organized like a garden. He smiled. Maybe he would be able to study agriculture while he was here, after all.

The transparent ship did another about-face around the students. Ceril barely noticed the route they took that brought them to a classroom. He was sure there were some turns and a ramp or two, but he would find his way around later. He was still thinking about the observation deck and the garden in the middle of it. There was just something about that place. It felt like it was important to him for some reason, like he already had a stake in it.

The only illumination in the room was a large window. It colored everything in the room to match the hyperspace envelope on the other side. Right then, the whole group looked orange, then purple, then blue, then green, then yellow. Then back to orange. It kept changing every few seconds, and eventually Ceril had to force himself to tune it out so that he could hear what Roman was saying.

"This," Roman said, "is where the majority of your orientation will take place. Not all of it, mind you, but much of it. In fact, it is where your first class will take place. With me. We will discuss the history and origins of the Charonic Archive in roughly half an hour. Anyway, what you've just seen are the most important places aboard the Inkwell Sigil. Your places to eat, sleep, play, and learn. Like I said, I'm sure you'll find your way into other areas as you stay here, but if you can remember how to get to those four, your lives will be considerably easier."

"Also," Roman continued, "all of this is going to take some getting used to for many of you. I'd bet that most of you had thought that the technomages were long dead, that the Charons were just stories you learned about in class. I hope you now realize that we are most certainly not dead or just stories, and that you all have a part to play in keeping it that way. If you can make it through your training, that is."

Roman flourished his hand, and the classroom solidified around them. The translucent walls that Ceril had been sure were holograms were hard metal under his hands and feet. The light from the window wasn't quite as diffuse as it had been, either. That whole time they thought they had been speeding through the holographic representation of the ship, they had actually been speeding through the Inkwell Sigil itself. But how?

Roman eased himself out of his levitation and back to his feet. He didn't say anything else to the students, and there wasn't any other faculty around. They had half an hour to kill before class started, and Ceril wasn't going to waste any of it. He walked over to the window and stared out at the colored swirls that lit the room. Occasionally, he would look around at the crowd and saw so many frightened faces. At one point, he thought that he was the only one in the room with a smile on his face.

And why wouldn't he be smiling? He had just been given the best show of his life and let in on a secret the rest of the world had no idea about.

If that wasn't something to smile about, then he really didn't know what was.

***

The smile on Ceril's face didn't last long, though. Ethan Triggs saw to that.

After all the other students had gone, Ceril still stood there and stared out the window. The swirl of colors created by hyperspace was mesmerizing, so when Ceril's nose slammed into the window, it took him a minute to even register what happened.

And when he did, he registered the three things:

First, pain. Second, he was lying on the ground. Third, a large boy a few years older than Ceril was standing over him, laughing.

"Welcome to the Sigil, noob," the boy said. His voice was meaty, but he enunciated his words. Which to Ceril, meant the boy wasn't stupid.

"What the hell, man? Why did you do that?"

The boy shrugged. "Why not?"

"Why not?" Ceril almost shrieked. "You almost broke my nose."

"It's not broken, though. You'd be bleeding if it were." The boy put out his hand, like he was offering to help Ceril to his feet.

Ceril accepted, and when he was upright, he said, "I'm Ceril Bain."

"Lame," the boy said. "I'm Ethan Triggs."

"Lame?" Ceril asked.

Ethan nodded. "Your name. You're just all-around terrible for a Recruit, aren't you, Ceril?"

"What's your problem, Ethan?" Ceril said. "I was just standing here, and you come in and start insulting me. What gives?"

Ethan shrugged. "Don't really like Recruits, I guess. Most of you guys are idiots, most of you fail, and if you're not enough of an idiot to fail, you get in my way and screw up my training or my missions."

Ceril cocked his head to the side. "What does that have to do with me?"

Ethan shrugged again. "Who knows? You were here, so let's just say this is my way of telling you to stay the hell out of my way."

Before Ceril could say anything, Ethan placed both his meaty hands on Ceril's shoulders and pushed again. This time, the back of Ceril's head slammed into the window, and his vision flashed. He felt himself fall to the floor again. And he heard Ethan Triggs chuckle and start to walk away.

"Welcome to the Sigil, Recruit."
Chapter Five

"Who had ever heard of a Charon before setting foot on my ship?" asked Roman, the muscled captain of the Inkwell Sigil. The room of two dozen teenagers stared ahead. Ceril and the other Recruits sat at their own desks, which were really unlike any desks at Ennd's Academy. Instead of a blank slate, the desks were equipped with a touch-interface computer embedded in the tabletop, which projected a floating hologram they could interact with by waving their hands through any part of the display. Every single student—even the most privileged ones—gawked at the computers as he or she sat down for orientation. The technology was advanced beyond anything they had been allowed to get their hands on at Ennd's, and that was saying a lot. Who knew about other schools? From the looks on the other Recruits' faces, though, Ceril didn't figure they had any more experience with it than he did.

This was technomage stuff, and if this was what they were given access to on their first day of training, Ceril couldn't wait to see what he would get next month, or even next year, if he lasted that long.

Regarding Roman's question, Ceril actually knew very little, only what Gramps had told him about the Charons. He thought about raising his hand and offering that information to Roman (that is what he insisted the Recruits call him. "There will be no titles and rank as long as you study with me"), but before he could, a girl in the front row started talking. Her hand had shot up like an old classroom pro, and her mouth had opened simultaneously. Roman had no time to give her permission to speak.

"The Charons," she said, then paused. "I suppose that most people called them technomages, though. Charons or technomages, either one."

Roman nodded and motioned for her to continue.

"Right. The Charons began as a group of scientists. According to most of the Yaghian legends I've read, the founding members were tired of the way science was handled thousands of years ago. A man united the four major city-states without a war, and began calling himself the Untouchable."

The Untouchable? Ceril filed that one away for later.

The girl continued her rambling, leaving him very little time for thought. "After that, those same city-states—Yagh, Ternia, Ferran, and Bester—produced a lot of myths that indicate that the Untouchable thought of himself as a spiritual man who loathed science."

Ceril raised his hand, and Roman pointed at him, while holding his hand up to stop the girl's prattling. She ignored him and kept talking.

"Because of that loathing, the legends say that some scientists thought that even though he had stopped the wars, he and his government were doing nothing to advance that unification. In fact, some of my teachers in Yagh that taught that the Untouchable actually did what he could to bury scientific discoveries."

Roman put his hands down and just started to nod. If he was giving up, then Ceril decided he didn't have a chance to say anything.

"Apparently, the Untouchable would either label scientific progress as heresy, or more often, he would take the invention and pass it off as his own connection to the divine. The Charons initially formed out of a desire to advance science and depose the Untouchable." The girl sat back in her chair and became quiet.

Ceril just stared at her. She seemed slightly embarrassed after her story. Her cheeks flushed red, and Ceril couldn't help thinking she was pretty. Kind of. She might have been. If she wasn't so annoying.

Roman, however, nodded slightly and smiled at the girl. "Thank you, Saryn. I appreciate your enthusiasm. Some of the old Yaghian legends hold some truth, indeed. Can you tell me how long ago that happened?"

"I'm not sure," Saryn said.

"Anyone?" Roman asked the class.

Silence from the class. Roman leaned back against the wall with his arms crossed and waited. When it became clear that none of the students were going to hazard a guess, he said, "About ten thousand years ago."

More silence.

He had obviously expected some kind of response from them. He started walking around the room. "Does anyone else know anything about the Charons or the technomages?"

Ceril slowly raised his hand.

"Yes? Ceril?"

"My Gramps told me about them over the summer after we found a sword in the garden. It took a long time to tell, though. He's a really good storyteller."

"Well, why don't you just hit the high points for us?"

Ceril cleared his throat. "Well, he said the Charons were protectors. Or soldiers. Gramps never said anything about them being scientists. He said they went from province to province doing what they had to so the old wars wouldn't start again."

Ceril shifted in his seat as he spoke. He hated talking in front of people.

"Thank you, Ceril. Now can you tell me how long ago this was?"

"No idea, sir. Ten thousand years?"

Roman laughed. "I see what you did there. Anyone else?"

Ceril sheepishly raised his hand again.

"Yes, Ceril?" Roman asked.

"My roommate at Ennd's showed me a video with some people in it. They said they were Charons. And I think that maybe the Charons might have been bad people. Sir."

Roman smiled. "Well, thank you for that vote of confidence, my friend."

The classroom chuckled.

I didn't mean—" Ceril began.

"I know, Ceril," Roman said. "I don't like to think of myself as the bad guy, either." Roman spread his arms out and gestured at the whole class. "So tell me which of these stories is correct? Here we are, aboard a technomage ship, speeding through hyperspace. We are both nowhere near Erlon and still right beside it. Each one of you have been specially chosen based on test scores, faculty recommendations, and," Roman looked directly at Ceril, "other more extraordinary qualifications."

Ceril gulped.

"So obviously there is some truth in some of these stories," Roman continued. "But which ones?"

No one raised a hand.

"No one?"

Saryn fidgeted in her chair. She looked uncomfortable to Ceril. Obviously, she wasn't used to being unable to offer a correct answer. Ceril had no idea which of the stories was true, either. He only knew that the contradictory tales existed and that they all had to be at least partially true. He wouldn't be sitting here if they weren't.

Around the room, the other students were just as confused as Saryn. How could any of them know the truth? In most places on Erlon, records went back a century or two at most. And that was well after the last war had ended.

Roman walked to the front of the room and over to the window. He put both of his palms on the glass. His head dropped, and to Ceril, he looked like he was praying. When Roman spoke, his words were quick, terse, and far sterner than he had sounded with the students yet. "No one can tell me which legends about technomages are true? Really? You are the best and brightest students on Erlon, and not one of you can tell me which of these stories is correct? No one will even guess?"

A boy two chairs down from Ceril raised his hand.

Without turning around, Roman said, "Yes, Barty?"

The boy said something that Ceril couldn't hear.

"Louder, son," Roman said.

A second try: "Not to be rude, sir, but how could we know? I mean, back in Ferran, we don't even know why it's called Ferran. It just is. Maybe they know that kind of thing in Ternia or Yagh, but Professor Kline said last year that some stories are just lost and gone."

"And what does that have to do what Saryn and Ceril said?"

Barty hesitated. "I guess that we can't know, sir. I thought that's why we're here. To learn that kind of stuff."

Roman turned from the window and faced the class. He was frowning. "I suppose you're right. Who here agrees with Barty?"

A couple of hands went up slowly—not above the students' shoulders, though, in case they might need to hide their responses quickly.

"I see," Roman said. "Well, let me just tell you. Barty's right. There really is no way you could know which story is correct."

Barty beamed in his chair and sat a little straighter. Ceril felt good for the kid. He seemed like the kind of boy who didn't get that kind of praise terribly often.

"But so is Saryn," the teacher continued. "And so are Ceril and his grandfather. All the stories are true."

Saryn couldn't take it anymore. Her hand shot up, but once again, she started talking before she was called on. "But how is that possible, sir? How? They contradict each other! They can't be true if they all tell a different story."

"They're all true," Roman explained, "because they all have that one seed in them that ties them to the past. Nothing is completely true. They all have bits of fantasy and myth in them. Ten thousand years will do that to just about anything, right? But Barty is right. You are in this classroom because you need to know the full truth. And before your time aboard this ship is finished, you're going to know as much of it as anyone else in the world; more than most people, actually. How does that sound?"

The class was silent again, and Roman just shook his head. "You guys are going to have to lighten up and talk to me eventually, or this is going to be a very long year."

***

Several hours later, the students were finally dismissed. They began to stand up and mill about aimlessly as students tend to do, and Roman said, "On each of your terminals is a room assignment." The Recruits went back to their desks. "You will each have your own, private quarters. Make yourself comfortable. If you're one of those lucky few who become Apprenticed, this room will be your home for the next six years."

The class began to murmur, but Roman continued speaking. "If you are from Ennd's or Cernt Academies, your belongings have already been transferred to your new rooms. If you are from Ferahgo Academy, your things should arrive tomorrow morning. No matter which school you're from, though, you will find new training uniforms in each of your assigned quarters. I'll be making rounds to check in with each of you later this evening. Unless there are questions, you may go."

As the students moved toward the door, Ceril saw Roman smile mischievously. "Good luck finding your quarters. I'll see you all tomorrow."

***

Ceril hated his quarters.

It wasn't that they weren't nice. They were. The room was just nothing special. The room was big enough, and it had a similar layout to the Phase II dormitory he was supposed to share with Swarley at Ennd's. The problem with this room was that Ceril had no roommate to fill the extra space. The room was pretty empty, except for his bed, a desk, and a trio of chairs in one corner. He assumed it was so that Recruits could study together, or visit each other.

But he was alone, and he didn't know anyone. Having extra chairs and no one to fill them made Ceril homesick.

If he understood Roman correctly, none of the Recruits had roommates. Ceril was sure there was good reason for it, but after years of Phase I and living with a roommate, a good reason didn't make his quarters any less lonely.

As Ceril examined the room, he found his uniforms hanging in the closet—three identical sets of full-body fatigues. They were dark blue, maybe even black, and had a zipper going from the crotch to the neck. They looked like they would be a little big on him.

His name was on the right breast. Only it wasn't patched or embroidered like the rest of the uniform's decoration. It was displayed on a tiny, flexible screen. When he touched it, it just felt like the fabric of the fatigues. As he watched, the text on the screen rotated between CERIL and RECRUIT. He figured that once he picked a path of study, it would rotate between MEDIC, SCHOLAR, or SOLDIER, too.

He smiled as he watched his name and rank rotate in and out. Maybe being a technomage wasn't going to be so bad.

As he flicked between the uniforms, he saw a dress hanging behind the fatigues. Not a dress. A robe. It was thin, but surprisingly heavy. There was no zipper anywhere, which gave him the impression it had been made to pull over his everyday clothes—probably the fatigues. The robe, like the fatigues, had patches and insignias on the sleeves. It even had the rotating nametag screen. Ceril liked the robe far more than he did the fatigues, so he pulled it over his head and noticed a heavy hood. He pulled it over his head and looked around the room.

No mirror. He sighed because he was sure that he looked like a villain from a cheesy holovid, and he wanted to see it. He let out a low "mwahahahahaha" to complete his mental image of himself. His playful megalomania was interrupted by a high-pitched trill that came from the desk in the center of the room. The paging system at Ennd's used the same sound.

"Answer," he said.

A holographic bust of Roman appeared above the desk. The bearded man's eyes fixed on Ceril, and he smiled. "Making yourself right at home, I see. How do you like your quarters, Ceril?"

Ceril snapped the hood from his head and he moved closer to the desk. "They're fine, sir. Thank you."

"I'm glad to hear it, Ceril," said Roman. "I just wanted to make sure that you had everything you needed."

"I think so, sir," Ceril said.

"Very well, then," Roman said. "Your itinerary for the next month of orientation has been sent to your tablet." As he spoke, a section of the desk's surface peeled away to reveal a portable computing tablet. "If you have any questions, please ask."

"I will," said Ceril. "Thank you, sir."

"Have a good evening, Ceril," said Roman.

"You, too," Ceril replied, but Roman's image had already faded.

Ceril plopped down on his bed. From where he lay, he could see out of the room's single window. Just having a window meant his quarters were on the outside edge of the ship, near the hull. He put his arms behind his head and stared outside.

There wasn't a lot to see, though. A constantly shifting series of colors blurred outside the window and whipped around the hull. Ceril remembered something Roman had said during his lecture earlier that day. "Don't be frightened just because you look out the window and don't see stars."

He hadn't thought anything about it before. In the classroom, the window that opened onto hyperspace just seemed like a wall of the room, a fixture as normal as the paint in his grandfather's kitchen. Now, Ceril could see why Roman had thought to give them all that warning. Alone, looking out the window of a spaceship and actually being unable to see space was disconcerting. More than that, Ceril thought that seeing those splotches of bright color whirling around was a little scary.

He broke himself away from the mesmerizing window, and found his bag in the rear of the closet. He smiled as he placed the picture of Gramps dead center on his desk.

He hated that he hadn't been able to talk to Gramps about being recruited as a Charon. After this summer and the sword, he wanted to see how Gramps would react to finding out that those old stories weren't just stories. He couldn't wait until next summer to tell Gramps all about it. Well, he hoped it would be next summer. That's the way Ennd's had always worked. You went to school during the fall and winter, and you went home during summer. He had just assumed the Inkwell Sigil worked that way, too. He would have to ask Roman about that sometime.

Surely, Roman hadn't meant they would live onboard for six years with no breaks.

Had he?

At least Headmaster Squalt had said he would contact Gramps to tell him that Ceril had been recruited. I wonder when we'll get to call home, Ceril thought. Can we call home from a spaceship? Ceril pondered that momentarily, and assumed that he could. They had, after all, just opened a door and walked onto the ship. Why wouldn't they be able to make calls, too?

Ceril reached for the tablet and collapsed with it back on the bed. It was a typical tablet like the ones he had gotten used to using at Ennd's. The device was bigger than his hand or a PDA, but smaller than most of the books on Gramps' shelf. It was thin and not heavy at all. He tapped the screen twice, and it came alive.

Immediately, he could see the entire schedule Roman had said would be there. Ceril didn't even bother reading through it. After the day he just had, just shut the tablet off and tossed it on the desk. The tablets at Ennd's were sturdy, and he knew this one could take a quick toss like that. However, he was surprised when the tablet was just about to land on the desk, it stopped in midair. It bobbed up and down a couple of times, and then the desk reached up and grabbed it out of the air.

Ceril blinked. The desk had become...not solid for a moment. Blobs or tendrils of liquid desk had wrapped themselves around the tablet and pulled it to the surface. Then the desk absorbed the device, so that the only item on its surface was the picture Ceril had just sat down.

Ceril blinked. Part of his mind knew that what he had just seen was real, that the desk's behavior was just another piece of technomage engineering, but the exhausted side told him that he just needed to sleep and to disregard it. He listened to the side that told him to sleep.

He got up to turn off the lights, but couldn't find a switch. That was when he realized that his room, like the classroom, was being illuminated entirely by the colorful glow of hyperspace through the window. It wasn't like starlight or moonlight. The shifting colors were different from anything he had ever seen. Ceril just shook his head in amazement.

He undressed and fell asleep almost as soon as he closed his eyes.

Chapter Six

It took Ceril a year to finally decide that he wanted to train to be a scholar. The deciding factor? Of the three choices offered, scholars were the ones who got the coolest toys.

Sure, a lot of a scholar's time was spent in a library doing research, but from what Roman had said, they were also the ones who got to apply that research and experiment with making new magic and devices. One thing bothered him, though: even after nearly a year of being aboard the Inkwell Sigil, Ceril still wasn't quite sure what the difference was between magic and technology.

Growing up, there had been a difference. Now, not so much. He thought that the two sounded basically the same, that the Charons used their devices and technology to such a high level of expertise and precision that they appeared as though they were magic to non-Charons.

Maybe he would get a better explanation next year when he started his scholar training.

And besides, Ceril just couldn't see himself as a soldier or a medic. If Roman nixed his becoming a scholar, or he couldn't make it through the training, medic was his second choice because they also got to play with a lot of tech, and maybe design some of it themselves. The problem was that they were responsible for other people's lives. Ceril didn't know if he wanted that kind of responsibility. He didn't think he had a steady enough hand to be a healer of any sort.

Being a soldier was out of the question. He had ruled that one out quickly. He had no desire to risk his life every time he stepped through an Instance portal. Ceril was going to do everything in his power to stay out of trouble. Even though Erlon had been mostly peaceful for years, that situation could change fast.

And even though Roman had said he would be returning to Erlon at some point, Ceril had seen enough of the upperclassmen prepping for Instance runs that he knew Erlon wasn't the only destination out there. There were enough battlefields out there to kill him a thousand times over. No, sir, Ceril thought. I don't care what they say about me already having a Flameblade; I'm no soldier.

Roman was in a really good mood that day. As the students filed into the classroom, Ceril approached him and said, "Can I talk to you for a second before we get started?"

"You know you can. What can I do for you, Ceril?"

"I think I know what I want to study. I think I want to be a scholar, do research and all that."

Roman's face lit up. He said, "I have to tell you right now, Ceril, it's not as glamorous as the other two paths, but I do think it's the most fulfilling."

"I'm not looking for glamour, sir."

"Then what are you looking for?"

Ceril's cheeks flushed red. He thought about a good way to say it. He couldn't just tell Roman that he wanted some neat toys to play with. "I think that I want to work with technology, invent things, new things." A little lower: "Magic."

Roman tilted his bed back and let out a single guffaw. "There's nothing wrong with that, son. Not a thing. That's pretty much the reason I went the scholar's route myself. I'm kind of addicted to technology."

"Me, too," Ceril said. "It just makes me happy."

"But what do you plan on doing with that Flameblade you've got?" Roman asked. "I've told you before that I've never seen anyone your age with one. I think we only have a handful of students—six, I think—on board right now who even get to train with them, much less have one of their own. And even they have to share the weapons between themselves."

"I hadn't really thought about it."

"Well, think about it. Nowhere does it say that just because you're going to school to be a brainy-type that you can't learn to use your own equipment, too. Since you've already got the sword, you might as well learn to use it, you know?"

"I don't know, sir," Ceril said. "I'm not really much of a fighter. I can't even figure out how to make the thing show up when I want it."

"Never said you were a fighter, but those swords are mighty hard to come by these days. It's even harder to get them to bond with soldier Recruits. To have one bond with a wannabe scholar before he was even a Recruit is pretty much unheard of."

Ceril hadn't thought about that, either.

"I have no problem with you, Ceril," Roman continued. "And I think you'll do just fine as a bookworm. I just ask that you think about all the unique opportunities life is presenting you with these days. Can I ask you to at least think about learning to use the Flameblade?"

Ceril nodded. And think about it, he did.

***

Even after the first year, students had very little free time aboard the Sigil. From the time they woke up in the morning until very late in the evening, their days were planned out. The shift from Recruit to Apprentice hadn't really effected any change on Ceril's daily routine: exercise first, then breakfast, then class for a few hours, then lunch, then more class, then personal study time.

By the time it was all over, it was early evening, and he felt like he simply could not fit any more information into his head. Even though there was technically a curfew, no one paid attention to it.

This one freedom—study time—was where the three classes of Charons were different. Ceril was genuinely shocked at how different the students acted just a few months after switching from Recruit status to Apprentice. The three classes began to act like cliques, and there was very little overlap between them.

Soldiers generally saw fit to study their actual lessons just enough to get by. The majority of their time was spent with Bryt, an incredibly small and frail-looking man who gave them rudimentary combat training. Medics spent a great deal of time with their books, but for the most part, their time was spent in a lab somewhere with their mentor, Howser—who always looked just a little too young when she was around Roman or Bryt. The scholarly Recruits really hadn't really spent any time with their mentor. They were told that she was on a mission and would be back as soon as she was able.

Because of her absence, Ceril and the other scholar Apprentices tended to band together. With no mentor to direct him, Ceril spent what time he had in the observation deck at the top of the Sigil.

Ceril had known from the first day aboard that he would love that room. He could stand at the railing for hours and watch the strange blur that enveloped the ship, reflecting onto the plants in their troughs. The garden in the center was his favorite part, though. On nights when he became fed up with academic exercises, he made his way to the observation deck and knelt among the plants. They were watered and tended by automated systems, so there was no need for a groundskeeper, but Ceril liked to have his hands in the dirt. He would weed the garden by hand and make sure they had enough water. Much of what he did was redundant and amounted to just moving some dirt from one place to another, but it made him happy.

Plus it reminded him of Gramps.

Tonight, though, Ceril was too tired to play in the dirt. He made his way to the highest tier of observation decks, and he leaned over the railing to watch hyperspace color everything a haunting orange. It felt tropical, yet cold somehow. The blur's illumination had the tendency to make things feel a bit off, and it had taken most of the Recruits some time to get used to it. As he looked around, he could see a few of the other scholars making their way around the various levels of the deck. He thought he could see Saryn a level or two below him.

He was surprised at how close the two of them had become, actually. She had seemed so odd at first. He wrote that off to her being from Yagh. All of the Yaghian Recruits were a little odd.

Ceril raised his hand to wave to her, and a large, hair hand wrapped itself around his wrist. He tried to turn around, but he couldn't. Not without breaking his wrist. Ceril looked at the hand, and if he hadn't known better, he would have assumed someone wearing a fur glove was assaulting him. Only one person on the Sigil was that hairy.

And then, as though confirming Ceril's suspicion, Ethan Triggs spoke. "Nice spot you've got up here, noob."

"Yeah," Ceril said. "Great place to be alone." He tried to pull his arm away, but he was held too tightly to get loose.

"Then why are you waving at your girlfriend?" The voice was meaty. Not an unintelligent kind of meaty, though. There was too much enunciation, and that made it dangerous. "I suppose when you mean alone, you just mean...alone." His voice dropped to a whisper, and Ceril was simultaneously disgusted and creeped out.

Ceril turned his head, and all he could see was Ethan Triggs lording over him. Now, Ceril wasn't small. But he wasn't really the biggest person on the ship. An argument could be made that Ethan actually was.

At six-eight, he was the alpha male of the solider Apprentices, an upperclassman who had yet to begin his Rites. What made Ethan scary was that he had the brains to back up his brawn, or at least enough to keep himself out of trouble and in his superiors' good graces. He was also charismatic enough to warrant having his own lackeys. Two of whom were, at that moment, behind him.

"Let me go, Ethan," Ceril said.

Ethan twisted Ceril's arm a little, then shrugged and said, "Nah. Why would I do something like that?"

This was not the first time that Ethan had given Ceril a hard time since he had come aboard the Inkwell Sigil. Ethan had almost broken Ceril's nose on his first day as a Recruit, and every few weeks in the corridors, Ethan would do something else to bully Ceril. Sometimes it would be a snarky remark about Ceril's weight or intelligence, other times, the hulk would just slam Ceril into the wall, chuckle, and walk away. But it was constant and regular. And it went beyond the bit of classist rivalry between the soldiers and the other disciplines—Ethan had targeted Ceril since day one. The classist rivalry was only part of it.

It didn't matter, though, Ethan Triggs took that rivalry to the extreme. Some of the older scholars and medics referred to the soldiers as meatshields, but Ethan was more than that. He was smart. And because of his size and intelligence, he had never been caught expressly breaking any of the rules that Roman set forth for interaction between students.

One of the lackeys behind Ethan snickered. "Yeah, I mean, why would we do something else when this is so much fun?"

Ceril opened his mouth to speak, but Ethan whipped him around to face him and let go of his arm. The abrupt movement stopped whatever Ceril was going to say. "Harn's got a point," Ethan said. "This is awfully fun. Maybe I should yell at your little, blonde girl down there and see if she wants to come up here and join us. I bet between the four of us, we could have a real good time. Alone."

Ceril swallowed. He blinked three times. Then, he just stood there. Silent.

"What, did I hit a nerve?" Ethan tapped Ceril's shoulder with the palm of his hand and pushed him against the railing.

More silence from Ceril.

Ethan looked back and forth between his companions. He jerked his thumb at Ceril, and said, "Now, the way I understand things, it's you guys who research and invent what we—that's the soldiers—use in the field. Is that right?"

Silence.

"Now, I have to be honest with you, Ceril, I'm not so sure I want a thinker who can't think of what to do on the top tier of the observation deck with a pretty girl like Saryn Bloom making me anything." Every time he said the word think, he emphasized it by tapping his palm against Ceril's chest. "Especially something that's important enough to use when my life's at stake."

"He'd probably get us all killed," said one of the boys behind Ethan. "On purpose."

Ethan tapped Ceril's shoulder again, harder. He was pushed up as far as he could be against the railing, and his back was bending slightly over it. "That's what I'm afraid of," Ethan said. "And you know what I don't want?"

"To die because some noob doesn't understand technology like he should?" asked one of the boys.

Ethan's other palm now found a resting place on Ceril's other shoulder. "Exactly. Exactly that, Harn. And you know, I have a mission tomorrow. It's a pretty easy Instance run, but it could be dangerous, I guess. The way I see it, if Ceril here doesn't have the chance to make his inevitable mistakes that kill us, then his inevitable mistakes won't kill us. Does that make sense?" Ethan pushed harder with both hands, and Ceril bent further backward.

Ceril put his hands up and said, "Let me go, Ethan. Just stop, okay. I've had enough."

"Oh, I bet you have," Ethan said with a smile. He pushed a little harder.

Ceril could see down to the next level below out of the corner of his eye. He didn't think the drop would kill him, but there was no way he would escape without having a broken bone or two. And that was if he fell well. If he fell wrong...

"And then, once you're not around to screw up my missions, I'll make sure Saryn over there has enough. Alone, if you get me." Ethan pushed harder against Ceril's shoulders, bending him as far back as he could.

Ceril felt his back pop, and he knew that if he didn't do something, the next pop wouldn't be nearly as chiropractic. So he retaliated by putting his hands on Ethan's chest and trying to push him away.

Ethan growled. He wasn't used to being resisted. He braced his feet against the ground and gripped Ceril's shoulders. His meaty fingers dug in and the large solider pulled Ceril off the ground. The larger student manhandled Ceril like he was a toy. Ethan gritted his teeth, and a sliver of drool slid from the corner of his mouth. His grip became tighter, and Ceril lifted a few inches off the ground.

Ethan wasn't just playing around anymore—if he ever had been.

The situation had escalated so quickly. Ceril pushed against Ethan's chest, trying to wiggle loose from the soldier Apprentice's grip.

There was a flash, and Ethan Triggs's hands were no longer on Ceril's shoulders. Ceril dropped to the ground and pushed the larger boy away from him.

As he did, Ethan's friends backed slowly away. Ethan himself was backing slowly away. And that's when Ceril saw what happened. What had caused the flash.

His Flameblade was buried to the hilt in Ethan Trigs' chest.

It was sticking directly out of the spot where, only seconds before, Ceril had been pushing with his right hand.

Ceril blinked. Ethan returned the gesture and dropped to his knees. His hands reached up to the hilt of the sword. A faint purple-green glow emanated from inside the wound in his chest, and he tried to pull.

The sword did not move. Ethan screamed as he collapsed the rest of the way to the floor. "What," he gasped, "what did you do to me? Is this—is this a sword?" His voice was incredulous. "W-where did you get a-a sword?"

"I-I-I-I," Ceril stammered. He stood gawking at the injured Apprentice on the floor in front of him, unsure of what to do next.

Ethan's friend Harn said, "Do something, Ceril! He's hurt!"

Ceril thought there was only one thing he could do. He knelt down and apologized to Ethan.

"Damn right you're sorry," Ethan said. "You stabbed me with a-a sword!"

Ceril ignored the insult and pulled on the Flameblade. He expected to feel Ethan's flesh cut beneath his hand, to feel the Flameblade tear through bone, breaking ribs and tearing meat as it moved. But he didn't.

Instead, the sword simply vanished. The purple-green fire had obviously not been cauterizing. Ethan was gurgling on the floor. Blood flowed steadily from him. Ethan tried to speak but couldn't. He would open his mouth, and blood would spurt out of the holes the sword had made in the front and back of his torso.

He slowly curled into the fetal position, and lay there bleeding out.

Finally, Ceril gathered his thoughts and yelled at Ethan's friends. "Go find someone to help. What's wrong with you two?"

Both boys just stood there and stared as their friend burbled blood.

"Go!" Ceril yelled again. "Now!" He turned back and tried to stop the bleeding. Ceril was acutely aware that he did this to Ethan—and not just because he was coated in another student's blood. It had been his sword—the whole reason he was aboard the Inkwell Sigil—that caused this.

And Ceril hadn't even meant to summon it.

Maybe Roman was right. Maybe he did need to learn to control it better. As though to verify, a large pulse of Ethan's blood squirted from the wound beneath Ceril's hand.

He applied more pressure, and said, "Ethan, come on, man. How are you doing?"

He spit blood on Ceril's face in response. Ceril had no idea if it was intentional.

He used one arm to wipe his face, but it barely helped. Ceril's fatigues were soaked with blood. He leaned down close to Ethan and pressed both of his hands on the older boy's chest and back. He was trying to cover both wounds his Flameblade had made, but he could still feel the blood pushing at his hands. He could feel it spurting into his palms and through his fingers every time Ethan breathed, shuddered, or tried to move.

Time passed—Ceril had no idea how much—and finally Roman pulled Ceril off Ethan and tossed him to the side. Bryt and Howser immediately went to Ethan's side. Ceril involuntarily grunted a protest at being tossed around like that, but Roman shushed him.

He complied. He knew when to keep quiet.

The next few minutes were surreal, and later, Ceril could only remember snippets from the ordeal. Ceril would remember standing off to the side as the professors tried to save a student's life. Later, Roman would tell him that Ethan was dead when they had arrived. Ceril was so dazed and had been concentrating so hard on the wounds, he hadn't even noticed.

Ceril would remember feeling cold, but not just from his clothes being soaked in blood. He shivered and wanted to close his eyes, but didn't out of respect—penance?—for Ethan.

I killed someone.

Later, Ceril would recall Roman coming over to him, stern-faced and long-winded. He had no idea what Roman had said to him. He just remembered Roman offering him a choice.

He would remember being covered in blood, cold and scared, and Roman offering him a choice.

Chapter Seven

"He's dead, Ceril," Roman said calmly. "You killed him."

"I gathered," Ceril said. He hadn't intended to sound so callous, but once he spoke, there was no taking it back.

"You gathered? Really? You gathered that you ended another person's life? How very astute, boy. Are you proud of yourself?"

"No, sir."

"I suppose I should be thankful for that," Roman said. "Do you have any idea what is going to happen to you now, son?"

"No, sir."

"I'm going to give you a choice," Roman said.

"A choice?" Ceril said. He raised his eyes to meet Roman's.

"Yes, Ceril, a choice," the older man continued. "A choice that you had damned well better think long and hard about before you give me your response."

"Yes, sir," Ceril said. "I will, sir."

"Tell me, Ceril. Do you like it here? Really?"

Ceril thought hard. He liked it in Ternia with Gramps. He liked being in the garden, liked being under the twin suns. He also liked being at Ennd's and rooming with Swarley. But did he like it here? He had spent an entire year in an Instance that was unfathomably far away from everyone and everything he had ever known. A year had passed, and he still wasn't sure.

He pursed his lips and stared at Roman.

Yes. He did like it there. Most of the time.

"Sometimes, sir," Ceril finally answered.

"Sometimes?" Roman sounded hurt. "How incredibly noncommittal of you."

Ceril didn't say anything.

"Well, I'll tell you what, Ceril. I'll make this easy for you. You have until class tomorrow to decide how much you like it here. There will be consequences for whichever you choose, though. You have until our class tomorrow morning to give me an answer. Do you have any questions?"

"What sort of consequences, sir?" Ceril asked.

"Harsh ones."

"I kind of figured that," Ceril said.

Roman glared. "There's not going to be an easy way out of this, Ceril. You killed someone, and you're going to be punished for it."

"But I didn't mean to."

"I never said you did, but an Apprentice is dead because your Flameblade impaled him. Whether you meant to or not."

"He was trying...to kill me," Ceril said. He blinked his eyes to clear away the tears that were welling up. "I just wanted him to stop pushing."

Roman's voice was still stern. "What happened, Ceril?"

Ceril told Roman everything that he could remember. The whole incident was a blur in his memory, but he did the best he could. By the end of it, Ceril was crying. "I was so scared, Roman," he sobbed. "We were so high up, and...and...I didn't mean to."

"I don't think you did this on purpose, Ceril, but that doesn't change the fact that Ethan Triggs is dead. You're going to have to pay for murdering one of your peers."

Ceril couldn't believe what he was hearing. He said, "I didn't murder him, sir."

"Didn't you? You just told me that you retaliated and Ethan died."

"It wasn't murder, sir. It was an accident."

Roman said tersely, "I know. The issue, though, is that you did it at all. You killed Ethan. And that's murder, accidental or not."

"But..." Ceril started.

Roman waved one hand for Ceril to be silent, pressed the heel of his other hand into his temple, and rubbed. Ceril understood the gestures to mean his argument had been dismissed.

"I DIDN'T MEAN TO!" the boy yelled, and as he spoke, he felt a weight appear in his hand. Light reflected on Roman, purplish green light. When Ceril looked down and realized that he was once again holding the sword his Flameblade. Immediately, he let it go.

The sword fell to the floor. The aura around the blade was just as bright as it had been in the headmaster's office over a year ago, when all this mess started. The glow was undimmed by the band of dried blood that made the tip of the gold blade seem like a capstone, and even dazed, Ceril noted that it was the first time he had ever seen the sword glow on its own, without him touching it.

Roman remained stoic, but his eyes never left the sword. When he spoke, his voice was calm, but stern. "Tomorrow morning, Ceril. Decide if you want to stay here or go back to Erlon. You will be escorted back to your quarters, where you will remain for the rest of the evening. I hate to do it, but I will seal the door as a precaution. If I hear that you even try to open that door tonight, there will be hell to pay. Am I understood?"

"Yes, sir," Ceril managed to say as he stared at the sword lying at his feet.

"I suggest you take that with you."

***

The next morning, Roman came to Ceril's quarters. The door slid open, and Roman stepped into the room.

"Are you going to stay on board my ship?" Roman asked.

Ceril sat up. He had been lying awake on his bed all night long. The Flameblade had rested beside him, glowing green and purple, the entire time. He squinted at Roman, and said simply, "Yes."

"Then you're going to learn how to control that thing." Roman pointed at the Flameblade on the bed. "It's not a choice, and it's not optional. If you're going to stay on board the Sigil, you're going to learn how to keep that thing out of the way—and out of people's chests."

That had been the entire discussion. Roman turned around and the door closed behind him.

Since then, any free time Ceril had was spent with Bryt, the small man who mentored the full-time soldiers and had taken on Ceril's training personally. No other students on board the Sigil would take the chance that Ceril's Flameblade would materialize in their chest. These training sessions were in addition to the interdisciplinary combat classes that each Charon Apprentice was required to pass. Ceril had despised them at first, but over the years, he had come to enjoy his one-on-one time with Bryt.

The first day after Ethan's death, however, had not been enjoyable.

Ceril and the other Apprentices filed into a classroom, and Bryt stood in front, directing them to their assigned seats. The incoming class of Recruits had dwindled to twenty, which Roman had said was an astonishingly good rate of attrition. Of those twenty Apprentices, twelve of them were in Ceril's combat class. Roman said it was supposed to help them understand "how the other side lives."

Bryt gestured to empty seats behind two rows of tables as the students passed him on their way in. When he got to Ceril, the teacher put out his hand.

"Mind waiting up here for a minute, Ceril?" Bryt asked. The small man smiled at Ceril, which made his stomach clench.

Ceril shrugged and stepped behind the professor to allow him to finish seating the other students. Ceril could feel them looking at him as he stood there. He started to fidget and sweat—he did not want to be there. All he wanted to do was curl up in his quarters and cry. After what had happened with Ethan the day before, he couldn't believe that he was being forced to go to class. He hadn't slept all night, either, but he was somehow full of nervous energy. It was sickening. He bounced up and down, trying to settle himself a little. It didn't work.

As he bounced, though, he noticed that the floor was actually a mat of some kind. That made sense. This was a basic combat course, which also explained the extra space at the front of the class between the desks and the projection screen.

Once all the Recruits had been seated, Bryt said, "Good morning, Apprentices! Welcome to our first meeting of Interdisciplinary Combat. You're here because you all had the poor judgment to choose a path other than soldier."

Bryt gave the students a few seconds to whisper among themselves. Since Ceril was alone, he just thought what everyone else muttered: Is this guy for real? What's his problem?

Bryt smiled. "I'm kidding. Really. The soldier's path is not for everyone, and I of all people know that. I began studying as a medic when I was where you are, but soon found out that I could handle blood and guts far more easily when they didn't belong to people I knew and cared about."

Ceril couldn't tell if it was supposed to be a joke. Judging from the looks on the rest of his classmates' faces, they couldn't either.

After that, Bryt continued talking. Ceril had a hard time catching more than a few words. From the way his back ached and eyes burned, he would have thought it had been months since he had slept, not just one night.

Killing someone will do that to you, he thought. All night long, he had kept seeing the Flameblade kill Ethan Triggs over and over. He kept seeing the blood rushing out of the boy. And with every repeat, Ceril's stomach churned harder. He began to sweat more, and Ceril could feel his clothes sticking to him.

Bryt continued to lecture without even acknowledging why he had asked Ceril to stand in front of the classroom, and on almost any other day, Ceril might have said something to Bryt.

But not after last night. After killing Ethan, he was afraid that if he so much as clipped his nails the wrong way—much less interrupt a professor's lecture—he would be sent back home.

So he stood still and waited in front of the class. He tried to avoid eye contact with anyone who looked at him, while still doing what he could to listen to Bryt. He failed at all three tasks.

Ceril saw a hand shoot up from the first row. "Yes, Saryn?" Bryt said.

"I was under the impression that our discipline choices were set. That once we made a decision, we were locked into that path."

Bryt frowned and cocked his head to the side as he shrugged. "Maybe locked in is not the best choice of words, Saryn." The small man walked down the aisle between desks toward the rear of the room. He leaned against the back wall. "While we certainly encourage students to make informed choices regarding their path of study and truly believe that the initial draw to a discipline is more than random happenstance, it would be incredibly unfair to everyone involved if, for instance, a truly inspired medic felt pulled toward soldiering when they were your age and found themselves unsuited for the profession."

Half of the students had turned to look at Bryt while he was behind them. The others faced stiffly forward. He continued, "How many of you watched the assigned videos on the first night aboard the Sigil that outlined the roles and duties of the scholar, medic, and soldier?" Every hand in the room except for Ceril's went up. If Bryt noticed the exception, he made no show of it. "Good," he said. "And what made you all choose the disciplines that were not soldier?"

This time, no one raised a hand.

"Oh, I'm not going to be mad. Like I said, I changed to soldier, myself. If anyone can understand why you wouldn't want this job, it's be me."

The professor waited for someone to respond. He just leaned against the back wall, saying nothing, and watched a handful of students turn back to face the front of the classroom. Ceril fidgeted a little; the silence was a tad awkward. Finally, one of the boys in the back raised his hand. "Yes, Swinton?" Bryt said.

"Being a soldier is dangerous," said the boy. He was small—but not as small as Bryt—and his hair was disheveled. He wore thick glasses. He looked like someone Ethan Triggs would've loved to pick on.

"I see," Bryt said. "So what did you choose instead?"

"Scholar, sir," Swinton answered. Ceril vaguely recalled seeing him in some of his classes, but he couldn't be sure.

"Why the scholar?" Bryt asked him. "What made that role seem better than medic or soldier?"

"Well, being a soldier just seemed hard, and being a medic put so much responsibility in my hands." Swinton paused. "I don't think I want people's lives depending on me. I've always done well in school. During Phase I, I did pretty well, so I just felt that scholar was close to, you know, school."

Bryt nodded. "What about someone who chose medic?"

A girl raised her hand. Bryt gave her the floor. "Yes, Laura?"

"Well, I want to help people, but I don't really think I can do that by shooting or cutting them up, or with my nose stuck in a book all day."

"Okay," Bryt said, nodding. "Both are very admirable answers. Did anyone notice what they have in common?"

Saryn's hand went up. Of course it did, Ceril thought and suppressed a smile—the first one he'd really felt since last night. "Yes, Saryn?" Bryt said.

"They both chose was based on emotion, not logic. They didn't weigh any pros or cons, they just went with their gut feelings."

"Very good, Saryn. That's just right. We Charons put a great deal of emphasis on instinct and emotion. We feel that we are all drawn to our roles for a reason, and we want to foster that. However," Bryt said as he moved back toward the front of the room, "if anyone feels the need to switch paths—or even discuss the possibility—all you have to do is go to your current mentor, and tell them."

The scholar students looked around at one another. They exchanged whispers and looked at Ceril. He felt very alone being in front of the class then, without anyone to confer with. No one else seemed like they were going to ask, so Ceril decided to take advantage of his situation and raised his hand.

"Yes, Ceril?" Bryt said.

"What if we don't have a mentor? Scholars have been under Roman for a while, but we were told he's not our mentor. What do we do?"

Bryt sat down at the desk that sat just off of the padded floor where Ceril stood. "I had been debating whether or not to discuss this with you, or if I should let Roman do the explaining." The small man sighed and wrung his hands together. "You have a mentor already."

"Roman is just temporary, sir. We've never met our real mentor."

"I'm afraid you have, son. Your mentor, Jana Ketner, was expected back aboard the Inkwell Sigil weeks ago. We received word not long ago that Professor Ketner is not going to be joining us, after all."

"Why not, sir?" Saryn asked without raising her hand.

"Professor Ketner died, Saryn. I don't have any other details that I can share with you, but Roman will continue to serve as your mentor indefinitely."

"Was it the same people in the videos who killed all those folks with the Flameblades?" Ceril asked.

Bryt looked at Ceril and said, blankly, "Yes, Ceril. It was."

No one in the room spoke. The terrorists who called themselves Charons were rarely, if ever, discussed by those on the Sigil. Ceril had put another mark on his back by bringing it up. If Bryt had disliked him because of what happened to Ethan, Bryt hated him now. The professor stood up from behind his desk and walked to Ceril's side.

After the awkward silence, the soldier trainer put his arm around Ceril's shoulder. "Speaking of Flameblades, Ceril, you just brought us around to the point of today's lesson."

Oh, no, Ceril thought. No, no, no. No. He tried to move away, but the teacher held him firmly in front of the class. Everyone's eyes were staring at him, boring into him. He wanted to run, to get away. At least when Bryt was talking and pacing and moving around, it had seemed like no one had noticed he was up there. But at that very moment, everyone was just staring at Ceril, and he could feel himself begin to sweat as his cheeks flushed.

"Charons," Bryt said, "as a general rule, are able to form a unique bond—a symbiosis, a kind of partnership—with certain pieces of technology. One such piece of technology is called a Flameblade." A low rumble of knowing oh's came from the students. "They are so called because of the glow they will sometimes emanate. This same technology provides the base by which the sword can bond with a single person. This bonding does not mean that only one person can use the sword—anyone can pick one up and slash away, cut off their hands, feet, or whatnot—but to bond with a Flameblade is to increase its power tenfold."

"How do we get Flameblades?" Swinton asked.

"I'm going to be honest with you, Swinton: you probably don't get one. In fact, I'd be willing to say that not a single student sitting in this classroom will ever have the chance to bond with a Flameblade."

"Well, why not?" Swinton asked.

"Because you're not soldiers, first of all," Bryt said. "It's a soldier's weapon. And secondly, there has not been a new Flameblade constructed in many years. Many, many years. Existing swords are recycled, handed down from father to son (or daughter) or from mentor to pupil, and I've known a couple of newly Rited Charons who have tried to track various artifacts through various Instances, thinking that each one could be a Flameblade. They wasted their lives on some damn fool, idealistic crusade."

"So they're reserved for soldiers?" Swinton asked, apparently ignoring the second half of Bryt's response.

"Not always," Bryt said. Ceril thought he felt Bryt hug his shoulder more tightly when he said that. "But that's the way it usually happens. What good does having a magical sword do for a medic as she stitches together wounds? Or a scholar as he indexes a research library? No, the Flameblade belongs in the hands of someone who can and will use it. Which, coincidentally, is a perfect segue into today's lesson."

Swinton's hand shot up again, interrupting.

"Yes, Swinton?"

"How do the Charons bond to the sword?"

"The weapons are not forged with any traditional metal, Swinton. The weapon's entire molecular structure is comprised of nanites." Bryt paused. "Who knows what a nanite is?"

No one, not even Saryn, answered.

"Nanites are microscopic machines—robots really. Each nanite is capable of programming itself to respond to a specific DNA signature and only to that signature. If a Flameblade is dormant for a considerable length of time, there is the possibility for it to bond to the first person who comes into contact with it, which is how most people become bonded these days. I'm afraid I know of more than a couple archaeologists who have deprived quite capable soldiers of weapons. In the past, some Rited Charons have had success at altering the programming of a sword's nanite structure, effectively stealing someone else's weapon. But that has not happened for many centuries."

Swinton nodded, apparently satisfied, so Bryt continued where he left off. "Today's lesson is an introduction to the Flameblade and the unique properties it possesses. Probably the most remarkable and useful property is its ability to travel across subspace to its bonded owner. No matter where you are, no matter what Instance you are in, your sword will be able to find you."

Bryt put a little distance between himself and the students and Ceril. He held his hand out, and instantly, he held a golden blade that flamed a corona of red. Everyone in the room reacted. Some shrieked, others sighed, and even more gasped.

Everyone but Ceril. He'd seen the trick before. Ethan Triggs's face flashed in front of his eyes, and he averted his eyes from the red glow in Bryt's hand.

"Also," Bryt said, "nearly every Charon's blade will have a uniquely colored glow. I wish I could tell you why, but we still haven't figured that out. It's just one of those things. We have, however, noted that if the bond between weapon and wielder is weak, the Flameblade's aura will be dim. The dimness is an indicator of the control a Charon has on the blade, the tasks he or she can perform with it. See how mine is bright?" Some of the students nodded. Bryt walked toward the front row and dropped the sword on the table in front of a female student with long black hair. The flame went out as soon as he released it. "Grab it, Paula."

She did, and nothing happened. It was just a sword now, no aura whatsoever. Bryt walked back to the front of the class. "Paula, hold the sword out, please. Yes, like that." He held his hand open in front of him and the Flameblade disappeared from Paula's hand. She sagged back into her chair with relief. The sword erupted into flame the moment it reappeared back in its owner's hand. He walked back to Paula. "Touch the blade," he said.

She hesitated and said, "Really? I'll get burned."

"You will be fine."

The young girl reached out and lightly tapped the blade with her index finger. Her hand passed through the fire to the metal without being burned or scorched. It was like the fire didn't exist.

"Did you feel any heat?" Bryt asked.

"No," she said.

"The Flameblade can generate heat if its wielder chooses. However, most don't. Conjured fire is not only hard to control, but having that kind of heat in your hand is more than a little dangerous. The fire, however, serves a purpose other than identifying the owner of the sword and intimidating opponents. When properly utilized, the Conjured fire around the blade hones the edge, keeps it sharp, and allows it to be malleable or firm. Enterprising soldiers have even been able to change the blade's shape and form to suit their situations, although that is rarely done. Think of the fire as a way for the nanites to change and strengthen the blade according to the bonded Charon's will."

Bryt held his sword in front of him and the Flameblade shimmered as the golden blade grew larger, both in width and in length. Once it was roughly double its original size, heat began to emanate from it. Visible beads of sweat appeared on Ceril and Bryt, while the rest of the students felt wafts of heat as the sword's red aura flared. Then the sword disappeared and the room cooled down considerably.

"Where did it go?" asked someone in the back.

"My quarters," Bryt said. "Now, the reason I have Ceril up here today is that he is one of the lucky few I mentioned earlier. He has already found a Flameblade." The teacher paused momentarily, and then continued. "And apparently, he bonded with it."

The classroom was full of hushed murmurs.

"How is that possible?" asked Swinton.

"We're still unclear on the details, but we're investigating it."

That was news to Ceril.

"Has anyone heard about the unfortunate incident in the observation tiers last night?"

A few students shook their heads, and a few more murmured, but no one admitted to having heard anything.

"Well," Bryt said. "There was an accident. Ethan Triggs and Ceril here were involved in an altercation that ended...ended in Ethan's death."

The students erupted. Ceril couldn't look at any of them. He was a killer. They knew it now. He had killed Ethan, but it was an accident. Would they ever believe he wasn't a bad guy?

"But..." Ceril began. He had to defend himself. He had to tell them what happened.

Bryt's voice cut him off and boomed over the class. Ceril stopped speaking and stared at the little man, whose voice suddenly had outgrown his frame. "Ceril didn't mean to kill Ethan." The class quieted, and his voice modulated itself back to its normal tenor. "He is not at fault, really. He was untrained, unsupervised. Even though we knew he had bonded with a Flameblade—in fact, that was the deciding factor of his admission—we did nothing to show him how to use his weapon. Ethan died because of our negligence as instructors. It was a failure on every level; we should have known an Apprentice with a Flameblade would be trouble, but we became complacent since the past year has given us no indication that it would be an issue. We were wrong, and I am apologizing to all one of you. We put you all in danger, and it is our negligence—not Ceril's—that is responsible for Ethan's death."

Ceril thought, Yeah, but that's not what Roman told me last night.

"However, because this has happened, Ceril is the first Charon Recruit in centuries to require the support of two disciplines. He will be studying as a soldier as well as a scholar, and this will be his first lesson." Bryt leaned close to Ceril's ear and spoke softly enough that the class couldn't hear what he said. "I could do much worse to you, Ceril. I want you to know that, and I want you to know I think you deserve worse. Ethan was a good kid when it came down to it. This may be embarrassing, but it kills two birds with one stone. You're going to get the basics of handling your Flameblade, and they get to learn the basics of high-end soldiering. Don't mess this up." His voice got louder, as he turned back to the class. "Summon your sword, Ceril."

Ceril stepped back. His stomach twisted from what Bryt had just told him. He directed his thoughts to the sword, thought about it appearing out of nowhere. He held out his hand to grasp it, but instead of appearing and igniting like Bryt's, Ceril's sword appeared a foot above the ground and clattered at his feet. He reached down to pick it up, but Bryt's small hand stopped him.

"Uh-uh," he said. "No. Summon it to your hand."

Ceril flashed with anger and embarrassment. He straightened his body, held out his hand, and willed the sword to appear in it. It just lay on the floor.

"Come on, Ceril," Bryt said. "You've done it before. You did it last night. Summon the sword into your hand."

Ceril glared at Bryt and tried again. Nothing. Some of the students were snickering and laughing, and he felt his ears begin to burn as blood flushed into them. Brilliant purple-green fire erupted from his palm as the Flameblade appeared in his hand, its glow brighter than it had been the night before. It rivaled Bryt's sword in brightness, he thought.

The rest of the class stopped snickering and began screaming. After what had happened to Ethan, Ceril could hardly blame him. He looked at Bryt, who just ignored the class's reaction and said, "Excellent! Now attack me."

"What?" Ceril asked.

"Attack me. Slash at me. Try to cut me, stab me. Fight me. Come on."

"I...I don't think so, sir."

"Do it, Ceril."

"After what happened last night—"

"You don't have a choice," Bryt finished for him. "Come at me."

So Ceril did. He tightened his fingers around the Flameblade and lunged at Bryt with his left hand. The professor stepped aside and summoned his own Flameblade into his right hand. He struck downward at Ceril's sword and almost knocked the boy to the ground with the impact.

The class was loud and raucous, but as Ceril hit the ground, they began to quiet down. It was as though that were the only reinforcement they needed that Bryt could indeed protect them from the killer in their midst.

"Again," Bryt said.

Ceril slashed at his teacher from the side this time. Bryt stepped to the right, away from the attack, and brought his own sword up to connect with Ceril's.

The instructor did a flourish that Ceril couldn't match, and the golden sword whipped out of Ceril's hand. It landed on the padded floor, its glow extinguished. Bryt backed up, and said, "Now, attack me without bending over to pick up your sword. Run at me and summon it on the way."

Ceril ran at Bryt, but the sword did not come into his hand as he attacked, which caused him to make a weak, sloppy punch at his teacher's head. He missed, and the class laughed at him. It was all he could do to try to ignore them.

"I said, summon it on the way, Ceril."

Ceril put his head down and said, "No."

"Excuse me?" Bryt asked, lowering his own weapon.

"I said I'm not going to do this, to be humiliated like this."

"You will do precisely what I ask of you, young man."

"No, sir, I won't."

"You will, or you will not be studying aboard this ship for long."

"Maybe," said Ceril. "But after last night, I'm not going to be mocked like this. I just don't have it in me."

"No, you don't, Ceril. That's why Ethan Triggs is dead. Because you don't have it in you."

"I'm sorry, sir."

"You are, indeed," Bryt said. The professor's sword vanished. He turned back to the class. "So you see, class, what a Flameblade can be in both the hands of a trained Charon," his sword reappeared, "and in the hands of an ignorant child."

Ceril looked at him, and his head began to throb as the blood rushed to his head and his heart beat faster.

He summoned his sword, and it gleamed purple-green in his hand. He lunged at his teacher. Ceril slashed and cut and stabbed with all his might, and Bryt parried and dodged each one with nonchalance. Ceril fought harder and harder, his rage vocalized by louder and louder grunts and cries. Yet the small man countered him at every point.

Eventually, Bryt went off the defensive. He spun in place and planted his sword's pommel solidly in Ceril's sternum. The force of the blow pushed Ceril to the ground and knocked his Flameblade from his hand. Its fire extinguished for just a second, but immediately flared again as it appeared inside Bryt's shoulder, much like it had done inside Ethan Triggs' chest.

"Class dismissed," the teacher said. He fell to the floor. The students ran out of the door, but a few medic Recruits stopped by Bryt to see if there was anything they could do to help. He was either crying or laughing, and the students could not tell which.

"No, no," he said. "I'll be fine. I'll go see Howser soon. Run along. Don't worry about me."

When the room was empty except for the two of them, Bryt said, "Well done, Ceril," as he forced himself into a sitting position.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean just what I said. You did well. You have a lot of promise. It's been more years than I care to count since I've found an Apprentice with his own Flameblade, and I don't think I've ever seen one with as strong a bond as you have. It's very rare for someone to be able to control it like you do. You can make it do things when you're not even touching it." He grunted. "Now, if you don't mind, would you get this thing out of me?"

"I don't know how."

"Sure you do. But first, try to flare the heat just a bit. Need to cauterize the wound so I don't bleed out when this thing disappears."

Ceril knew that he had to be exceptionally careful in the next few moments. He had attacked a teacher, almost killed him. And on the day after he'd murdered one of his older classmates. Roman was going to be furious. Ceril concentrated, thought about the sword and the heat he had felt from Bryt's earlier in the class. He couldn't screw this up. Ceril's breathing became more rapid, and as it did, he was able to see a slight glow appear around the Flameblade.

Bryt said, "Good, good." The instructor heard a crackle, and felt the blade singe his flesh. He screamed, which made Ceril jump and the Flameblade disappear. "Thank you, Ceril."

"Why did you do that, sir?" Ceril asked.

"What?"

"Embarrass me like that? In front of everyone. I don't think they knew about Ethan."

"I had to. They would have found out about Ethan eventually, anyway."

"Yeah, but—"

"But nothing. This way, you'll get their respect."

"They'll hate me!"

"That will pass," Bryt said. "And as for the rest of it, I had to get you riled up. I had to infuriate you, and that was just an easy wound to stick my thumb in." Bryt grunted and moved his wounded shoulder in a circle. "The bond we have with our Flameblades is only partially what I told the class. The swords are made up of nanites, and they do respond to genetic makeup. The trick to controlling them, though, has nothing to do with genetics whatsoever, nothing to do with the bond at all. If you want to use the sword for anything that doesn't involve making some pretty lights, then you have to be able to focus your emotional state."

Ceril stared blankly at Bryt.

"Ethan Triggs riled you up emotionally, didn't he, Ceril?"

Ceril nodded. "He was trying to kill me. I...was scared. I've never—never—felt like that before."

"I know." The professor reached out and touched Ceril's arm. "And I wish I could say that you never will again. Unfortunately, I had to get you riled up today, too, and while I'm sorry for the way I did it, I won't apologize for doing it. You'll learn more that way."

"Sure," Ceril said.

"I hate to say it, Ceril, but the time you spend with me is going to be hard. Not just physically, but emotionally, too. I'm going to have to get you to turn this embarrassment and guilt that you feel so easily into something productive. We're going to focus those emotions and direct them, instead of wallowing in them and not sleeping." Bryt started to climb to his feet. His right arm hung limply at his side. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll be going to see Howser now and see if I can get some feeling back into this arm. I expected you to do some impressive things today, Ceril, but I never expected you to stab me." Bryt chuckled. "Same time tomorrow, okay?"

He patted Ceril on the shoulder with his good hand and walked out of the room.
Chapter Eight

Five Years Later

I wonder what they're doing right now.

"Ceril?" Roman asked again.

"No, that's me," Ceril said without looking at his instructor. "I know what I'm doing."

"You don't say? Well, you could have fooled me." Roman sighed. "Ceril, I don't know where your mind is today, but it's not here. It hasn't been for some time, so I'll tell you what. Go ahead and take the rest of today off. Get a little rest. Fix whatever it is that's broken in you, all right? Then I need you to come back in here at 0600 tomorrow, ready to be briefed. It's a routine Instance hop, but you know as well as I do that even routine missions are more than dangerous enough to get you killed if your head's not in the game. You got me?"

"Yeah, sure. 0700. Got it."

"Six. Oh-six, Ceril."

"Yeah...yeah, I'll be here at oh-six," Ceril said. "Promise."

With that, Ceril turned from his instructor and walked out of the room. He made his way through the grey metal hallways that had become his home during these last six years and quickly found himself lying reclined on the bunk he had been assigned his first day aboard the Inkwell Sigil. He stared out the porthole with his fingers interlaced behind his head. He loved watching the blur change color in front of his eyes. It was one of the few things that could really relax him these days.

For a very short time, the observation deck had helped him relax, but he hadn't been able to go in there for years without having some kind of panic attack.

Without being able to keep his hands in the dirt—like he used to do on the deck—he had taken to staring at the colors of hyperspace and trying to find some kind of meaning in their shifting. It had almost become like a religion to him. Saryn joked that he was looking for his purple-green god out the window.

Sometimes he wondered if she was right.

Life aboard the Inkwell Sigil was not luxurious, and much of it was lonely. Much of Ceril's time was taken up by studying, and his room reflected that dedication. Unlike most of the other Apprentices, Ceril kept his room almost exactly as it had been when he came on board six years ago. His linens were standard-issue white and gray, and the walls of his quarters were undecorated except for the Sigil's embossed logo near the ceiling and a small selection of books Ceril couldn't leave in the Library—he just had to have access to them any time. The porthole and its view of hyperspace over his bed was the highlight of the room.

Well, except for the picture of Gramps on his desk.

How he missed that man. Ceril hadn't seen him in six years, hadn't even spoken with him in five. That photograph was Ceril's only proof that he had connections with anyone off the Inkwell Sigil.

He stared at the picture, not blinking. Ceril saw himself standing beside Gramps. The day that photo was taken seemed like a lifetime ago, and his heart sank. The two of them had shared so much of their lives with one another, but lately, his studies and Apprenticeship made everything before coming onboard the Inkwell Sigil a blur.

He hated that, but he couldn't help it. He looked away from the picture and back out the window. Focusing on the shifting colors allowed him not to think about how long it had been since he had seen or spoken with Gramps. Too long, Ceril thought. Much too long. What if he's...not there anymore? Ceril pushed the thought from his mind. Of course he was. Nothing had happened to Gramps in the last five years. He had always been as tough as a Yaghian plated bear.

And what about Swarley? Ceril never even got to say goodbye. For all the years they had lived together and made visits to each other's homes over breaks from Ennd's, Ceril might as well have vanished into thin air. They must have come up with some story about where Ceril had gone—some lie. They told Swarley just to move on with his life. Because that's what they had told Ceril.

"No," he remembered Roman saying. "Absolutely not."

"Why not?" Ceril had asked. "It's been nearly a month, and I'm sure he'll want to know where, you know, his roommate is. If I'm alive or whatever."

"Rules are rules, Ceril. You know that. I wish I could, but I can't let you contact anyone who isn't aboard the Sigil for security reasons."

"Yeah," Ceril had said. "Security reasons. Because you don't want people to know you exist."

"Exactly," said Roman. "We don't want people to know we exist."

"But they do know," Ceril explained. "There were those people with the Flameblades who attacked—"

"They. Are. Not. Us. I've told you that over and over again, Ceril. Do you think that anyone on this ship, me included, could do that to anyone? To children, I mean? Could you? You have a Flameblade, after all. Are you one of them?"

"Of course not," Ceril had said. Roman rarely raised his voice, but when he did, it was enough to frighten almost anyone. "But..."

"But nothing, Ceril. We don't want people—any person at all—to know that we exist because we will be seen as being just as bad as they are. Do you want that?"

Ceril was silent.

"Well, do you?"

"No, sir," Ceril said. "But why would they?"

"Why would they what?"

"See us that way? If we just let them see the good that we do, what we're really about., then maybe they'll realize we're not so bad."

"I'm sorry, Ceril," Roman said. He'd meant it, too. Ceril heard the apology in his voice. "That's just not how the world works. That's just not how we work. This system has been in place for a very long time, and it works. I'm sorry that it's painful not to talk to the people you care about, but it's for their protection as much as yours and the order's. On the upside, you will be able to talk to your grandfather eventually."

Ceril's eyes widened. His whole body perked up. "Really?" he said. "When? Soon? Today?"

"Eventually," Roman had said. "When you complete your first year of training and pick your Class."

"Oh," Ceril said. And that was that.

Roman had been as good as his word, though. That first year had gone by quickly though, and Ceril had been able to speak with Gramps just like Roman had promised. Ceril's grandfather had not been happy when that Ceril was training to be a Charon, but he told him that he would support him in whatever choice he made. Ceril had tried to bring up how Gramps knew Headmaster Squalt and Professor Nephil, but Gramps dodged the question and redirected everything back to being about Ceril.

Gramps was still in great health and had plans to expand the garden even more that summer. When Ceril asked about the terrorists who had called themselves Charons, Gramps became visibly distraught and denied knowing anything about what Ceril was talking about.

Now, five years later, Ceril yearned to speak with his grandfather again. He would soon, though. That was one of the few things that kept him going. He was going to start his Rites tomorrow.

That had him worried. No matter how routine tomorrow's task would be, he had to get his head on straight—it was the start of his final test to become a full agent of the Charonic Archive.

A full agent, he thought. A Charon. The thought was ridiculous when he actually thought about it. He was supposed to be a farmer by now. Of course, Charons were supposed to be myths, too.

So much for that, Ceril thought. With his eyes fixed on the window, Ceril got to his knees and extended his left arm with his hand open. His Flameblade materialized in his hand. Its faint purple-green glow was overpowered by the light from the hyperspace blur. He did a one-handed practice that Bryt had taught him. It was supposed to help with nervousness. Sometimes it did, but this wasn't one of those times. When he finished, the sword dissipated and his hand was empty once again. Ceril collapsed back onto his bed.

Roman had said that once Ceril's Rites were finished, he would get to go back to Erlon. What Ceril couldn't wrap his mind around was how. How that was possible?

If he was supposed to go back to Erlon after being Rited, then why all the secrecy? In his six years of being aboard the Sigil and through all his research, he couldn't find more than what would a single book's worth of information about contemporary Charons on Erlon.

His Rites would surely flesh that out further, and hopefully even help them stop the impostor Charons who were terrorizing most of Erlon. Except for a handful of news reports and scattered information about them, Ceril might not have even known they existed anymore. And even those reports were hard to find using the Inkwell Sigil's archives. Ceril always had to do a little extra digging when he was off the ship to learn anything new.

Like so many other times during his training, Ceril just had to trust his superiors and hope they weren't lying to him when they said they weren't involved in those attacks.

He breathed in deeply and tried to calm himself. The swirl of the hyperspace envelope's colors wasn't making him any less nervous tonight. So, his attention moved back to the picture of him and Gramps. He barely recognized the smile on the boy's face. He couldn't remember the last time he smiled like that.

***

It felt somewhat poetic that almost exactly five years since he had last stood in the Inkwell Sigil's observation deck, Ceril held the glowing green-purple Flameblade and stared off the highest tier.

Only now, he was a little wiser, a lot taller, and he would never be finished atoning for the death of Ethan Triggs. At least he had finished with Roman's penance—training as both a scholar and a soldier. Even still, he would never stop paying the price he inflicted upon himself.

He had matured a great deal in his six years of training. Killing a person tended to have that effect on a kid. He had once been full of life and jokes; now, he rarely said a word to another student aboard the Sigil. He wanted to, sure, but his soldier training been so time-consuming that he had even less time for socialization than he had before Ethan's death.

Now, though, all that was behind him. He had come to the observation deck, this specific tier, to finish the last few revisions on his thesis and send it to Roman. Then he would just have his Rites, whenever the higher-ups felt he was ready.

As a scholar, his preparation for the Rites was straightforward: a research project on a topic that had never been researched before and could be archived for future use by the Charons. Ceril had found early on in his training that his interests were mythology and religion. If he couldn't be a farmer and help Gramps out, then he would at least honor the impact his grandfather's stories had on his life.

Years of work and research, all finished. Ceril touched the CONFIRM SEND? button on the tablet's screen. He looked up at the swirling colors of the hyperspace envelope that surrounded the ship. Absentmindedly, Ceril held his hands out as he leaned over and rested his arms on his knees. The Flameblade teleported from palm to palm.

"Careful with that thing," came a voice from behind him.

Ceril sat straight up and the sword disappeared. "I always am. How are you tonight, Roman?"

"Just dandy," the older man said. "May I sit?"

"Of course."

"I got your thesis a moment ago," Roman said.

"Good," Ceril said. "I think it's finished."

"I'm sure it is, son. It was finished by my count over a month ago."

Ceril shook his head. "It wasn't. It had a lot of stuff wrong with it that I think I've fixed. I'm not sure, though. I may give it one more pass later and resend it, if that's okay."

"It's not," Roman said. "It's fine the way it is. You have to let go at some point, Ceril."

Ceril just sat there.

"What's on your mind, Ceril? I can't remember the last time you were in here, especially on this tier. What's changed?"

"Nothing's changed," Ceril said. "I just thought it was appropriate for me to finish my work up here, that's all."

"Mmm hmmm." Roman nodded. "It's good work, Ceril."

It was Ceril's turn to be noncommittal. "Mmm hmmm," he replied.

"I mean it. You've done something in these past five years that no one else was able to do for three hundred, maybe more."

"It's not that big a deal," Ceril said. And to him, it wasn't. His whole research project had been something he loved to do and would have been doing anyway: reading and listening to stories.

"It is. Ceril, you've parsed every legend and every myth—that we know of—that deals with the Charons and cross-referenced them, indexed them, with every major religious text on Erlon."

Ceril nodded. "I know."

"My point is, Ceril, that you—and you alone—have brought more to light about how the Charons are understood than anyone in recent history. And given the current state of affairs with the Untouchable and that group of pretenders he's started, that's more valuable than you know."

"I like stories," Ceril said and shrugged. "I wish I had been able to get some more in there about religions in Instances. I think if I dug a little further, I would be able to make some connection between the original Charons and some of the societies who claim to have met their deities. I just didn't have enough time, not with Bryt's regimen, too."

"You'll get no sympathy from me regarding Bryt," Roman said. "You know as well as I do that you wouldn't have had to work double-time as a soldier if you hadn't killed Ethan Triggs."

"I know that very well, Roman. Thank you. It's just, with this Untouchable going around claiming to be a Charon and killing and attacking like he's doing, I can't help but think I should have been in an Instance somewhere tracing that particular connection. Figuring out something that would make him tick, you know? See if there's something from years ago that might get us close to him. Right now, all we've got are stories that prove what Saryn said the very first day: some people worshipped—worship—us as gods. So what?"

"You're smarter than that, Ceril."

"What?" Ceril asked defensively. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, think about what you just said."

"That some people worship us as gods? What about it?"

"Ceril, come on. You're killing me here."

"No, that was Ethan Triggs." Ceril stood up. "I killed him here. Right here. Where I'm standing. I'm frustrating you, maybe, but I'm not killing you."

Roman sighed. "Poor choice of words. I'm sorry."

"S'okay."

"But really, Ceril, are you really unable to see the connection here?"

"I think so, Roman. I just don't get it. Maybe I'm too close to it all. If it didn't tie directly into one of my chapters, I haven't been able to think about it."

"Maybe you're right. I get that." Roman stood up and went over to the railing. He leaned over it and said, "Don't you think, Ceril, that a man who's claiming to be the Untouchable, who seems to be trying to build an army of impostor Charons, would try to recruit from sympathetic groups to build his ranks, to find people?"

"So?"

"You can't be this dense," Roman said. His voice became harder. "Think about it, Ceril, and stop being so obtuse."

Ceril sighed and began pacing across the terrace. As he did, the Flameblade appeared in one hand and then the other, as though he were juggling the flaming sword without it throwing it into the air.

"Can you stop that?" Roman asked. "With the sword?"

"Oh, sorry," Ceril said and the sword disappeared but never reappeared. "Just a habit. I don't even think about it anymore."

Roman nodded and let the young man think. Ceril stopped pacing after just a few steps and looked at his mentor. "You're not seriously implying that my research is going to let us find the Untouchable when the best soldiers we've got haven't been able to ferret him out, are you?"

"No, I'm not," Roman said. "But I'm saying now that you're finished with your thesis and have everything tied up, we can really look at it and see if your connections lead us any closer to finding him and maybe saving a few lives. I also think that there's some validity to one of your theories about Instancing and archetypal influence that may be of use in this."

"What do you mean?" Ceril asked. He thought about that part of his thesis. It was a good idea, but he had no direct proof for it. He thought that adjacent Instances within the same geographic region might develop similar myths and legends. Worlds that existed within the same general area as, say, Ennd's Academy might be more likely to evolve societies that revered technology. There was hard evidence that adjacent Instances were often physically alike. So why could Instances not share some defining characteristic to their legends? It was all just ideas, though—theory.

"I'm saying that I want you to do the research you haven't had time to do," Roman said. "That's all."

"You want me to Instance hop and see if I can find any connection to the Untouchable, you mean? Something you can use to figure out where he's hiding, recruiting, something like that?"

"Something like that."

"Is this when my Rites start?"

Roman nodded. "Oh-six tomorrow morning. Like I told you this morning. If you had been paying attention." He stood up. "Welcome to the big leagues, Ceril."
Chapter Nine

Ceril could hear voices outside his door.

He summoned his Flameblade and held it behind his back as he went to investigate. There were a lot of voices, which told him something was probably very wrong. Most of the time, he might hear a few people during the morning chattering away as they went to breakfast or to the gym, but it would take a lot more than just a few people having a conversation to make the commotion he heard. He saw a throng of both Recruits and professors running down the hall. The only thing that was in that direction was the Instance room. He dismissed his Flameblade and stepped back into his quarters to get dressed, and as he passed his desk, he saw the time.

0713

Oh, that's lovely, Ceril thought. Roman had told him to be ready for his mission—his first Rite—at 0600 sharp. He had overslept by an hour, which meant that he had already missed his briefing and subsequently his departure, since that would be half an hour after the briefing. He was a dead man.

Add in whatever was causing this commotion, and he figured that it was going to be a pretty interesting day. Ceril did not care for interesting days. Since his recruitment as a Charon, he had had more than his share of interesting days. Most of the time, he just wanted to skirt by and finish his work.

By the time he was dressed and ready to leave his quarters, Ceril was part of the final few making their way down the corridor.

A pale blonde ponytail bobbed up and down in front of him. "Hey, Saryn," Ceril said as he came up behind his friend. "Running late?"

She turned toward him, puzzled. "Ceril?" she asked. "What are you doing back here? I figured you'd be first in line for this."

He cleared his throat. "Yeah, I think I was supposed to be. I must have forgotten to set an alarm last night because I was supposed to be up over two hours ago and at my briefing at oh-six. Roman said this one was important, like Rites important, and I'm pretty sure that I screwed myself this time."

"Rites? He told you about your Rites starting?"

"Yeah. I gave Roman my thesis last night—"

"Congratulations, Ternia!" she said and slapped him hard on the back. "I'm jealous."

Ceril couldn't help but grin. Their friendship—and personalities—often centered on them being from opposite ends of Erlon. Like Ceril, Ternia was mild. It was a temperate and sunny agricultural oasis, while Saryn and Yagh were just the opposite: dry and often unforgiving.

"When aren't you jealous of me?" he teased. She slapped his back again, harder. "Oww! Saryn, stop."

"Oh, lighten up," she said. "You're so delicate."

He smiled. "Don't tell Bryt that, or he'll make me spend another few hours in the tanks."

"Tempting..." she said.

"Shut up. Anyway, what's going on here?"

"Well," she said, "right now, you, I, and almost everyone else on board the Sigil, are about to find out just what happens when the ship's Instancing connection is severed and we drop from hyperspace simultaneously."

The past few years of training had really educated Ceril. He learned things during his time on the ship that he never would have thought possible, but he had also realized early on that Saryn was always going to be a little ahead of him no matter what he did—except for finishing her thesis. At that moment, though, he had absolutely no idea what Saryn was talking about. She was never that far ahead of him.

"What are you talking about?" he asked. "Lost what connection? And we're out of hyperspace?" Was the blur gone from his window? Did he even look today? He didn't think he had. He was too caught up in being late. He took it for granted that it was always there, so he hadn't thought to steal a glance in his panic this morning.

Saryn sighed and playfully dropped her shoulders in exasperation. "Yes, we're out of hyperspace. It happened maybe fifteen, twenty minutes ago."

"I didn't think we ever dropped out of hyperspace."

"I know, right? That's the whole thing, Ternia. I've been thinking, though. About hyperspace. Why are we always in it?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, the Sigil always has a hyperspace envelope around it, right?"

"Until right now, apparently."

"Right. And hyperspace is just a way to travel," Saryn said. "It makes us faster, friction and all that, yadda yadda yadda, yeah?"

Ceril nodded.

"Well, where are we going? What's so far away that we've had to stay enveloped by hyperspace for at least six years? Probably longer than that. We don't even know when they actually departed."

"What's your point?"

"You really are a little dense sometimes, you know that? We've been traveling for who-knows-how-long to who-knows-where, and we've suddenly stopped and the connection is broken? Don't you find it a bit odd to be perpetually traveling with no discernible destination?"

"I can't say I've ever thought about that."

"I doubt a lot of people have. But I've been thinking about it for a while. Now this happened, and I'm kind of wondering if the two things aren't connected. Did we get to where we're going?"

Last night's conversation with Roman came back into Ceril's mind, and he gulped. "I don't doubt that we did." He swallowed again. "Roman told me that my Rites were today."

Saryn nodded. "Your Rites are today? Be careful, okay, Ceril?"

"As careful as I can be," he said. "Maybe that's what some of this is about. Who knows? Anyway, what were you saying about the connection?"

"With Ennd's," Saryn said. "If my thesis research is anywhere near correct, the Inkwell Sigil has been maintaining a constant connection to Erlon, to Ennd's. That way, even though the ship was moving through hyperspace and not occupying the same physical space anymore, the portal would still allow for travel between that Instance and wherever the Sigil is. We've moved light years away from home, but that open connection makes the universe think we're standing still, that the whole ship has remained stationary."

Ceril nodded. He had no idea what Saryn was talking about. "Okay," he said. He was a newbie philosopher. He liked stories and legends. She was a scientist, a researcher. Scholar was far too broad a term, he thought.

"They're bending physics, Ceril. They're tricking the universe. Think of it like it's a mini-Instance. We broke off a piece of home and carried it with us to trick the universe into believing that we're still in the same spot. At least, that's one theory. It's why my thesis is taking so long."

"No wonder," he said. Ceril turned his head to the side, then back toward Saryn. "Do you hear that?"

"Barely," she said. "I think it's Roman. Maybe he's explaining all this." The duo had finally made their way to the Instance portal. They were at the very far end of the crowd that congregated in front of Roman. The muscle-bound scholar was standing in front of the archway that, until now, had always shimmered with energy.

Now, though, the dull frame looked cheap, fake. "Want to push our way through?" Ceril asked.

"Looks like we're going to have to."

The crowd of people was focused on Roman's address. Saryn let Ceril lead and cut a path through the other Charons. Occasionally, someone would grunt or nudge them back or give them a "hey, watch it," but the pair eventually made their way to the front.

"—are not trapped. There will be a full investigation regarding the cause of this disturbance and we will be in our way," Roman said. He was a good speaker. He knew how to work the crowd. He scanned the crowed as he spoke, and his eyes fell on Ceril. He frowned, almost glared. It was momentary, but Ceril caught it. "Now, if you'll excuse me," Roman said, "Professor Lim Nephil from Ennd's Academy will answer any questions you may have."

What's Nephil doing here? Ceril thought. He shouldn't be bringing new Recruits through this late in the year.

Roman interrupted Ceril's thoughts as he came off the stage and took the younger man by a shoulder. Ceril had grown to be a large young man, his chunkiness from adolescence turned into muscle over the years by his soldier training. He was still no match for Roman, though, who stood nearly a foot taller than he did. Ceril allowed himself to be led away from the crowd, where he found himself being pretty much thrown into a small meeting room attached to the portal chamber. The lights were dim, and it took Ceril's eyes a few moments to adjust.

"Just what the hell do you think you're doing?" Roman said. Ceril looked toward the door that Roman slammed behind them and wondered if anyone outside this room would be able to hear this conversation. "No, they can't hear us, Ceril, if that's what you're thinking. So tell me, just what the hell do you think you're doing?"

"I don't understand. I had just come in to see what the big deal was, and you pulled me in here to yell at me."

"Why were you not at your briefing this morning, Ceril?" Roman might have been angrier than Ceril had ever seen him, and he had been plenty angry after Ethan Triggs's death. Roman was shaking as he waited for Ceril to answer.

"I overslept, sir," Ceril said. He tried to keep his voice calm. "I must not have set my alarm when I went to bed last night, and I woke up when people started making noise outside my door. It might have been ten or fifteen minutes ago."

"You didn't set your alarm? That's your story?"

"It's not my story, sir. It's the truth."

"Ceril," said a voice from behind him, "do you have any idea how important your Rites are?" Bryt leaned over the conference. Ceril could see Howser there, too, and a few other professors he had known at Ennd's. What was going on here?

"Yes, sir."

"It appears that you don't," Roman said. "After all of the work you've put in over the years, I can't believe that you would think so little of your Rites. Of us. Of yourself."

"I didn't realize that oversleeping was a capital offense, sir," Ceril said.

"Don't get smart with me, son," Roman snapped.

Bryt interrupted their exchange. He said, "You were going to be briefed for a mission that was uniquely suited to you and the team we were sending with you."

"With me?"

"Yes, you were to be team leader this time around."

Ceril squinted at him. "Doing what? You said my Rites were going to be looking around to see if I can find connections, and I've been doing that solo for a while now."

Bryt stood up and said, "Yes, you have. It's a little different than that, though, Ceril. We've expected this kind of failure for some time."

"I didn't fail!" Ceril shouted. He was getting frustrated with them attacking him like this, but he knew that if he didn't control himself, his Flameblade might make an appearance. With them already doubting his abilities, the last thing he needed was for them to think his soldier training didn't take.

"Not you, Ceril. The hyperdrive. The Sigil is an old ship. Older than most people can reasonably comprehend, and she's been traveling a long time. Some of our engineers noticed that there was too much of a variance in the power being fed to the hyperdrive. And into the Instance portal. They calculated that if we didn't do something soon, we could overload the system." Bryt touched his forehead lightly with his fingertips. "If that happened, then our lifeline back to Erlon would be severed."

"But what does this have to do with me?"

"More than you've been told so far, actually," Bryt said. "But plans have changed somewhat. The base mission remains the same, however. You were initially going to be sent to an Instance where there might be ties to the Untouchable that you would be...uniquely able to utilize. Given our current predicament, we're going to need you to not only find those ties, Ceril, but use them to physically get back to Erlon."

"I'm not sure I understand, Bryt."

"You don't have to," Roman said. "That's why you'll have your team. You've all been chosen specifically for this mission. It's up to you to figure out how to get yourselves back to Erlon. Back to Ternia, actually, so that you could help elicit some assistance from that end."

"Why Ternia? Why me?"

"Because, Ceril," said Bryt, "I don't think that anyone else on board this ship—present company included—would be able to convince your grandfather to come back and see if he can fix what he screwed up in the first place."
Chapter Ten

Gramps looked at the sky and sighed. Storms were on their way, and from the look of the sky, he would need to secure anything he didn't want blown away. He loved living in Ternia more than he'd ever loved anywhere else, but the storms could get bad enough that he considered moving. Almost.

Still, such thoughts did him little good at the moment, and he figured that he had maybe half an hour before the worst of the storm came. He spent that time moving whatever he could carry into his storage buildings behind the house.

By the time the storm hit, he was back inside, safe, dry, and sitting in his favorite chair—the one next to the window where he told his grandson stories. He lit a candle and wondered just what was going on with Ceril these days. Nearly five years had passed since he had been allowed to speak with the boy. So much can change in five years, he thought.

He missed Ceril terribly. The boy wouldn't have had family if it weren't for him, and then Nephil and those other damned technomages at Ennd's took him and tried to make him one of them. The old man's stomach clenched at the thought. He had wanted more than that life for Ceril. He just hoped that wherever Ceril was, he was safe and happy.

It didn't do well for him to dwell on Ceril, on the Charons. That's why he had his book. The old, leather-bound book that he cradled on his lap was a point of contention for most of the people in the village. While they were not illiterate, most of their reading was done on tablets or PDAs and dealt with whatever hot topic had taken over the 'Nets that day. Gramps harrumphed to himself at the thought of it; he would bet good money that half of the people in the village had never owned a real book, and that even fewer had read one cover to cover. At least he couldn't say that about Ceril.

He had done what he could to shield the boy from technology, and even though he knew that Ceril loved him, Gramps was sure that decision had frustrated Ceril. Especially with the other boys from the town ranting and raving about their new gadgets every few weeks. But Gramps put his foot down; he would have none of it in his house. He had seen firsthand what an obsession with technology could do to someone, and he would do his very best to shield his family from it.

But now...now, the damned Charons had him. Once they got their hands on someone, it was tech or bust. There was no other way for them, and he knew that better than anyone. He hoped that Ceril was a smart enough boy that he didn't buy into their rhetoric and propaganda without thinking about it. After six years of immersion, anyone would pick up a few habits, become comfortable. A new device here and there may not seem like much at first—in fact, Gramps remembered it being pretty all right indeed—but it became an addiction all too quickly. It stopped being about progress and became complacency, laziness. And the Rites? The nanites? And worst of all, when they started in on your blood...

Gramps shuddered. He couldn't think about that. Ceril was okay. He knew it. His wrinkled hands stroked the cover of the book in his lap and found the purple ribbon he used to mark his place. He opened the book to a blank page about three quarters of the way through and grabbed a pen off the bookshelf. The storm would give him the perfect opportunity to get some writing done since he obviously could not tend his garden, no matter how much he wanted to.

The book was his love, his legacy really. Gramps knew that he wasn't going to live forever, even if it sometimes felt like he would. When his time finally came, there was a lot of information and history about the Charons that would be lost—at least to the Erlonian public—if he never completed this book. Gramps knew a great deal more about the Charons than he had told Ceril the summer he had found the Flameblade.

He also knew that there was no public record of the Charons that wasn't more legend than fact. At least, not in Ternia.

So, since the day that Gilbert Squalt had called to inform him that Ceril had been recruited for training as a Charon, Gramps had spent the last six years writing the history the world was missing. He honestly had no delusions that anyone would ever read it. He had no desire to publish it or push it onto the 'Nets. It just eased his mind to know that it was there, would be there when he was dead and gone (Whenever that may be, he thought). Maybe someone would stumble across the book in a few centuries, dust it off, crack the spine, and know the truth about how the world became so messed up.

After all, who better to tell the story of the Charons and of their rise and fall, than the one man who had been there through it all?

***

The pen had barely scratched paper when there was a knock at the front door. Gramps thought there was a knock, at least. The storm outside had picked up, and he couldn't very well imagine that anyone would be out in it, much less knocking at his door. The storm probably tossed a limb at the house. There was another sound, talking maybe, and that made his head jerk up. Gramps's aged muscles were not used to motion that quick, and he groaned involuntarily. The book slid off his lap onto the floor and closed, the purple ribbon barely caught between the pages.

"Who's there?" he asked as loudly as he could. He wasn't expecting anyone, and he couldn't remember the last time anyone had just stopped by to chat. He couldn't remember the last time anyone had stopped by at all.

Another knock. And voices. There was definitely someone there; it wasn't just something being tossed against the side of the house.

"Who's there, I said?"

The knocks grew more insistent, slower but harder. Gramps bent to pick up the book off the floor and placed it back in its home on his bookshelf.

More knocking, louder voices, probably yelling. Even though they didn't socialize, Gramps knew his neighbors in the village. They were not terribly fond of him, definitely not fond enough to come knocking in a storm like this. That meant it was someone else. Gramps muttered to himself and hoped it wasn't as bad as he expected.

He went toward the bedroom to put some more space between him and whoever was outside. What he needed was a weapon, but he didn't think he had time to get one.

A loud crash came from the front of his house, and the voices were no longer muffled. He heard a man and a woman speaking to one another. They spoke a language that he recognized, that he had once spoken himself, but had not spoken for many years. He had thought it died out centuries ago. It had been so long since he had even heard it; he couldn't quite understand what the intruders were saying.

It didn't matter. Gramps knew the kinds of people who had spoken that language once upon a time, and that was enough. One side of his mouth curled upward in a snarl, while a cold rock formed in the center of his stomach. His heart raced.

If he did not act quickly, there was a chance he might not make it through this encounter.

The man was becoming more insistent, yelling faster and louder. Every time he yelled, a crash punctuated his statement. This went on for about thirty seconds, and each crash indicated to Gramps that the burglars were working their way through the house.

They would find him in a minute, which meant there was no time to search for a weapon. There was a crash from the hallway outside the bedroom he was in, and the woman yelled something Gramps could almost understand.

Fear filled him. He wasn't ready to die, after all. He had thought he was. He had thought his life had been long enough, but no. Not like this. If he was going to die, it was going to be on his own terms, not because someone invaded his home.

Anger laced his fear, and his heart rate spiked. He focused the emotions, envisioning a purple-green ball of fire in his mind. He poured his emotions into the ball, and it grew hotter and brighter in his mind's eye. He needed a weapon, so he was going to have one. He held out his hand, ready to feel the weight of the Flameblade, but nothing happened. The purple-green fireball in his mind dissipated, and he stood alone in his bedroom.

Lightning struck outside the window. The light illuminated the room for an instant and blinded the old man. Thunder rumbled immediately, as though to indicate the severity of the situation. He had failed.

He could not let himself fail. Ceril's face flashed before Gramps's eyes, and for the first time in his life, he knew that he had something worth fighting for, worth living for. Even if the technomages had perverted him, Ceril was still his boy.

That thought in mind, Gramps did something he hadn't done since long before Ceril had been born. He took a deep breath, calmed himself as much as he could under the circumstances, and felt his skin begin to tingle. He smiled involuntarily as he felt a sensation under his skin that he had almost forgotten.

Had anyone been in the room to see Gramps as he began to smile, they would have seen his skin begin to run and ripple as though tiny insects crawled under the topmost layer. They would have seen his smile grow larger, his skin swell in an almost geometric pattern, and his pores open as a thick, black liquid streamed from them. They would have likely assumed that the old man had been cut or stabbed and begun bleeding a black blood that by all rights shouldn't be bled.

But he hadn't been cut, and he hadn't been stabbed. His pores dilated just enough to allow the black blood to rush through and not tear or irritate his skin. The old man had gone through the Blood Rites long before—had perfected the process on himself, actually—and learned to control the results in the years following. Quickly after his skin began to ripple and spot with the seeping blackness, the blood ran around his arms. Tendrils moved with a hive-minded purpose, coating his arms, running so close to the skin that his clothing was left untouched and dry. From beneath his gums the blood ran, coating and darkening his coffee-stained teeth. The liquid shimmered in the low light of the bedroom. Its iridescent shade once reminded people of the scales of a snake. Long ago, he had thought the comparison apt—the way it moved out of and over his body did have a kind of serpentine grace. Even after all the years, he still marveled at it.

He marveled more at how much he had missed this.

The blackness poured from his nose and across his mouth. Tendrils met in the space between his lips, interlocked, and formed a mesh web over his mouth that solidified to fuse his upper and lower lips together. The ecstatic smile on his face was frozen in blackness—blackness that bubbled and shimmered with every breath.

He bled from his eyes, and from his ears. His nostrils continued to pour the blackness from them. The blood from his nose worked its way into his mouth and proceeded to fill his throat and lungs, but he didn't choke or gasp. If there had not been intruders, he would have laughed. He had not felt this alive in so long.

When the process began, his hair—what was left of it—had been white with age. However, the blackness coursing over his body revitalized it, providing as much color and richness as it had once possessed when he was a young man.

Black tears streamed from his eyes, and they became bloodshot before dilating into complete blackness.

As he enjoyed his transformation, his resurgence, the old man stripped out of his clothes. Any blood on the cloth slithered its way back to the mass that eventually coated his body. He stood naked in his bedroom and threw his clothes in the small pile that already sat neglected in one corner.

When the cycle was finished, he was completely black, coated in the iridescent blood. It began to harden around him and briefly, almost imperceptibly, the black liquid flashed with a bright, purple-green light, and then Gramps disappeared from sight entirely.

The whole process took maybe fifteen seconds to complete. In that time, the intruders had split up and were ransacking individual rooms of his home. Invisible, Gramps walked around the room. He was perfectly aware of where he was placing his feet and how much sound he made as he did.

As he neared the door, the female intruder sprinted into the bedroom from around the corner to the left, almost barreling directly into Gramps. If he had been three or four inches to his left, his disappearing act would have been for nothing. Instead, though, he remained undetected while the intruder searched his bedroom. Gramps chuckled silently as the woman quickly rummaged through the pile of dirty clothes in the corner and put them back as though they had been undisturbed for weeks.

He left the woman in his bedroom and stalked back through to observe what was going on in the rest of the house. More people had broken in than he originally thought. He had heard two voices, but there were maybe fifteen people in his house. He didn't want to fight them, and he wasn't sure how much the invisibility Conjuration had weakened him, but he was sure there was going to be a cost. At this point, he just needed to find out what they wanted.

He saw a large man with a beard in his sitting room, perusing the bookshelf as though he were at a library and wanted just the right book to curl up with during the storm. The man stiffened as he came across Gramps's incomplete history and pulled it from the shelf.

As the man leafed through it, he yelled to his companions again in the dead language. The other burglars gathered in the sitting room, and Gramps found himself a corner away from them. He watched them.

Everyone was silent except for the large man who found the book and the woman who had searched Gramps' bedroom. They talked animatedly, but Gramps could understand very little about what they said. He thought he heard the woman mention master, and the man responded with what could be translated as reward. The conversation ended with a unified chant. Only one word of the chant meant anything to Gramps. They had all chanted untouchable. He stiffened when he heard it, and it took almost every bit of self-control he had not to break cover and demand to know what they meant.

Afterward, the large man and woman stood back to back. He raised his left hand, she her right. Swords appeared in both of their hands. Gramps made note that the man's sword glowed a dim blue-red and the woman's a dull yellow-silver. The duo both stretched their empty hands behind them and around their partner's midsection. They drew semi-circles in the air with their swords, and momentarily, the auras around the blades flared away from the swords. The energy met in midair, swirled together, and then sped from one intruder to the next. When every one of them was encompassed with fire, they all disappeared with a whuff-pop.

Half an hour later, when he was certain that he was alone, Gramps reattached his door to its frame, and then fortified it with as much furniture as he could pile behind it. The black blood that had granted him invisibility was absorbed back into his body, and he sat on the edge of his bed, sobbing into his hands.

When he cried, it was not for the violation of his home or his privacy. Not even for the theft of his book. Though each would have been justified.

No, when he cried, they were tears of anger. Of contempt. Someone had made him break his vow, and he was going to kill them for it.
Chapter Eleven

Ceril stared at his teachers like they were fools. He opened his mouth to speak and closed it. Then he opened it again, ready to talk. Then closed it. He finally managed to stutter "My my my my—" before he was cut off by Roman.

"Yes, Ceril. Your grandfather."

Ceril blinked. "Here? On...the Sigil?"

Roman nodded curtly. 'Yes. And his name is Damien Vennar."

"Vennar?" the young man asked.

"Mmm hmmm."

"Like from the stories? You can't be serious..."

"The stories are a bit exaggerated," Roman said.

"I would hope so," Ceril said, "if they're about Gramps. I mean, those are old, Roman. Gramps can't be that Vennar."

"I thought you two were close."

"We were—we are—" Ceril corrected, "but he never told me his name." It sounded stupid when he said it aloud. It made him question his relationship with Gramps. "When I was younger, I thought it was fun, like a game. I'd yammer for hours, rattling off different combinations of names trying to guess, and he would always respond the same way."

Ceril cleared his throat and gruffed his voice: "Ceril, I am your Gramps. I have always been your Gramps, and I will always be your Gramps. I've been called other names by other people, but none of them suit me as well or make me as happy as when you call me Gramps. So keep on guessing, but you already know the only name you'll get me to answer to."

Ceril continued, returning to his normal cadence, "And that's all I would ever get out of him. The older I got, the more I just assumed there was a part of his past he wanted to keep separate from his family. You know, when I was a kid, I even made up a story about him being an assassin for a king." Bryt and Roman shared a look, and Ceril wondered if that silly little story he had made up as a child was closer to the truth than he was comfortable with. "I just kind of figured that since he was my dad's dad that we had the same last name. If I'm Ceril Bain, he had to be a Bain, too. Guess not."

Bryt shook his head. "If I recall correctly, your grandfather adopted the surname Bain when he left the Archive. It makes sense he would pass it down as he tried to distance himself from us. Still, though, Ceril, I think we may need your help in getting your Gramps here to fix his mess."

"His mess? How is any of this his mess?" Ceril asked. "I don't mean to be rude, sir, or sound dumb, but I'm not quite following everything going on right now."

A new voice came from behind him, "And you shouldn't have to, Ceril. Had you done what we asked of you, none of us would be having this conversation. We would still have this problem, certainly, but we would be one hell of a lot closer to fixing it if you had simply shown up on time."

Ceril whipped around to see Professor Nephil come into the meeting room.

"Meeting's over, I take it?" Roman asked.

"Quite over. We're going to have a bit of a situation on our hands soon, Roman."

"I don't doubt it."

"I was able to pacify them, I think," Nephil said. "They calmed down considerably when I told them that every so often, the ship has to make a routine maintenance stop. I said that a slight miscalculation had forced us to make this stop early and that the ship would re-establish its connection to Erlon once everything is in order." At hearing this, Roman cringed, but Nephil continued, "Which is not a lie, my old friend. Once we re-establish, we will be back on our way."

"Yes, that is true," Roman said, "but do you have any idea how to do that?"

"I have a few ideas," Nephil said, though his voice betrayed his confidence.

Ceril raised his hand and looked around at the group of his teachers. They looked frightened. Bryt twirled his hair around a finger like a schoolgirl; Roman still shook, but it was more obviously nervous apprehension rather than the anger Ceril had mistaken it for earlier. Nephil slowly bobbed from his heels to the balls of his feet. The other teachers he only halfway recognized, but they remained seated around the table, sometimes tapping their fingers on the table, or crossing one leg and then the other, never being quite able to get comfortable.

"I think we're a bit beyond you raising your hand to speak," Roman said.

Ceril put his hand down and said, "Yes, sir. Well, sir, I just wanted to ask if you all could tell me what exactly is going on here. I mean, you yell at me for missing my briefing—which I deserve, I think—but you're acting like I caused the end of the world for oversleeping. What's wrong with the Sigil?"

Roman and Nephil sighed in near unison. Roman said, "It's not what you did, Ceril. It's what we needed you to do. Have a seat." He motioned to the table and sat at its head. Nephil and Ceril followed suit. Ceril felt slightly out of place at the table. He knew the faculty had respected his work before, but he had never been included in on a meeting like this. He was still a student, after all. Just an Apprentice.

"Ceril, for some time," Roman continued, "we have known that the Inkwell Sigil was a dying vessel."

"Dying?"

"Well, more accurately, sabotaged. We have known that one day the Instance connection we maintain with Ennd's would be severed and that we would have no way to return to Erlon. When you so visibly became a candidate for joining the Archive, we assumed that we could get you to help us when—and if—that time came because of your connection with Vennar."

"Gramps."

"Vennar. The man who put us in this situation to begin with," Roman said. "But then you killed Ethan Triggs—"

"It was an accident!"

"Accident or not," Nephil broke in, "Roman had to pull a lot of strings to keep you here. The only reason he was able to is because you are related to Damien Vennar."

Ceril sat silently and listened. Roman spoke next.

"A few years ago—after the Triggs incident—we were able to narrow down the failure. Ceril, how much do you understand about Instancing?"

"Not as much as Saryn does, but I know a little."

"I don't think many people know as much as Saryn," Roman said. "In a nutshell, Instances access pocket universes that occupy the same physical space as we do, kind of like layers in the universe. The Charons figured out how to cross the quantum membrane between them."

Ceril nodded. "Roman, my research wasn't on Instances or their physics. I worked with mythology, with stories."

"I know, son. Let me explain our situation a little more. The Charons weren't just the first ones to be able to cross into other Instances."

"Then who was?"

"We actually created the Instances."

"Oh," Ceril said. "Wait. You what?"

"Not just the ability to access them, mind you, but the matter within them, too. The founders of our order were actually able to create the pocket universes you mentioned. From nothing. Through centuries of work and research, the Charons were able to guide and accelerate the creation of new universes, separated from theirs by only a thin quantum membrane."

Ceril sat dumbfounded. "Uh-huh."

Noticing Ceril's confusion, Roman reached for his tablet and tapped at its screen. Immediately, a holographic projection appeared between Ceril and him. It was a globe, a map of Erlon. "At first, it was small scale. They could make and control a universe the size of a house, let's say. Then they stumbled onto Erlon's most unique feature: wells of electromagnetic energy."

The hologram lit up in various places to indicate the electromagnetism's locations.

"When harnessed correctly, these wells allowed the Charons to fully control the depth and breadth of these pocket universes, cultivating them to whatever specifications they wanted." As Roman spoke, the globe began to change. Initially, small splotches of color were superimposed over part of its surface, not obscuring the projection, but exiting separately. As his explanation continued, more and more splotches appeared, only now they were larger and appearing more rapidly. "They did this for a very long time. Long enough that they eventually lost control."

The holographic Erlon was no longer even recognizable, there were so many splotches superimposed with its image. Some were within the planet, others on the surface, while others protruded from the surface like small warts. What struck Ceril as interesting about the presentation was how each new layer was uniquely its own entity, not just a replica of Erlon's map. Each new layer also kept touching Erlon. None existed away from it.

Roman stopped speaking and let Nephil continue the story. "When the Charons lost control, the Instances they made no longer adhered to the same space-time boundaries that they originally set. They became free-floating and impossible to track." Roman tapped the screen of his tablet, and the superimposed layers began to disconnect from one another. Slowly, they separated and began migrating around the room. "Lots of good people died because there was no way for them to get home. And so, through a bit more research, the Charons were able to develop the portals that we use today, and those portals acted like anchors for certain regions within each Instance that shared quantum similarities."

Lines of color began to stretch from one layer to the next, but only between the projections still connected to the original globe of Erlon. The lines acted as anchors, like Nephil said, keeping the projections from floating around the room. Those that had already escaped from Erlon's space continued to roam unhindered.

"Like Ennd's," Ceril said.

"Just so. But Ennd's is only one place where Instance portals exist on Erlon. Your research should tell you that there are others."

The young man sat and thought for minute. He wished he had thought to grab his tablet as he left his quarters. "Yagh is one. So is Ternia. Ferran. And Bester." Ceril stopped. He had just named every major center for civilization on Erlon. There were others, sure, but the populations were typically not included when discussing major civilizations. They were tribal, barbaric, and generally wanted nothing to do with the rest of the world. The young man blinked, trying to connect the dots that were slowly forming in his mind.

"And what do you infer from that, Ceril?" Roman asked.

"That..." he began slowly, "...I am in way over my head."

The professors could not help but laugh at his remark. Roman extinguished the holographic Instance map. "Yes," he answered. "That. But also, you should be seeing a pattern in just how influential the Charons were to the development of Erlon's various cultures. Now, these pockets of energy were harnessed to create the Instance portals. This is precisely when the Charons went from being a simple research group to the order we have evolved into today. The portals had to be guarded, and there were many differing views as to how to maintain the Instances."

"Your grandfather had his own unique views of things, if I may say so," Roman continued, "since he considered the project to be his baby."

Again, Ceril could do nothing but blink and say, "What?"

"Your grandfather, Ceril, is quite old. We all are, actually. We're not quite as old as he is, but we've still had a good run. The Rites help us a great deal in maintaining our health. We'll get back to that later. Right now, time is of the essence."

A professor that Ceril did not know chimed in from across the table. "Long story, short: About four thousand years ago, Vennar—your Gramps—did something to the Instance network that caused it to expand rapidly, breaking away from our control. We don't know precisely what it was. What we do know is that your grandfather was creating Instances that he never registered with the Archive, and that by doing so, he weakened the stability of the entire network. He said that he was doing work that had to be done, and that people deserved to know about it. He said that we, as an order, were—how did he put it?—living like gods while the rest of the world licks our boots."

"Sounds like him," Ceril said.

"The Charons became divided, then, into three factions. One side fought to hide the portals from the rest of Erlon. They wanted to stop playing gods and bury the knowledge that the Archive ever existed. If you can imagine, they were the smallest group. The second group thought that making the Instances and other Charonic technology public knowledge would help unite Erlon's city-states, while the third group felt that the order was doing good work—divine work, really—and that the status quo should be maintained." The professor leaned back again and rapped his fingers against his chair.

"I didn't know any of that," Ceril said. "But how does this involve me?"

Professor Nephil answered, "First of all, your grandfather was the leader of one of the factions."

Ceril's eyes lit up. Nephil continued, "He fought harder than almost anyone I knew, too. He truly believed that the world would be a better place if the technomages were no longer seen as different. He believed that our technology and science should no longer be seen as magic by the people of Erlon, that we should no longer be technomages. Your grandfather wanted us just to be just scientists again and for our magic to become ordinary again. Vennar hated the word magic, but so many people used the term that most of us actually started to believe that's what it was."

"That makes sense," Ceril said. "So what happened?"

"To put it bluntly, your grandfather lost. He fought hard, like I said, but in the end, there were too many people who felt the old ways were the best ways. Thousands of years had passed, and things had been working well. Then about...five hundred years ago, I think, your Gramps destabilized the Instance network. We have been able to manage for quite a while, but eventually, entropy takes over. We knew our measures would fail. That's where you come in."

"Why don't you just reconnect?" asked Ceril. "If we're in the same space, there should just be a membrane or something separating us, right? So if we can repair the portal or figure out just what the original Charons did to break through the Instances, we can get back to Ennd's and be on our way."

"It's not that simple," Roman said. "We...no longer occupy the same space as Ennd's. Hyperspace is unique in that it tricks the network into thinking that we are still in the same space as long as the Instance portal remains active. Since the whole ship was enveloped by hyperspace, that part of the universe remained relative to Ennd's. For all intents and purposes, we were still in the same space as Ennd's. We were just moving that particular pocket of space."

Ceril just stared at Roman. "What?"

"Think of hyperspace as a mini-Instance, I guess. An Instance within an Instance."

Ceril stared blankly at him. Hadn't Saryn mentioned something like that earlier? He had soaked up way too much information to keep everything straight. He wished that he had a way to replay the whole conversation over again a few times.

"As long as we stayed connected, kept energy transferring between us and Erlon, there was a portal. As long as there was a portal, we were able to draw on Erlon's wells of electromagnetism to power the Sigil. When Vennar's plan finally won out, the connection dropped, and we lost the ability to break through the quantum membrane back to Ennd's."

"Oh," Ceril said. "Saryn told me some of this today as we came here."

Nephil smiled. "That young lady is eons ahead of her time."

"So I gather," Ceril said. "I still don't get why you're telling me this, though. If we can't get back to Erlon, I can't get to Gramps, and if we're out as far as you're implying, how can there be any connection between an Instance out here and Erlon, anyway? And what do the terrorists have to do with all this?"

"That's for you to find out. For many reasons, you are uniquely suited for this task, Ceril. You will need to talk to people, read up on local customs, and see if you can find any indication that the Instances in this part of space are connected to Erlon. We think that somehow the Untouchable has resources in these Instances—these connections—and your initial mission was to locate those connections and see just how he and his terrorists were accessing them from Erlon. There's no reason why you can't work on the practical application of the theory while you're there, is there? We've been thinking that if we can find connection points between Instances, the connections that the Charons lost control of long ago, we can work our way through the network until we get home."

"Okay, look," Ceril said, "I may be out of line, but you're going to have to tell me what's so important about this guy. I saw the video initially, heard all the rumors, but I want to know why you are all dumping the history of the Archive on me and telling me it's so that I can find a way to track the Untouchable all the way back to Erlon from who-knows-where. So what gives?"

Roman and Nephil looked at one another, then Roman shrugged. Nephil must have understood what he meant, because he immediately reached forward and placed his palm on the conference table. The tabletop shifted and began to project a video into the air. It was the same video that Ceril had seen six years ago, the first time he had heard of the terrorists.

"I've seen this before."

"I'm sure you have, Ceril, but there is a little more to it now. The past six years have been rather eventful, and we have done our best to keep the students aboard the Inkwell Sigil from being affected too much by the events."

"What do you mean eventful?" Ceril asked, even though he couldn't take his eyes off the video. He cringed as the terrorist impaled the mother and her child with a Flameblade.

Nephil leaned forward and rubbed the heels of his hands into his eyes. He looked at Ceril and blinked them clear. "I'm not sure how to say this, Ceril, but..." His voice trailed off and Roman picked up where he left off.

"What Nephil is trying to say is..." Roman cleared his throat. "Have you noticed in the past few years how few students have been recruited from places other than Ennd's?"

"I hadn't really thought about it."

"Well, two years ago, this happened." Roman nodded at Nephil, and the projection changed from the video Ceril had seen into an aerial view of a desert. From the look of it, somewhere in Yagh. The camera flew toward a structure near the horizon, and as the structure grew closer, Ceril could see that it was badly damaged. At first, all he could see was fire coming from windows, and as the image focused, he could see rubble from where whole sections of the building were broken and caving in.

"I don't know what I'm looking at."

"That was Cernt Academy."

"You can't be serious. That's where Saryn went, isn't it?"

Nephil nodded. "It was, yes. Attacks from the Untouchable and his terrorists began to slowly ramp up after the initial one on the playground." He manipulated the table again, and clips began to cycle in the air. Newsreel footage, talking-head clips, and more homemade video clips assailed Ceril. He saw people dying from almost every angle imaginable, and each new clip seemed to up the ante. The videos ranged from small, solo attacks on pedestrians to larger groups of terrorists with Flameblades attacking sporting events and other gatherings, until eventually, the feed began to show buildings blowing up.

"The attacks seemed to culminate with the fall of Cernt Academy." Nephil swallowed, then said, "A lot of people died there, Ceril. A lot of Charons, but more importantly, a lot of innocent kids and teachers not associated with the Archive."

"We never thought they would attack one of the Academies," Roman said.

Ceril was speechless. "Does Saryn know?"

Roman and Nephil looked at each other. "No," they said together. Then Nephil continued, "And no other students on board know, either. Like we said, we've done a good bit of filtering what information from Erlon makes it onboard these past few years."

"You mean censoring," Ceril said. "She should know—Saryn. So should everyone else."

"And they will," Roman said. "Eventually. Now is not the best time to drop this kind of bombshell on them."

"No, you're right," Ceril said. "The best time would have been two years ago when it happened." He crossed his arms to indicate his part of that conversation was over.

"You may be right," Nephil said. "But that's neither here nor there. The point in showing you this is to let you know how dire things have become on Erlon. Like I said, we thought that was the culmination of their return. They effectively took out a whole Academy, and we still haven't been regain control. Now, the attacks are ramping up again, and they seem to be following the same pattern they did six years ago, only faster. If we're right, then we're due for another major attack within the next few months."

"Where?"

"We have to assume it's going to be Ferahgo Academy in Bester," Roman said.

"And not Ennd's?" asked Ceril.

"We like to think that Ennd's is too fortified for them. It makes more tactical sense to wipe out Ferahgo first, so we're working on reinforcing it."

"That doesn't mean a lot, apparently."

Roman glared at Ceril, who shrugged his shoulders and said, "What? If they're able to take out Cernt so easily, then maybe they're even worse than we thought." He paused.

The professor smiled. "We haven't been able to track them down on Erlon despite our best efforts, which makes us think there are storehouses, safe houses, something in Instances somewhere that will give us the information we need. Or at least, like we said, some connection to the Untouchable that we may be missing."

"And my thesis research," Ceril said, and he clicked his tongue, "deals solely with making connections and piecing unrelated things together."

"Smart boy," Nephil said. "If everything goes according to plan, you and your team will be able to not only stabilize the Instance network, but also locate the Untouchable and help stop his attacks."

"Do I have a choice?"

"Not so much," Nephil said.

"If that's the case," said Ceril. "when do I start, and who's going with me?" The young man looked around the room expectantly.

"None of us, actually, I'm afraid," Bryt said. "We will be needed here, for crowd control and to work on new solutions in case this hypothesis proves to be a dead end."

"What kind of Instances exist out here, anyway? What am I getting myself into? I'm used to fairly cushy places. No one's ever trusted me enough to send me anywhere else." There was malice in Ceril's voice and every one of the professors felt it. They had treated him differently than other students since Ethan Triggs was murdered.

Roman, Nephil, and Bryt shared a look, but said nothing.

"Or should I say, what kind of Instance are you getting me into?" Ceril asked.

Bryt sighed and said, "We're not quite certain yet. Preliminary surveys show that there is only a single Instance available for connection here, and we haven't been able to connect to check it out. We had hoped to connect after you were already safely back on Erlon, but you threw a wrench into that when you showed up late."

Roman said, "The team you're taking is being assembled as we speak, Ceril. They're all your classmates, Rites candidates. Saryn Bloom, Easter Harlo, Swinton Marelotov, and Chuckie Tidwell. You know them all, right?"

"Some better than others, but I've seen them all around."

"Good. You should also know that this will be the beginning of all your Rites."

Ceril took a deep breath. He could do this. "Okay."

"You have permission to act in the capacity of fully Rited agents of the Charonic Archive, Ceril," Roman said. "But you are going to be the one in charge. You're going to have a pretty solid group with you, but you're going to have to remember that you are more trained than they are. I'm not saying you're better than any of them, but you've got a bit of an advantage. Make sure you use it.

"Saryn's head is in her research; you know that as well as I do. She's as capable as they come and should be able to handle herself, but don't expect her to get a lot more detailed about battle tactics than knowing what part of a sword cuts or which end of a gun shoots."

Ceril laughed. "That sounds about right."

"Now, Chuckie and Swinton are soldiers. Honestly, they're probably trained better than you are since they haven't had the second discipline to distract them like you have. Don't worry, though; they'll watch your back and take your orders. That's their job. I don't know if you remember, but Swinton was like you. He started as a scholar when you all first came on board, but he swapped over because he got the damn fool idea that he will eventually find a Flameblade. I wonder who gave him that idea?"

"I wouldn't know."

Roman chuckled. "Right, right. I'm sure you don't. It worked out, though. He's good at his job. Not quite the best, but he's got an eye for detail that I don't see very often outside of researchers. Chuckie, on the other hand, is exactly the opposite of Swinton. He started out as a soldier, and has been at the top of his class ever since. I don't speak in clichés very often, Ceril, but I'm pretty sure he was born with a gun in his hand. He...also has a slight problem with authority. He wants to be in charge, but don't let him just take over. If you have to, pull rank. I can tell you from experience that it works."

"Gotcha. I doubt it'll come to that."

"We'll see. And there's your medic, Easter Harlo. God knows I don't want you to need a medic, but I couldn't live with myself if we didn't send one through with you just in case. She's a damn fine doctor, so if something goes wrong, she'll know how to fix it," Roman said. "She's the best medic we've trained in quite some time. If you get hurt and she can't patch you up, you're a bit of a lost cause, if you ask me."

"You're making me more confident by the second, Roman."

"Your mission," Nephil said, "is simple, but we don't expect it to be easy. We're not even sure if it's possible. If you deal with whatever inhabitants you run across equitably, you should be fine. We will not be able to keep the portal open for you, though."

Ceril opened his mouth to speak, but Bryt rose and said, "Right now, we're in dead space. No planets, no stars, no nothing. We are running on what energy reserves we had before the connection ended. We have minor generators on board, but our main source of operational power came from Ennd's. With that gone, there is no way to determine how long we can maintain a portal to this new Instance. Especially if the portal opens in hostile territory."

"You'll reopen it eventually?"

"Of course, but I hope we don't have to. If you and your team succeed, you'll come knocking on our door."

"How will I stay in contact with you?" Ceril asked. "How will you know that we are on the right track?"

Roman shook his head and said, "You will be on your own. Since this mission is functioning as your team's Rites, you have to do it on your own."

Ceril didn't like the sound of that. There was something about the way that Roman and Nephil were talking that made him uneasy. They were hiding something from him, but he had no idea what it was or how to find out. Maybe it was just something to do with the Rites. They were the final test of becoming a full Charon, so maybe it was just something to do with that.

"That should about cover it," Roman said. "If you find hot spots like we talked about existing on Erlon, your first priority is to collect information and make an informed decision about which one would be closest to Erlon. You've done enough of that kind of work already to be comfortable with it. Anything you find that can lead back to the Untouchable is going to help, Ceril, even if it's a few hops, skips, or jumps away. This far out, who knows if you'll be able to find anything. But if you do, make note of it, okay? Contact your grandfather as soon as you get back to Erlon. He probably won't want to help; I don't expect him to, at least. Please convince him, and then get to Ennd's to see if you can reconnect to us. Do you have any questions?"

"No, I don't think so," Ceril said.

"Then let's get you on your way."
Chapter Twelve

He's lying, Saryn thought as she walked out of the chamber. Something about Professor Nephil's address didn't sit well with her, but she didn't know exactly what. He just seemed so...smarmy when he was talking to them. It didn't matter, though. There wasn't anything she could do except wait, so she decided that she would take the time to work on her thesis and maybe that would help her figure out what bothered her about the professor.

"Saryn? Saryn Bloom?" said a voice behind her. She stopped and saw a middle-aged woman jogging toward her.

"Yes? What can I do for you, Professor Harger?" Saryn had taken a few classes with Professor Harger over the years. She taught the theoretical sciences on board the Sigil, and Saryn's line of research required more than a few of those.

The red-haired woman stopped beside Saryn and said, "I need to talk with you, Saryn. Do you mind if we talk somewhere a little more private?"

"No...No, of course not. What's going on, professor?"

"In a moment." Harger led Saryn down the corridor and into a small observation room. It was dark since there was no hyperspace blur shining through the wide viewport. Professor Harger motioned for Saryn to sit in one of the chairs, while she herself walked to the nearest wall and placed her palm flat against it. "I just don't like the dark," she said. "One second." Light began to grow from her hand, a faint green-blue, and crawled in seemingly random tendrils of luminescence across the walls, floor, and ceiling of the room. In under a minute, the whole room was illuminated.

"Not quite as comfortable as the blur," Harger said, "but it will have to do."

"That was astonishing, ma'am," Saryn said.

The professor smiled. "Thank you, Saryn. From you, that means a lot."

Saryn blushed and changed the subject. She said, "What can I do for you, professor?"

"I'm not going to keep anything from you, Saryn, or make it out that this isn't a big deal. It is."

"Okay."

"Your Rites begin today."

"Today?"

"Within an hour, actually."

"I don't think I'm ready," Saryn said.

"No one ever thinks they're ready," the professor replied.

"No, I mean, my thesis isn't finished. I still have to revise the last few chapters, and some of my experiments haven't been completed. I don't have enough data to compile. I can't have my Rites yet."

"You'll finish the thesis, Saryn. In most cases, it's a formality anyway. In yours, especially. You've done good work from what I've read, and I can honestly say that another month of research and number crunching won't help you at all with your Rites."

"Oh," Saryn said. She put so much of herself into that thesis, so many long hours, and for Professor Harger to qualify the compliment by saying that her work was merely a formality—rather than the useful research Saryn had believed it to be—hurt her.

Harger apparently noticed. "I don't mean it's not important, Saryn. Not at all. But your Rites fall into very unique circumstances, and you already have the theoretical experience that will help you."

Saryn wanted to believe her, but it sounded like a crock, just like the professors' explanation of why they dropped out of hyperspace. She said, "What do I have to do?"

Harger leaned back in the chair and stared out the window. "You know, the lack of stars when you look out the window is disconcerting."

"I hadn't really thought about it." But she had. Saryn had noted that morning that they had to be in dead space because, without the hyperspace envelope around the ship, there was nothing but blackness. The only place she knew of that could be this empty was the space between galaxies. Dead space.

"You're lucky. It gives me an awful feeling to look out the window and not see anything." The red-haired woman sat silent for a moment as she stared out the window. "Anyway," she said as she shook herself from her reverie, "your Rites will consist of a mission into a local Instance—"

"I thought we were disconnected," Saryn interjected.

"We are disconnected. From Erlon," Harger said. "We have found the ability to connect to a couple of Instances near our current location."

"Unmapped?"

Harger nodded. "Yes. We have reason to believe that these Instances may provide a starting point for solving two current issues, the first being that it may be possible to chain your way from this Instance all the way back to Erlon."

"But not go directly," Saryn said. It wasn't a question. "How far out are we?"

"Farther than we like, my dear. Far enough that Erlon is not easily accessible—may not be accessible to us at all. We just don't know. We think it is possible to go from one Instance to another, provided that your team is able to determine the correct locations of portals and other Instances."

Saryn wanted to say This sounds impossible, but she refrained. Instead, she said, "What's the second issue?"

"We think that this Instance and many of the others that potentially connect back to Erlon possess a connection to the Untouchable. This was initially the primary directive of the mission, actually. Your team is to discover these connections so that we are able to locate the Untouchable on Erlon and stop his attacks before they escalate further."

"That sounds more like Ternia's—Ceril's area," Saryn said, correcting herself. She knew the faculty was aware of her and Ceril's friendship, but referring to him by his nickname to others was a bit much. "I can maybe help with the way back to Erlon, but not with the Untouchable stuff. I don't even know where to start."

Harger looked away from Saryn and stared out the window again. "That's why he's your team leader," she said. "Ceril Bain is going to lead your squad into the Instance and direct the fulfillment of your objectives."

"I doubt I have a choice on this, do I?" Saryn asked.

Still staring away, Harger said, "There is always a choice, Saryn."

Saryn bit her bottom lip then said, "Sure. I'm in."

Harger's head snapped back to her student. "You are hereby authorized to act in the capacity of a fully Rited agent of the Charonic Archive, Saryn Bloom, with all the rights and responsibilities of that position." The professor held her hand out to Saryn, and the younger girl watched as a small, black ball materialized in her teacher's palm. "Take it."

The gravity of the situation suddenly hit Saryn. "Nanites?"

Harger nodded. "You will all be wearing a sleeve on this mission. You've been trained?"

"Barely," Saryn said. "Twice, maybe."

"I hope it stuck."

"Me, too," Saryn said as she took the pulsing ball from Harger. "Anything else I need to know?"

"No," Harger said. "I don't think so. You leave as soon as the rest of your team is assembled."

***

"You're kidding me, right?"

"No, Chuckie, I'm not."

"You're starting my Rites today?"

"Now, actually. In maybe an hour."

"Am I leading?"

"No, you're under Ceril Bain. It's his mission."

"I don't like that."

"You don't have to. You just have to follow his orders and make sure that he and the rest of the team make it through okay. I've downloaded the mission objectives to your tablet."

"Who else is coming? Besides the killer librarian?"

"Saryn Bloom, Easter Harlo, and Swinton."

"Not awful. All right, I'm in."

"You don't have a choice, Chuckie."

"I like to pretend I do sometimes."

"I'm going to ignore that. Chuckie Tidwell, you are hereby authorized to act in the capacity of a fully Rited agent of the Charonic Archive, for the duration of this mission, your Rites."

"Thanks, boss. Where's my stuff?"

"Your bags have been packed and will be waiting on you in the Instance chamber. Pick up your weapons from the arms locker, standard set. But grab a sleeve while you're in there."

"This is big, then, huh? If you're giving us sleeves."

"It is important, yes."

"Well, shucks, prof. I'm honored."

"That's the spirit, Chuckie. Be ready in half an hour. Meet in the Instance chamber once you're equipped."

"You got it, boss."

***

"I can't today," Easter Harlo said. "I've got too much going on. Can we do it next week?"

"Harlo, you know better than that," Doctor Howser said.

"Yeah, I do. But what's so important that I have to stop when I'm in the middle of my clinicals? I'm going to have to start them all over, ma'am."

"No, this is going to continue them, Harlo. Think of it as a relocation more than anything else."

"I don't know," Harlo said.

"They're your Rites, Harlo. You have to do them, and there's always the chance that this might be easier than your clinicals. If you can keep the team patched up well enough—and if this team isn't exactly stupid—you might not have to work half as hard as you would to finish clinicals."

"I wouldn't learn as much, either."

"Field work is a different kind of educational experience. You need it just as much as you need to wander the halls, treating the sick and making rounds."

Harlo sighed and reattached the tablet she had been reading to the end of the patient's bed. "I guess I can. What am I doing?"

"I'm sure you heard about the incident this morning?"

"Vaguely," Harlo admitted. "I was in here, but I couldn't step out."

"Of course," Howser said. "The Sigil has lost its connection to Erlon. Your team is being sent to find a way to either restore that connection—an outcome Roman does not see as being likely—or to find a way back to Erlon so that we're not floating in dead space anymore."

"That's it?"

"The Instance you're going to is unmapped. We're not sure what's there. Roman hinted the Untouchable's influence might be there somehow. He was pretty vague about that, actually."

"Well, that sounds fantastic." Her voice was monotone.

"Doesn't it?" Howser replied. "You and your team are going to investigate what you can and see if you can find anything that would lead us to the Untouchable on Erlon. I think Ceril Bain is going to be responsible for that."

"I don't know him. Heard of him, though. Wasn't he the one who killed that boy a few years ago?"

"Yes, but he's your leader on this one, Harlo. You follow his orders, okay?"

Harlo held her hands out, palms up. "What else would I do?"

"I know you, Harlo, and when you get something in your head, you can't let it go."

"Some people say, doc, that's a good thing."

"And others call it unhealthy and obsessive."

"Hey!"

"That mindset will likely get you through this safely, though. Just make sure you take care of your people, okay? Everything else is secondary. I know you haven't been in the field much, but this is big, Harlo. I need you to bring everybody back, okay? Everything else aside, all other mission directives aside, you bring these people back."

Harlo sobered up at her mentor's words. "I got it, doc. I do."

"Easter Harlo, you have permission to act as a fully Rited agent of the Charonic Archive for the duration of this mission. Do you have any questions?"

"Do I get to keep my sleeve, then?"

Howser nodded. "Yes, and the rest of your team will have one, too. You've had the most experience with one, though, so if they need any help making theirs work, it will fall on you to explain it, okay? They might have had a few hours working nanites before, but not nearly as much time as you have."

"Got it. I can do that."

"I know you can, Harlo. Now, a bag has been packed for you already, and it's waiting for you in the Instance chamber. Your team should be about ready to go. Finish up what you're working on, and meet them there in half an hour."

"Can do. You want me to finish my rounds this morning, doc?"

"No, I'll cover them, Harlo. Stop worrying so much."

"Yeah, sure," Harlo said. "Quit worrying with my Rites starting in half an hour. That's going to happen."

Doctor Howser smiled. "Get out of here, Harlo."

***

"Not with Chuckie. No," Swinton said. "I won't. I can't. He hates me."

"He doesn't hate you, Swinton," said Professor Barts.

"I bet he does. He's out to get me. Every time we're on the range or sparring, I have to go to the infirmary for something. Most of the time, it's his fault."

"You've never been able to prove that, Swinton."

"Either way, I'm not going."

"Yes, Swinton, you are. You're a soldier, and you're going. That's your job."

Swinton turned his back on the professor and peered into the closet. He pulled out the red shirt he always wore under his fatigues when he went through the Instance. It had been his brother James's, and Swinton always considered it lucky. He tossed the shirt on the bed beside his fatigues.

"What's so important about this one, professor? Why us?"

"Each member of this team was chosen for a reason, Swinton. Not the least of which was that you're all ready for your Rites."

"My Rites? To be a full agent?"

Barts said, "Yes."

"Would I get a Flameblade then?" Swinton asked.

"You really are single-minded, aren't you, Swinton?"

"I changed from scholar to soldier just for the chance at a Flameblade, so yeah. I guess I am. Is there a chance?"

"The mission consists of you and your team finding a route from this Instance back to Erlon. We believe that Saryn Bloom is more than adequately equipped for the task. Ceril Bain is the leader—"

"What? Leader? I thought you said Chuckie was going?"

"Chuckie is going," Professor Barts said, "but he's not in charge. Ceril Bain is."

"So I have to take orders from the killer librarian now, too?"

"Yes, you do. Do you have a problem with that?" The professor's voice was hard. He wasn't joking around, and Swinton knew it.

"No, sir. I don't."

"Good. Now, Ceril Bain is the leader of the team, and his primary directive is to locate any connection this Instance may have to the Untouchable. Any connection he finds will be intelligence we can use to locate the terrorists on Erlon, and Saryn Bloom may be able to use it to complete her objectives. Your job is simple: protect them all and make sure you stay alive to do it."

"But what does that have to do with the Flameblades?"

"Swinton, there might be one there. We don't know. It's an unmapped Instance that may be light-years from where we thought we want to be. We just don't know. If there is a connection with the Untouchable, then there's a good chance a Flameblade is around. His followers on Erlon seem to have a ready supply of them."

"That's all I needed to hear, sir. I'll be ready in ten minutes."

Professor Barts sighed and shook his head. If Swinton noticed the disappointment, he made no indication. Barts said, "Swinton Marelotov, on this mission and this mission alone, you will be authorized to act in the capacity of a fully Rited agent of the Charonic Archive. You will find a bag packed for you that contains supplies in the Instance chamber, and I ask that you stop by the weapons locker and arm yourself with a standard set. You should add to that a nanite sleeve."

"Oh, wow," Swinton said. "I've hit the big time."

"This is serious, Swinton."

"I'm being dead serious. I get a nanite sleeve and there might be a Flameblade somewhere in this Instance? I feel like things are finally coming together for me."

"Just remember the mission directives, son. I've downloaded them into your tablet, and the other members of your team have been informed of them as well. Do you have any questions?"

"No, sir. I think I'm good."

"Be at the Instance portal in half an hour for final checks. Then you're off."

Swinton saluted. "Yes, sir."

The professor left the room, and Swinton smiled to himself, his mind overtaken by the possibility of finding a Flameblade of his own. He got dressed, beginning with his brother's red shirt. Before he left his quarters, he balled his fists together and pantomimed a brief sword fight.
Chapter Thirteen

Ceril stood with his team in front of the Instance portal. He had seen it every day for six years, but he had never really understood how it worked. Never in all his time had he dreamt that the Charons had somehow actually created other universes and controlled their expansion. The sheer power—not to mention hubris—that took almost overwhelmed him.

What kind of person invented technology like that?

The portal at Ennd's Academy had been a simple doorway. Well, simple only in that it looked like a door. Ceril had seen Nephil and other professors entering some kind of combinations when he was younger, but he assumed they were just pass codes that allowed access to certain areas of the school. He had since learned the codes were more akin to addresses for the Instance to which they were connecting. But not all portals looked like the carved doors found at Ennd's. The one aboard the Inkwell Sigil, for instance, was much more minimalist and did not try to hide what it was in the slightest: two long pieces of metal stood parallel about eight feet apart, and the Instance portal stood as a dark shimmer between them. Until that morning, that dark shimmer had always connected the Sigil to Ennd's. Now, there was just empty air.

Now, the whole thing looked fake.

Roman interrupted Ceril's admiration of the Instance device by saying, "Your team is just arriving now, Ceril. I think we're about ready for send-off." The muscled scholar clapped his sausage-fingered hand on Ceril's shoulder. It was probably supposed to be comforting, or maybe congratulatory, but it just made Ceril's stomach sink. My team, he thought. I'm going to screw this up so bad.

As though he could read Ceril's thoughts, Roman said, "You're going to be fine, Ceril. Really. We're not in the habit of sending people out, especially on their Rites, unless we're reasonably sure they're capable of what we're asking."

"Reasonably sure?"

"It has to be a challenge somehow. It is a test, after all."

"Right." Ceril wasn't convinced. Behind him, the four members of his squad were strapping their packs on and making sure they had enough supplies for a decent chance at survival.

"Oh, and I almost forgot," Roman said, "to give you this. That would have been...well, it wouldn't have been good, yeah?" He extended his hand, palm up, to Ceril. In it, a black sphere appeared. He offered it to Ceril. "You're going to need a sleeve for this one."

"So when you say we're acting as fully Rited agents—"

"I mean just that."

Ceril took the sphere from Roman's hand, and it came to life. While it had felt solid—was solid—moments before, black vines began to extend from it and spiral around Ceril's arm and make their way toward his neck and face. They continued to travel beneath his clothes. For a few seconds, Ceril's skin was covered in shimmering blackness, and then it disappeared as if it never existed.

"I love watching that," Roman said. "It never gets old." He turned to the other four members of the team. "If you haven't already, activate your nanite skins at this time. You need to be able to initiate any kind of Conjuring you might need as soon as you're through the portal. You'll want to be ready. We think the portal opens into a safe location, but we can't be absolutely sure."

Saryn activated her sphere, as did Swinton. The same black tendrils coated them and then went invisible. Chuckie and Harlo just stood there, having already covered themselves in the microscopic layer of machines.

The space between the metal pillars began to ripple, and a hazy purple rectangle appeared. The very center swirled like a toilet that just wouldn't finish flushing.

"That's it?" Ceril asked.

"That's it," Roman confirmed. "I don't have to tell you how important this is, Ceril. But I do have to tell you thanks. I truly appreciate you being so open and eager to do this."

"It's not like I had much choice, Roman," Ceril said.

"There's always a choice, Ceril. Even when it does not look as though there is."

That's not what Nephil made it sound like. Ceril just nodded and leaned in for a hug with his teacher.

"Be safe," Roman said.

"Always am." Ceril spun on his heel to face his squad. He said, "All right, guys and gals, let's move out!" He assumed that there would be time for the obligatory leadership pep talk on the other side. He tightened his pack's straps and walked through the reappeared purple haze. The other four members of his team followed.

***

Roman, Nephil, and Bryt shared a glance and a smile as they watched their students disappear into the rift between worlds.

As the last student passed through, the lights flashed aboard the ship and regulated themselves at a much dimmer, almost brown level.

"Shut it down," Bryt said.

Roman's hand hovered over the kill-switch for the portal. "We're in agreement, then?"

Bryt and Nephil nodded. When the purple window was closed, the lights on the ship brightened a little more.

"Godspeed," Roman muttered under his breath.

***

Saryn was the first to vomit. Then Chuckie did. Ceril, Harlo, and Swinton followed closely behind, tying for third place. The team had walked maybe five or six steps from the portal and immediately fell to their knees. They retched as they quickly emptied their stomachs.

The place stunk. And not just a little stink, either. The air smelled like sulfur, tasted like sulfur. The smell was almost thick enough to chew. Ceril thought, as his dry heaving finally began to subside, that if he had ever smelled something more rank, he couldn't think of what it was.

Harlo was the first to regain her composure. She rose to her feet and walked a meter or two from the rest of her team. Ceril stumbled after her, barely able to speak.

"Wait, don't...go...far," he said to her.

"I'm fine, Ceril," she responded.

Ceril thought that she obviously was not fine, because she was bracing herself against the rock wall of the canyon they were in. But for some reason, she seemed to be breathing better than any of them, and when she turned back around, Ceril knew why.

Her mouth was completely blacked out. Two black tubes ran from each nostril into her mouth. Ceril was impressed—she had Conjured herself a breather. Ceril wished that he had thought of it.

"Everyone," he coughed, "C-conjure yourself a..." He dry heaved. "A breather. That's...an order." Ceril followed it, too, and he felt the nanites from his skin coalesce across his mouth and into his nostrils. He did his best to focus on the design Harlo used. He took a few breaths to test it out. The smell of sulfur was still there, but it was bearable. It was just a slight annoyance through the breather, rather than an overwhelming force.

Every single Charon Apprentice was trained in basic Conjuration. They would all learn to mentally manipulate a sleeve of nanites which could be worn under their clothes like a second skin. To outsiders, that manipulation seemed like magic, and the term technomage entered people's vocabularies.

As Ceril took a couple of cleaner breaths, he was thankful for the failsafes programmed into the nanite sleeves. He had no idea how to actually make a breather, and he was fairly sure that no one else knew the ins-and-outs, either—well, Harlo and Saryn might, but they were exceptions. For the other three (at least), Conjuring their breathers seemed like magic, and it gave Ceril his first real experience with why the Charons became known as technomages in the first place.

Conjuring seemed downright magical. However, the task itself had to be realistic, had to be possible. Nanite Conjuring was bound by the laws of physics, but if a Charon could imagine an outcome, the nanites were programmed with enough intelligence to find a way to make it happen. The Conjuring Charon didn't need to know the details.

Which was lucky for Ceril and his team—the only thing they had to do was concentrate on the air not making them sick. The four of them directed that desire to their sleeves, and each felt the slow tingle that meant the tiny machines were forming a filter for the acrid air.

After a few breaths that did not induce vomiting, Saryn said, "Better. Good idea, Ternia."

"Wasn't my idea. We can all thank Harlo for this one. I think she saved us more than a bit of sickness here. But we should be careful; we probably don't want to use these constantly."

"Thanks," Harlo said. "The air is breathable, or we'd be dead right now. There may be something in it that makes us sick, but I'd be willing to wager that we can acclimate to it pretty quickly if we have to."

"But what if we don't want to?" Chuckie asked. He stood up and braced against the rock wall.

"Doesn't matter," Ceril said. "I don't want to breathe it, either, but if there are inhabitants here, the last thing we want is for them to know we're Charons, that we can Conjure, right? At least immediately. We don't know anything about this place. The natives might know about Charons already, and that means they could love us or hate us. The less we let on about who we are, the better off we are. For the time being." Ceril inhaled deeply. He pushed the residual sickness down. "So as soon—and I mean as soon—as we meet someone, these breathers dissipate, you got that? Just be prepared for the shock."

Chuckie was silent.

"Got it," Swinton said. Saryn and Harlo chimed in, too. Chuckie never did.

"Are we going to have a problem already, Chuckie?" Ceril asked.

"No, I don't think so," said Chuckie as he breathed deeply. "No breathers around natives. Got it."

"Thank you," Ceril said. He turned his attention to his surroundings. The portal had dropped them at the lowest point in a roofless, stone canyon. The ground sloped down to them, but the entrance was a few hundred meters up the ramp. The walls were sheer and fifteen to twenty feet high, with about that much space between them. There would be no climbing out even if they had wanted to. They were at one end of the canyon, and the other end opened onto what looked like open fields, maybe a plain of some kind.

"Okay, folks," Ceril said, "let's move out of this trench and see what this place has for us." He figured they all needed to walk the sickness off and find out where they were. Without looking back, Ceril pushed himself away from the wall and stalked toward the entrance to the canyon. He knew that if he did not set the precedent of being in charge now, he would not be able to expect them to respect his leadership in the future. He never looked back at his team as he reached the mouth of the tunnel.

When he got there, he stood amazed.

If he hadn't known better, he would have assumed he was wearing tinted glasses. In Ternia, most things were green, but the soil was brown, so were trees, and the sky was a marvelous shade of blue that swirled with the yellow-red from the planet's twin suns. Even in Yagh, the drab gray was broken by occasional blue skies.

Here, though, everything—everything—from the rocks and dirt to the sky, clouds, and trees, all of it...was purple. He assumed the sun was purple, too, but he couldn't be sure. It was hidden behind a purple, overcast sky. It was like whichever Charons created this Instance had purposefully deleted every other color from their palettes.

As he watched, lightning struck in the distance, and his reverie was shattered. The bolt had been a sickly green color, stark against the muted background. It made his stomach roil.

The rest of the team had followed him up, and they sat their bags down at their feet and looked around.

"This...is odd," Saryn said. "I don't like it."

"Me, neither," Swinton agreed. "It's just too much."

"Yeah," Ceril said. "Too much purple. You ever seen anything like this?" He was talking to Saryn.

"No. Yagh's not lush, not like Ternia," she elbowed Ceril, "but it's not...this."

"Neither's Bester," Swinton said. "The Sigil was just fine, you know? When you grow up in a place like Bester, you get used to being indoors, and you don't really think about the color anymore. You decorate what you can, splash some color here and there, maybe, to open things up. Even on the Sigil, we had the blur." He paused. "This is almost too much outside."

"Ferran's a desert," Harlo offered, "so I'm used to stretches of the same, boring brown where everything looks the same. But this is different. I don't like this. It's unnatural. Makes me kind of sick."

"It's probably just the air," Chuckie said. "Ain't no color gonna make us sick."

"It might," Saryn said. "We don't know anything about this place."

"We know this is the place where color comes to die," Swinton joked. "Is that not enough?"

They all laughed uneasily.

Plains stretched in front of them, knee to waist-high grasses grew as far as they could see. There was a tree-line in the distance that probably bordered a whole forest. There was one tree to their right a short distance away, and it was stunted and gnarled. Ceril noticed that a purple liquid dripped regularly from the ends of its leafless branches, like a thousand spigots that were just barely left open. There were small pools of the liquid circling the tree trunk.

"Harlo," he said as he pointed, "can you take a sample of whatever that tree is dripping and test it?"

"Sure thing," she said as she rooted through her pack for a testing kit. The Charons did not use ranks the way the various militaries on Erlon did. Ceril was no more her boss than he was her father, but if giving him some kind of title helped her, then so be it, he thought.

"Thanks."

"Saryn?" he said. She didn't answer. He looked around and scanned the immediate area. He couldn't see her. "Where's Saryn?"

"She was right behind me a second ago, Ceril," Swinton said.

Ceril looked at the small canyon they had climbed out of. He scowled. "Would you go back and find her? She's not out there." He gestured to the plains. "There's only one direction she could have gone."

Swinton trotted back toward the Instance portal as Ceril and Chuckie watched another sickly green bolt of lightning strike the ground. It was closer than the bolt Ceril had seen before.

"I think a storm's brewing, boss," Chuckie said. "We need to find shelter, a cave or something. And since this one don't have no roof..." His voice trailed off.

"You may be right, but we'll do it together. Once Swinton gets back with Saryn, and Harlo gets that sample, we'll talk about it."

Then, as if on cue, Swinton and Saryn came running from the Instance portal.

"It's gone, Ternia," Saryn said, out of breath.

"What's gone?" Ceril asked.

"The Instance. We don't have a connection back to the Sigil." Saryn breathed heavily before continuing.

"That's the plan, Saryn. We're on our own for a while. They can't keep the portal open. They just don't have the power."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"Well, that sucks. I didn't know that."

"Neither did I," Chuckie said. "I didn't realize this was a one-way trip."

"It's not. We're going to get back to the ship as soon as we can, with help, once we get ourselves back to Erlon, to Ennd's. I thought you were all briefed on this."

Saryn ignored him. "Also, I thought you should know that I can't find a way to access the portal again. There isn't a pad or a dial, no kind of device at all that we could use to get back to the Sigil. We're completely cut off, Ternia."

Ceril swallowed. So much for giving a leadership pep talk on the other side, he thought. "Look, I knew we weren't going to have connection with the Sigil, and I just assumed you guys did, too. I can't say I like not having a connection device, but we don't know this place, don't know how it connects to any other Instances. For all we know, that could be a one-way portal that only allows travel in."

"They don't work like that, Ternia. I—"

"Either way," Ceril interrupted, "we have a mission. We have our orders. We'll find some way to connect somewhere eventually. Just not here. I mean, if this is a free-range Instance like Roman and Nephil seem to believe, maybe the connection the Sigil was able to get was more random than it should have been." Saryn gave him an incredulous look. "Could there have been a shift of some kind that shunted where the portal came out as it traveled away from Erlon? If the Instance itself is moving, and the Sigil is staying still, could that account for not being able to reconnect?"

Saryn thought about the possibility for a moment before she answered, "It's possible, Ternia. Not very likely, but it's possible."

Ceril nodded. "I guess we're all just lucky we didn't pop through in the middle of one of those rock walls. The entrance seems random to me, especially if there's no way to use it again." Harlo walked up as he spoke and handed him a lid with half a glass vial attached to it. The bottom had been cleanly sheared off at an angle.

"What's this?" he asked.

"What your tree sap did to my testing equipment. I put it over the edge of a branch and it burned clean through the glass."

"I see," Ceril said. "Thanks for trying. At least we know to stay far away from those trees."

"That we do," Chuckie chimed in as lightning struck again. "Now about that storm? If the tree sap is acid, I don't really feel like getting caught out in the rain. I doubt it's gonna be gumdrops falling from the sky."

Ceril turned. "You're right. We certainly don't need to get burned to death by acid rain, and if there's no way to even access a portal here, there's no reason to stick around out in the open like this." Thunder cracked hard overhead, and a sickly green lightning bolt struck the ground a few hundred meters away from them. "I guess our first line of business will be to find a cave or at least something with a roof on it."

The team agreed, and Ceril took off walking to the left and the others followed him. Ceril turned the vial over in his hand and thought it was a good idea to put as much room as they could between them and the acid tree. He just hoped they could find a roof to sit under just in case Chuckie was right about the rain. With their current luck, though, he didn't count on that happening.
Chapter fourteen

Damien Vennar walked around the house he had once shared with his grandson. After the intrusion—the attack—earlier that evening, he had to check to see if anything had been stolen besides his book. It was the middle of the night, and even though his old bones were tired and his joints ached, he could not settle in for sleep. There was too much to do; his mind raced with plans.

From what he could see picking through the clutter, his belongings all remained intact except for the book containing the history he had been recording. Of course, he thought, they take the one thing in the house I can't bear to part with. His mind moved to Ceril, and he thought, They have a tendency to do that.

Just because the intruders did not take anything besides the book, it did not mean that the house was okay. It was in shambles. In just the short time they were there, furniture had been overturned, shelves had been swiped clean, even his refrigerator had been ransacked—two shelves with perfectly good food had been thrown aside and were now lying directly on the floor.

Angry as he was, the old man marveled at the intruders' efficiency. Even in his prime, he doubted he would have been able to do better work. What was worse, though, is that he let this happen. He ran. He got scared. He Conjured himself a veil and sat idly while those pretenders took whatever they wanted.

He didn't fight, and that wasn't like him. It had never been like him until recently.

It had been too long, and he was taken completely by surprise. And on top of that, he hadn't Conjured in about four hundred years. That is, until just a few hours ago. When he had vowed to never Conjure again, he had meant it. He had put the nanites that made up his bloodstream on what amounted to a standby setting, and he had begun to age. He had expected to die within fifty to seventy years from that moment, like a normal person.

Obviously, he had miscalculated. In the give-or-take four centuries since he had distanced himself from the Charonic Archive, Damien Vennar had aged at an extremely decelerated rate. There was no way to shut off the nanites in his body completely, and apparently, even their peripheral energy had been enough to preserve him six or seven times longer than he had wished.

Four hundred years ago, he had wanted to die. But when the opportunity presented itself, he had run like a scared child. When he reactivated the tiny machines that comprised his bloodstream, he felt them go to work within his body immediately, repairing damaged tissue and giving him back the youth he had so willingly and fervently left behind.

The next time he saw Ceril, he doubted that the boy would recognize him, and he was disgusted at the thought. Raising Ceril was the one good thing that Damien had ever done in his life. Ceril was a good boy, a good person. Then the Charons got their hands on him, and there wasn't a damned thing Damien could do about it.

Now, looking at his scattered and violated home, he knew that he would not be able to stay here any longer. Someone had known how to find him. The only people who should have had access to that information were either at Ennd's or aboard the Inkwell Sigil. He doubted, as much as he despised them, that the Charons there would have gone to this much trouble over him, over the book. If they had wanted him to stop writing, they would have destroyed the volume. They would not have stolen it.

Besides, the Charons had what they wanted. They had his grandson, and they had been indoctrinating him for six years.

No, this was someone else, someone different. Someone with a new and different agenda. A cold knot developed in Damien's stomach, and he knew that he was going to have to start fighting again. There was no doubt that if he hadn't Conjured when he did, he would have been killed.

To fight, though, he would need a weapon, and Ceril had his sword, a fact that should not have been a surprise to him, but was. The Flameblade had bonded to Damien millennia ago. It had been the first of the weapons to bond with a person. After years of study, Damien and his researchers had discovered how it had happened. The nanites that formed the swords bonded at a quantum level to the unique physical signals his body put out when he was in a heightened emotional state. By learning to control those states, Damien had been able to wield the sword in ways the weaponsmiths had never intended. It was no longer just a well-made sword, a balanced blade that didn't dull or nick; it became an extension of his body.

And, against his better judgment, he had taught the other Charons the trick.

Deep down, he had known it was just a matter of time before Ceril would bond with the sword, though. There had been the slightest hope that Ceril would go his entire life without ever seeing a Flameblade, ever hearing anything more than a few legends about the Charons in school, that he would live his life in happy ignorance of the life his Gramps had once lived. There was no chance of that now. Nor had there ever been, really, Damien admitted to himself. There was no need for self-delusion, after all. Of course, Ceril would bond with the same Flameblade he had.

Damien had been relieved that the weapon had not just materialized at his grandson's feet one day, or in his hand, maybe at the market or in the bath. Instead, Ceril had been working in the garden and enjoying himself. The sword was apparently drawn to the boy's strong emotions and buried itself into the soil near him.

And Ceril had been so young, then, too. Far too young for a Flameblade. Damien had been able to cover up the discovery, telling the boy a hodge-podge of legends and myths that halfway explained how the sword had come to be buried in their garden.

The truth—that the sword belonged to his Gramps, who was really over ten thousand years old and had been kept alive by microscopic machines in his blood—was probably a bit much to handle.

Damien had never felt guiltier about lying to anyone in his life.

These days, Flameblades were hard to come by. Impossible, in fact. He had hidden his long ago—a lot of good that did with Ceril being able to call it—and was sure almost every other weapon of its kind was tucked away safely inside another Instance or aboard the Inkwell Sigil. New swords hadn't been manufactured for centuries, unless the Charons aboard the Sigil had begun teaching newly Rited technomages how to Conjure them again. He had done what he could to stop that practice before he left. His last act of defiance before being exiled was selectively wiping all knowledge about the Conjuring of Flameblades from the memories of his colleagues. It was as though they had never known how to do it in the first place.

Damien didn't have a lot of options since Ceril had bonded with his old sword. He could Conjure himself a new one, but after four hundred years of Conjuring nothing at all, he doubted that he would have the dexterity or concentration required for the task.

And then it hit him. Gilbert Squalt. The new headmaster at Ennd's. That prickly bastard would have one. Of course, he would. Ennd's wasn't the only place on Erlon where Charons recruited, but it was the closest—but not by much.

The Archive always had to have one of their own in the big chair at the end of the table. He knew Gilbert Squalt well enough to know that, Charon puppet or not, he would never give Damien his Flameblade willingly. Damien doubted that the man would even let him into Ennd's Academy in the first place.

But he had to try, and at least now, he had a plan. He was no closer to finding out who had violated his home, or how they found him, or why. But he had a place to start.

Sometimes, when there are too many variables, having one concrete idea means everything.

So Damien Vennar made one last circuit around his house, packed up a few necessities as he ran across them, and walked through the back door of his home. The moon was bright, and the ground was soft from the storm that had left as quickly as it had come. The old man sighed as he looked back toward the garden in front of his house. He felt a twinge of regret for the life he built for himself that he was now leaving behind. He threw a hand up and waved at the house. The neighbors might have mocked it—and him—for being old fashioned, but it had been home for a long time. He was going to miss it here.

His days of hiding from something he helped start were over. He said his silent goodbyes to the man he had tried so hard to be, and he set out toward Ennd's Academy to relearn how to be the man he once was.

***

By shuttle, Ennd's and Ternia were considered close. By foot, Ternia was a long way from Ennd's.

Even though their climates were nearly identical—temperate, green, and consistently lovely—Ennd's Academy rested clear across the world from Damien and Ceril's home.

Travel had taken nearly two weeks: Damien hitched a ride on a Skylane transport freighter for a while, and then he walked a bit—a few hours or days, depending—slept when he could, and then repeated the whole process until he finally made it to the school.

The trip could have been easier and faster, but the old man had done his best to avoid mass-transit. With someone actively seeking him, he thought that it would be best to be inconspicuous.

He had hitched a ride for the last leg of the journey with a farmer who had been kind enough to refill Damien's satchel with the best Balsi-fruit he had tasted in years.

"Thank you," Damien said as the driver sat the air-freighter down in front of the school. "I really appreciate the ride." He patted his sack. "And the fruit."

"Nah, it's nothin, Gramps," the driver said. Damien had not used his real name in a long time, and he still looked old enough to go by the name Ceril was most fond of. "I just hope your grandson's okay. When a kid gets something that even pseira meds can't fix, I reckon there's a real reason to travel to see him. Give him my best, will ya?"

"I certainly will," Damien said with a smile on his face. He bit into the fruit he was carrying, and he said, "Thanks again, Curt. I'll pay you back for these eventually."

"You do that," Curt said, and Damien shut the door to the truck.

Both men threw up their hands, and the truck lifted off the ground and sped away. Such a nice guy, Damien thought as he turned around and saw Ennd's Academy rise in front of him. He had to admit to himself that Ennd's was still an engineering marvel. In the bright sunlight, the dozens of crystalline spires sparkled like candles on top of a birthday cake. The body of the building was fairly squat, with terraces circling the entire structure at different levels. At the center rose a single tower, higher than any of the other spires and much, much wider.

Damien remembered when he had built the school. The ground it sat on was empty plains back then.

When most people had only just begun their exploration out of Erlon's habitable zones, Damien and his Charons were already creating new universes. He remembered being shunned by the religious leaders, and in turn, most of the population. They claimed the Charons were blasphemers and heretics, and the situation was only escalating. There hadn't been any violence yet, but it was inevitable that there would be. So the order needed a headquarters, a place where they could work and research in relative safety. They could have found haven in an Instance, but their work was so tied to the high-yield energy pockets all across Erlon. While they were capable of creating their own universe to live and work in, they wouldn't have had the same success there that they had in Erlon

Hope came when initial surveys of a section of the Uncharted Wastes turned up a massive energy pocket—unstable, but possessing the highest energy yield they had ever discovered. Damien and a handful of his closest colleagues spent months journeying to it.

These were the days well before the Blood Rites and internal nanites, before Damien would have near-total control over his molecular structure. That technology would come later, after centuries of research at Ennd's. Back then, the Charons all wore sleeves of nanites under their clothes. This technology, now treated like training wheels for Apprentices preparing for the Blood Rites, had once been the pinnacle of science on Erlon.

Damien Vennar stood in front of Ennd's Academy and let the memory of being a much younger man wash over him. He closed his eyes, and he could still feel how his nanite sleeve had reacted to the energy pocket as he had walked into the plain. Damien planted his feet—his body in one time, his mind in another—in the exact location he had ten thousand years ago.

He had been the only one who could withstand the pressure. His colleagues fainted immediately. They were unable to push against the pressure emanating from the ground, the pressure that was magnified by their nanites' reaction to it.

But Damien had kept walking toward the energy pocket. His nanites began to move without any instruction from him. The machines would listen to his suggestions when he made them, but he let them work on their own for a while.

The microscopic robots had originally been programmed to replicate only when one had been lost. They would draw energy and physical material from either the Charon's body or the surrounding environment to produce a replacement for the lost machine.

That was their original program.

What Damien Vennar had experienced on this plain was magnificent and beyond anything he had imagined possible. The tiny machines rushed from his body toward the source of the energy that excited them. None were lost, but they replicated as they surged away from Damien. They maintained physical contact with him and created a bridge between the energy pocket and his mind.

The nanites flew toward the energy storm below ground, and that's when Damien knew what he could do. What he had to do.

He stood tethered to the ground by the nanites burrowing deep within the ground. Time stood still for Damien; his colleagues remained unconscious. He fully exerted his power, pushing himself past any established human boundary. He went well into what he would have considered godhood before. Creating a universe was easy; he had created dozens of Instances, and they had never filled him with a feeling like this.

This was divinity. This was apotheosis.

One by one, a dozen crystalline spires emerged from the earth, tinted only by the refraction of the sunlight that hit them. They rose from the ground as liquid, but became solid as the nanites continued to pack themselves on top of one another, microscopic layer upon layer.

Damien laughed as the energy beneath the soil empowered him. He commanded the nanites to replicate faster, more efficiently. They did.

In his mind, Damien Vennar saw the end result of this construction. He saw a palace surrounding a single tower that reached upward, more majestic than anything ever before constructed on Erlon. He could see the footprint of the building, and its interior corridors. He saw his fortress in his imagination, and the surging nanites made every detail of his fantasy a reality. Every hall, every door, every tower poured upward from the ground and solidified into the haven he and his Charons had been searching for.

He had no idea how long it took to build. From then on, time meant nothing to Damien, and eventually he was finished.

He stood a few hundred meters away from his creation. He could see gardens that were already blooming on the terraces. He had not just created this fortress, this haven and sanctuary—he had created life. He embraced the rush of nanites as they came back to him from the storm of energy below. Their work was finished for now.

Not long afterward, his colleagues regained consciousness, and they walked up behind him. Damien could feel their nanites pulse with the energy from the pocket beneath them, eager to experience what his already had. It was a new sensation, feeling another person's nanosleeve. Damien liked it, but said nothing. The other Charons were awed by what he had accomplished, what they had known to be impossible just hours (or had it been days? weeks?) before. They were at a loss for words.

"Welcome home," Damien had said to them.

His mind snapped back to the present, and he heard himself speak those same words again. They seemed strangely appropriate now, too. A lot had changed since he had Conjured it out of nothingness, but still, it felt familiar. Damien knew that once he was inside, he would have little trouble finding his way to the Headmaster's Office. It would still be locked away in its own Instance via the Library. There was only one portal on the grounds, after all.

The campus was bustling with students and faculty making use of the various gardens and terraces as they enjoyed the beautiful day outside. The twin suns beamed along the building's crystalline exterior, which made the whole building glow in a hundred different colors. It really was a beautiful sight. He admired his handiwork as he climbed the shimmering stairs that led to the front door. No one seemed to notice him; one lonely old man in a sea of crotchety professors was probably not going to get anyone's attention.

Damien finished his fruit, secured the rest in his satchel for later, and walked directly into the front door of Ennd's Academy for the first time in over four hundred years.
Chapter Fifteen

Ceril and his team found shelter well before the storm came, but luckily for them, it turned out that the rain had little in common with the acidic tree sap that had eaten through Harlo's test tube. The cave they found was a bit cramped for five people with travel gear, but it kept them dry. Chuckie even managed to Conjure a decent enough fire to keep the chill from the wind out of the cave.

Ceril had to admit that Chuckie had talent, even if he was kind of an insubordinate jerk. Making a fire was easy. Conjuring a fire was not.

Technomage nanites did not naturally produce heat. Whenever they created excess energy, the surrounding nanites absorbed that energy so that nothing went to waste and so the nanites had a perpetual power source. Because of this design, it took intense concentration from a Charon to be able to condense and control nanites well enough to produce even a minimal amount of heat. It went against the tiny machines' base design. That's why a Flameblade's aura was completely aesthetic unless the Charon was in total control. Chuckie was able to keep the fire going for the duration of the storm. Ceril wondered what emotion he could have channeled that long to fuel the Conjuring. Maybe there was more to Chuckie than was on the surface.

Even though Chuckie seemed a bit tired afterward and needed to rest—that Conjuring had obviously taken a lot out of him—Ceril knew he was a tough kid and would pull himself together quickly enough.

"What next, Ternia?" Saryn asked. "It's been half an hour or so since I saw lightning."

"We go looking for ways back to Erlon."

"Vague," she said.

"It's about all I have right now. I guess we should try to find signs of some sort of civilization if there is any. Let's hope there is. Because if not, we're in for one hell of a trip if we try to find some kind of Instance connection on our own. I can only assume that the locals would have legends or stories of some kind that can lead us in a general direction."

"Yeah," said Saryn, "but where do you propose we find these locals?"

"We walk for a while. Pick a direction," Ceril said.

"Excuse me?"

"Pick a direction. Any of them is as good as any other." Ceril got up and walked toward the mouth of the cave. He had to step over the pile of his team's supply bags, and he was careful not to trip since Chuckie's Conjured fire no longer provided enough light to see by. He wasn't careful enough, though—his foot caught in one of the straps, and he went sprawling.

Chuckie laughed, too busy recuperating from the fire to bother checking if Ceril was okay. Swinton was the first to get to him and help him stand up.

"Sorry, boss," he said. "Think it was my bag that got you. Shouldn't have left it out like that. I'll be more careful next time. You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." Ceril brushed himself off and led Swinton and Saryn to the mouth of the cave. "So...which direction?" he asked.

"You got me, boss," Swinton said. "All looks the same from here."

"He's right," Saryn chimed in. "It's either plains that way or mountains behind us. If my vote counts for anything, though, I say avoid the mountains. We don't know what kind of wildlife to expect, but if Harlo's acid tree is any indication, I'd rather take my chances with whatever is in the plains. That way, we can see it coming instead of getting maimed by some mountain-climbing Whateveritis."

"Point," Ceril said. He crooked his neck backward and shouted into the cave at Harlo and Chuckie. "You guys have any preference? Where we go next?"

Harlo shuffled forward, grabbing her pack to strap on as she joined the trio at the mouth of the cave. "Doesn't matter to me," she said. "I think Saryn's got a point, though. Not saying the plains critters will be any nicer, but I'm not really in the mood to have an alien Whatchamacallit jump off a mountain and eat me."

"Agreed," said Ceril.

"If you're going plains-way, though," Chuckie said, "I think there was a path back near where the portal dropped us."

"Will you be able to find it if we backtrack?" Ceril asked.

"Yep."

"Then we go into the plains. Chuckie, grab your stuff and lead the way. We move out in ten minutes."

"You're the boss, boss," Chuckie said.

Ceril scowled at Chuckie for laying the sarcasm on a bit too thick. He tried unsuccessfully not to sound irritated when he responded with a simple "Yes, I am." He left it at that.

A few minutes later, Chuckie showed them the path he had seen as they walked past. It was barely there, but he was right: the path led into the plains, and probably into the forest that bordered it farther out.

The wind from the storm had beaten down the tall, purple grass, and the rain had made the ground soggy and muddy. Finding where the path had begun was no problem, but keeping up with it was considerably harder. Eventually, anything resembling a path disappeared, and all that stood in front of them was a waist-high wall of weeds and grasses. Three of the acid trees were visible twenty or thirty feet away. They walked for nearly an hour, and no one saw anything that indicated that they were heading toward civilization.

"What now, Ternia?" Saryn sighed. "There's nothing here."

Ceril was silent. He was in charge, and he had to come up with some idea fast. They could keep walking, sure, but there were plains for as far as he could see.

Then it dawned on Ceril. He had been treating this like any other field exercise Bryt had put him through. But it wasn't. They were allowed to Conjure, and that made a huge difference.

Instead of answering Saryn immediately, Ceril focused the excitement he felt and concentrated on the breather. He used that as a base and instructed his nanites to cover his eyes. His skin tingled as the black mass slid up his face and into his eye sockets. He felt the sleeve grip his eyeball. To the rest of the team, it just seemed like he was standing still and surveying the land.

"There's a forest a little to the," he checked the compass on his belt, "I think west." Ceril turned around, and his team could see that the whites of his eyeballs were now black, and they were bloodshot with glowing purple veins. His glowing green pupils were spinning slightly as he refocused. The nanites from his breather now extended tendrils from his nostrils into his eyes. They coated his eyeballs and worked as magnification lenses. He had forgotten he could Conjure at will here, had honestly forgotten about being issued the sleeves.

"Ceril," Harlo said. "Your eyes...they're, umm..."

"Conjured," he said, smiling. "Kind of slipped my mind until just now when Saryn spoke up, but we've been essentially walking blind. Anyway, I can't tell if what I see ahead are more acid trees or something else—they're just too far away—but it's something that's not plains. And if I'm not seeing it wrong, there's some kind of structure in the middle of the forest, or maybe on the other side of it. I can't see much of it, but it looks like a tower of some kind. I'm not sure, but it's not like any tree I've ever seen. If this Instance is anything like Erlon, or anything like some of the others Bryt and Roman had me in, there's a pretty good chance that some kind of village would have sprung up around it. At least, there's a better chance of one being there than out here in the middle of this...nothing."

"How far is it?" Saryn asked. She Conjured her own eyes into magnifiers, but could not see what Ceril was talking about. "I can't see it. I see the forest, though, and the trees do look different from the ones out here. They're hopefully not going to kill us."

"Hopefully," Ceril said and pointed at the tower. "I'd guess the tower is maybe two days' walk from here." Swinton and Harlo groaned at the same time. Ceril continued, "I know. But that's better than having nothing to go on." His voice became stern. "We're going that way."

Saryn's squinted at him. "Yes, sir," she said.

The words had barely left her mouth when a high-pitched shriek came from overhead. Ceril, Chuckie, and Swinton immediately dropped to one knee, remembering Bryt's lessons. The soldier mentor had taught them that their biological first reaction—fight or flight—was wrong, that their first reaction should always be calculate. So, the three trained soldiers instinctively dropped below the level of the grasses and began to try and locate the source of the sound. Saryn and Harlo, while having been taught basic combat tactics, had never gone through Bryt's soldier regimens. Their reactions weren't as ingrained as their teammates. They hunched over slightly and whipped their heads around in search of the source of the loud noise.

"Get down!" Chuckie yelled.

"What?" Harlo answered. "What is that?"

"Down!" Ceril said, reinforcing Chuckie's command. Harlo and Saryn complied. It was an ungraceful descent, but it probably saved their lives. Above them, just higher than the level of the plains grasses, a dark blur flew past where Saryn and Harlo had just stood. They all felt the rush of wind as it passed so closely overhead.

"What is that, boss?" Harlo asked shakily.

"No idea, Harlo," Ceril said. "We all okay?"

The team responded in the affirmative just as another shriek sounded above them and the attacker came flying by again.

Ceril pulled the Conjuration from his eyes, blinked his vision into focus, and said, "Swinton, you're with me. We're going to check this thing out. Chuckie, if that thing comes back by, I want you to knock it out of the air. Do anything you can, got it?"

"Yes, sir," Swinton said. He reached into his pack and pulled out the small handgun he had stowed in there. Chuckie followed suit, only his gun was a bit larger and had been carried on his back. Ceril summoned his Flameblade, and it started to glow. The other four members of his team, despite the situation, stopped momentarily and gawked at the purple and green glowing sword their leader held.

Ceril marveled for a moment and so did his team.

"That's a mighty fine purple sword you got there," Swinton said.

"Ain't it just?" Chuckie threw in. "Matches the place real good, too. You been here before, boss?"

"Can't say that I have," said Ceril. "It is a little odd, though, huh?"

"A little past odd, if you ask me," said Chuckie. "This whole place is that damned purple—the sky, the ground, the dirt, the trees—and here your little sword matches it perfectly. Even that green twinge looks like the lightning. You sure we came here on accident?"

"Well, I sure didn't plan on getting stranded here."

"And yet," Chuckie said, "here we are."

Ceril nodded. "That we are, and it appears we're under attack. Can we discuss this later?"

Another shriek.

This time, as the flying beast came around, Ceril and Swinton peeked their heads above the grass. What they saw was amazing. Ceril had read a lot of books and articles on religion in his time at Ennd's, and if he didn't know it was impossible, then he would have said that he and his team were being assaulted by some kind of angel.

The creature was longer than most men were tall. Ceril thought that it probably stood seven to nine feet when upright, and, other than the wings, could pass for human in the right situation. It wore rags as clothes, and long purple-black hair fluttered down its back. Also from its back, coming through the rags, were large black-purple wings. They were not feathered; instead, they were either scaled or made of metal, as they reflected the sunlight with each wingbeat.

"Ceril!" Swinton said. "It's got Flameblades!" Sure enough, the angel was holding a Flameblade in each hand. They both glowed purple, a dark rich hue that matched its skin, hair, and wings.

"What the hell?" Ceril said. "It does."

"I want one," Swinton said.

"Well, here might be your chance," Ceril told him. "Let's get this thing out of the air, right?"

"Yeah, right." Swinton aimed his sidearm at the flying creature and pulled the trigger. His shots went wide as his target twisted in midair and flew back toward him, its Flameblades glowing brighter.

Despite all the power and finesse Ceril had gained from training with his Flameblade, its reach was no different from any other melee weapon. He had to be close to his opponent for it to be of any real use, so Ceril stood impotently as Swinton continued to fire, and miss.

"What do you think you're doing?" Harlo roared. "Why are you shooting at it?"

"It tried to kill us, Harlo!" Ceril yelled.

She countered, "What if it's intelligent?"

"So what if it is?" Chuckie said. He aimed his gun at the angel flying toward Swinton and fired. His gun wasn't a slug-thrower; it fired bursts of highly concentrated energy. Generally, those bursts did more damage than chunks of metal, and they were much more easily controlled. The angel crossed its swords in front of its face. Although Chuckie hadn't aimed at the creature's face, the energy bolts veered midair upward toward the center of the flaming X created by the swords. The Flameblades' auras glowed brighter as the shots were absorbed. "I think we may be screwed here, boss. That thing—AAAAHH!"

Whatever he was going to say was interrupted when two purple hands clamped down on Chuckie's shoulders and lifted him off the ground.

Saryn yelled, "There's more than one! They've got Chuckie!"

Ceril dropped his sword, and it immediately disappeared. He wrapped his arms around Chuckie's legs just in time to join him in the air.

The others watched it all happen, and Swinton aimed his sidearm at the angel that held Chuckie and Ceril.

"Don't shoot!" Chuckie yelled at the ground. "Don't shoot!"

Swinton lowered his gun slightly.

Up in the air, Ceril shouted to Chuckie, "Are you okay?"

Chuckie said, "I can't get it off me. It won't let go. I'm going to shoot it before we get too high." He put his hand on his gun and turned it upward. "I ain't gonna miss from this angle, and it can't block me with its swords this time. If it wants to try, it has to let us go."

"No!" Ceril said. "No, we're already too high."

Chuckie looked down. "Yeah. Yeah. So what's the plan, then?"

"Not die, first and foremost. That means not shooting at whatever is keeping us in the air."

"Okay," Chuckie said, lowering his gun. "What then? Because we're moving pretty damn fast and far away from those three." He pointed down at the rest of their team. Ceril looked back and saw Swinton leading them through the high grass and mud, but they were moving too slowly to catch up with their flying kidnapper.

"Look out!" Ceril screamed down, but they didn't hear him, and he grimaced as he watched the other angel grab Saryn and take her into the air. Swinton and Harlo dropped to the ground immediately, but by then Saryn was gone. Her kidnapper soon caught up with Chuckie and Ceril's and flew along beside them.

"You okay?" Ceril asked Saryn.

"Yeah," she said. "Thing's got a grip, doesn't he?"

"He does," Chuckie affirmed.

"So what now?" Saryn asked.

Ceril held tightly to Chuckie's legs. He wasn't technically being held, so he could potentially let go and escape to rendezvous with Harlo and Swinton. He looked down, and they had climbed even higher into the air. "Chuckie, how are your legs?"

"Have to say they've been better, boss."

"Sorry," Ceril said, and he meant it. Sorry, yes, but not sorry enough to risk breaking half the bones in his body as he fell.

"You got a plan?" asked Saryn.

Ceril looked in the direction in which they were being flown. "Well, we're heading back to the mountains. I figure once there's ground close enough beneath me, I'll drop."

"About time," Chuckie said.

Ceril ignored him and continued. "Do you have a gun?"

Saryn shook her head.

"A weapon of any kind?"

Another negative.

"Okay, then," Ceril said, "Chuckie will take his and shoot both of the angels out of the air, yours first and then his."

"Angels?" Chuckie asked. "They're angels? What kind of angels kidnap people like this?"

"Who knows?" Ceril said. "We can figure out a name for them later. Anyway, are you good with the plan, Chuckie? I drop, you shoot Saryn's angel, then yours?"

"Yeah. Sure am."

"Are you?" he asked Saryn.

She said, "Chuckie, just make sure there's ground close beneath me, okay?"

"You got it."

The rest of their flight was spent in silence that was eventually broken by gunshots.

***

Swinton and Harlo ran as hard as they could, but they weren't fast enough to keep up with the flyers. Between the muddy ground and the tall grass, they stumbled along and were barely able to keep Ceril and the others in view as their captors flew them toward the mountains. Swinton and Harlo kept running, though. And despite not technically having any soldier training, Harlo had been a health nut most of her life, which let her keep up with Swinton fairly easily.

By the time the pair heard the gunshots, the mountains were towering in front of them. They both stopped in their tracks at the sound.

Harlo said, "Well, that can mean one of two things. They're either okay and working their way back to us. Or they're not, and we have to keep going after them. I prefer the first scenario, but either way, I think we should head that direction. At least meet them in the middle."

"Yeah," Swinton said, "that sounds good. It's probably going to be night soon, and we really shouldn't be out in the open after dark. At least we know the mountains have places we can hide and sleep. We should keep going."

"Let's just hope they don't miss us on their way back through while we're hiding and sleeping."

"Can't think like that, doc. Let's go."

By nightfall, they had heard no more gunshots, which was a good thing, but they had also not seen their teammates, which was bad. They had not been accosted by flying kidnappers anymore, either, so Harlo considered them to be ahead for the moment.

It wasn't hard for them to find a decently covered spot where they could sleep for the night. When they stopped and decided to camp, Swinton looked at Harlo and said, "We'll find them tomorrow."

She mumbled a vague response. If they're not dead already, she thought.

"It's probably not safe to have a fire tonight," he told her.

"You're right. There's no telling what would find us in the dark if those things could find us during the day."

"Well," Swinton offered, "we were in the middle of a purple field. We kind of stuck out."

"That we did," Harlo said. She didn't feel like much conversation, but it seemed like he did.

"Where do you think they are?" Swinton asked. He tried not to shiver as he put his back to one of the outcropping's walls.

"Somewhere above us, that way" she said and pointed. "I'm pretty sure they're alive. They have to be. Roman and the others wouldn't have sent us somewhere so dangerous that we'd have been killed on our first day there. I mean, I know I've heard the Rites are tough, but that's a little insane."

"I don't think they really knew that much about this place," Swinton said. "All they told me was that our Rites were about to begin and that Ceril was in charge."

"Which makes me think they knew where they were sending us, Swinton," she said, a little annoyed. "How could they send us out to be tested if they weren't sure about the test?"

"Maybe," he conceded. "But still. The way the portal went out like it did. And this attack? And no panel to reopen the portal? I have a bad feeling about this."

Harlo did, too, but she didn't want to say it. That might make it real. "I get that, Swinton. I do. But right now, we're just going on conjecture, and that's not good for anyone. We'll drive ourselves crazy with a night full of what-ifs. The best thing we can do right now is get whatever sleep we can and head in the direction we think they're in when we wake up."

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, you're right."

I certainly hope I am, at least, she thought. "Good night, Swinton," she said.

They both pulled their folded, foil blankets from their satchels and cowered beneath them, unsure of what to expect from the alien night.
Chapter sixteen

"Can I help you, sir?" asked a cheerful young lady. She sat behind a crescent-shaped desk immediately inside the front entrance of Ennd's Academy, as she manipulated data on a hologram that floated just in front of her. She did not stop as she spoke.

Damien looked around him. He was alone, so she had to be speaking to him. He had hoped to avoid entanglements entirely, and he had not been aware that a school would have a receptionist in the foyer. It almost felt like a business rather than an educational facility. He thought back to his time at the school, trying to remember just how things had worked, but he stopped when he realized more than a few years had passed. Traditions had likely changed since then.

"Yes, my dear," he said in his most grandfatherly tone. "My nephew attends the school, and I was hoping to surprise him. I missed his birthday and wanted to give him his present and maybe share a meal with him."

The receptionist smiled. Her brown hair was cut in a bob that framed her face so that when she smiled—as she was paid to do—there was no visible cheek. Her face was all smile, all the time. "Of course, sir. What's your nephew's name? I'll be able to summon him to the front for you."

Damn, Damien thought. He couldn't use Ceril. It would be obvious that he was lying if he did. What was that friend of his? Were they the same age? Would he even be here anymore? He couldn't remember the boy's name, but he had to give her a name.

"Sir?" she asked. Her voice was still cheerful, but it held a note of suspicion.

The old man just stood still. He didn't move. He knew he could use his old age as a crutch in situations like this, but he had to make sure it seemed real and not put-on.

"Sir?" she asked again. "Your nephew's name?" She continued to work with the hologram while she waited.

Swarley! he thought. He shook his head, like he clearing his mind. "Sorry, what was that? Must've had one of my spells. Sometimes I just lose track of myself, young lady," he said with a small chuckle.

"I asked your nephew's name. The one you came to see?" She was still suspicious.

"Oh, Swarley. Swarley Dann," he said confidently. "I'm sorry about that. Must have been a little odd to see all my lights go dim for a moment there. At least they didn't go out completely, right?"

She smiled more broadly now, a real smile. Or as real as hers ever was. "No, sir. Not at all. But I am afraid," she continued "that Mr. Dann is unavailable right now. It is the end of the semester, and he is a Phase III student preparing to leave the Academy soon. He's testing, and I am not allowed to interrupt. His tests are on a rigid schedule."

Well isn't that some timing, Damien thought to himself. "Oh," he said out loud. "Well, can I wait for him? Will he be available at all?"

"Yes, sir. He should be finished in just a few hours."

"That's wonderful," he said. "Is there somewhere I can wait for him?"

"Of course. Let me get you a visitor's pass." Her hands twisted and shoved away some of the data she had been playing with, minimizing it. She turned in her chair, and another hologram floated above the desk to her left. She inspected its contents. "It will grant you access to all the public areas of the Academy. I'm afraid that I cannot allow you into any of the Phase areas; those are for students and faculty only."

"I understand that," Damien said, but he thought, If you only knew, girl, who I am. Who I was.

She continued, "There is a very nice observation deck and several botanical terraces available for public use. I will send a message for Mr. Dann telling him that you're here. He should get it when he finishes his exams for the day." Her hands started moving things around on her holoscreen. "May I have your hand, sir?"

"My hand?"

"Yes, sir. Our visitor's pass is a molecular stamp we place on the back of your left hand. There are sensors in place throughout the school that will restrict your movements based on its signature. If you move out of the designated public areas, security will be notified, and you will be detained and removed from campus. We take the security of our students very seriously. I hope you understand."

Now it was the old man's turn to smile. "Of course I do, my dear. There's a reason my family chose to send Swarley to Ennd's over another school."

She beamed. "We do what we can. Your hand, then?"

"Could you tell me how this stamp works, exactly? It's been a while since I've been here, and I'm not sure if I've ever had this done."

"It's very simple," said the receptionist. "I will inject a trace amount of nanomachines into the outermost layers of your skin. Those nanites will broadcast a unique identification signal that contains your access permissions to the sensors around campus. They go dormant once you leave the boundaries of the academy, and they should work their way entirely out of your system within a week."

"And they're safe?"

"Completely, sir."

Let's hope so, Damien thought. For both our sakes. He placed his left hand on the counter in front of her, and she pulled a slender object from her desk. He made a show of grimacing as she placed the flat surface on his hand. When she removed it, no evidence remained that she had ever touched it.

"That it?" he asked.

"That's it," she said. "Mr. Dann will be informed of your arrival. I hope you two have a wonderful celebration and that you enjoy your afternoon at Ennd's. If I may suggest, I do love the botanical terrace on the seventh floor, sir. The flowers are absolutely perfect this time of year."

He smiled at her and rubbed the back of his hand. "I'll certainly do that. Thank you. Have a good one, now."

"You, too, sir," she said and went back to her duties manipulating something on the floating hologram above her desk.

Damien walked past her desk and down a curved corridor that eventually led to an elevator. He found this walk appropriately confining, but dwelt most on how there was not a single door or window between the receptionist and the elevator. It was almost like he was being herded and shut in by the Charons who ran the place.

He was not paying attention when he reached the elevator, but the doors slid open for him automatically. As he entered the shining, metal chamber, he looked for a panel or input device to get to where he was going. Instead, he was greeted by a hollow—if affectedly polite—voice.

"Hello, visitor! Welcome to Ennd's Academy. Your visitor's pass allows you access to the botanical terraces on floors three, five, and seven. You may also visit the dining hall on floor three and the observation deck on floor eleven. Where may I direct you?"

Damien scowled. This was new. "Which floor is the Library on?"

"I am sorry, visitor," the voice said. Damien thought he could hear actual apology in it. He hated technology so very much sometimes. "You are not authorized to visit the Library at this time. You have access to the botanical terraces on floors three, five, and seven. You may also visit the dining hall on floor three and the observation deck on floor eleven. Where may I direct you?"

The old man blinked. "Can you not even tell me which floor it's on?"

"I am sorry, visitor. That information is restricted due to your visitor's pass signature."

The old man blinked. "Okay, no Library," he said.

"No, visitor. I am sorry. You have access to the botanical terr—"

"I remember, thank you," he snapped. "Take me to the botanical terrace on floor seven." One was as good as another, and the girl out front had at least recommended that one.

"As you wish, visitor. I must say that you have made an excellent choice. The plants are flowering very well this year on floor seven. I am told that it certainly is a sight to see."

Damien Vennar shuddered. He knew that he had no blood, that it had been replaced by an almost-living mass of machines that could adapt themselves to his mental command, but the idea of making small talk with a piece of software hit a little too close to why he left the order to begin with. That didn't matter right now, though. He was playing the role of Swarley Dann's elderly uncle for the moment and not a disgruntled former Charon, so he put on a smile and responded to the disembodied elevator attendant.

"Thank you. I've heard that, too."

The door behind him opened—the one opposite from where he entered the elevator—and the voice said, "We have reached the botanical terrace on floor seven, visitor. Please enjoy the rest of your time at Ennd's. Swarley Dann has been alerted to your presence and will join you as soon as he is able."

Damien frowned and walked out of the elevator. He hoped he wouldn't hurt its feelings by not saying goodbye, but after a few hundred years of getting by with only the most essential technology, talking to an elevator about pretty flowers was not on his list of things to do before he died. The trip had also been extraordinarily quick; he had not even felt the elevator move. They had upgraded things more than a little since he left.

He heard the door shut behind him, but paid no attention. The foliage around him was mesmerizing. His retreat from the technomages had given him a much greater appreciation for the natural world, one he had tried to impart to Ceril over the years. He had kept the boy active in their garden, but he had also never allowed access to anything but the most necessary technology while the boy was at his house.

The receptionist and the elevator had both been correct: the seventh floor botanical terrace was breathtaking. In front of him, a tall retaining wall circled around the terrace and created a walkway between the various pods of plants. That wall was the only manmade object that Damien could see on the terrace. Each pod separated by the path contained a different type of flowering plant. To Damien's direct left stood stumpy bushes with multicolored blooms along its surface. Some of the blooms were pastels, while others were bright primary colors. The contrast made him smile.

To his right, in the center of the terrace, was an extremely large, gnarled, purple tree, wrapped in vines. As he walked closer to it, blooms suddenly appeared on the vines. With every step he took, a new bloom appeared on the vines in front of him, and with every footfall, a new color. As he finally reached the pod's retaining wall, he watched a rainbow of blossoms spring to life and spiral one by one up the length of the vines of the tree.

The plant looked familiar, but he knew that it wasn't from Ternia. It was far too exotic, and its size was unnatural. Damien marveled at how brazen and crass someone would have to be to try to enhance such natural perfection through genetic manipulation.

As he moved even closer, he leaned over the retaining wall toward the huge trunk, the rainbow flowers each became a sickly green color and grew larger to match the trunk of the tree. He didn't like this tree, but he was enthralled by it.

With the exception of the tree, Damien liked what he saw. Another exotic plant a little way down path caught his attention, and he began to stroll around the terrace, eager to see what other floral delights the technomages had Conjured up since he had last been to the school.

***

"Gramps?"

Damien was stooping over the balcony edge. He enjoyed the view and the remarkably subtle fragrance all the flowers on the terrace created. He was contemplating how to mimic this paradise, when he heard the voice behind him.

"Gramps, is that you?" The voice was closer now.

Damien's stomach sank.

Damien still leaned over the balcony railing. He was sure that it was Swarley behind him. He glanced up at the sun, and it had barely moved. Maybe an hour had passed, and he hadn't even noticed. He was in a hurry, and he had stopped to literally smell the roses.

What the hell was wrong with him? Was he so far removed from who he had been?

Obviously.

Regardless, he had to do something—and fast—if he wanted to remain unnoticed by the higher-ups of the Academy. Swarley obviously recognized him. Despite feeling better than he had in years, Damien put on his best old man act and pushed himself slowly off the balcony's edge. He turned around to stand face to face with a black-haired young man with freckles and dark eyes (what an odd-looking boy, he thought). He stood a head taller than Damien and was thick all over his body, but not fat: well-muscled.

"What's that?" Damien said, as he turned. He lightly wiped his nose with his index finger and thumb.

Swarley eyed him carefully and said, "I was told that my uncle was here for a late birthday celebration. I had a message come through during my exams telling me that he would be on this terrace. My birthday just passed a few weeks ago, and I don't have any uncles."

Of course, you don't, Damien thought. His mind raced, and he stood silent.

"I figured I needed to see what was going on. So I asked my proctor if I could have a few minutes for a break."

Damien thought about his options. On one hand, he could go with the story and act as though somehow senility had gotten to him. On the other, he could come clean and tell him why he was at Ennd's, but he had no idea what kind of person Swarley was. He was certainly not the twelve-year-old he had been when Damien had last seen him. There was a chance he might even report Damien to security. And that couldn't happen.

"I didn't know what to expect," said Swarley. "But then I saw you."

Damien Vennar blinked and finally spoke, "Well, hello."

Swarley smiled. "How is Ceril doing these days? Professor Nephil told me that he got sick and had to go home right when we started Phase II. I haven't seen him since. I figured he would come back to school, but..."

"He's doing well, from what I hear," Damien said, dropping the old man charade. "He doesn't live with me anymore." He had no real idea how Ceril was doing, but the last part wasn't a lie.

"I'm glad to hear he's okay. Tell him to send me a message sometime, if you don't mind. I'd like to speak with him again. Catch up."

Wouldn't we all? Damien thought.

"I don't have a lot of time, sir, but it's good to see you again. I still remember visiting your house that one summer with Ceril and working with you two in your garden." The young man smiled. He was at ease. "Is there something I can do for you? I mean, I would have been able to see you even if you hadn't said you were my uncle."

Damien put his arm on Swarley's shoulder and led him to the purple tree with the blooming vines. "Well, Swarley," he said, "I'm going to be honest: I didn't even need to see you. I just needed to get inside Ennd's without them knowing who I am." Swarley pulled against him, but Damien held on. "Have you ever seen these plants?" he asked and gestured to the blossoms that were spiraling ridiculously fast with the two sets of feet walking in their direction.

"Can't say that I have, sir," Swarley said and then changed the subject back. "Why did you not want them to know who you are? I mean, your grandson was a student here."

"It's...complicated," Damien said. They now stood directly in front of the gnarled tree in the center of the terrace. "I'm sorry for this, Swarley." He glanced around to make sure no one else was around; luckily, the terrace was deserted except for the two of them. Damien's hand still rested on Swarley's shoulder, and black liquid oozed from under Damien's fingernails. It colored his fingers black and ran smoothly up Swarley's neck and into his mouth.

The nanites expanded inside Swarley's throat and stopped all airflow. He would not be alerting security. There was no struggle, and if anyone had been looking—which they were not—all that would have been seen was an uncle enjoying the botanical terrace with his nephew. As the nanites poured into Swarley's neck and expanded, Damien wrapped his arm more tightly around his victim and excreted more of the tiny machines. They coated Swarley and hardened into a cast that held him upright while he suffocated.

It wasn't as though Damien liked doing this to one of Ceril's friends, but it was unavoidable. He was never supposed to have even seen Damien.

That was Damien's own fault, though. He had stopped in the terrace and let too much of being Gramps sneak back in. That wasn't who he was anymore.

The nanites informed Damien the moment Swarley went unconscious. Now, all he had to do was wait. If he let up now, the boy's autonomic functions would kick in, involuntarily breathing for him. Damien couldn't have that. He had truly hoped to avoid a situation like this. Loss of life in any form disgusted him, and taking one himself was something he only did when he felt it was absolutely necessary.

Until recently, he had thought it would never be necessary again.

Another five minutes passed, and Swarley had not stirred once, nor had anyone come to admire the foliage on the terrace, either. A tendril of blackness pierced Swarley's chest and reported to Damien that his heart was no longer beating. Just to make sure his work was finished, Damien commanded the nanites to flood Swarley's heart and lungs. They rushed out of his throat and into the organs. Pressure began to build and in seconds, Damien felt more than heard three distinct, wet pops from inside Swarley's chest.

Damien frowned. He retracted the streams of nanites that had manufactured Swarley's death.

The corpse collapsed without the nanite shell to hold it up. Damien extended his arm over the body beside him. His black blood descended toward the body and wrapped itself around it. He flexed his fingers expertly and directed the blackness to lift the dead body into a standing position. From there, Damien controlled it with the grace of a lifelong puppeteer. He forced the dead man to climb over the retaining wall directly in front of him and then lie down at the base of the gnarled, purple tree. The movements were so natural that he could almost pretend that Swarley had just wanted to curl up and take a nap.

But he knew better.

When his blood was back safely inside his own veins, Damien watched the blossoming vines wrap around the corpse. He hadn't expected that to happen, but he considered it a lucky break. It should be practically invisible for anyone not specifically inspecting the tree and its pod. He hoped to be long gone from the botanical terrace before that was an issue.

He assumed that all of Ennd's students would be equipped with tracking mechanisms similar to his visitor's pass, though he doubted they were able to verify life. Either way, he would still have to double-time it from here on out; if Swarley's test proctor were to check on him, Damien could and would be in some hot water.

He glanced once more at Swarley and said to the body, "I'm sorry, kid. I didn't want that to happen. Blame that girl up front, if you have to. I'll give Ceril your best if I get to see him again." It wasn't the most eloquent or sympathetic eulogy ever given, but it would have to do. There was no doubt that his parents, friends, and teachers would give him the ceremony he deserved. Damien just didn't have the time. And even if he had, he did not have the inclination.

With a parting glance and a nod of his head to the life he had just ended, he walked a beeline to the elevator and the door opened as he neared.

"Hello, visitor. I hope your time on the floor seven botanical terrace has been rewarding and enjoyable. Where may I direct you?" The voice waited for his response.

"I need to see Headmaster Squalt," Damien said.

"I am sorry, visitor. The headmaster's office is not on your approved list of destinations. Your visitor's pass allows you access to the botanical terraces on floors three, five, and seven. You may also visit the dining hall on floor three and the observation deck on floor eleven. Where may I direct you?"

He tried to recall the school's basic floor plan. "How much renovation is done annually to the Academy?" he asked.

"The Academy is in a constant state of renovation, visitor. Each year, the headmaster determines one outdated section of the interior architecture and implements a plan to renovate it by the year's end."

"Each year?"

"Yes, visitor."

"What are the most recent additions to the campus?"

"The most recent renovations done were a complete redesign of the Phase hallways in order to facilitate the most efficient flow of student traffic."

"To what extent were the Phase hallways restructured?"

"Approximately 86 percent of the Phase hallways were renovated, visitor. It has led to an almost-47 percent increase in traffic efficiency."

So much for relying on what I know about the place, Damien thought.

He had to start somewhere, though, so he said, "Take me to the dining hall," and hoped that his next move was not the mistake his first one had been.
Chapter seventeen

When Harlo opened her eyes, all she could see were wings. She thought it was a dream and rolled back over, just a remnant of a nightmare burned into her eyes after a short night of restless sleep. She blinked her eyes, but the vision was still there.

And then the vision shrieked at her, and Harlo knew it was no dream.

Harlo was a small woman, so her petite frame was in stark contrast to the toned and muscled giant in front of her. She recalled vaguely from the day before that whatever had kidnapped Ceril and the others had been barely dressed.

The angel before her, however, was quite the opposite. It wore long, flowing robes made of something that could have easily been silk. Just saying they were "purple" would be wrong—the threads seemed to rotate between multiple hues. Chevrons decorated both arms, and two parallel stripes ran downward across the front from the shoulders. Symbols embroidered in green decorated the stripes, though they appeared to float slightly away from the robe itself. The creature wore gloves that left every other finger bare and sandals that did the same to its toes.

In all, it conjured a much more majestic image than the torn rags had yesterday.

Harlo immediately came out of her stupor. Swinton was now awake, too. He made his alertness known by firing his sidearm over Harlo's head into the towering winged creature. His sidearm was not a slug-thrower, and Harlo thought more's the pity when she saw the energy bolts pool like water against its clothing before being absorbed into its body. Or, more accurately, into its clothing. Harlo thought she saw the green symbols on the front glow when Swinton's blasts hit it, but she had just woken up and the world was nowhere near right.

Swinton fired maybe a dozen shots into the thing, and it never twitched.

It did, however, shriek.

"Harlo, are you okay? What did that thing do to you?"

"I'm fine. And nothing," she shouted back, not taking her eyes off it. She wished that she had gotten a better look at the ones who had taken the others. She had no way of telling if this was one of the same angels coming back to kidnap her and Swinton, too, or if it was an all-new member of a happy little local community.

Another shriek.

This time, the noise was accompanied by the thing's head cocking slightly to the left. Was it trying to communicate? Harlo couldn't be sure, but she wanted to try something.

"Swinton, stop shooting. It's not doing any good. I have an idea, anyway," she said.

Swinton listened. He put his sidearm away and reached into his pack to pull out an impressively long knife. The edge was serrated from the blade's halfway point all the way to the hilt, and the tip was curved slightly down, making it far more dangerous when slashing than stabbing. He held it close to his body as he edged closer to her and, unfortunately, their giant visitor.

"What kind of idea?" he said, sliding close to her left side.

"I think it's trying to communi—"

More shrieking.

"—cate," she said.

"You're kidding, right?"

"No. I have no reason to think that's the case, but I do. Don't you think that if it were here to hurt us that your shooting would have made it fight back? At least a little?"

"Maybe," he admitted.

"So I'm thinking that we need to find a way to communicate back. It keeps making those screeching sounds. It may be trying to talk," Harlo said.

It shrieked again.

Swinton looked unconvinced. "What are you about to do?"

She was on her feet before he could get the whole sentence out of his mouth. Harlo had woken up a few feet from the winged visitor. It had stood stock still, and the only movement she had noticed was when it was screeching or when it tilted its head as though wanting to communicate. So in her mind, the best course of action was to close the gap and let it know that she and Swinton were not threats. She put her best face on, walked directly toward it, and tried to make herself seem nonthreatening.

And it was having none of it.

As soon as she was within the thing's reach, it grabbed her, lifted her into the air, and shrieked.

Its wings beat rapidly and created a lot of wind that pushed Swinton off his feet. Besides the wings, the creature never moved. Harlo could feel no muscles flex, and carrying her added weight didn't seem to strain it at all. The creature did not fly away. It just hovered above the ground, high enough that a fall would seriously injure Harlo.

"Harlo?!" Swinton screamed.

"I'm okay!" she yelled back. "I can't move, though! Well, I can move my head. There's no way I can get free."

The creature shrieked.

"Try talking to it!"

"What?"

"Talk to it! You said that it wanted to communicate! I think it's pissed that I was shooting at it. Maybe you could talk it down a little. Literally."

"You've got a way with words, Swinton," she said.

"Thank you!" he responded. "Now do it! First priority is to get you back on the ground. This ground. We don't want you to be taken like the others."

Harlo turned her head as far upward as she could get it. The stared blankly ahead and paid her no attention whatsoever.

"Excuse me?" she started.

No response. Just the wings beating steadily.

She cleared her throat and started again. "Okay, let me try it this way. My name is Harlo. Easter Harlo. I'm a medic. From what I can tell, my team and I have been stranded here in Purple World as part of the Rites we have to go through to become full agents of the Charons."

It shrieked, as though in response.

Harlo noticed something unnerving when it screeched. The sound wasn't being made vocally. The creature's mouth had not moved when the screech sounded, but the screech had still come seemingly in response to something she said.

"What was it I said?" Harlo asked. "My name is Easter Harlo."

Nothing. Wing beats.

"Rites? Purple World?"

Nothing. Wing beats.

"Charons?"

The large purple creature cocked its head to the side and chirped a little, almost like a bird trilling its song.

"Swinton," she yelled back at the ground. "I think this thing understands us."

"That's impossible," Swinton shouted back.

"Even still. When I mentioned I was trying to become a Rited Charon—"

It shrieked.

"—it reacted. See?" she said.

"I'll be damned," said Swinton. "Keep talking."

"What is it about the Charons—"

This time, its wings flapped harder, and its whole body tensed. Harlo could see the muscles under its purple skin ripple.

"—that excites you?" she asked as she turned her head back toward its face.

What happened next amazed her. This time, the thing's mouth actually moved, and its attention went from a blank stare to being focused directly on her. They met eye to eye, and she could see differences between the two of them more easily now. Its eyes were bloodshot, but instead of red, the blood was a blackish-purple. The veins tapered as they approached the thing's green iris, like small tentacles wrapping around an orb.

"Jaronya," it said.

She blinked. "Swinton," she said without moving her attention in his direction, "did you hear that?"

"More like felt it," Swinton replied.

"Yeah," she agreed. The thing's voice had been loud. But it had also been primal and powerful. It was like its voice was bypassing her ears and going directly into her brain. "Jaronya."

The creature narrowed its eyes as it looked at Harlo. Its voice came out harder, more stern now. "Jaronya," it said again.

Then with no notice whatsoever, the creature flew away from the campsite, Harlo in its arms.

Harlo would have screamed, but it would have done no good. The thing had flown out of earshot all ready. While carrying a person. In maybe three seconds.

She had also not expected that reaction to her attempts at communication. She yelled at it and struggled against its grip. "Hey! Where do you think you're taking me? Why did you come for us this morning? Was it something I said, he said, we did?"

It paid no attention. It just watched its path ahead and wound silently through the mountains, around outcroppings, all the while never tightening or loosening its grip on her.

"Jaronya?" she asked, yelling the word as though it were a password that would make it stop its flight.

"Jaronya," it agreed and continued on its way.

Harlo sighed and resigned herself to silence. There was nothing she could do. She resented being taken like this, not just because of her fear and uncertainty, but because her medical and research supplies were back at the camp with Swinton. She hoped that if Swinton came searching for her, he would bring them. She hoped that she wouldn't need medical supplies, but she was pragmatic enough to know she probably would.

***

While Harlo resigned herself to being kidnapped by a giant, purple angel-creature, Swinton just took a moment to deal with what had happened. When his shock subsided and his brain was once again able to make sense of the world, he began to pack up camp. They hadn't made a fire, but he folded their foil blankets and packed them away in the supply bags. His soldier training had kicked in like Bryt always said it would, and he realized that despite being stuck here alone in Purpleland, he had been taught what to do in this kind of scenario.

Well, not this scenario specifically, but in a no-win scenario in hostile territory. He must have missed the classes on how to respond to giant angels making off with his teammates one by one, but he figured that he would improvise and make a win-win situation out of it all.

It took him less than three minutes to grab all their supplies and buckle them together. As he finished, Swinton realized that Harlo had none of her gear with her, and he frowned. He prayed she wouldn't need it.

Giving one last glance to make sure he had not left anything lying around that could lead one of those things to him, he set out toward the kidnapper. He knew that he was too slow to do any real good in the short term, but he hoped that he could find them all eventually. Maybe that would count for something.

Chapter eighteen

"I've never killed anyone before."

Ceril didn't know how to respond. The correct answer was probably not I have. You never really get over it, so he just looked at Saryn, sitting in front of him dumbfounded and in shock. It had been at least two hours since they had shot and killed the angels that had kidnapped them, and Saryn and Chuckie hadn't made any progress toward coping with what had happened.

Ceril wanted to say something, needed to say something, but without the right words, all he could do was smile wanly at her.

Chuckie said, "Me, either, Saryn. Not really. I've shot at people, done a lot of simulations and combat exercises, but what happened with those angel things..." He paused and looked at his gun. "It was them or us."

"Don't recite clichés at me, Chuckie."

"I'm not. I'm just saying that it really was them or us, you know? They came out of nowhere, snatched us up like we were nothing and flew off with us. I don't think they were taking us home to meet their parents."

"I know," she said. "I know. It's just...How did you deal with it, Ceril?"

Should he answer her? What could he say? "I, umm, what?"

"I know you don't like talking about Ethan Triggs, Ceril. I know, and I'm sorry I brought it up, and this isn't even close to the same situation, but how did you deal with, you know..." Her voice trailed off.

"Killing someone?" Ceril finished for her. "Taking someone's life? Watching and feeling another person bleed out in front of me?"

"Yeah," said Saryn, sheepishly.

"It wasn't like this. Not at all. Not even remotely. I don't...feel bad for those angels. Chuckie's right: they were going to hurt us. But they were still people, or we have to assume they were, just like Ethan. How did I deal with it? Years of beating myself up, trying to repent somehow for what I did, trying to take it back. I worked my ass off on the Sigil because of it. I've had Roman and Bryt breathing down my neck ever since, pushing me to work harder, think faster, fit just one more class into my schedule.

"And you know what? I did. I worked harder. I thought faster. I took every class and training session and Instance mission they gave me. I never complained. Not once. At least not to them. I couldn't. Everything I've done in the last five years has been to try to make up for that one second of lost control. That one second where this," his Flameblade appeared in his hand as he spoke, its golden blade flaring brighter than it ever had, "pretty much started to dominate my life." He bounced the sword from one hand to another, which made both Saryn and Chuckie shy away slightly.

"So how did I deal with it, Saryn? The best that I could." The Flameblade disappeared and with it, the eerie illumination that had surrounded the trio.

"I-I'm sorry, Ceril."

"Me, too," he said. "I didn't mean to—"

"Yeah, you did, boss. It's cool," said Chuckie. "You've probably had that bubblin around inside you for a while. I don't want you to think we're making light of what happened to you. It's just that...we don't know how to handle this." Chuckie's shoulders sagged as he said it. "All the training in the world can't really prepare you for when you actually have to pull that trigger."

Ceril stood up and looked around him. It was dark, and by his count, they had spent more than two hours hunkering under an outcropping a short walk from where they had shot and killed their winged kidnappers. "There's nothing I can say that will make any of this better," he said. "I kept myself busy for the last five years so I could keep my mind off what happened. And given our current circumstances, I think that's the best thing we can do here, too. So you want my advice on dealing with this? Push it down until you have time. Right now, let's see if we can find Harlo and Swinton."

Saryn stood up and brushed herself off. "You're right, Ternia. Thanks."

"Yep," he said. "Chuckie, it would make sense that Harlo and Swinton would come to find us, right?"

"As much as anything, yeah. They probably followed the angel guys' path into the mountains."

"So if we're looking for them, then we need to backtrack. Which way is that from here?" Ceril knew which direction it was. He could have just given the order to move out and start walking, but he wanted to make sure Chuckie and Saryn felt needed, like they were able to contribute to something other than killing of their kidnappers a few hours prior.

Chuckie pointed. "That way, I think, boss. May take a little winding around if you want to head directly back, though. I don't think these mountains have anything straight through em."

"Thanks, Chuckie. Let's try to make it as quick as we can to the plains. We can always pick up their trail from there if we don't meet up with them," Ceril said. "Saryn, what do you think the odds are that Harlo and Swinton went into the mountains before dark fell?"

"Oh, they're in a cave somewhere, Ternia. After the day we've had, there's no way they'll be anywhere out in the open."

"Lovely," Ceril said. He was thinking the same thing, but he hoped that someone else might be able to convince him differently. "Then keep your eyes out for anything that might indicate where they are, and listen in case they're talking or making enough noise that we can find them that way. If they're in a cave, or even under an outcropping like this one, it'll be easier to walk by and miss each other entirely. We can't have that. Chuckie, you take point."

"Always, boss." It wasn't insubordination or even sarcasm. Chuckie was simply the best person to have leading the squad, and they all knew it. Ceril took up the rear, ready to summon his Flameblade at the first sign of trouble.

***

It made sense, when Ceril thought about it later, that the angels would be waiting for them. Just moments after the trio had set out from their hiding spot, four purple-skinned men descended out of nowhere directly in front of Chuckie. The winged men stood stock-still, at perfect attention, shoulder-to-shoulder, and blocked the rocky path Ceril and his companions had been using.

Chuckie reacted first by dropping to one knee and simultaneously grabbing his rifle. He cocked it and yelled, "Saryn, get down! Ceril, cover me!"

Saryn listened immediately. She dropped to a crouch and quickly surveyed her surroundings. She lunged for a rock a bit to her left, did a somersault, and sprang forward to land with her back to the rock, safe from the winged quartet—even for just a moment.

Ceril heard Chuckie call for cover, and he instinctually called for his Flameblade. The problem with that approach, however, was that their assailants were far enough away that there was no way he could do any good with a melee weapon. So, as soon as the sword materialized, he let it dissipate, and instead reached for his sidearm. He started to fire as soon as it was lined up with the attackers. His fire sprayed in a cone in front of him, striking the large, purple men blocking their path.

At least two of his shots struck each of the angels. He doubted any of them would die from his attacks—he had not been able to aim precisely enough for that—but they would suffer enough wounds that they should be slowed. As Ceril fired on the furthest left angel, Chuckie fired on the furthest right. They hadn't had time to coordinate, but because they had been trained by the same people, their fighting styles meshed well enough that Ceril's cover fire kept Chuckie from getting killed while he did the real damage.

Or he should have done the real damage.

Ceril and Chuckie both stopped firing when they realized that they were having no effect on the angels in front of them. Stoic as statues, the winged men shimmered slightly as the bolts struck their skin. Even Chuckie's more powerful rifle shots weren't affecting them.

"What's going on, boss?" Chuckie demanded. "These guys should be meat by now, like the others were."

Instead of responding, Ceril charged at the quartet. He holstered his pistol and summoned his Flameblade, this time letting it fully materialize and flare purple-green. If the creatures were surprised by the appearance of the weapon, there was no indication. They were as stoic as ever. It was as though Ceril and Chuckie's barrage against them had never happened, nor was there a determined young man running at them with a flaming sword.

Their disinterest almost made Ceril angry. He pushed himself to run as hard and fast as he could, while he hefted the newly materialized sword in both hands. He could feel himself automatically distribute its weight in his hands as he lifted both arms for an overhead attack. Sure, such a move would leave him open to a counterattack, but the four creatures had made no indication they were going to fight back, anyway.

When Ceril was close enough to strike, he brought the weapon down hard on the left creature's shoulder. Or he should have. Instead of cleaving through sinew and bone, pushing the blade down through whatever resistance the purple man's torso would have, Ceril found himself rolling forward on the ground, his weight suddenly and awkwardly distributed.

After maybe a second, he noticed that he no longer held his Flameblade. He found his bearings and looked at the four purple people he had been trying to attack. They had moved, but barely. Instead of a disinterested forward stare, all of their heads were cocked downward and they focused on him.

"Boss?" Chuckie's voice sounded distant. "You okay, boss?"

"I think so," Ceril mumbled as he stood up. He locked eyes with the angel he had tried to split with his Flameblade. "What did they do to me, Chuckie?" He paused and then said to the angel, "What did you do to me?"

"All I saw was your sword go poof and you rolling on the ground. I couldn't tell nothin else from back here."

"Me, either, Ternia," Saryn called. "You just kind of...fell."

"What did you do to me?" Ceril asked again. The angels just stared at him, their heads still slightly cocked to the side. If he could just take them by surprise, then maybe they would all get out of this okay. He was scared, mad, and frustrated at the situation, but those feelings wouldn't do any good unless they were focused. He tried to focus them on the one thing he needed more than anything else: his Flameblade.

He thought about the weapon, saw it in his mind, could almost feel the weight in his hand. He visualized the golden blade appearing out of nowhere in his hand, and he imagined it slicing that smug indifference off those purple faces. Ceril zeroed in on the fear, anger, and frustration and did his best to make his visualization real, to call his Flameblade back from wherever it had disappeared to.

Nothing happened.

He swallowed hard and tried again, but still, his hands remained empty, and those purple faces stared at him. Mocking him.

"You got a plan, Ternia?" Saryn called. "This stand-off is getting kind of tense."

Ceril ignored her. Of course, he didn't have a plan. His plan had been simple: kill the big purple things with wings. When that plan failed, he was out of ideas.

"Yeah, a plan would be awfully nice right now, boss. I don't bet these fellas'll just stand and wait much longer." A second later, Chuckie continued, "Want me to shoot em again?"

"No," Ceril said. "I don't think they want to fight."

"What gave you a crazy idea like that?"

"The fact that we're not dead yet."

"Point taken, boss. But what do we do?"

Then, Ceril had an idea, and he hoped it wasn't going to get him killed. He hoped that he wasn't about to get Saryn and Chuckie killed even more. Without a word to his teammates, Ceril drew his pistol and threw it on the ground in front of the angels.

"Ternia? What are you doing?"

Ceril kicked the pistol to the far right of the group and walked to within a few steps of the angel he had tried to cut in half. He knelt down in front of the creature and looked up. "I surrender," he said.

***

"My, my, boss, what a nice little cell you've found for us. Think you might be able to rustle us up some shackles, too?"

"I'm sorry, Chuckie," Ceril said, "but it was the only option we had."

"Like hell it was. We killed two of them easy."

"Yeah, we did. We basically put guns in their mouths when we killed them, too. Did you also happen to notice that any time we've shot at them from a distance that they're damn near invincible? We had no choice. I had no choice."

"There's always a choice," Chuckie muttered. "You just didn't want to make it."

"No," Ceril said. "I didn't. After the four of them stood there like we'd never unloaded on them, I have to say I was a little overwhelmed. And when I tried to cut one of them in half with my Flameblade, what then?"

"You fell down."

"Yes, Chuckie, I fell down. Without my weapon. When I got close enough to the things to attack, my sword disappeared. I couldn't summon it back, either."

"Did you try?"

"Chuckie," Saryn said, "be fair." Chuckie glared at her.

"Of course I tried, Chuckie. I'm trying right now. Somehow, they've cut me off from my Flameblade, and that's never happened before. Since before we boarded the Sigil, it was just kind of...there. Now, I can't seem to feel it, to find it anywhere. I'm cut off from it."

"I didn't even know that was possible," Saryn said.

"Me, neither," Ceril agreed. "So when I realized that I was cut off, Chuckie, and the fact that they were—let me reiterate—damn near invincible, I decided the best thing we could do was surrender. Because they obviously weren't there to kill us."

"Whatever," Chuckie said. "Like I said, it's a nice little cell you found for us."

Ceril looked at Saryn, who just shook her head—the universal signal for it's not worth it. "You know, it actually kind of is when you think about it."

"I was being sarcastic, Ceril."

"Oh, I know that, Chuckie. But you're right. I mean, it's really not so bad." Ceril stood up and began to pace the perimeter of their makeshift cell. It was really just a stone fence these days—at one point, it had probably been a hut or home of some kind, but time had been unkind to the structure. "When's the last time you were held prisoner in a cell with no walls or ceiling? We have plenty of room to walk around, the weather's actually not that bad since we have the breathers for the smell, and the sky is beautiful." He craned his neck up and stared at the stars. He wasn't wrong; the stars in this Instance were purple pricks of light in a sky swathed in faint green swirls of clouds and cosmic dust even further away.

Not so easily impressed or manipulated, Chuckie said, "All I see is a kidnapping angel on every side of me, and no roof over my head. What are we going to do if it starts to rain again, huh? We still don't know if it's acid rain."

"Conjure a roof, then, an umbrella or something. There's not a thunderhead in sight, Chuckie. I don't think it's going to rain. Relax."

"I don't mean to sound like I'm on Chuckie's side, Ternia, but what's gotten into you? How can you see this situation as being a good thing? We're being held prisoner."

Ceril shrugged. "I don't know," he said. "I just have a feeling that if they were going to hurt us, we'd be hurt already, and since Harlo and Swinton aren't here with us, there's a rescue party out there coming for us."

"Maybe," Chuckie said.

"Definitely," Ceril corrected.

Chuckie stood up. "Enough of this crap. I know you're the boss and all that, but this is garbage. We're getting out of here. I'm getting out of here. Before it's not my decision to make." He walked quickly over the broken ruin that made the cell's boundary, and the second his foot hit the ground outside, the closest guardian angel whipped his hand around and slammed it into Chuckie's sternum.

Chuckie fell to the ground, and all the air left his lungs. He wheezed as he stared at the angel, who had already resumed his previous, stoic position. Chuckie charged again, this time getting both feet over the broken foundation before being knocked back inside where he was supposed to be.

"Okay, then," Chuckie said, "maybe I'm not."

Ceril suppressed a smile and sat down beside Chuckie. "Look, I know it's not ideal, being kept inside what's left of an old building like we're chickens in a pen, but it's where we are. I have a couple of ideas on how to get out of here, but I'm going to need some time to work them out. In the morning, I think we'll have a better chance at it, anyway. We get away right now, where do we go?"

"Out there." Chuckie waved his arm in an arc.

"Which is where? We have no idea where we are, and in case you haven't noticed, Chuckie, this Instance hasn't been the friendliest place we've ever been. So I'm asking you as a friend, not telling you as your commanding officer, to give me until morning to work out some way for us to get out of here."

Chuckie grumbled something incoherent, and then lay back and stared at the sky.

"Chuckie? What was that?" Ceril asked.

"Fine," Chuckie said. "But we're getting out of here in the morning. One way or another."

"At least we don't disagree on that."
Chapter Nineteen

Damien was hungry. The one piece of fruit he had eaten a few hours ago was long gone. Once the elevator dropped him off at the third-floor dining hall, the smells of so many different foods wafting over him made his stomach rumble. Aside from the fruit, he had scavenged here and there but had not eaten a full meal since the night his home had been invaded.

"Visitor, please enjoy your time at the Ennd's Academy dining hall. May I recommend..." The voice trailed off as Damien walked quickly out of earshot. He had no intention of getting food recommendations from something that could not eat.

He stalked directly toward one of the self-service stations and made himself a sandwich. The dining hall was big and round; students and faculty mingled here, but he thought the size would allow him to blend in well enough that he wouldn't seem out of place. He chose a seat by the only window in the hall, one that made up a good quarter of the circular room's wall. It overlooked an interior courtyard, which was perfect for Damien's needs. He sat and ate his sandwich as he surveyed the school's basic architecture. He had to see what else had changed since he left.

Two small spires shot up from the ground of the courtyard, though he could not see how tall they were from his table. Across the courtyard, he could see Ennd's central tower, and that's where Damien focused most of his attention. That one structure dwarfed everything else about Ennd's. That's where the Library had been once upon a time and should still remain. Instance physics were unlikely to have changed too much in recent years. Or, well, ever. No amount of renovation would be able to change the laws of the universe.

However, the renovation that the technomages had instituted would make it impossible to know which floor the entrance would be on, but he was still confident that he could find a way in. Space and location were imperative to Instancing, sure, but it was all relative. As long as the portal was in the general vicinity of the energy pocket, it would open. The portal being shifted a few stories in one way or another would not prevent access.

He finished his food, glad to have some protein in his system, and looked at the central tower a moment longer before moving away from the window and toward a corridor that hopefully led to the Library, and in turn, to Headmaster Gilbert Squalt. He casually worked his way through the crowd, nodding at people when they made eye contact—he had to be careful not to call attention to himself by seeming too anxious. He even tossed his trash in a receptacle as he passed it.

As he approached the hallway, his left hand tingled. It was not exactly painful, but it was more than just an itch. It was probably an alert, a warning. Damien assumed the sensation was caused by being too close to a restricted area access point.

So he kept walking.

As he entered the hallway, the tingling became more insistent, verging on painful, but he pushed through. If he had known a little tingling in his hand was going to be the school's best attempt at confining him, he would have marched his way through the halls hours ago.

And then he stopped. Or more accurately, his left hand—the one containing the nanite stamp—stopped while the rest of his body kept going. He was thrown off balance and just barely managed to avoid falling completely. His body was free to move, but his left hand hung suspended in midair. He could not, with any amount of force, pull his hand any further down the hall. It was as though his wrist were a gigantic square peg trying to fit through a very tiny round hole.

Damien felt around with his right hand, and there was nothing in the air holding him. No invisible walls had clamped down on him.

He could walk backward, though. He was perfectly free to move back into the dining area. So this, he thought, is how they keep visitors in line; by putting us in invisible cages. He realized that he had spent probably the last two minutes struggling with his own left hand, and he wondered how that might have looked to anyone who was watching. He looked back toward the dining area and was pleased to see that the corridor had just begun to curve when he hit this invisible boundary. He could only see a small section of the dining hall around the curve, and there were only two tables with line of sight to him. No one was sitting at either of them. Yet.

Damien figured that with the size of the crowd in the dining hall, they would not stay unoccupied for long. He had to make a decision, and he had to make it fast. He could go back the way he came and search for another route to the central tower, or he could figure out a way to free his hand and make those tingling nanites stop restricting his access.

When he thought about his options, he realized how much being away from the Charons for so long had affected him. Ennd's was tracking his whereabouts and restricting his access with nanites and the unique signature they emitted. If there was one thing Damien Vennar understood, it was how to manipulate nanotechnology. Until his home was invaded, he had not Conjured in centuries. Most Charons would never be able to Conjure invisibility as rapidly or as effectively as he had, but like almost anything else, once you knew how to do something, the skill was rarely completely lost. Proficiency may deteriorate, yes, but with a little practice, you could easily regain whatever atrophied through inactivity.

Damien's control of nanotech was no different, and he focused his attention on the visitor's pass stamped into his hand.

The old man edged as far along the curved wall as the nanites allowed, and he dropped to his knees. His trapped hand supported much of his weight. That way, when he was finished with his purge, he would know immediately by having his hand come free.

Damien Vennar was very aware of the nanites that made up his bloodstream. At one point in his life, he could have controlled them on an almost one-by-one basis. He expected that ability to have atrophied, but he still had a very keen grasp of what was going on inside his flesh. He closed his eyes and directed his attention to finding the foreign nanites within him. He took on himself the role his immune system played on a day-to-day basis: hunting down anything foreign and destroying it. Only this time, he was searching for any nanotechnology inside him that was not a part of the self-replicating, self-repairing system coursing through his veins already.

He entered a state of meditation, as he focused almost all of his attention on eliminating the microscopic machines that were restraining him. One by one, he found the foreign bodies and destroyed them. When the very last one went offline and its signal interrupted, the old man stumbled backward. He fell onto his back and smiled. He had missed the rush that came with Conjuring.

He flexed his now-free wrist. Without the molecular stamp in his skin, he would be able to move through the halls unhindered. He made one last look toward the dining hall to make sure no one had seen him, then stood up and continued down the hallway unnoticed.

***

The moment when Damien Vennar sought out and destroyed the nanotechnology in his visitor's pass, Ennd's security system initialized. He had been noticed the moment the last nanite had been eliminated. One moment, Vennar had been in a hallway that led to the Phase II student dormitories; the next, he had disappeared from sensors, and Phase II's defenses were activated.

Ennd's Academy rarely had a security breach. Students, faculty, and visitors were each tagged with unique molecular stamps that told sensors placed in various locations which areas of campus each person had access to. It was a system that worked and rarely malfunctioned. In fact, all simulations showed there being a zero-percent chance of a true security breach.

The administration of Ennd's Academy had always prided themselves on being able to meld utility and aesthetics. Part of this ambition was maintaining large galleries of artwork throughout each area of the school. Many wings had themes that highlighted various artistic styles and cultures that made up the student population of the Academy.

The artwork was also the first line of defense in the event of a security breach.

The sandstone and steel walls of Phase II shook as the statues that lined its halls came to life. Jackal-headed Annuban golems rose from their thrones and stood roughly twice the height of a person. Their stone axes shimmered as the nanites that made up their structure reassembled themselves from decoration to actual weaponry. Horrith golems awakened, too, and dust fell from the falcon-headed statues, as clawed fingers flexed and wrapped around thick staves that crackled with blue-white electric current. Arcs of energy spiraled up and down the length of the weapons.

Like soldiers forming ranks, the sentries gathered in the center of the hallway as the resuscitation cycle completed. The detail did not speak. They did not interact. Once their initial systems checks were finished, they moved in unison, a single unit with a single goal: secure Ennd's Academy.

Sensors fed the golems the last known location of their target. The Annuban and Horrith golems' eyes flashed with power as they synced their directives and moved to intercept and eliminate Damien Vennar.
Chapter Twenty

Ceril, Chuckie, and Saryn's plans to escape in the morning hadn't been as easy as they had hoped. They made a few more physical attempts to escape, but those efforts were as unsuccessful as their attempts the night before. Since any actual fighting they did failed, Ceril figured that he might as well fall back on his scholar training—that's where his heart was, anyway.

If he couldn't defeat the guards as a solider, maybe he could learn from them as a scholar. So he developed a new plan, one based on his research on Instances.

It worked.

"The Ancestors left very specific instructions," said one of the guards.

"What do the instructions say?" Ceril asked.

"They tell us to wait for the messiah. Very few still live who can read them, but they are there nonetheless. We trust the priests to interpret them. When we need to know more, we are told."

"You're placing an awful lot of trust in those priests, then."

"It is what the Ancestors commanded."

"Right," Ceril said. "But what happened to your Ancestors?" He hoped his comments didn't sound snarky to the angel in front of him. He was legitimately curious about the history of the place, and he didn't want that ruined by misinterpreted sarcasm. That is, if the angels could even recognize sarcasm.

"We...do not know for sure. Much of the Ancestors' legacy has been lost. We know there was an exodus from Jaronya, and since then, the cities have become ruins. Everywhere you see that is rubble, there once stood a majestic city made of out of crystal. Time transformed it into dull stone, cracked and ignored."

"Why ignored? Why didn't you fix them, keep them maintained?"

"We have access to very little of the magic the Ancestors used to create their cities. We do not want it, either. We are a simple people, and the priests have interpreted that none of us should seek out the Ancestors, physically or otherwise. They will return to us when we are ready to learn their ways and restore their world. The first step will be the messiah."

"But you live here? In this rubble, these ruins?"

"The Ancestors blessed us with strong homes that would withstand the years. We also have their temples, their workplaces. Those are curated by the priests."

"Where are the instructions written?" Ceril asked, returning to an earlier train of thought.

The angel pointed at an obelisk in the distance. "They are written."

"What?" Ceril asked. He stood up and tried to see what was written on the obelisk. Without Conjuring to enhance his vision, he couldn't make out anything on the stone pillar. With his concentration already split, Ceril didn't bother. "So these instructions the priests read, they're in public? They're just sitting around for everyone?"

"They are not for everyone. They are for the priests."

"Really? Because I would think something written on a sign on the side of the road wouldn't be for the upper-class to read, interpret, and provide as missives. I'd think they were put there for everyone."

Purple light appeared behind Ceril. The guard slammed his Flameblade onto the broken pillar beside Ceril and said, "You will not question the priests, Charon."

Ceril leapt back, but he knew he was in no danger. The angel was just making a point. "I'm not questioning them. I mean it. I'm just saying that somewhere down the line, there's a chance that this bit of information was mishandled. I just don't understand why the Ancestors would leave behind a system where only a handful of people could read and understand their instructions."

"It is not for you to understand. You are an outsider."

"I know. I know I am. I just don't like the idea of an entire caste of people being dominated."

"We are not...dominated, as you say. Our people are free, and we look to the priest for guidance. We are not constrained or forced to do anything but live our lives, outsider. We exist to serve the Ancestors, and we await their return."

"If you say so," Ceril said. "How many priests are there? How many of...you are there?" Ceril didn't actually know what to call the giant purple angel people.

"There is one priest in the Meshin temple. I do not know about the other temples. They are far, and we do not travel there. The priest has given us the Ancestors' warning about venturing too far from Meshin. The last war left many places uninhabitable."

Ceril's shoulders dropped. He rested against the pillar. "What...last war?"

"It was well before my life began. The priest at Meshin is the only one alive today who witnessed the other cities die. There was no food or livable space. Meshin, however, was safe. The Ancestors built the city in the mountains for that kind of protection, made the valley we are in to surround their city. Other than the houses, though, only the temple still stands." He pointed into the distance. Ceril could see a large structure rising from the horizon, a single spire amid the rubble. Surrounded by the broken towers and ruins in which Ceril and his team found themselves, the shining, purple temple was both ominous and awesome.

"I still don't understand what this has to do with us," Ceril said.

"Then you are blind."

"Maybe," Ceril admitted. "But answer me this: what happens when something happens to the priest, when he dies? What then?"

The creature's purple brow furrowed. "When our priest dies, another will assume the position. The Ancestors are very clear that those with magic hold the keys."

"The keys?"

"I say again, you are blind, outsider."

***

Earlier that day, Ceril had been able to Conjure a makeshift communication device that allowed him to actually speak and converse with the angels that inhabited this Instance. Saryn and Chuckie, on the other hand, could not.

Ceril had no idea why his Conjuring was more finely tuned than the others—he had a delicate hand with the nanite skins, always had. He was able to control individual nanites to do multiple tasks at once, which was a skill that Roman had once told him came "once in a blue moon." Whatever that meant.

So, while Ceril and his guardian angel discussed things, Saryn and Chuckie watched from within their open-air cage.

Saryn leaned over to Chuckie and said, "Do you have any idea what they're saying?"

"None. It's kind of pissing me off. I tried to do what Ceril said with the nanites, but it never worked. You?"

"No on both counts. I could get the shell of the thing on my face like he said, but after that, it might as well have been a costume. It worked not even a little."

"Well," Chuckie said, "let's hope he's not completely screwing us here. I don't have to tell you that I don't think our fearless leader is so fearless. Or all that good at leading."

"Give him some slack," Saryn said. "He's doing the best he can in a bad situation. You and I got briefed and agreed to these as our Rites. Which meant we defer to him, whether we like it or not."

"I'll defer, that's fine, but I'm not going to let him get me killed while he goes and has a powwow without us."

"You think he is going to be the one to get us killed? After what you pulled on our way here?" There was no way these guards were just going to overlook the fact that they had killed their initial captors.

"It was his plan, Saryn, and you agreed to it, too. Don't blame me just because I have the biggest guns." Chuckie paused and watched Ceril for a moment. "I just hope he knows what he's doing. One way or another, these guys have to know what's up."

"Yes, it was his plan. And it worked. For a while, at least."

"A while? And yet, here we are."

Saryn frowned. "Yes, here we are. Lucky to be alive, by my count. After we murdered two of them."

"Again, Saryn, not my call."

"No, it wasn't. It wasn't mine, either, but at least I take responsibility for what I did."

"Following orders," Chuckie said.

"Ignorant bastard," Saryn said and turned back to listen to Ceril and the Jaronya talk. It was more productive to listen to clicks, chitters, and whistles than to argue with Chuckie Tidwell.

They eventually broke their conversation for a recess, and Ceril came back to sit with his group. The Jaronya guard walked gracefully away, holding itself in perfect posture the whole time.

When it was far enough away, Chuckie said, "Well?"

"Where do you want me to start?" Ceril answered.

"Did they know anything about Swinton and Harlo?" Saryn asked.

"I didn't ask."

"Why not?" Chuckie demanded.

"Because I figured that if they have managed to stay clear of the angels up to this point, I wouldn't be doing them any good by verifying that they're out there. They might have seen them when we were taken, but maybe not. If not, then it's better if we don't even ask. I'm sure if they were taken, they would be dropped right here with us, anyway."

"Makes sense," Chuckie conceded.

"Thanks. For all we know, they're trying to make their way to us. We'll try to meet up with them when we can, if we can. We have to worry about ourselves and trust them to take care of themselves for now."

"Yeah, good point," Saryn said. "Where are we?"

"They call it Meshin. I think it used to be their capitol. They claim to be descendants of some long-gone race they call the Ancestors, who they worship like gods. Over the years—I take it to be thousands—the cities have fallen into ruin."

Chuckie looked up. "This is their capitol? We don't even have a roof!"

"Exactly," Ceril continued. "Apparently, there are some structures that are whole and useable. Just not many. He said that they're waiting on some kind of messiah to come and rebuild their cities and restore their culture to the greatness it once had. I think there are more cities like this all over the Instance."

Saryn was next: "Why take us then?"

"They saw our breathers."

"What?"

Ceril reached out and tapped her nose. "You know, that thing you're wearing that filters the air and makes you not vomit every three steps you take?"

"Yes," Saryn said, "I know what they are, obviously. But why did they kidnap us for them?"

Ceril cleared his throat. He ran his left hand through his hair and scratched the top of his head. Finally finding the right words, he said, "They think we're their messiahs, or at least that one of us is."

Saryn and Chuckie blinked at Ceril. A few moments passed as they absorbed what he said, and then Chuckie said, "Well, that don't sound too bad, does it? Bein some kind of god to all them flying, purple people."

"Ignoring that," Ceril said. "Obviously, we're not their messiahs. We're not their saviors. We're not anything to these people. But they think their prophecy is being fulfilled because the messiah will have magic like their Ancestors. So instead of killing us where we stood, they took who they could grab and started to bring us back here."

"And then we killed them. Don't forget that," Saryn said.

Ceril nodded. "I haven't forgotten, and they haven't, either. We're to go before their priest and plead our case. It will be up to him whether we are innocent or not and how we will be punished."

Saryn sighed. "What do we do now?"

"We wait," Ceril said. "I was told that the best thing we can do is wait and lay low. It may have taken them a while to come and find us again, but they did. And that time, they were prepared; you saw how little damage our weapons or struggling did after we killed the first two. We're essentially their prisoners now from what I understand, and the only reason we're alive right now is because they think our arrival might be prophesied." Ceril blinked and rubbed the heels of his hands into his eyes. Then, as if answering some unasked question, "I just don't know."

Chuckie got up and walked to the entrance to their roofless chamber. "The guards are gone," he said. "Why'd they not leave a guard, boss?"

"Because we don't need one. We can't leave."

"But last night..."

"They were showing us who was in control. It's not like we can leave. As much as this," Ceril indicated the ruins where they had spent the night, "is our cell, it's not like we can go anywhere. I convinced him, I think, that we don't have to be penned in."

"What do you mean?"

"About what?"

Chuckie said, "About us being penned in. I don't know what you're talking about. So we're free to roam?"

"Yeah. We're basically in a gigantic valley right now. There are mountains on every side of us."

Chuckie nodded, obviously not seeing where Ceril was going with his explanation. Ceril noticed.

"There are no paths in and out. Their Ancestors hollowed this valley out of the center of this mountain range, and the only way in and out—if I understood right—is to fly."

Chuckie's eyes brightened. "Well, let's just Conjure us up some wings and fly the hell out of here!"

"It's not that easy, Chuckie," said Ceril. "The Jaronya fly naturally. We don't. I know I've never Conjured wings or flown before, and even if we were able to get off the ground, we don't know the air, the currents, anything."

Saryn chimed in. "We're not even dressed for it. Given the altitude of some of the rim around us," she indicated with her hand the height of the mountains to the west, "we would freeze to death if we didn't suffocate from lack of oxygen first."

Chuckie was unfazed. "Well, we can keep using our breathers. There's oxygen. We can harden the nanites around us to protect from the cold, too. No freezing. And then we fly out of here."

"Where do you get all your excess nanites from?" Ceril asked Chuckie. "Because my sleeve has a limited supply, and if I Conjured up a set of wings powerful enough to lift me and my gear off the ground, then I'm not going to have enough left for a full-body suit to protect me from the wind and cold. Do you?"

Chuckie was silent.

"I didn't think so. Not to mention," Ceril continued, "that the Jaronya have scouts just flying around looking for us. As easily as we were taken both times before, I think I'd rather they look at me with off-center reverence as kill me outright for not being what they hope I am."

Saryn said, "So for now, what? We just sit here?"

"I think we have full access to the," Ceril coughed, "city." He stood at the edge of their pen and surveyed the ruins. Something about them had been nagging him ever since the sun came up and he finally got a good look at them. Cernt, he thought. These ruins look just like what the Untouchable did to Cernt Academy. He opened his mouth to tell his team what he had just realized, and then clenched his jaws together tightly. Saryn didn't need to know about that right now. There was too much else going on for her to deal with. So Roman and the others were right. There is a connection to the Untouchable here.

"So we can explore and get into a little trouble?" Chuckie said, breaking Ceril's train of thought.

"We can explore," Ceril confirmed. "But let's try to avoid the trouble part, all right?"

Chuckie nodded. Saryn and Ceril shared a glance, and then all three stood up and made their way out of their cell. All of them shared the unspoken thought that if they had the time, they might as well do something instead of sitting around waiting to die.

***

They spent the first few minutes walking in silence. Saryn was the first to break it. "This place was probably awfully beautiful in its time." Dull purple stones lined the spaces between buildings, and Saryn could tell their color had once been much more brilliant. The stones barely made a road anymore, but enough remained that walking around wasn't a problem. Purple weeds and grasses broke through whatever cracks they could find. "I still don't get it, though," she said.

"Get what?" Ceril asked. He slowed down so Chuckie could take point while he talked to Saryn.

"How our breathers made them think we were their messiahs. I've been thinking about it, and I don't really get how having these things," she pointed at her mouth and nose, "could make anyone think that we're going to be the ones who will save or restore their people. I just don't get it."

"I'm not quite sure I do, either," Ceril said. "That was one of the things I kept asking and the only response I could get from him was The Ancestors left behind instructions."

"Maybe those instructions'll help us find a connection to the Untouchable, right, boss?" Chuckie said without looking backward.

Ceril smiled, thankful that Chuckie could not see it. Despite his attitude problem, Chuckie was a good soldier. He stayed on course and saw his objective through to the end. Ceril respected that, even if he did not always appreciate it on a regular basis.

"Yeah, Chuckie," he said, "There's a good chance we can kill two birds with this one."

Ceril noticed that Saryn cringed a bit when he said "kill two birds," but she covered it quickly.

"But," Saryn said, "where are these instructions?" She tripped as her foot hit an uneven space between the stones in their path. "Ugh!" Saryn was able to catch herself before cracking her knees or head on the stones. "I'm fine," she said and dusted herself off before anyone could ask. She continued her conversation without missing a beat. "Wouldn't these instructions be hidden away somewhere?"

Ceril's eyes got wide for a split second and then returned to normal as he smiled at her. "They're not. Not really."

"What do you mean, Ternia?"

"Okay, so the Jaronya worship their Ancestors, right?"

Saryn nodded.

"And the priest of the Ancestors somehow communes with or controls whatever the Ancestors left behind?"

"So he's the one with the book," Saryn said.

"It's not a book," Ceril said. "The Jaronya who talked to me mentioned that the Ancestors left their instructions for everyone to read, not just these priests. Initially, the instructions were on the buildings and structures around the city. I'm not saying there are no books, but there weren't books to begin with. Over time, most of the original text has probably been destroyed or lost."

"Okay, that makes sense." Saryn said. "I'm not really seeing that as a good thing for us, though."

"It's not," Ceril continued, "in general. But from what the Jaronya told me, the Ancestors were the kind of builders and educators who wanted information prominent at all times, not just when someone felt like reading it privately."

Chuckie looked back over his shoulder and said, "So you're saying that these Ancestors, instead of writing books or creating data feeds, just took whatever they had to say and then plastered it all over the place? Like advertisements?"

"Very similar, yes," Ceril said. "Though I don't think they were advertisements exactly. Carving messages on monuments or buildings isn't unheard of on Erlon. I mean, there are many places in Yagh and Ferran that did it until very recently. If this civilization was once connected to Erlon, those instructions really are going to hold the key to our mission. That's where we'll find mentions of the Untouchable, if there are any."

"What makes you think that? Why don't we just wait until we see this priest and ask him about it?" asked Chuckie.

"The major part of the research I've done for years was figuring out how Ferran, Yagh, Bester, and Ternia were connected through myth. You see, those particular countries are unique on Erlon in that they all have Instancing capabilities and are considered civilized. The uncivilized parts of Erlon don't have Instance portals anywhere near them."

"So what?"

"I'm getting to that, Chuckie. What's even more interesting, is that each of those countries has legends and stories about heroes and gods with different names. What really struck me is that all those heroes, all those gods, did kind of the same stuff. This one brought a guy back from the dead, that one killed a dragon with nothing but his bare hands."

"Again, I ask, so what?"

"The more I traced them down, I realized that the stories that were similar all originated at roughly the same time within each culture, give or take a few hundred years. More than that," Ceril continued, "the names of the characters in these myths were vaguely similar—not exact, but similar. The only ones that traced through mostly unchanged were technomage names."

"Like Vennar," Saryn said.

Just hearing the name made Ceril's shoulders tense up. He had not been able to deal with what Roman and Bryt had told him about his grandfather. Not yet. Gramps of all people was a Charon—an ancient Charon—who had stories and myths written about him in every single place Ceril had studied so far. Damien Vennar, Ceril thought. It just sounded so wrong.

"Just like Vennar," Ceril said. "He's probably the most frequently mentioned person in the myths, actually. Lots of stories in Yagh talk about him like he's a villain—"

"I know," Saryn said. "I grew up with them."

"—but a lot of them from Ferran or Ternia have him being a pretty decent guy. Bester's legends don't mention him much, actually."

"What does all this have to do with us, though, boss?"

"I'm getting there, Chuckie. Basically, you can infer that all the civilizations on Erlon were, at some point in the past, much more similar than they are today. They wouldn't be able to have stories and myths that parallel otherwise. If we can find some of the myths from Jaronya, that connection might be here, too. We know that they know about Charons—they have Flameblades, after all. So if they have something written about the Charons, or about," he swallowed, "Vennar or one of the other technomages, there's a good chance we'll find something written about the Untouchable, too. I mean, the guy responsible for all the violence on Erlon for the past few years appears to be playing off the old stories and legends."

"What if the old Untouchable were from here?" Saryn asked. "What if he were one of these Ancestors?"

Ceril thought about it, thought about Cernt Academy. "It makes sense," he said. "We have no idea how long this Instance has been around, and we know even less about the Untouchable, the old one or the...terrorist one..."

"You okay, boss?" Chuckie asked.

"Yeah," Ceril said. He blinked and shook his head. "Sorry about that. Just thinking about something. Look, there's no guarantee this priest of the Ancestors is going to cooperate with us—"

"Then we take the books or whatever from him when we see him!"

"No, Chuckie. We don't," Ceril said. "We ask him if we can see the instructions and explain our mission."

Saryn frowned. "He's not going to let you see them, you know."

"Why not?" Chuckie asked.

"Why would he?" Saryn countered. "If he's built a life on being the only person with enough knowledge and favor to be able to read and interpret them, there's no way he's going to give that up."

"Even if he thinks we're the messiahs?" Chuckie said.

"Especially then. If we're seen as their messiahs, it means he loses the power he's held over the people for so long. He would be our servant, literally, instead of our servant in an abstract sense."

"I think we're going to have a bad time these next few days," Ceril said, and he ran his fingers through his hair.

"You really have all this figured out, don't you, boss?" Chuckie said.

"Okay, Ternia, let's say that you somehow pry these instructions from the priest's purple fingers. You get your hands on them, your eyes on them, whatever."

"Okay."

"Can you read them?" Saryn asked.

Ceril kept walking and bit his lip. "I don't know," he finally said, not looking at either Chuckie or Saryn. "I doubt it."

"Then why do you even want to find it?" Chuckie asked.

"Because I have hope that the language it's written in will be based on something I've seen before."

"You have hope?" Chuckie sneered.

"Yes, Chuckie, I do," Ceril said, doing his best to keep his voice as calm as possible, which was an easier task to think about doing than actually following through with when dealing with Chuckie. "Roman and the other professors would not have sent us to make connections between the Instances if there were no connections to be made."

Chuckie harrumphed. "We'll see."

"Yes, we will," Ceril said. "I'd like to have something to be able to defend ourselves with before we go before their leader, and we have a lot of ground to cover."

"Should we split up?" Saryn suggested.

"No, absolutely not. We're already split without Harlo and Swinton, and I'm not taking any more chances. I'm pretty sure we're safe for the moment, but I would rather we don't take any unnecessary risks. And since they took our weapons..."

"They didn't take our nanites, though. We can still Conjure," Chuckie said.

"Maybe. It depends. I can't summon my Flameblade, but that's a little different. And besides, Conjuring is what got us in this mess to begin with. We need the breathers still, but let's try not to Conjure anything else that might draw undue attention. And using nanotech to blast one of them out of the sky is probably a bad way to plead our case that we're not here to hurt anyone."

"Point taken," Chuckie said.

Saryn said, "Have any idea where to start, Ternia?"

"Yeah, I do. The angel I was talking to earlier pointed out an obelisk to me. He made it out like some of these instructions were written on it, but that they were reserved for the priest. I say that's our best bet to start."

"Now you tell us," Chuckie said. "Lead the way, boss." He bowed slightly in deferment.

Ceril glared at him. It wasn't worth the wasted time.

Saryn just nodded and fell into step beside Chuckie.
Chapter Twenty-one

Damien Vennar liked what they had done with the place. The last few centuries of renovations had left the interior of Ennd's Academy almost unrecognizable, but most of the changes were nice. He was not sure that he would have gone for the same decor; the steel-gray was unpleasantly sterile, but the beige sandstone was enough to offset that feeling.

The dining hall was behind him, and he was not sure where he was headed now. Once upon a time, the dining hall had been connected to the primary research laboratories, but that was no longer the case. He was amazed that there were no other people nearby, but he was glad for it.

Other people would complicate things, and he felt a twinge of sadness as he thought of Swarley Dann's corpse wrapped in vines on the botanical terrace. He was not sad for Swarley, though; the boy was an acceptable casualty. Years of doing his job and playing the role he carved out for himself had hardened Damien to casual loss of life. One thing he had learned through the years was that some people just got in the way of his plans and had to be removed before they became even greater complications. Swarley had come out of class early and become a complication. Damien did not regret taking a life to fulfill a mission.

Yet, he felt ashamed. He was ashamed because Swarley had been one of his grandson's best friends. He was ashamed because he had taken advantage of one of Ceril's relationships to further his own plans. When he killed one of his grandson's only friends, he had crossed a line.

He did not regret crossing it; he was just ashamed that he did. But if he were in the same situation again, he would do the same thing. Still, he was ashamed of what this news might do to Ceril if he ever found out.

Damien promised himself he would never let that happen.

A voice from behind him interrupted his thoughts. "Excuse me, sir?" said a young girl. She was no older than Ceril had been when Damien had last seen him. She was maybe thirteen or fourteen years old, with copper hair pulled back into pigtails, freckles, and blue eyes. Damien was a tall man, and this girl came to just barely above his navel.

He whipped around to meet her, prepared to remove another complication to his plans. He waited a moment and said, "Yes?"

"I'm sorry to bother you, sir, and I know I'm probably going to get into trouble for this, but could you tell me how to get back to the Phase II dormitories?"

"What?"

"I know, sir. It's been the better part of a year already, but I keep getting turned around in the halls and losing my bearings. My mom says I was never very good at finding my way around and that she was amazed I even got through Phase I. I went to dinner in the dining halls with my friends, but I had to leave early because I have to take a final that none of them have to take, so I thought I would cut through this way because I think I remember someone telling me that I could get back there by this hallway, but I'm not so sure. I think I might have taken the wrong corridor from the one they pointed out because I don't remember these colors being in the girls' side. The boys, sure, but the girls? I think I'm lost." She finally shut up when she had to take a breath.

Damien looked at the young girl and smiled. "I'm not sure I would be the best person to help you find your way back, to be honest, miss. If I had to guess, though, you could continue down this hall until you find someone who could. Maybe a professor or another student."

"You're not a professor?" she asked, and he shook his head. "I'm amazed at that, sir. You look like you belong here. I don't know why, but you do. Thanks anyway. If you're not a professor, are you a student? Do they take older people—no offense—to be students at Ennd's? If they do, then I haven't ever heard about it."

"I'm not a student, either, my dear," Damien said. "I'm a...a consultant. I am trying to find my way back to Headmaster Squalt's office."

"So you're lost, too?" she asked.

"Not so much lost," he said, "as I am a little turned around."

"We should stick together," the copper-haired girl said. "My dad tells me that when I'm lost to find someone who knows the way, and if I can't find someone who knows the way to just find someone because if you're both looking for the right direction, then maybe the other person will see things that you couldn't."

Damien frowned and thought of Swarley's body. The skin on the back of his hand began to ripple as the nanites in his blood prepared to Conjure a quick way for the talkative young girl to die. "I don't think that would be such a good idea. We're going to two entirely separate places, miss. Why don't you run along. I'll keep an eye out for the girls' dormitory and you do the same for Headmaster Squalt's office. If we happen to meet again, we might be of some use that way."

"Okay," she said. "Whatever you say, sir." She waved and started moving quickly down the hallway in front of him. "Bye!"

He waved at her and wondered if he had made a mistake when he told her the truth about where he was headed. It probably didn't matter. The girl talked so much about so many different things, if his destination had somehow managed to find its way into a conversation, it would be so buried under so many other tidbits of impertinent information that no one would give it a second thought.

Also, if he were to need to, Damien figured that he would be able to find and kill her with little problem.

He continued down the hall, and he heard the little girl scream. It was a short yell, not an extended howl, but it was full of emotion that made Damien get gooseflesh.

Damien was a hard man. He had seen and done things his entire life—and it was a long life—that would make other people weep in horror or regret. He had learned to steel himself against tragedy and shock, but when he saw the little copper-haired girl's dead body, he got angry.

Not because she was dead. No, he had been ready and willing to end her life. What he had not been ready to do was disrespect her when he did so.

Blood was everywhere. Damien spared a split second to take in just how much blood was in the little girl and how significantly it managed to spread along the corridor's walls and floor. He stood in the center of the hallway now. To his left and a few feet ahead of him, lying in a pile that very much resembled how Damien kept his unwashed laundry, was at least part of her body. What flesh he could see was mangled, and he was tolerably certain that a shoe stuck out of the pile.

He swept his gaze to the other side of the corridor and that's when he gave in to the rage. The girl's eyes were staring at him in horror, her mouth frozen open from her dying scream. Her arms lay at her side, but not in any traditional sense. They were severed, still leaking blood that was forming pools that coated the corridor. This young girl had been murdered and brutalized in less time than it had taken him to walk twenty feet.

He understood killing was sometimes unavoidable, but this kind of brutalization was never necessary. What kind of person would do a thing like this?

Damien realized he was not dealing with a person when something whipped past his head. The realization quelled his anger almost immediately, but opened the door for a completely different kind of rage: the kind that comes when something was trying to kill him.

The old man ducked to the side with a grace he hadn't expected. He took what cover he could from the slightly curved corridor wall and allowed himself a few seconds to survey just what exactly was going on. He was in Ennd's! How could that little girl have been killed there? She was supposed to be safe there.

What was going on?

The corridor came to an end a few feet ahead. It met at a perpendicular intersection with another hallway whose walls were also gently curved. From both sides of the intersection, Damien saw what had killed the copper-haired girl and had tried to kill him. Vaguely humanoid constructs stood almost ten feet tall, bore the head of either a jackal or falcon, and held either a shimmering stone axe or a staff that arced and crackled with blue-white energy. Security golems, he thought. Great.

Somehow, he must have triggered a security protocol. He would have to figure out how later, but right now, he had bigger concerns than how he got into the situation.

He assumed that it had been a bolt of some kind from one of the golems' staves that whipped past his head. Judging by the condition of the girl's corpse, he was damned lucky that it missed. He hadn't seen these golems in action for centuries; he hoped that Ennd's hadn't upgraded them significantly since the last time he'd seen them. They were formidable opponents, and this was the first time that Damien had ever found himself on this end of their wrath.

He peeked his head around the corner as far as he dared and tried to get an accurate count of how many of the constructs there were. They came around from both sides of the connecting hall, and he counted five. He expected at least three more, unless the Academy had renovated that protocol, too. Given the level of security they had in other areas, he suspected that the golems were only called in on the most serious offenses.

He was flattered that he seemed to be considered a serious offense. He smiled at the thought. It had seriously been too long since he had done this.

He could hear the golems coming closer. If he remembered correctly, they communicated wirelessly with one another, so there were no audible or visible signals. The team who had created the sentries had designed them from Ferran mythology, and he remembered how exceptionally dangerous they had been in the past.

Now, Damien was hopelessly outnumbered, and he just didn't know how his body could handle extended or powerful Conjuring at this point.

Their footsteps came closer. He could now hear the electricity crackle from the staves. He could hear the Annuban golems swing their stone axes and strike the floor and the wall. Their footsteps became wet as they passed through the copper-haired girl's blood.

He had to think fast. If he didn't, he wouldn't survive this encounter. Damien knew how the golems worked, but if there were as many of them as he thought, he would stand no chance head-to-head. Even if his body could handle the stress, eight security golems were more than he could Conjure against.

He would have to use them against one another. In the confined space of the corridor, he hoped that it wouldn't be a problem.

More bolts of electricity whipped down the hallway and scored the walls. He had to act fast, or he would end up being killed where he stood. He took a deep breath, readied the nanotech under his skin, and hoped that his magic would not fail him as he stepped directly into the patch of an Annuban's swinging weapon.

The axe missed, but just barely. It struck the wall almost exactly where his legs had been. Not even a second, he thought. Any slower and you'd be dead, you old bastard. He had to pick up the pace if he wanted to live through this.

The nanites under his skin came to life. They coated his lower arms and hands in blackness. They served no purpose yet, but they were ready. Damien saw the pair of golems who were leading the charge. He had maybe three seconds before they noticed him. The strike that had barely missed him was random, meant as a warning shot for anyone in the vicinity.

And it had nearly killed him.

The nanites in his body went to work. Despite his age, Damien needed to be able to move like he used to. He knew pushing his body this hard would take its toll, but the situation was a little more severe than he had expected. He felt his whole body tingle as he activated the vast majority of the nanites in his system. They surged with power. For the time being, he would be able to move and act and fight like a man a fraction of his age. Damien prayed to anyone who would listen that his method of saving himself from being killed wouldn't end up with him dead anyway.

Even in mid-battle, it made him somewhat sad that the only time he ever felt this good was when he engaged the nanotech inside him. Despite having sworn it off and despising the technology coursing through his veins, using the machines felt like going home after a long vacation.

Damien ran directly at the two golems in front, and their eyes locked onto him. With his nanite-infused blood, his momentum was greater than what it should have been from a standstill. The Annuban swung its axe at the spot where the old man had just stood, while the Horrith golem's eyes glowed a fierce yellow. Its staff spun upright and slammed into the ground. Electricity spiraled from the bottom to the top and then arced immediately to where Damien Vennar had stood, scorching the ground at the moment his companion's axe struck the same spot.

Damien's feet dropped from under him, and he slid under the poleaxe and directly into the golem's shins. The force was not enough to knock the golem over. That would have been too much to ask for—a domino effect of killer robots that would have made the situation easy to escape from. Instead, the blow unbalanced the Annuban enough that Damien was able to knock the weapon from its hand with a quick snap of directed nanites. Blackness surged from Damien's forearm and threw the axe behind him. The weapon was far too large for him to wield effectively, but at least it was no longer in the contruct's hands. He got to his feet quickly, barely dodging another bolt of lightning from the Horrith's staff.

The other golems were beginning to notice him now. He ran toward the left wall and pushed himself away from it, using his body as a projectile. He slammed into an oncoming Annuban's chest. Again, the impact was not enough to knock it down, but it didn't matter. He had shoved the giant robot close enough to the Horrith's crackling staff that arcs of energy ran up and down its body, frying whatever was inside.

That's one, Damien thought. The lifeless Annuban toppled forward onto the Horrith that held the staff. The dead weight of the robot forced the electric staff into contact with the Horrith's falcon-like head. Apparently, only its hands and arms had been designed to withstand the current from its weapon in anything. When the staff pressed into its body, arcs of current spread through the golem, and killed it. You'd think we'd have thought of that, Damien mused.

He took a mere second to admire his handiwork. The two golems lay on the ground unmoving, the glow in their eyes gone. Two down, he thought and looked toward the remaining six.

His skin tingled as he refocused his anger. The nanites responded well to intense emotion, and he could feel them as they readied themselves for use. Damien looked ahead. He had been right; there were six more golems ready to cut him down. Three Annubans and three Horriths. That meant three more stone halberds and three more electric staves trying to slice, stab, and bludgeon him.

The first two he had taken down had been simple enough, if taxing. He hoped the remaining six would be equally simple. The constructs noticed him exactly when he thought they would. Their eyes flashed in unison and maintained the glow that indicated they were focused on their next target. Damien swallowed and stood firmly in place. He hoped he hadn't lost his touch for Conjuring in a fight. He willed the machines out of his body; he needed insulation against the electricity more than anything. He figured he could avoid the axes more easily than arcs of energy.

He figured.

Still, a lash or two with the staff was all it would take to cripple or kill him, so he had to be careful. Once he felt the Conjured machines harden over his skin, he charged directly at the closest Horrith construct.

He dodged the Annuban's axe to his left, but as he did so, two other Horrith guards spotlighted him with their staves. Blue-white energy surged into his body. If he hadn't insulated himself, he would have died, and barring that, he would have been scorched into immobility where death would quickly follow. The nanites absorbed most of the energy, and he quickly refocused that energy toward the nearest Annuban. He held his hand out and unleashed the blue-white energy from his palm, burning the construct's face beyond recognition.

The construct's body kept swinging the halberd but without any means of directing it. Damien considered himself safe. If he were lucky, the faceless Annuban would strike one of its peers. Damien dodged the wildly flailing axe as it did just that. The great stone weapon dug itself deep into the gut of another Annuban, locking the two constructs together and severely limiting their mobility. They weren't going to be as much of a threat for a while. The nearest Horrith shot an arc of energy at him, so Damien sidestepped.

Directly into the path of another Horrith's bolt.

He hadn't prepared for the shock, and wasn't able to redirect its energy as he had before. His legs wobbled, and he fell. He lay on his back as he saw a stone blade descend toward his head.

It did not take long for Damien to realize that he had made a mistake. He had lain still for too long, and he paid the price. He tried to roll to his right, but the weapon caught his left arm as he moved. Pain erupted in his side, and he lost feeling from the whole appendage. The nanite exoskeleton had protected the arm from being cut off, but it was still a heavy blow from a heavy weapon. Damien focused his fear of losing his arm into the nanites he sent to the injured arm to get it working again. He hated spending the energy on healing, but it was better than the alternative.

He got back to his feet. The Annuban who struck him was winding up for another blow, and the old man was not sure he could move in time. A sizzle came from his right as another arc of blue-white energy crackled and blackened the floor beside him. The Annuban swung, another arc of lightning came, and the old man dove forward putting himself dead center of the remaining four mobile constructs.

He crouched and swept his gaze around him. One Annuban and three Horrith's surrounded him. The only saving grace he could see in the situation was that the golems' power and size, while formidable in combat, did not allow them to orchestrate graceful maneuvers and repositioning. Even though he was a large man, he was diminutive in comparison to the golems. His size was about the only advantage he had in this situation. As they were turning to face him, he was already Conjuring.

Damien knew he had to be careful. His left arm was devastatingly injured, and the only reason he was able to move it because he filled it full of nanites that took over his involuntary body functions—muscle control, moving his fingers, not holding his arm as dead weight at his side, that sort of thing.

If he took too long to Conjure his next attack, he'd be dead. If he did not Conjure it with enough power, he'd be dead. If he did not Conjure the right attack, he'd be dead. Conjuring was an art, one that Damien had begun teaching millennia ago as he and his colleagues first found the connection between human emotion and nanotechnology.

But Conjuring took practice and concentration, neither of which Damien had in droves at that moment. He had always been excellent at the big Conjures. Ennd's itself was testament to that, but he had only succeeded in Conjuring that because he had tapped into the pocket of energy, and it had been years since he had done anything of that magnitude. And while he was still technically near that same hotspot, the energy was being channeled away from its concentrated source and utilized all throughout the facility. Damien knew the Instance within the main tower of the building was where the majority of the energy was, but it was blocked off from him. He had introduced safeguards to prevent just this type of incursion. However, he had never expected that he would be the one trying to access it.

Without the energy reservoir from the site, Damien had to make do with the energy his own emotions created. He was still angry at the brutal nature of the copper-haired girl's death, and he was scared. After being alive for so long, he had heard word of many of his colleagues taking their own lives when they could not die naturally.

They were braver men than he was. He had always been afraid of the oblivion that he expected to come. Now, kneeling between four security constructs that had once protected him, he was scared that he might die and find out if his thousands of years of atheism had been the right path. He thought it was, but if these were his final moments, a part of him hoped that even one of the gods was real, that science was not the only truth.

If his Conjuring failed, he would find out shortly.

Damien knew that his abilities were not at their full power, and the best bet he had was to make an escape. He ducked as low to the ground as he could, feeling the whoosh of an Annuban's halberd sweep just above him. Energy crackled as the Horrith guards turned their bird-like heads to focus on him. He needed at least one of them to strike him, to pour at least as much energy into the nanites coating his body as he had used to maim the Annuban moments before. He hoped, though, that only a single strike would hit him while he prepared the Conjuring. He could probably—probably—withstand two strikes at once, but if he got a triple dose, his nanites would be too busy attempting to protect him from the attacks that they couldn't do what he needed them to do.

When it came, the shock hit him like nothing he had ever felt. Maybe it was the close range. Maybe he was already expending too much energy keeping his arm from being a liability. Or maybe it was just that the Horrith stopped pulling its punches.

The reasons why didn't matter when Damien felt the arc of electricity strike his back. As the energy began to burn into the nanites, he knew that he had one chance, one shot, one opportunity to live through this and find out who broke into his house and wanted him dead. For a brief second, he was thankful he had been able to Conjure himself invisible that night at his house. If he had been confronted with a situation like this as he first reintegrated his nanites, he would have been a dead man.

He saw the halberd crushing his left arm. He saw the two golems crashing into one another and convulsing as they died. And he saw Ceril's face as it was the last time Damien had seen him. When he had just been Gramps, and the world had finally been a simple place, at least for a little while.

He held onto that. He felt that sense of loss, of happiness, of anger and regret. He grabbed it, focused it into his nanites, and pushed outward. He redirected the energy from the Horrith staff weapon outward in all directions. The current kept coming in, and he felt the nanites in his back start to give way as the energy became too much for them to take. When he unleashed it, he felt that the force would never destroy his attackers. He was not strong enough yet. I'm sorry, Ceril, he thought. The pain from his failure, all his regret and anger, was picked up by his nanites. The tiny machines fed on his emotion, and Damien found himself surrounded in an arcing dome of purple-green energy that deflected all of the Horrith's lightning and the Annuban's axes.

Damien stood up. He was completely protected inside the dome of energy. Somehow, his rage, his fear—all of his emotions—were replaced by tranquility and calm. He held his hands out to his sides, palms up, and the purple-green shield pulsed once and expanded outward from the elderly technomage.

It was enough. When he had seared the Annuban's face off, it had been a directed strike, focused. Now, it was an omni-directional power play, and it was just enough to knock the constructs out of his way. The Horrith who had struck him got caught in a feedback loop and dropped its staff. The lone Annuban in the group stumbled backward as its axe buried itself deep inside its chest.

The other two Horrith sentries' eyes crackled with electricity; Damien had given them matching scorches across the face, hindering their vision, if not completely blinding them. Electricity arced randomly around him as he ran past his attackers.

Smaller arcs of electricity fell from his feet as the nanites coating his body attempted to ground whatever residual current was in his system. He knew the golems would follow him, and he knew that he might run into more.

But he had survived—barely. The old man felt young again; he had not fought like that in quite some time. His feet carried him down the left-hand corridor from which the constructs had come earlier, toward—he hoped—the Library and Headmaster Squalt.

He heard heavy footsteps behind him; the security drones were coming after him. They had recovered. He knew that his attack wouldn't kill them, but he marveled at the speed of their recovery. Damien could not tell how far back they were or how long it would be until they caught up with him. He never looked back to see, either.
Chapter twenty-Two

Swinton Marelotov hadn't thought carrying another person's supply pack would be that tough. It really hadn't been at first, but the rocky, always-uphill terrain was having its way with him, and Swinton was getting tired.

He blamed it all on Harlo's bag.

He couldn't just leave it behind, either. She was the only medic they had, and if those angels hadn't killed her yet, she would need her supplies to patch up any of them who got injured. From the way the past twenty-four hours or so had been going, there was likely to be quite a bit of patching going on before they were done.

A screech echoed all around him.

Swinton dropped to one knee as soon as he heard the sound. He ducked under an outcropping and tossed both bags on the ground at his feet. He peered around, doing his best to remain hidden, but saw nothing.

A second screech.

Another wonderful downside to being in the mountains was that everything echoed. If a single rock fell from a cliff, it sounded like an avalanche. Because of the echo and amplification, Swinton assumed there was just one angel screeching, but he couldn't be sure. He also couldn't tell where it was. He just knew that it was nearby. The rocky terrain echoed too much for him to locate its source.

It hadn't even been an hour since Harlo had been taken, and he was already about to run into another freaking angel. He cowered under the minimal shelter he had found, and re-secured the packs he had to carry. If he waited just a little more, there was a good chance the screecher would go somewhere else and leave him alone.

Dust trickled down in front of his face from the edge of the overhang. He heard flapping, then a dull thud above him. Something landed on the rock he was using for shelter.

He heard another shriek.

Swinton closed his eyes and breathed deeply. He was shaking, and he felt like he needed to vomit. He thought back to his training with Bryt. What was it that Bryt always told him?

"You have to calm down at some point, Swinton."

Calm down, sure. Like he could be calm when he had watched the other four members of his team get kidnapped. Like he could be calm when he was the only one left.

But he had to be.

Bryt's voice filled his mind. "If you're spastic in a fight, you're no good to anyone except your enemy. Take a second, calm yourself down, and look at your options. Most of the time, there are more than appear at first glance."

Okay, he had stopped shaking. That was good. Not shaking meant calm. Next, options. What options did he have? He had his gun, his nanite sleeve, and his packs of supplies.

More dust fell in front of him. He heard scraping above him. He figured it was one of the big, purple men shuffling around up there looking for him.

As another screech sounded, he started shaking again, and had to take a few more breaths to calm himself before it became a problem. It was only going to be a matter of time before the screecher found him. The thing probably already knew he was there, anyway. Why else would it have landed directly on top of him? Swinton understood how low the odds were that it was a coincidence.

So he had to do something, or he would be taken like the others. But what could he do? Shoot the thing? Burn it with some kind of Conjured fire? Throw medical supplies at it and hope to heal it to death? Nothing stood out as a good idea, but sitting there until it snatched him up was an even worse one.

More screeching.

More dust swirled in front of his hidey-hole, and he heard wings flapping. The thing was taking off. Did he really get that lucky?

No, of course not. The angel's feet appeared in front of him and descended from the overhang. They were bare and sticking out from beneath a flowing purple robe. They touched down softly, and the being they belonged to knelt down immediately. Its wings were outstretched, and their span was long enough that they fully blocked the purple sun from beaming in on Swinton. Darkness fell around him, and he stared into the angel's bloodshot eyes. They almost glowed in the low light.

Swinton swallowed hard, and his assailant's gaze never left him. Until that moment, Swinton had thought Bryt—small as he was—had the most intimidating stare he had ever seen. He felt like his soul was being examined.

Neither of them moved for a long moment, then Swinton decided to do something. It might not be the right option, but at least it was an option.

He pulled his gun's nose up and fired at the winged man. The gun wasn't a slug-thrower, either, and if it had been, things might have turned out differently. As it was, however, the pulses of blue energy that shot out of the gun were intercepted before they reached their target. They dissipated as they struck the broadside of the Flameblade the angel brought up to protect itself. Swinton kept firing, even trying to lower the intensity of the pulses mid-barrage to see if the wider, less focused shots would make it partially around the Flameblade's sponge-like aura.

No such luck.

Any shot he fired, the angel's sword absorbed, its purple aura glowing brighter with each burst it yanked out of the air. The purple man's face might as well have been stone.

Well, that isn't working, Swinton thought. He gulped and tried to remember what Harlo had said to get its attention. He was pretty sure it was just Charon.

"It's okay," Swinton said. "I'm a friend." Like it would believe that after you just shot at it, Swinton. It has to be smarter than that.

No response.

"I'm a Charon."

It screeched in response.

That was it, all right. The angel's mouth didn't move to emit the sound, but it very obviously originated with him. There was another word, though. What had the thing said to Harlo before it took her? Swinton briefly wondered if it was smart to go that route. If it took Harlo because she had said that word, would he fare any better?

Now that the creature wasn't shielding itself from Swinton's shots, it turned its Flameblade toward Swinton. It jabbed quickly at him, and he was able to move to one side. The thing slashed at him, and he just barely pushed himself far enough away to avoid being cut. The purple fire surrounding the Flameblade touched him, but he felt nothing. He sat still, and the angel pointed the sword's tip deliberately at Swinton's throat.

This is what I get for shooting at it, Swinton thought. I'm gonna die right here. I'm too dead to be kidnapped.

Then the word came. He remembered what Harlo had been saying. He licked his lips and started shaking. "Juh-juh," he started. His mouth felt dryer than it may ever have. He coughed to clear his throat. He clenched his teeth and made himself focus. "Jaronya?" He had intended it as a statement, but it came out as a question.

The angel's eyes narrowed and thrust the sword toward Swinton's neck. He jerked to the side, and felt the metal bite into the flesh just below his left jaw. He put his hand up there to stop himself from bleeding out, but there weren't torrents of red everywhere. The angel had missed his jugular.

He didn't have long to celebrate being alive because the angel pulled the Flameblade back slightly and stabbed directly through his left shoulder. If the wall behind him had been anything but rock, he would likely have been pinned to it. Instead, he heard metal strike the stone behind him as pain radiated from his shoulder and into the rest of his body.

Being stabbed hurt so badly that Swinton barely even noticed when the sword disappeared. One second it was buried inside his shoulder, and the next it was just gone. It hadn't pulled out. It had just vanished. The angel's arm, however, had not. A large, purple hand gripped Swinton's injured shoulder and pulled him out of his hiding place. He yelped in pain as his attacker's fingers dug into his wound.

Swinton found his feet unable to touch the ground. He hovered there for a second before the ground began disappearing beneath him. The angel was kidnapping him, after all.

Luckily, the angel had adjusted his grip from his stab wound. Swinton was being hauled like he was some sort of sack, with the winged man's arm wrapped solidly around his midsection. The mountains rushed by beneath him, and he saw for the first time that there was indeed a path through the mountains. At least, by air.

Walking that path would have been nearly impossible—ridges, crags, and chasms would have been impossible to traverse—but there was a clear, winding valley higher up that reminded Swinton of one of the Skylanes back on Erlon. He had only flown in the Skylanes a couple of times, but the angel's flight-path was very reminiscent of weaving in and out of traffic between Bester's skyscrapers. They were gaining altitude, even though the ground remained a consistent distance beneath them. Swinton had no way to gauge how high they were, but it was getting colder, which meant higher altitude.

Each beat of his kidnapper's wings caused Swinton's injured shoulder to throb. The pain was tolerable, but just barely. Luckily, the longer they flew, the less he felt the pain in his arm. The wingbeats hurt less and less, even though they were steady and never slowed. The numbness began at the wound, and worked its way all the way down his arm and into his fingers. They had been in the air for maybe five minutes when he lost all ability to control his arm.

It had never occurred to Swinton that the loss of sensation and control in his arm would affect his ability to hold onto Harlo's medical supplies, but when he saw the pack plummet to the ground, he cursed himself.

Hope we don't need those any time soon, he thought. A knot formed in his stomach as he watched the medical pack fall. He wished that he had stayed a scholar six years ago. He never would have been in this mess if he hadn't been mesmerized by Ceril's damn Flameblade. He never would have been in a situation to be kidnapped in the first place, and thus he never would have dropped the supplies that might have saved someone's life. If someone died because they didn't have something in that satchel, it would be on him.

Swinton paused deriding himself as his captor flew out of the Skylane. This must have been what Ceril had been talking about when he said they needed to find civilization. Ruins stretched out below him—broken buildings, foundations, roofless houses, shattered towers. He could see what had to have been roads once upon a time, but now, they would barely pass for footpaths. Swinton struggled for a better look around, and as he swept his gaze from left to right, he saw that the entire ruined city was encircled by mountains, as if it was in some sort of valley in the middle of the mountain range.

The angel made a beeline for the only standing and complete building Swinton could see. It was a tower that dwarfed the rest of the ruins. It was, of course, purple, but it was also edged in gold. Its entire surface shimmered in the twin violet suns, their light unobstructed by clouds at this altitude. Many of the roads connected with the tower, like spokes of a giant, broken wheel. Maybe half a dozen of the angels flew around the tower at various altitudes—probably security patrols—and Swinton saw three more standing in front of the tall doors at its base. His captor wheeled himself around the tower and spiraled toward the top, flying formation with the patrols until he landed on a balcony over three-quarters of the way up.

He dropped Swinton without warning, and the Flameblade once again appeared in the angel's hand. He pointed the sword's golden blade at the wall, the purple fire appearing to melt a hole large enough for Swinton to fit through.

Swinton didn't move. He just looked at the hole, then back at the winged man standing over him. The angel gestured toward the opening he had made as though he wanted Swinton to hop right through so he could be sealed up inside the tower, but Swinton just stared at him. He wasn't going in there unless he had to.

To be fair, he was probably going to have go in there very shortly, but any kind of resistance he could muster was good.

"Swinton, are you okay?" said a voice from inside the hole. "What happened?"

Swinton tried to peer inside, but he could see nothing. "Harlo?" he asked.

"Yeah," came the reply. "What happened to your arm?"

"How did you—"

"Medic."

"Yeah, yeah," Swinton said. "This one stabbed me before he flew off with me. I kind of shot at him first, though, so I might have brought it on myself."

"Why don't you come in here and let me take a look at it? Were you able to grab my pack before you got taken?"

"Yeah," he said. "I did—"

"Well, throw it through to me, then come in. You're not going anywhere else. That balcony's not exactly accessible, you know?"

Swinton cleared his throat. "Did being the operative word there, Harlo. I...kind of dropped it on the way up here."

"Oh," she said. The one word conveyed a lot of disappointment. "How did you—"

"I can't exactly...feel my arm. It went dead a few minutes after he started flying us up here, and that was the arm I had your pack around. I just couldn't hold on anymore, Harlo. I'm really sorry."

"Yeah, me, too, Swinton. The supplies would have been able to help your arm. I'll just have to see what I can do like this, though. I might be able to work something out with my sleeve."

"I hadn't even thought about that."

"Most people wouldn't. Anyway, come in here. Tall, dark, and purple over there isn't looking too happy about us chatting like this."

Swinton looked up at his kidnapper, who was still pointing his Flameblade toward the wall. He must have been keeping the hole open. He stared at Swinton, his face expressionless. The lack of expression was more intimidating than anger would have been. If Swinton had any indication of how the angel felt about his prisoner, he would have felt better. As it was, he felt he might be served a nice, homemade breakfast once he got inside the tower, or he might be thrown off the balcony. They were equally likely.

He pushed himself up with his good arm and felt his balance waver. The wind didn't seem that bad when he was lying down, but once he stood up, Swinton felt the gusts more acutely. He tried to steady himself, but his left arm hanging as dead weight made it harder than it should have been. He put one foot back to brace himself, but he found only air.

Swinton tumbled over the edge of the balcony, and he heard Harlo yell after him. He was sure that he screamed, too. His descent stopped quickly, but not because he struck the ground. Swinton felt the familiar beat of wings as he rose back to the balcony's level. His kidnapper was still there keeping the portal to the tower open, so he must have been caught by one of the roving security patrols.

Maybe it was his lucky day, after all.

The two angels spoke to one another in a language Swinton couldn't understand. It was low and rumbling. He felt it more than heard it. He wasn't even sure their mouths were moving. He just felt the deep bass reverberating in the angel's chest as it hovered near the platform and discussed something with the other one. When their conversation ended, Swinton found himself being literally tossed inside the tower.

They had apparently grown tired of his lack of initiative and put him where they wanted him by force. The wall became solid as soon as he passed through. He struck the far side of the room and rolled onto his stomach. He grunted in pain, and Harlo was at his side immediately. She pushed him onto his back and laid his arm out as straight as she could.

"Are you okay, Swinton? What happened?"

"I fell."

"I noticed. How did you fall?"

"The wind out there was rough, I couldn't balance with this arm wobbling around all dead. I don't know. I just did."

"You're lucky one of those things was there to catch you."

He stared at her as she bent closer to examine his shoulder. "I think that's the only time we'll ever say that."

"Maybe," she agreed. "Can you feel this?" She poked her finger in the middle of his palm. He shook his head. "This?" She had moved to his wrist. Another shake. She moved up his arm, and each time, he felt nothing. "Okay, one more." She thrust her finger into the wound itself.

He cringed in anticipated pain, but none came. "Not a thing, doc."

"This is bad, Swinton."

"I didn't think it was good. By the way, do you have any idea how strange it is to have someone put their hand inside an open wound and it not hurt? It's kind of freaky."

"It is on my end, too. I'm going to do what I can to help you, but I'm not sure what's wrong."

"I'm sorry I dropped your pack."

"It's not your fault. And besides, even if I had my pack, I don't know if there's anything in it that could help with this. It isn't placed right for nerve damage to have caused the numbness, and it hasn't been long enough for infection to set in that severely, not from a wound like this. Tell me, Swinton, did this wound ever bleed?"

He thought about it and said, "No. I don't think it did. My neck did," he leaned his head over to show her where he had almost had his neck cut out, "but not the shoulder. I don't think so, anyway."

"Okay," she said. "That makes it tricky. I'm afraid this dead feeling is going to spread to other parts of your body. If it does..."

"Then do what you have to, doc. Just patch me up, and bill me later."

"Bet on it," Harlo said with a smile. "This may take a little while, so just lie back and relax, okay? I'm going to have to concentrate pretty hard to get my nanite sleeve to figure this out and fix it, so this friendly banter we've got going on..."

Swinton nodded and turned his head to the right. "Just tell me when you're done, alright, doc? I may try to get a nap in while you're working."

"I'm jealous," she said. "I need you to do one thing before you do that, though, sleepyhead."

"Yeah?"

"Take off your shirt and jacket."

"Harlo, I never knew—"

"What did I say about banter?" she said.

"Gotcha," Swinton said. "I might need a little help, though." She glared at him. "Seriously." He nodded toward his arm. "Can't move the arm, remember?"

"Mmm hmm." Together, they pulled off his fatigues. When they got to his undershirt, Harlo said, "Are you sure you didn't bleed any?"

"What?" Swinton looked down. "Not that I know of. It's just the color of the shirt—no blood mixed in." He paused, then said, "It was my brother's. He was in the army in Bester. He told me that he wore it whenever he was out on a mission, and he came back every time without a scratch. He said it would keep me safe, too. It's stupid, but this shirt was his way of telling me that he was proud of me for being picked and making it as a Charon, you know? I—"

"I get it, Swinton. Now, take your nap, and let me fix you up. I don't want to be the one to make your brother a liar." Then she plunged her fingers knuckle-deep into his shoulder.
Chapter Twenty-three

To the shock of his teammates, Chuckie was the one who found the inscription.

He said, "That what you're looking for, boss?" and pointed to a shattered tower not far away.

Ceril focused on the tower. "Yeah, I think it is, Chuckie. Good work." The three of them moved more quickly toward the ruins, which weren't an obelisk like Ceril had originally thought.

"Can you read it?" Saryn asked as they stood at the base of the tower. The building itself was broken at an angle, as though the weight of its upper section was just too much for the base to support any longer. If Ceril hadn't known better, he would have said that it had been cut away, given the angle and cleanness of the edge. The writing was inscribed at the highest point, and during Meshin's heyday, it must have circled the whole tower when it was still intact.

"I don't know," Ceril said honestly. He couldn't read it, but it wasn't because he did not know the language. He couldn't read it because it was simply out of range, too high up. "Can you, Saryn?"

"No," she said. "It's too far away. I can't even make out any characters."

"Me, either," Chuckie added.

The nanites in Ceril's nose and mouth surged. Tendrils expanded from his nostrils into his eyes, which once again went solid black with the magnification Conjuring. Saryn did the same, while Chuckie focused his attention on keeping watch while they were occupied.

"Stupid angelmen taking my guns," Chuckie muttered. "Lotta good I'm going to do if something tries to attack us."

Ceril and Saryn ignored him.

"What is it?" Chuckie asked, after the two of them stood gawking upward for a few minutes.

"Well," Ceril said, not breaking his gaze from the writing on the tower, "I can read it. Or some of it. I think."

"Really?" Chuckie said.

"Yeah, really. It's kind of weird, actually. I shouldn't be able to read it, though. No one should."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, it's written in...Ancient Erlonian. I guess that's what I'd call it."

"Okay, I'd think that's a good thing."

"But that's just it, Chuckie. There is no Ancient Erlonian language. We all speak Common now, but we haven't forever. Common dates back only as far as the original Untouchable's era, but before that, there is no indication of a universal alphabet or language." Ceril pointed at the peak of the tower. "Up there, I see characters from the Yaghian, Ternian, and Ferran sites I studied." He paused a moment. "You may have just made a huge discovery, Chuckie."

"How's that?" Chuckie asked, and Ceril wondered if the guy were really that dense if it was just for show.

"Because," Ceril explained, "those three written languages have nearly nothing in common with each other, but here, at least based on what I can see on the building, there are characters and syntax from all three regions utilized in a single script. It's not like they're being used separately, either. It's a single, unified script that uses all three sets of characters and grammars."

Chuckie still looked at him blankly, and Ceril said, "This might be the original source of the other languages. This Instance might even be older than Erlon itself."

Now Saryn looked at Ceril blankly, too. "Really?" she asked "Just from that fragment?"

Ceril nodded. "Yeah. Maybe. It's way too early to tell, and I'm not even sure what the symbols technically mean when put together like this, but that's my initial theory, yeah."

Somewhere around them, one of the Jaronya screeched.

Without a word, Saryn, Chuckie, and Ceril each ducked behind nearby walls. They watched silently as a well-dressed Jaronya in purple and green robes dropped from the sky and stood unmoving in the spot where the three of them had just stood. Ceril saw Chuckie open his hand and ignite a small sphere of flame in his palm.

"Easy there, Chuckie," said Ceril.

"I'm not gonna burn nothin. Yet. I just want to be prepared if he does anything stupid."

Saryn whispered to Ceril, "Should you talk to it? I mean, you're the only one who can. Maybe you can figure out what it wants."

She was right. Ceril sighed and began the intricate conversion of his Conjured breather into the translator that covered not just his mouth, but also his ears and the better part of his face. He felt like an idiot when it was on, but it worked, and that's what mattered. Unfortunately, it also helped cement their identities as the Jaronya messiahs. If he wanted to figure out how to get his team out of this, he had to take on that role.

Ceril took a deep breath as he finished Conjuring and heard Saryn give him a quiet "Good luck!" as he stood up and walked toward the Jaronya. Ceril noted that this one was dressed far more regally than the others he had seen. The Jaronya who had come to him in their makeshift cell was better dressed than the tatter-clad kidnappers, but this one wore a robe that Ceril could only assume would be reserved for either royalty or clergy. It would have been on Erlon, anyway. He doubted this was the priest who led the Jaronya, but there was little doubt he was decently high in the chain of command. He was probably a deacon or apprentice of some kind.

"What are you doing here?" the Jaronya asked.

Ceril stopped walking immediately. The last Jaronya he had spoken with had been...different. His previous conversation had felt stilted; he had to work for it to be a conversation at times. The angel in front of him, however, spoke with ease.

Ceril answered him honestly, "Trying to find a way home."

"I see," the Jaronya said. "Where is your home?"

"It's complicated," Ceril said after thinking a moment. "I'm from a world called Erlon and an area named Ternia. I most recently lived on a ship called the Inkwell Sigil."

"What are you doing here?" the Jaronya asked again.

"I don't understand," Ceril said.

"How will your examination of the Text help you get home?"

Ceril looked up at the tower. "The Text?"

"It is our scripture, the word of the Ancestors. You were trying to read the instructions they left us as we await their return."

Ceril glanced backward at Saryn and Chuckie. They were ignorant of the conversation, but he gave them a thumbs-up to let them know they were on the right track. Saryn smiled in return, and Chuckie just scowled.

"I recognize the symbols, the words," Ceril said. "But they don't make much sense to me."

"They should not. The Text is only decipherable by those chosen by the Ancestors."

"I..." Ceril said cautiously. "I am not so sure of that." The Jaronya didn't react to his counter, so Ceril continued. "I recognize many of the symbols, like I said. They make up three distinct written languages on my world. We call them Yaghian, Ternian, and Ferran, but I've never seen them put together like this."

"Mmm," the angel grunted.

"Can you tell me what this fragment says?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"I am not as convinced as some that you are here to raise our people to enlightenment. There is only basic evidence that you and your friends are the messiahs we have waited for. However, I have seen no real proof, nothing to convince me."

Ceril stole a glance back at Chuckie and Saryn.

The Jaronya continued, "You are ignorant of the Ancestors in nearly every way. While it yet may be proven that you are here to act in their name, I do not yet believe you have the right to understand the Text."

Ceril gritted his teeth. He wanted to scream at the angel in front of him, force him somehow to interpret the language on the tower, not because it would prove that he was the messiah, but it would help him get home, back to Erlon, back to Ennd's, and back to Gramps. But at the same time relief swept over him. Finally, there was someone here who may have some sense, and Ceril could see the potential in not everyone seeing them as messiahs.

"Thank you," Ceril said. "I never claimed to be your messiah. I never claimed to be anything. If I got the story right from the Jaronya—"

"You will not speak our name. You are not worthy." His voice boomed, though his body was stock-still. Ceril noted the power in its tone.

"Right. Well, the one of you who came and told us about the Ancestors made it clear that the two who attacked us thought we were some kind of prophesy coming true."

The Jaronya seemed to ignore him and said, "Why did you kill two of our brothers?"

Ceril was silent.

After a minute of silence, the Jaronya asked again.

"We had no choice," Ceril said.

"There is always a choice," the Jaronya said. In his mind, Ceril heard Roman speaking the same words as he left the Sigil. Is there always a choice, though? Ceril thought. He would have to choose his next words very carefully.

"Yes, there is," Ceril said. "But we had no choice but to kill them. They attacked us, kidnapped us. We were being taken somewhere we knew nothing about by creatures we had never seen before. We shot them when we were sure that there was no other way to escape. We thought it was our life or theirs, and maybe it wasn't that black and white. I'm sorry, but we were not going to take that risk."

The Jaronya was silent and then sneered at Ceril. Black, scaled wings began forming behind the Jaronya. Ceril didn't even notice that the Jaronya had no wings. It had come from above, shrieked, and caused him and his team to run for cover, and in that time, its wings must have disappeared. They were now building themselves rapidly from its back.

What? Ceril thought, It's Conjuring wings! Conjuring! Like a Charon!

Ceril looked at Saryn and Chuckie, not noticing that they were already moving to his side. When the wings were complete, the angel lifted off the ground. It hovered at eye level. Its gaze never left Ceril. The ball of fire in Chuckie's hand grew larger, but no hotter. He could supercharge the nanites in a split-second.

As if deciding that conflict was not the best course, the Jaronya beat its wings and rose until it was even with the writing at the top of the tower. It hovered there, and Ceril knew that it was reading the fragmentary text.

"You are to meet at the Temple within the hour. The high priest will see you and serve judgment on you for your crimes. The topic of your divinity will come into question and will be decided by the One chosen by the Ancestors. Do not be late." Gracefully, the angel twisted in midair and sped away. The three Charons watched it head toward the large, central spire.

"That was weird, boss," Chuckie said.

"Tell me about it, Chuckie."

"Did he just Conjure wings?"

"Yeah. Yeah, he did."

"What did he say?" Saryn asked.

Ceril glanced up at the writing well above their head as he recalled the nanites from the translator. He wrenched his neck with both hands until it popped, ran his fingers through his hair, and said, "He said we weren't his messiah, Saryn."

"Well that's a relief," she said.

"In some ways," said Ceril.

"What do you mean? I thought we wanted these winged freaks to stop looking at us like gods?" Chuckie realized that he was still holding Conjured fire in his hand and extinguished it. He wiped his smoking hands on his fatigues.

"We do. I think. This one was mad, too. He said we didn't have the right to read what the Ancestors left behind. He seemed angry we were even looking at what he called the Text—which, by the way, is their religious scripture—and said we had to go before the high priest within the hour to have our debt settled and pay for our crimes."

"Sounds like a real hootenanny."

Saryn said, "Where do we have to go?"

"The Temple," Ceril told her, "which, if I had to guess, is in the middle of this mess. There." Ceril pointed in the direction the Jaronya had flown. A single, complete tower rose above the ruins. It was tall enough that it could be seen from any point in the synthetic caldera.

Saryn responded with sarcasm, "Gee, Ternia, how'd you ever figure that one out? Was it that fancy machine you strapped to your head?"

"As a matter of fact, it was. Seriously, though, if these things want us there within an hour, I suggest we head out. I don't know if it'll be possible to make it that quickly since we don't know our way around the city, but at least we have a waypoint. We can see where we're going."

Saryn and Chuckie tightened the straps on their packs and set out for the center of the ruined city.

As they walked, Saryn said, "I thought that Conjuring was just something the Charons could do."

"Me, too," Ceril said. "I've been to a few different Instances and not one of their populations could Conjure. Or at least, they never did in front of us."

"But that didn't mean they couldn't."

"I see that. I just don't get it."

"Me, neither," said Saryn. "My research took me off the ship, too. And each time I left, I was told that I could wear my nanite sleeve, but if I did, I was not allowed to Conjure anything. Especially if I was anywhere on Erlon."

"You had one up on me, then. They barely let me practice with the sleeve."

"You know how to use them pretty good, anyway, boss."

"Not as well as I'd like. I think part of it comes from having a Flameblade, though. Bryt taught me how to use it, how to really treat it like it was part of me, and I guess that kind of helps with the sleeve, too. As far as Conjuring on Erlon, I know they keep technomages a secret—or try to—but I thought it was to protect people, not to hide the truth. I wasn't terribly worried when I saw the Jaronya scouts and guard have Flameblades. I didn't like it, but I wasn't worried. Stranger things have happened. But seeing that their wings are Conjured, too, makes me think something's up."

"If these Jaronya have the technology to Conjure," Saryn asked, "then why haven't they fixed their city with it? Or better, why did they not prevent it from being destroyed in the first place?"

Chuckie chimed in, "Maybe they couldn't."

"What do you mean?" Saryn asked.

"Well, these things seem awfully oppressed. We've seen em wear rags, and we've seen some that are better dressed than Headmaster Squalt. There's some kind of control going on, that's all I'm saying."

"Okay," Ceril said, "And?"

"Well, what if, like a long time ago, these things were trained out of Conjuring? To, you know, control them better."

"That's not an entirely stupid idea, Chuckie," said Ceril.

"Yep, didn't figure it was."

"I mean it. That makes a lot of sense, actually. And from what I've heard, I wouldn't put it past this high priest to do just what you said. Come to think of it, the first one I spoke with said that they didn't have the magic their Ancestors did. He said magic. He also said they didn't want it. What if that means the Jaronya aren't like us? What if they have the ability to Conjure naturally, not through the use of nanites and sleeves and all that?"

"That would mean their high priest, if Chuckie is right, isn't exactly a standup kind of guy," Saryn said. "Which doesn't comfort me, Ternia. If the high priest is all about control, and we killed two of his flock—no wing pun intended—wouldn't that mean we're walking to the firing squad right now?"

Ceril nodded. "Seems so, doesn't it?"

"What does that mean for us, then?" Chuckie asked. "What do we do?"

"Well, we don't have a whole lot of choices, Chuckie," said Ceril. "I think the best thing we can do is keep going, meet with this high priest, and figure out just what is going on. Find out who the Jaronya are, why they can Conjure, and if there is any way their Conjuring can help us find our way back to an Instance we know."

"And try not to let them execute us. Don't forget that," said Chuckie.

"Yeah, that's important, too," Ceril said. "We certainly don't want them to kill—"

His words were cut off as the ground gave way beneath him. Chuckie's reflexes were sharp enough to leap away as soon as he saw his companion begin to fall. Saryn lost her balance, but managed to stay away from the maw. Ceril, however, never had a chance to move out of the way: the ground crumbled directly beneath him, and he plummeted into darkness and out of sight of his companions.

Chapter Twenty-four

Damien could hear the constructs chasing him. Or, more accurately, he could hear the destruction they caused as they chased him. The ground shook under him, which spurred him to run faster.

The hallways passed him in a blur as he weaved through doorways and around corners. He occasionally passed a person who gave him a funny look, but he couldn't warn them about what was heading in their direction. If he did, the constructs would catch him and he couldn't have that.

So he ran. Hard. He pushed himself to his physical limits, and he was just barely able to stay ahead of the security drones.

The crashes were getting closer as he ran. Blocks of stone and pieces of metal began to shoot past him, landing in his path. As he rounded a corner, he felt the energy of a Horrith golem's bolt zip past his face and slam into the wall next to him. Dust erupted into his eyes.

He blinked them clear as he ran, and that's when he saw it. The Library. The massive doors leading to the central hub of Ennd's Academy. Damien's natural instinct was to drop to the ground and relax.

He had made it!

But he couldn't stop yet. Stopping would get him killed.

So Damien Vennar focused his fear, and the nanites in his veins energized his muscles into one last burst of speed toward the brushed metal doors.

He reached the doors just as a nicely dressed female professor entered a passcode into the control panel in the wall. She seemed oblivious to the constructs rampaging through the halls as she nonchalantly pulled the doors open with a whuff-pop. Damien leapt at her, hooked his arms around her waist, and dragged her into the Instance she had just opened. The destination didn't matter right now. Any Instance would do, would keep him safe from the golems.

Immediately upon entering the new Instance, Damien closed the door. He had to lock the security constructs out and hoped that Ennd's still wiped the last passcode from the entrance panel when the door shut. He heard no banging from the other side of the door, and nothing crashed through. He assumed he was safe for the moment.

"Get off me!" the professor said. She tugged at his hands around her waist, trying to free herself from Damien's grip.

He let go and said, "Yeah, sorry about that."

"I have a strange feeling you aren't," she replied. "Just what do you think you are doing? Who are you?"

"Damien Vennar," a voice behind them said.

Damien whirled, taking in his surroundings as he did so. High windows let bright sunlight beam into the oval room, where rounded walls housed books from nearly floor to ceiling. In the gaps where there were not books, numerous weapons sat in transparent cases. Damien recognized many of them from his youth, but some of them were not Erlonian in origin. As he turned to face the voice, his view was blocked. A gigantic holovid was being projected from the ceiling. The hologram dissipated as he faced it.

Sitting behind a crescent-shaped desk was a middle-aged man, balding, dressed in a very fine suit. He rose as if to greet Damien, but instead, he ignored him and spoke directly to the professor.

"He's an old acquaintance of mine, Nary," Headmaster Squalt said, and Damien smirked at the remark. "I thought he was deep into retirement by now. How is retirement, Damien?"

Professor Nary Thralls distanced herself from Damien and walked toward Squalt. Her demeanor had gone from anger to confused anxiety the moment that Squalt had said his name.

Damien stayed put. He put on a show of absorbing the events going on around him, but in reality, he was resting from the fight and chase that led up to his serendipitous arrival in the headmaster's office.

"Retirement was nice." His inflection said everything he needed it to. He added, "If you two have business to take care of, I can wait," as though he had just dropped by to chit-chat.

Squalt smiled, but it never touched his eyes. "Oh, heavens, no. I wouldn't dream of making an old colleague like you wait while we handled mundane academy work," he said, which translated into I'm going to get you out of my office as fast as I can one way or another, and you're not going to hear anything about my school while you're here.

Damien smiled back, but it never reached his eyes, either. "I'd never want to intrude, Gilbert."

Nary Thralls shifted her weight from one foot to another. She said, "It's nothing major, Headmaster. I can come back later."

"No, I don't think you can," Damien said. He was still smiling, but the force in his voice showed that he meant to take control of the situation. The not-so-friendly banter was getting them nowhere, and Damien needed answers. "Why don't we all have a seat and visit for a while?"

Nary Thralls looked at the headmaster who nodded in the affirmative.

Damien gestured at a couch and two chairs that Squalt used for comfortable meetings. Damien sat dead center on the couch, while the headmaster and professor each took a chair facing him.

Squalt eased himself into a chair. He squinted slightly at Damien. The look on his face said that he was being careful, that he knew Damien Vennar was dangerous.

Good.

"Do you know Nary Thralls, Damien?" Squalt asked as the trio settled in.

"No, I can't say that I do." The old man extended his hand to her. She hesitated, but eventually shook it. "Damien Vennar, ma'am. It's nice to meet you."

She just nodded and sat back in her chair.

"Nary is a new professor at Ennd's this year," Squalt informed him. "She teaches culinary arts, and I have to tell you, I have never tasted Yaghian goulash like hers in my life. You'll have to try it some time."

"Indeed I will," Damien said.

"So what brings you to our neck of the woods, Damien?" Squalt asked.

"How is Ceril these days?" Damien responded, completely ignoring Squalt's question. "I haven't been able to speak to him in years." Venom dripped from Damien's words.

"Oh, that's right!" Squalt said in faux remembrance. "Ceril is your grandson!" He turned to Nary Thralls. "You weren't here when Ceril Bain was a student, but he was a very promising young man who wanted to go into agriculture, if I remember correctly."

Damien glared. "Cut the act, Gilbert."

Thralls' eyes darted from her boss to Damien and back again, indicating that this was not the professional work environment she was used to.

"What do you want, Damien?" Squalt asked. The friendliness in his voice was gone.

"Answers."

"Shoot."

"How is Ceril these days?" Damien repeated.

"From the reports I get occasionally, I hear he's doing well. The last report I got from Nephil was that he was off-ship in an Instance doing thesis research on the connection between religion, myth, and location. Interesting stuff. You'll have to read his thesis when he's finished. He might be finished by now, actually. That report was a few months ago."

"I doubt I'll ever have that chance," Damien said.

"It's a shame. He's turned into quite the golden child for the Charons."

Nary Thralls eyes bulged. "What?" she said. It was the first word she had managed to speak since being dragged into Squalt's office.

Damien responded before Squalt could propagandize the reply. "You know the Charons, right, Nary? The technomages of ages past and the stuff of legends?"

"I know the stories like everyone else," Nary said. "There is no need to patronize me."

"I'm sure you do. I'm sorry," Damien said, and he meant it.

"That still doesn't explain what Headmaster Squalt meant when he said that your nephew—"

"Grandson."

"—grandson was a golden child for the Charons, though."

Both of the men ignored her.

"Golden child, huh?" Damien asked.

"Did you expect any less?"

"Hoped, I guess."

"Is that all you came here to ask me, Damien?" Squalt asked. He scratched the side of his head absently. "Because if it was, then your hermit's lifestyle has affected you too much. You could have always just sent a message to check on the boy."

"You know damn well that's not the reason I came."

"Then out with it, old man," Squalt said sharply. "I don't have all day."

Damien glanced at Nary and said, "I'm sorry." She looked puzzled. "I've been writing lately, Gilbert."

"Good for you."

"You see, in the village I lived in back in Ternia, I was a storyteller. I didn't socialize much, but on special occasions and events and for festivals, I told stories. I figure that I've seen enough that the least I can do is spin a yarn that the young kids want to listen to and that the adults have to wonder about."

"Interesting stuff," Squalt said. He raised his eyebrows and shut his eyes at the same time. He faked a yawn. "Go on."

"I planned to," Damien said. "Somewhere in there, I got the crazy idea that I needed to tell another story. This time, a true story. Of how all this happened."

"How all of what happened?" Nary asked.

"All of this. Everything we know, really. Ennd's. The technology we take for granted that was just miraculously left to us by the," he whispered, "technomages." He turned his attention back to Headmaster Squalt. "So I set out to write it all down. All of it, mind you. The truth."

"And who would believe you?" Squalt mocked. "The technomages are legends, and Erlonian society has functioned the way it has for thousands of years. You would come across as just another conspiracy nut. Or worse, a religious weirdo."

"There is that possibility," Damien conceded. "But there was also the possibility of people finally having the truth and knowing what to do with it." Damien leaned back and extended his arms across the back of the couch. "Either way, I started to write it down. Just a little at first, but since you took my boy, I had the inclination to finish it out, say it right."

"And what does this have to do with me?" Squalt asked.

"That's actually why I'm here. My home was recently broken into."

The room was silent.

"And?" Squalt prodded.

"And the only thing the intruders took after ransacking everything I own was this unfinished book."

"Well, that's just a shame," said the headmaster.

"Isn't it, though?" Damien retorted.

"And what does that have to do with you being here?"

"I want you to tell me who took my book and why."

Squalt laughed. It was an easy laugh, but Damien thought he heard some strain in it. Or maybe that was just his prejudice against the younger man. "I don't know anything about your book, Damien."

"Don't lie to me, Gilbert." He looked at Nary Thralls, whose expression was somewhere between interested and frightened. She smiled, and the edges of her mouth barely curled upward. She blinked hard a few times as she looked back and forth between the men. "You know more than you're letting on," he said.

"I don't! Why would I know anything about someone stealing a book from your house?"

"I don't know. But I heard them speaking our language, so I'm sure you could—"

"This is ludicrous," Squalt said, standing. "If you'll excuse me—"

"Sit. Down," Damien said. Squalt actually felt the power Conjured in Damien Vennar's voice, felt it echo in his chest. Squalt sat down, and Nary leaned back a little in her chair. "Gilbert, I'm going to ask you again: who took my book? And why did they take it?"

"I really don't know, Damien."

"Gilbert," Damien said, his voice even and measured, "I'm just an old man."

Squalt snorted a laugh.

Damien continued, "I want to know why someone would break into my home, ransack my personal space, and then leave after only taking a single, unfinished book off of my shelf. You're going to tell me, or things are going to get pretty ugly in here."

Squalt smiled. "Damien, if I knew anything, you know that I would be the first one to tell you. But I do not know anything. And Nary here certainly doesn't. She was just coming in to discuss a few students who failed her cooking courses in Phase II."

"I honestly regret that she got caught up with this," Damien offered. "But it's too late to cry over that kind of coincidence. I've worked too hard and been through too much today. I am going to find out what's so important about me and my book."

Squalt laughed at that. A legitimate, heartfelt laugh that took both Damien and Nary by surprise. He said, "You should know by now that there is absolutely nothing important about you anymore. And your book, I'm sure, is equally uninspiring. You're a relic, Damien. You had your chance, and you gave it up. Now, I know you did good things—great things—once upon a time, but you gave it all up. I don't know anything about your little storybook being stolen, but I do know that you caused me a great deal of trouble today."

"Glad I could be of service."

"I had been given reports that a visitor who claimed to be Swarley Dann's uncle kept trying to get the automated transport system to bring him to my office or the Library or something. And then when Uncle Dann could not get to where he wanted to go, his visitor's pass disappeared. Coincidentally, right after that, our security drones were activated. I assumed they would take care of any problem. And yet, here you stand in my office." The headmaster stood up, and Damien said nothing to stop him this time. Squalt went to his desk and tapped the screen on his tablet. "My newest report says that we're down nearly half a dozen security golems, and that the Phase II corridors are...in need of repair. Ring any bells, Damien?"

"Not a one, I'm afraid."

Squalt smacked his lips, "Then I think our business here is at an end, old friend. It seems we're at a stalemate, an impasse. We are both equally ignorant of the other's problems, so what can happen now, but to part ways and keep in touch occasionally?"

Damien cringed at the headmaster's melodrama. He was putting on a show because the cooking professor was here. Damien stood, too, but Nary remained seated. He walked behind her and said, "We do seem equally ignorant of one another these days, Gilbert."

That was when Nary Thralls started screaming. It was a high-pitched shriek that indicated terror more than pain. Damien's face showed no hint of emotion. He just stared at Squalt.

Golden light from the late afternoon sun shone through the windows, and it was tinted ever so slightly by the wooden shelves that lined the room. One window was perfectly aligned to shine light directly on the area where the three of them just sat, making it lightly glow with a hazy afternoon feeling of warmth. The effect was actually quite picturesque.

In stark contrast, Damien's right hand rested on Thralls's neck. Black tendrils extended themselves out of his hands and wrapped around Nary Thrall's neck. The blackness worked its way inside her body, and it slithered around her torso and face, crawling between her skin and the muscles beneath it.

It took Squalt a moment to realize what was happening, but when he did, he shouted, "Let her go!"

Damien scoffed. "No." He waited a moment, then added, "Tell me who broke into my house and stole my book."

"I don't kn—"

Nary Thralls screamed. Her cheek erupted as the black nanites burst out from under her skin. Blood speckled the arm of the chair. Damien looked at her and said, "Oh, please, Nary. It doesn't hurt that much." She screamed in response. He looked back at Squalt. "Well, it doesn't."

"I don't know who stole your book, Damien," Squalt said. "Let her go."

"I said no to that, already, Gilbert." He turned his attention to Nary. "What's about to happen, however, is going to hurt quite a bit." Tears welled in her eyes and her mouth opened to scream, but Damien clamped his left hand down on it before she could. "Let's try this the quiet way first. What do you say?"

She responded by blinking tears from her eyes and letting them run down Damien's hand. Squalt said, "Damien, why are you doing this?"

"I need answers, Gilbert."

"And you're not likely to get any from Nary Thralls. She's as oblivious to all this as... old man, she didn't even know the Charons were real until a few minutes ago. You heard her."

"More's the pity," Damien said. His whole right arm was pulsing now, the skin rippling as black tendrils of nanotechnology flowed from his body and out of the back of the hand he had attached to Nary Thralls' neck. She made a sound that would have been a shriek had he not been covering her mouth.

Squalt watched as the culinary professor's pale white skin darkened. Her cheeks and lips began to bulge, and her veins began to fill with nanites. Half of her face was filled with the tiny machines under Damien's control, and they were working their way up and down simultaneously. They poured from her nostrils and through his fingers, finding their way into her mouth. Damien removed his hand; it was no longer necessary to keep her silent. The nanites rushed into her throat and filled her airways and her mouth. Her neck expanded and throbbed as a solid layer of nanites separated her skin from her muscle. Tears rolled down her cheek and onto Damien's hand.

Her eyes looked back and forth between Damien and Squalt, and when they rested on the headmaster, he looked away when he saw the fear and pain in them. She was asking him for help, and he would do nothing.

Damien saw their eyes meet and focused his concentration on the nanites in her throat. The nanites released her airways, and she sucked in a sharp breath. Then she did what Damien had hoped she would do: she screamed. It was louder than he had anticipated, and it made Squalt flinch.

"You can help her, you know," Damien said. "Just tell me who took my book. Tell me why those people would break into my house and take something from me. In fact, you can tell me how they knew I was writing it in the first place."

Squalt ignored him. "What I don't get, Damien, is that you were able to breach our security and do this," he gestured at Nary, "but you weren't able to stop a few men from removing a single book from your home?"

"My nanites were inactive," Damien said.

"Of course they were," said Squalt, condescendingly.

Nary's cries and weeping became louder. She stared at Squalt the whole time, urging him wordlessly to help her. Damien urged the nanites to coat her eyes.

"I don't know who took your book, Damien," Squalt continued. "Why don't you let her go and stop this?"

"If you want me to let her go, then you'll tell me what I want to know. And you'll start within the next five seconds."

Squalt pursed his lips and sat down. He rested his elbows on the surface of his desk and steepled his fingers.

At the end of the five seconds, Damien leaned down to Nary's ear and said, "I truly am sorry for this. If any gods truly exist, you'll be in a much nicer place than I ever will."

She cried harder. She screamed louder. Her airways were once again blocked by Damien's nanites as they ramped up their expansion. Her once pale skin was now a dark shade of grey that was growing darker by the second. Her face, neck, and upper torso were bloated. Nary Thralls's skin looked wrong, like a sweater that didn't fit quite right. Her chest heaved as she tried to suck in air, but couldn't. Every so often, Damien would open her throat, letting her inhale or exhale, but never both. Every exhalation was a raspy scream, and every inhalation was a gasp.

Through it all, her tears never stopped. It only took a moment for Damien to finish what he had started.

Damien recalled his nanites; they rushed back to his body, coating him entirely for a split second before soaking back into his flesh. He looked at the dead woman, then back at Squalt, who said nothing. Damien fixed both of his hands on either side of Nary's skull. He twisted and pulled up at the same time, pulling the skull free along with a few vertebrae with a wet snap-pop.

He lobbed the professor's skull toward Squalt, and it landed on his desk and rolled toward the headmaster. He rose off his steepled fingers and elbows just in time for the disembodied head to fall directly into his lap.

Chapter Twenty-five

Ceril's first thought was that he had gone blind. His second was how much his whole body tingled, like he was just waking up from a lengthy nap and had to get his blood circulating again.

"Saryn? Chuckie?" he asked aloud and got no answer. "You there?"

He quickly Conjured a light in the palm of his hand to see if his vision really was gone. It wasn't. Wherever he was, there was simply no light anywhere. He extended the Conjuring, until he wore it on both hands like gloves made of light.

He was in no pain, so he picked himself up and tested his arms and legs.

Good. They all moved.

He remembered walking along...and then...falling? The ground must have given way beneath him as he walked. The ruins of Meshin were apparently in worse shape than they looked. He hoped that Saryn and Chuckie were okay.

He looked around, and all he could see was rubble; a dome of dirt and stone surrounded him, and he knew that he was lucky in that none of the bigger stones had landed on top of him. In fact, they had fallen so perfectly that he actually had enough room to sit up and move around, but not to stand completely. He could see purple dust floating in the air, especially around his hands. His Conjured breather would protect his lungs from the irritants, but not his eyes, so he Conjured a protective coating for his eyeballs.

He had to get out of there. His air would eventually run out, and he had to find out about the rest of his team. Chuckie was tough; he could take care of himself. But Ceril's heart began to beat a little faster when he thought about Saryn falling through the ground the way he had. She wasn't trained like Chuckie was. He had to make sure she was okay.

At the far end of the rubble dome, Ceril noticed a gap between stones that was slightly wider than the rest of the barrier. It was a potential way out. He lay on his back and kicked at the stone that partially blocked the opening, careful to place his force so that he would not topple the larger blocks above him.

A smile crossed his face as he did so. The concept he was using to free himself was not very different from a game that he and Gramps used to play. His grandfather had stacked different sizes of blocks in a tower a couple of feet high, and they would get points for pulling them out of the tower without making it topple. Larger blocks were worth more points, but were generally more dangerous to remove. Ceril loved the game, even though he had never been terribly good at it. He always wanted the high-point blocks even though they typically supported too much weight to be removed. He was always the reason Gramps had to rebuild the tower.

In his current situation, if he toppled the tower, he would do more than lose the game.

He carefully kicked the block to create an opening just big enough for him to squeeze through. He removed his pack and pushed himself through the tiny opening. Once Ceril was on the other side of the rubble, he carefully snaked his arm back through to grab his pack.

Even though he had spent very little time in the cramped little chamber, being able to stand up straight and stretch out was ecstasy. Once he had enjoyed just standing upright for a moment, Ceril called out to his friends again.

And once again, he got no response. He looked around, and he saw purple light above him. That must be the hole he had fallen through. He was too far below, however, for the sunlight to illuminate anything but dust particles in the air. Ceril boggled for a moment on how he had survived a fall from that height, but he pushed the thought from his mind. There would be time to dwell on that later.

The opening was way too high for any hope of climbing out, so Ceril had to make a choice: either he could wait for his friends to rescue him, or he could explore the chamber he had fallen into and try to find his own way out.

He opted for exploration, as there was no indication that Saryn and Chuckie were able to stage a rescue. The darkness around him was oppressive, but his Conjured light-gloves illuminated a decent radius around him. The ground, he noticed for the first time, wasn't a typical cave floor. It was tiled with octagonal blocks, each containing a single symbol.

Ceril's brow furrowed as he knelt down to investigate the tiles. He traced his fingers along their edges and the symbols. He didn't recognize the runes, but they felt familiar to him somehow. The tiles were not embossed or engraved, but completely smooth. Their most striking quality, though, was their color: the tiles were golden and the symbols were shiny silver. Not purple. Nothing was purple in here except for the dust and rubble that fell from above.

In a world that had been so permeated by a single color, its absence was shocking. He crawled along, looking at the tiles. Each one was decorated with a different symbol. He crawled for a while, and he never found even one that repeated.

Even more interesting than that, the symbols were not on the tower above, and therefore, not a part of the Jaronya's Text. He could see no relationship to modern Erlonian scripts, nor ancient, nor any other languages he had researched. Intriguing, he thought and his heart raced as his mind raced with possible explanations.

Ceril stood up and secured his pack. He chose a direction at random and began walking. He soon came to a wall, golden like the floor, but not made of tiles. It was blank except for a silver strip that ran horizontally in two directions. Ceril chose to follow it to the left.

***

"Ceril!" Saryn screamed. She fell to her knees and edged closer to the maw. The purple sunlight did little to penetrate the blackness, and she could see nothing but clouds of dust floating around. "Ternia! Are you okay? Can you hear me?"

No response.

She pushed herself to her feet, and the section of ground she touched gave way beneath her hand. She lost her balance and might have fallen in, too, if Chuckie hadn't been there to catch her.

"Careful, Saryn," said Chuckie.

"Yeah," she said.

"You good?"

"I think so. You?"

"I'm breathing and not in the hole. I'm dandy," Chuckie said.

"Ceril fell in."

"We need to get him out of there," he said, and walked toward the hole.

"Are you stupid, Chuckie?"

He stopped and looked at her. "Excuse me?"

"You just saw the edge give way. You just stopped me from falling in, and now you're going right back to the edge? What, do you think you're going in, going down there?"

"Sounds about right, yep. If Ceril's in trouble, we go in and help him. It's simple. You'd do the same for me. So would he. The thing is, though, I'm not going to be falling in like you were about to do. I'm going to take this rope," he raised his left hand to show her the rope he had taken out of his backpack, "and I'm going to tie it to something solid over there." He pointed at the nearest ruined building. "Then, I'm going to lower myself down there, make sure Ceril's alive, and get him out if he is."

If he's alive, Saryn thought. If. She couldn't think about that right now. He was alive, he had to be, and they had to do something to get him back to safety.

"You're right."

"Yep." He turned and walked to the nearest building. "Mind helping me tie this off?"

She trotted over to him and took the end of the rope. "I'm not really good at any of this," she said. "I never took anything but basic interdisciplinary combat, and I never had any survival courses. I don't know how to tie knots."

"It's not too hard," Chuckie said. "It's just wrapping the rope around itself a bunch. Just take your end, wrap it around the middle of this column here." When she had done as he asked, he took the rope from her. "Yeah, and then you just take the loose end and..." He tied the knot effortlessly. "See?"

Saryn tugged at it, checking its stability. She looked Chuckie in the eye and said, "I'm going, too."

"What?"

"I'm going down there, too, Chuckie. You can't think I'm going to stay up here in the open with you both down there getting into who-knows-what."

Chuckie grimaced and said, "Well, how do you suggest we do that, then, Saryn? I need you up here to lower the rope for me to get down there. I doubt there are any walls to rappel down."

She thought about it for a moment and said, "We'll Conjure our way down. Those Jaronya can Conjure wings, right?"

Chuckie nodded apprehensively. "Maybe..."

"Well, I don't think we can do that," she said. "Our nanite skins don't have enough tech to do it, nor," she added, "do we have the finesse in controlling them if they did. But we can Conjure shock absorbers and parachutes. Combine that with the ropes, and I'm pretty sure we can jump into the hole and not, you know, kill ourselves."

Chuckie blinked at her and said, "You're serious?"

She nodded.

"What about meeting up with the head honcho of Purpletown here? We were given an hour. Don't you think that at least one of us should at least make it?"

"Ceril is more important."

"It's not that I don't agree with you, Saryn," said Chuckie, "but these guys have kidnapped us, and are keeping us prisoners. I'm thinking that maybe doing what they say this time might be a pretty good idea. Especially since it sounded like it may be our one chance to save our asses."

"Look." She dropped her hands to her side and tossed a stray sprig of hair out of her face with a flick of her neck. "We don't know what they want. We know they think we're saviors of some kind. We know they want to try us for killing two of their soldiers or scouts or whatever. To me, those are pretty contradictory ideas. I don't really want to see which one they choose. If we're late—"

"We're going to be," Chuckie interrupted.

"—then we can deal with it," she continued without pause. "And so can they. We need to make sure that Ceril is alive—like you said—and get him out of there if he is. And if he's hurt, his chances are better with both of us down there than just one of us. And who knows what they'd do if only one of us shows up to their meeting. They might see that as being more disrespectful than missing it entirely."

"We're so screwed," he said. "Okay, whatever. You're the brains of this operation. Just tell me exactly how you want to do this."

She did, and ten minutes later, they were both secured by ropes tied to the base in the ruins. They nodded at one another, and leapt into the purple haze of dust.

***

Not long after Ceril began to follow the wall, the chamber narrowed into a hallway. His light-gloves began to reflect off of a second wall, but the corridor was hardly confining. There would have been plenty of room for his entire team to walk side-by-side if they weren't all separated on separate ends of the Instance by now.

He made a mental note to himself: once they were through this situation with the high priest, they would leave and find Swinton and Harlo. He had no idea where they were or what they were doing, but he hoped they were doing better than he was.

Ceril followed the wall for a while and never noticed any deviation in it. If it were curved, it was imperceptible. There had been no corners or turns. He occasionally looked down to note the symbols beneath his feet. He had walked over far too many now to know if there was any repetition among them, but he still recognized none of them.

It just didn't make sense to him. The writing on the broken tower had been Erlonian; he knew it. But beneath the tower, in whatever kind of subterranean building this was, the symbols were unrelated. That was absurd to Ceril—impossible, even.

There was always a connection.

Ceril was thinking about the languages when the hallway once again expanded into a chamber that opened around him. The wall he had been following disappeared when it cut a hard right. The wall to his left did the same thing, only in the opposite direction. The light from his hands no longer had walls to reflect on, and the darkness immediately became more oppressive. He froze in the doorway to a much larger chamber.

Cautiously, he stepped forward. The Conjured light barely cut through the darkness. As he made his way further into the chamber, the ground rumbled, but only slightly. Not again, Ceril thought.

He stopped and looked down. The tiles under his feet were still, but those around them looked different. He kept walking forward. When his feet touched the tiles in front of him, the tiles rose slightly.

The chamber was building him a staircase.

The increases in height were so small that he did not realize what was happening until he was already perhaps eight feet above where he started. His balance wavered, and he steadied himself before he fell. He doubted a fall from this height would hurt him—especially since his more recent tumble had been much worse—but he still preferred to remain standing for obvious reasons.

He kept walking, and the staircase kept rising with every step he took. Eventually, he was so high that the light from his gloves could not illuminate the floor of the chamber. However, it did light the ceiling. He was not close enough to it to breach and get back to Chuckie and Saryn, but he could see that the same tiles lining the floor decorated it, too.

Eventually, the subtle stair-stepping stopped, and Ceril found himself on a dais high above the ground. As he walked onto it, he heard another rumble and braced himself for a fall that never came. The floor that held him was solid. The rumble had actually been the lights coming online. One by one, the tiles in the ceiling began to illuminate. The silver symbols took on an unnatural glow that filled the chamber in soft, white light.

Ceril gawked at his surroundings. The wall he had been using to guide himself eventually led to a standard holonet terminal. Just like the ones he had always used back on Erlon. The entire outer perimeter of the room was lined with tables, chairs, and what had to be data terminals. Even from this distance, he could see that they were not as advanced as the ones aboard the Inkwell Sigil—these still had physical input devices with buttons and knobs.

How quaint.

He turned his attention back to the dais he stood on. There was a desk here, too, and a chair. There was a single data terminal with a manual input device. And that was it. The rest of the platform was empty.

Ceril edged closer, and a voice behind him said, "Welcome, Charon."

The young man whirled to face another man. He was older than Ceril, but not by much. "Who are you? Where did you come from?" Ceril asked. The man looked familiar, but Ceril didn't know why.

"I am a holographic projection," the man said as he flickered. The effect verified his statement. "How may I serve you, Charon?"

Ceril blinked. He thought rapidly, and said, "I, uhh...well...how do you know I'm a Charon?" Ceril wasn't technically a fully Rited Charon, but he saw no reason to make the distinction just now. Roman and the others had given them full discretion to act as full agents on this assignment.

"I do not understand," the hologram man said. "You are present in the Archive, a space that is reserved for Charonic use only. For you to have access, you are a Charon."

"Interesting logic," said Ceril. He walked slowly around the desk. He had been walking for hours, which was bad considering that he was supposed to have had an audience with the Jaronya high priest shortly after he fell. His feet were killing him. He unstrapped his pack and sat behind the desk, resting. He hoped that Saryn and Chuckie had made the meeting, at least. All they needed was one more thing for the angels to hold them in contempt for. "What is this place?"

"It is the Archive."

Ceril's brow crinkled. "What purpose does it serve?"

"I am sorry, Charon. I must process your authentication license via retinal scan. Your questions are more basic than I would expect from a Charon with permission to access the Archive. I must verify your identity."

"And if I don't pass your verification process?"

"You will be terminated and the authorities notified."

"Great," Ceril said.

The hologram moved closer to Ceril. The man placed his palms on the desk and bent over to look Ceril dead in the eye. Ceril had to admit it: the technology behind this guy was good. A bright purple flash came from the hologram's left eye and a green one from its right. Ceril flinched at the bright colors. He snapped his eyes shut and covered them with his hands. If he wasn't blinded by the flash, he would at least be seeing the world differently. That is, if he somehow passed the hologram's test and had access to visit this Archive.

Which he didn't. He couldn't.

The hologram straightened and said, "Thank you. Your authorization has been verified. I am sorry to question your presence, Charon. How may I serve you?"

Chapter Twenty-six

Headmaster Gilbert Squalt's calm composure broke the second his professor's flayed skull landed in his lap. He stood up to get away from it, and Nary Thralls' skull fell to the floor. Damien could see that he was sick and frightened, but somehow, the headmaster had the presence of mind to pick the skull off the ground and place it gently on his desk.

He looked at his hands, coated in someone else's blood, and gingerly opened a drawer to his desk with one finger and took out a handkerchief. He wiped his hands clean, and when that handkerchief was saturated, he took another out of his desk and wiped at the puddles of blood on the surface of his desk. After that, he turned his attention back toward Damien.

"What is wrong with you, Damien?" Squalt asked. His voice was forceful, stern, but cracked mid-sentence. Damien noticed and smirked.

"I said I wanted to know who broke into my house and stole my book." Damien's face was stone and his voice was equally even. He had dealt with people like Squalt before: those who hide behind assumed power, but truly have none. With Nary Thralls' death, Damien had raised the stakes and both men knew it. The time for barely-concealed hostility within friendly banter was over.

"I told you that I don't know anything, Damien. I meant it."

"And I know that you're lying to me," Damien said, walking toward Squalt's desk. "I know that you know who took it. You know who came into my home and made me break my vow."

"Made you? How did they make you reactivate the nanites in your bloodstream? By threatening your life?"

"Oh, no, Gilbert. They never threatened me. In fact, they never saw me." Damien leaned into Squalt's crescent-shaped desk, resting his weight on his knuckles. "I heard them. They were speaking our language."

"Well, that's not terribly difficult, Damien. We are speaking our language right now. That's how we can understand each other. Do you see how that works?"

Damien Vennar stared at Gilbert Squalt. His eyes darted to Nary Thralls's skull, its lifeless eye sockets staring into the distance. He could do the same thing to the headmaster, and it took everything Damien had not to. But he needed answers and a rash action—no matter how good it would make him feel or how much Squalt deserved it—would get him nowhere.

"You know what I mean," Damien said, relaxing and standing straight.

"I'm afraid I don't."

"Our language, Gilbert. Ours. The one that, if you recall, went out of fashion more than a couple thousand years ago?"

"And their talking frightened you into breaking a centuries-long vow to leave the order, Damien? Are you that much of a coward? Just what did they say?"

He said, "They mentioned the Untouchable, Gilbert," as though that would be explanation enough.

"Then they're terrorists."

"What?"

"Have you lived in a cave for years?" Squalt asked. Without hesitating, he continued, "Oh, right. You have."

Damien just stared at him.

"Really? You haven't heard about this Untouchable mess?"

"I guess not."

"Damien, you really are out of touch with the world around you." The headmaster sat down and leaned back in his chair. He was relaxing again. "Five or six years ago, something happened. People across Erlon were beginning to be attacked at random."

"I vaguely recall hearing something about that."

"Mmm hmmm," the headmaster said and continued. "They killed people, Damien. Mostly women and children, but men, too, if they were nearby. They used Flameblades to do it." He paused to give Damien a chance to react. He did not. "They used the name Untouchable, which meant very little to the general public. But the combination of that name and their choice of weaponry made them quite interesting to the order. Their attacks became more frequent in the past few years, escalating from attacks on small groups of people to large-scale destruction of scientific research facilities and religious organizations. They have attacked sites in every city-state from Yagh to Bester."

"What does this have to do with my book?"

"I love it when you play ignorant, Damien. Let me ask you this: in your book, you say you're writing the truth about the Charons, correct?"

"Someone has to, finally."

"Then I'm assuming that you are writing more than just a history, more than a play-by-play of events that led to the technomages' eventual...withdrawal."

"I'm telling the truth," Damien said.

"I'll take that as a yes. These terrorists, old friend, claim that they are working toward the same goal as your book. They want the truth to be public. So they're destroying what they call perversions of the truth."

"Get to the point, Gilbert."

"I think it was a year ago, maybe—perhaps two—that they released a very peculiar statement to the public. Until then, they were just boogeymen for the world. People knew their attacks were happening, but could do nothing about them. They were random, and they didn't happen very often. But then people started to pick up, and the terrorists released their demands, their manifesto, really."

"And?"

"They said, Damien, that they were tired of the world being kept in the dark by secret societies. By a secret society. They said that they were only going to stop when the Charons went public and stopped—oh, how did that man put it?—feeding the world the scraps of our technology, I think. The whole thing went on for a very long time, but it boiled down to them believing that the Charons are still active today and that we are keeping technological advances from the general public."

"That's not entirely untrue."

"It's not, is it?" Squalt agreed. "They said that they would not stop their crusade until the technomages shared their work with the world, helped it become a better place. He went into some political or religious rhetoric at that point, but you get the idea."

"My book," Damien prodded.

"If your book contains the truth about the Charons, Damien, from your perspective, then it would be very highly sought after by this group. Especially if you were to include any instructions, blueprints, design schematics, equations, formulas, et cetera in it. Did you?"

Damien cocked his head to the side. It was an oddly comic gesture for such a serious moment. "Maybe," he said. "Maybe not."

"Well, if there is even the chance of it, I would say that is why your book was taken. They've have done their homework so far. The world is in a panic, actually. You may not have heard about it in your cave in Ternia, but everywhere else is demanding that the Charons go public. These terrorists have released teasing proof that the order still exists, and people believe them. Pretty soon, we'll have a full-scale rebellion on our hands."

"A rebellion from what? A shadow organization no one knows about?"

"There have been riots everywhere, but they're worst in Yagh."

"Are they, now?"

"Yes, they are. They attacked Cernt Academy, and destroyed it. Damn near burned it to the ground, actually. Hardly anyone got out alive."

"Huh," Damien said. "Always did like that place."

"I know you did," Squalt said. "Folks in Bester and Ferran have already tried to retaliate—they're on the verge of revolution. People are upset at their governments, Damien. Whether their leaders know about us or not, the people are going to rebel because they think they do. They aren't rebelling against us, only because of us."

"Why? I'm not sure what you're getting at, Gilbert."

"They think we're controlling their lives, influencing world events, and subjugating them by limiting the flow of technology."

"Is that not true?" Damien asked. "Is that not precisely what this organization has come to? And besides, is my book going to stop any of that?"

"Of course not! It's only going to fan the flames. If they use your information as proof the Charons exist still, things are only going to get worse."

"Then go public." Damien suggested. "Stop playing shadowman and—"

"Give in to terrorist demands?"

"Save people's lives. Maybe actually make the world a better place by going public, sharing the technology and research you're doing."

"Oh, you'd like that, wouldn't you, Vennar?"

"Don't."

Squalt leaned forward. "I know you would. You come in here like you own the place—"

"I do."

"You gave up any claim you might have had hundreds of years ago, Vennar, when you left. You come in here like you own the place, killing a teacher, and destroying property, for what? Because someone stole a book you were writing?"

"No, because someone made me break my vow, Gilbert."

"Don't play dumb with me, Damien. No one made you break your vow. You broke it yourself. And if I had to guess, you broke it a long time before this incident ever happened."

"No. I did not."

"So you're telling me that all of this is coincidence? That your boy finding a Flameblade, bonding with it, and being recruited into the order because of it, was coincidence?"

"I never wanted that for him."

"I know. It wasn't your choice, though. And right around that same time, a terrorist group began to attack and kill people with Charon technology. But you're telling me that was a coincidence? That their demands for the release of information and technology—a goal, I might add, that you once fought for under that same name—"

"I said don't."

"Oh, what? You don't like to be reminded that you're the reason for all of this, Damien? You don't want people to know? You don't think I know about it? That you're the one behind these attacks?"

"I'm not," Damien said. "I don't know anything about it."

"I doubt that somehow. I find it a little too perfect for a man who once called himself the Untouchable, who went on a crusade to unite Erlon, to share information, and make everyone aware of the Charons, knows nothing about the same damned thing happening right now."

Damien leaned closer to the desk. His voice was barely audible. "That was years ago, Squalt. I don't have anything to do with this. I am not a terrorist."

"No, you're not. You're a lot of things, Damien Vennar, but you are not a terrorist. I've had people watching you since this all started—"

"You officious little—"

"Can you blame me? It was too easy, too obvious, though. If you were doing something like this, you wouldn't have used the same name. I know you're not behind it, Damien. You were the Untouchable once, but you aren't anymore. Someone else is. You can't say that you bear no responsibility—if you hadn't gone on your little crusade so long ago, none of this would be happening right now."

"And if the rest of you hadn't turned against me back then, the world would be a much better place today, too."

"That's one way of looking at it," the headmaster said. "You know as well as I do that the general public is too stupid to deal with the things we deal with. They can barely handle the new screenless holonets. They're going crazy over having three-dimensional images for their stories. Can you even imagine them with something serious, something that matters?"

"They deserve to know."

"Always back to the same old lines with you. It doesn't matter. The Untouchable and his terrorists are using your name to get what they want. They are trying to get what you want, actually. And now that they have your book, I think they'll succeed, or have a better shot at it than before. So to answer your question, I believe that these terrorists broke into your home, stole your book, and plan to use it to stage an uprising, a rebellion, a coup, whatever you want to call it. Somehow they learned about the Charons; they adopted our names and our technology, even our—" he coughed, "—your goals."

"They're going about it the wrong way," Damien said. "Are they Charons?"

"From what we can tell, yes. But they aren't sanctioned. They aren't us. They've been Rited, they have Flameblades, and they know we're here. But they aren't us. We don't know who these people are. When they went public, people saw magic again. The technomages weren't just legends anymore, and places like Ennd's were no longer artifacts being controlled by some stodgy old teachers. Whether we go public or not, the effect is the same, especially now that they have your book. Anything they didn't know before, they do now. For all intents and purposes, they are Charons."

"What are you going to do about them?" Damien asked.

"We're going to fight them."

"Are you? In public? You're going to completely negate the victory you all won over me, just like that?"

"Goodness no. What, do you think just because they have made people aware of Charons that we have to go public? No, no, no. We're going to covertly infiltrate them and destroy them from the inside. Most of the pieces are in place for us to begin our strike. I won't deny that the theft of your book complicates matters, but it shouldn't hinder us too badly. We should still be able to play shadowmen, as you put it, and put an end to this mess without the public knowing anything about us. We're just waiting on Ceril to report in with his team."

"I don't think I heard you correctly, Gilbert. I could have sworn I just heard you say my grandson's name, and I have to be mistaken. You couldn't be stupid enough to involve him in something like this."

Squalt smiled at Damien, and for the first time, it was genuine. "Oh, Ceril is involved, old man. We haven't had much luck on Erlon tracking down this new Untouchable. But coincidentally, Ceril is just amazing at seeing connections in myths and stories. His thesis is quite inspired. And you see, these terrorists are so fervently adhering to the way you did things once upon a time—"

"I hardly see the connection."

"Oh, please, Vennar. Don't give me that. You were a real son of a bitch, and you know it. Killing randomly might not have been your style, but the way they took down Cernt Academy? Those nanite bombs and ritual Conjurings reeked of you a world away."

Damien huffed, but he couldn't deny what Squalt said. He hadn't always been the technology-hating Gramps who Ceril had grown up with.

"Someone has to be wearing the mantle of the Untouchable and leading them, which means that anything you created once upon a time will help us find them. Plus, we do not believe there is any better agent to make those connections than Ceril."

"Where is he?" Damien demanded. He spread his hands out on the desk, his fingers splayed. He rested his weight on his hands, and the nanites in his blood reacted automatically to the anger rising in him. Pools of blackness formed beneath his hands.

"Jaronya." Squalt's mouth barely moved as he spoke.
Chapter Twenty-seven

"I'll be damned, Saryn. It worked."

"Well, yes," Saryn said. She recalled her nanite sleeve and brushed herself clean of the purple dust she had gathered in her tuck-and-roll landing. "Why did you doubt me?"

"Mainly because you just had me jump into a hole where I couldn't see the ground and expected me to Conjure a parachute on my way down."

"Details," she said. "Where do you think Ceril is? See any sign of him?"

"I don't see a whole lot of anything, Saryn."

The young woman sighed. "Then get out a light, Chuckie."

"Yeah," he said and began to dig through his pack. He found a small flashlight and clipped it to his shoulder. "You should have one of these, too."

She found it in her bag and clipped it on her shoulder. "Now, do you see any sign of him?"

"I'd place my bets on that." Chuckie pointed to the pile of rubble in the middle of the room.

"What?"

Chuckie continued to point. Saryn saw what he was indicating and rushed toward rubble pile yelling, "Ceril! Can you hear us? Ternia? You there? Are you hurt?"

She was still waiting on an answer when Chuckie moved over to her and began inspecting the rubble itself. It did not take him long to notice a single stone lying a little too far away from the pile. He noticed the opening its absence left in the debris. He dropped to his stomach and shined his light into the opening.

"Ceril!" he shouted into the opening. "Boss?"

Saryn moved to stand over him and asked, "Do you see him?"

Chuckie stood. "Nah," he said as he dusted himself. "He's not in there, alive or dead. If he was, then he got out and started walking."

"Why do you say that?" Saryn asked.

"Well, first of all because he's not here. We saw him fall in that hole." Chuckie pointed up. "Which means, in my estimation at least, he went somewhere else."

"Oh," Saryn said. "Where?"

Chuckie shined his light around. "I don't see any tracks. The dust isn't thick enough here to leave any." He pointed at the tiled floor. "What do you make of all these symbols on the ground? Where are we, Saryn?"

She knelt to get a closer look. She traced some of the tiles with her fingertips and noted that they were smooth, despite their textured appearance. She shrugged. "Ceril's the one who would know better than I would. I don't recognize anything from Yagh, though, which may mean they're different than the ones on that tower up there." She tossed her head upward.

Chuckie nodded and shifted his weight, making sure that his shoulder light was still mounted firmly. "So what's the plan?"

She stood. "I suppose we should find Ceril."

"But we don't know where he went. Shouldn't we just wait here for him to come back through?"

"And if he finds a way out instead of doubling back? What then?"

Chuckie looked at her in the harsh light. "Gotcha." He looked around. "So which way do we go?"

Saryn hesitated. She took a couple of steps in one direction, stopped, and then said, "I don't know. If you say there are no tracks, I don't think there will be any way to know for sure which way Ceril went. So we have to pick one and go with it. And hope we chose the right way."

"You know this is going to make us miss our audience, right? With that priest guy?"

She closed her eyes. "Yeah. I know. There's nothing we can do about it, though."

"We can hope the priest is forgiving. That's kind of what they do, right?"

"On Erlon, at least. I'm not so sure if that's the case here. I think our best bet is that we convince him that we actually are their messiahs somehow and don't deserve to be killed."

"There's always that," Chuckie said. "So which way? You pick."

Saryn shuffled her light around. "I think there's a wall over there. We can follow it." She moved toward the wall. "We can follow this and see where it leads us."

"You got it, New Boss," Chuckie said and moved in front of Saryn. "I'll take point. Gotta protect you from any danger out there, you know."

Saryn rolled her eyes and followed him into the darkness.

***

"I don't know," Ceril said, leaning back in the chair.

"I am not sure I follow. You are in the Archive, which is a designated research facility. Your authorization and identity as a Charon has been verified. How do you not know your purpose for coming?"

Ceril was silent. He watched the hologram. It reminded him in many ways of the elevator attendants at Ennd's. The technomages had installed and left behind computerized personalities to make interacting with academy systems feel more organic. None of the systems at Ennd's had visual representations, though. They were voice-only. If this were a technomage facility of some kind, it was a lot more advanced than anything he was used to.

As Ceril watched the hologram, he began to be unnerved. He thought it was because he knew that it was a holographic representation of a person instead of being an actual person. Aside from the periodic flickering, he was unable to find any discernible differences between the image in front of him and a real human. There was no glowing aura that generally indicated holograms. Ceril could not find a point of origin for the projection, even though he looked all around for any projectors that traced the image's movements. For all intents and purposes, the hologram was a perfect representation of a person.

It even blinked and breathed. As it waited for Ceril to answer, he could see its chest rising and falling. That really bothered Ceril.

Despite his technologically spare upbringing, Ceril was used to technology, especially since coming on board the Inkwell Sigil, but the familiarity of the holographic man and his simulated life were almost too much for him.

When he was finally ready to speak to the unnatural man, he said, "I need to know where my authorization came from."

"You are authorized under order number PX1-767."

"Which means?"

"That you have complete access to any information contained within the Archive."

"Who initiated the order that gave my authentication?" Ceril asked. He was beginning to get irritated at the machine's doubletalk and evasion of his questions.

"The order has been standing since the Archive's completion and subsequent initialization. There was no individual responsible for the order."

"Of course there wasn't," Ceril said.

"May I answer another question?" the hologram asked.

"What are you called?"

"I am the Archive."

Ceril pursed his lips and rolled his eyes. "What is the purpose of this Archive?"

"This facility was created to collect and store all information pertinent to the Charonic Archive."

"Like a history? Or just a database?"

"The history of the Charonic order is contained within the database."

"Can you summarize it for me?" Ceril asked.

"I can, Charon. However, I warn you that even in its synopsized format, the information you are requesting would take approximately four hundred thirteen years to present with simultaneous visual and auditory information. I suggest against it."

"So do I," Ceril said. "What exactly happened just now?"

"I answered your question."

"No, not that. When the lights came on. I know this place is the Archive, but was it shut down?"

"The Archive has not been accessed for many years. Protocols indicate that when not in use, the Archive be put to minimal power consumption."

"Did you record my entry?"

"Yes," the Archive said. "Your entry was designated an intrusion initially, which is why the Archive system did not activate for you. Your presence in the research chamber, however, prompted authorization that could not be performed without returning the system to a functioning state."

"Okay," Ceril said as he leaned forward on the desk. "The ground kind of fell away while I was walking. I had no idea this Archive was here."

"Interesting," said the Archive.

"What can you tell me about the city above us?"

"Meshin was constructed above the Archive to protect it and served as the Charons' capitol on Jaronya. The city was the last to fall in the Charons' civil war. The Archive has not been accessed since the city fell. I am afraid that the Archive's data is incomplete because the recording towers were destroyed during the war."

Ceril listened intently. A war between Charons? Neither Roman nor anyone else had ever even mentioned that. "What can you tell me about the people who live in the city now?"

"I'm sorry; the data you requested is unavailable. Please refine your search parameters or understand that the Archive's information is limited on that subject."

His brow furrowed, and he said, "Do you have any information about a culture of winged men living in Jaronya today?"

"I am sorry. The Archive does not have any information on that subject. The last known inhabitants of Meshin were killed in a biological attack that destroyed any organic material it came into contact with. There were no subsequent attempts at settling in the city."

"Well, someone's living there now," Ceril said. "Big purple men with wings who call themselves Jaronya."

The hologram responded in an uneven—and disturbingly human—voice. "I do not doubt your information, Charon. Please understand the Archive's ability to collect information is limited without the relay towers. Any information that would have been processed after their destruction has been impossible even to collect."

Ceril nodded. The broken story the Jaronya had told him earlier lined up pretty well with what the Archive said. The guard had mentioned there was infighting between cities, whereas the Archive said there was all-out war between factions in the Charons.

"What can you tell me about the writing on the buildings outside?"

"The engravings on the highest buildings of Meshin were meant as guideposts for Charonic civilization. They were written in a language all Charons would understand, devised from the syntax and symbology from the order's home Instance. When Meshin was created, its primary function was to protect the Archive. Its secondary function was to point the way to enlightenment. The inscriptions on the buildings were tools used by Charons to instruct new initiates of their order in understanding the importance of knowledge and remembrance."

"That explains some things," Ceril said. "The Jaronya—the winged people I mentioned—I think they believe the Charons who built you are their Ancestors. They think the inscriptions are some kind of scripture left behind for them."

"That is not an entirely untrue interpretation," said the Archive. "It would also indicate that eventual settlement of the warzone was possible. That is good news."

"I still don't like it," Ceril said. "Anyway, how much time has passed since my intrusion was detected?"

"Three hours and fourteen minutes."

Well, that's that, Ceril thought. I missed the meeting. Here's hoping that Saryn and Chuckie didn't. "Do you have a map of this facility?"

Rather than responding, the Archive gestured toward the desk in front of Ceril. The top rippled momentarily, and a device no larger than his personal tablet appeared. A grid of light green lines overlaid a simple schematic on a purple background.

"Thank you," Ceril said.

He looked at the tablet. It might take him some practice to figure out its controls. He touched and swirled his finger across the tablet, understanding none of the actual writing on it, but recognizing the symbols—they were from Erlon, but they were arranged like those on the tower and followed no rules Ceril understood. He scrolled until he found a section of the map highlighted yellow.

"What's this?" he asked, indicating the yellow section.

"That is where your intrusion was detected," the hologram said.

Ceril scrolled some more and noticed two green dots. "And those?" he asked, pointing.

"Those are two life signs that entered through the same opening you did. They register as human. Are they Charons?"

Ceril wanted to say no, they couldn't be, but his heart dropped. Saryn and Chuckie had apparently not made their meeting, either. "Yes. They're Charons, too. I think...those dots are my friends. Are they okay?"

"Internal sensors indicate that neither sustained injury from the fall."

"Good, thank you," Ceril said. "What's the quickest way to get to them?"

"The most efficient means of your meeting would involve routing their path to this chamber rather than you seeking them on foot."

"You can do that?" Ceril asked, amazed.

"The structure of the Archive is comprised of Charonic nanotechnology. The facility can shift on a molecular level in order to allow streamlined functionality. There is often no need for the function; however, since you and the other Charons are the only life-signs in the facility, no loss of efficiency will occur."

Ceril boggled in silence for a moment. "Absolutely, then. Do it. Route them here. How long will it take them to get here?"

"The most time efficient path will require roughly thirty-five minutes to complete."

"Do it, then."

"Yes, Charon."

Ceril leaned back. He had about half an hour before his friends would arrive, and he had access to a database of ancient knowledge no one even knew existed. He could relax and wait for them to find him, but where was the fun in that? He asked the hologram, "May I have unrestricted access to the database?"

"You do, Charon. Your authorization is unlimited."

Ceril would have to find out about that sometime. He didn't like that he seemed to be at the top of some sort of hierarchy he didn't know existed. And if all this had been buried even half as long as the Archive made him think, there was no way for him to have been given access. It didn't make any sense, but that didn't mean that he wasn't going to take advantage of it.

He had a job to do. He had a mission. And he still had friends out there on the surface that he hadn't seen or heard from in days. "Archive," he said.

"Yes, Charon."

"Do you have any surface sensors at all left?"

"I am sorry, Charon. This facility is only equipped with functioning internal sensors."

Ceril thought about the Archive's phrasing. "This facility?" Ceril asked.

"Yes, Charon," said the hologram.

"Are there other facilities like this on Jaronya?" he used the Instance's name purposely.

"Yes, Charon. Each major city on Jaronya was equipped with a recording station and minor Archive. This facility was the largest."

"Do you have any data suggesting that any of the minor Archives survived the war?"

"I am sorry, Charon," the hologram said. "There is no indication of their survival. The facilities were not networked and there are no external sensors linking the structures."

Ceril nodded. He was moving in a direction at least. He now knew that there were other places in the Instance where there might be information on the connection to Erlon, and on how he might get back to Ennd's. He had time to dig in for some surface-level research before Saryn and Chuckie got back. Once they rendezvoused, they would have to work out a plan for meeting with the high priest. Then they could get back to the actual work of their mission: finding a way back to Erlon, finding this Untouchable guy. Seeing Gramps again.

His actual mission had almost slipped Ceril's mind. He had been a little preoccupied lately.

"I need a manual input device, Archive," Ceril said.

"Yes, Charon." As the hologram responded, a keypad appeared on the desk in front of him. As it formed, a projection of a screen requesting input appeared, too, floating in the air a few inches above the desk. "Is there anything else?"

"Not at the moment. I am going to do a little browsing through the database, if that's all right. I prefer to do it manually instead of verbally."

"Yes, Charon."

"Alert me when my friends are near, please."

"Yes, Charon," the hologram repeated.

"Is the output interactive?"

"Yes, Charon."

"I don't want you to monitor me," Ceril said. "Anything I do through this device is private and not to be tracked." If he had unlimited access to the database, he might have control of it, too.

"Yes, Charon."

Ceril leaned back and began typing. He would occasionally swipe at the holographic display in front of him. He was finally back in his element. He knew research, even if he did not know one hundred percent of the symbols that made up the data in the Archive. Finally, something on this mission felt like it was going his way, like he could control it. Ceril continued to work, letting himself fall into the Archive so that he could ignore the artificial man standing silent and unmoving in front of the desk.
Chapter Twenty-eight

"You're lying," Damien said.

"Jaronya was what you called your little playground, am I right?"

Damien was silent, but the nanites pooling under his hands began to edge forward along the desk toward Squalt. If the headmaster noticed, he made no indication.

"From what I recall, the Sigil had some engine trouble, and it just so happened that the hyperdrive gave out in the luckiest spot imaginable."

"That's impossible," Damien said. "You're lying."

"Maybe I am," Squalt said. "But if I'm not, can you think of any other place that would be as good at tracking down the Untouchable as Jaronya? You were very clever in hiding it all those years ago. The chain of Instances was almost impossible to track down. All it would take to get the Sigil nearby was a few minor course corrections and some well-timed engine failure. Of course, without the hyperspace envelope, the ship's connection to Erlon was severed, but what can you do? After all, the terrorists must be dealt with. Oh, wait. I'm lying, aren't I?" The headmaster grimaced comically, biting his lower lip and raising his eyebrows.

"Gilbert, you sorry, stupid little man."

The pools of blackness under Damien's hands erupted, shooting forward and coating Squalt's entire head and face. The headmaster tried to suck in air, but couldn't. After a few seconds, the headmaster's face appeared and he gasped for breath. Immediately, Damien raised one finger on his right hand, and the nanites yanked the man's head into the desk face first. A wet crack sounded and black blood fell from Gilbert Squalt's nose.

The balding man grabbed his nose and screamed. "My nose! You broke my nose!" His breaths were shallow and rapid. His voice wavered. Damien could tell that the headmaster was seconds away from losing consciousness, so, like an expert torturer, Damien recalled him from the brink. The nanites around his head burrowed inward, each one jolting him with a slight electric shock. Squalt's shoulders sagged, but he would not lose consciousness.

"You son of a bitch," Squalt snarled.

"I honestly don't remember my mother, Gilbert. You might be right about that. And going back to what you said earlier: you were also right that I was scared that night in my home. However, I was not a coward."

Squalt fell back into his chair and glared at Damien. "Perhaps you can explain to me how being afraid does not constitute cowardice?"

"I've lived a long time, Gilbert. And I have no faith to speak of. I don't know the old gods; I have no relationship with any of them. My gods have always been science and the Archive."

"You mean that your god has always been you."

Damien shrugged. "Maybe. Now, though, after all these years, I'm afraid to let go. Afraid of what comes after this. So I will not go easily, and if that means hiding a few hours while I get the nanites in my blood to completely reactivate, then so be it. But now, they're reactivated, and I am proficient with them again. And you need to tell me what you know about this situation with Ceril."

"I think we're done here, Damien."

Something on Squalt's desk chirped, and the headmaster said, "I'm going to have to take this call, if you don't mind."

"Go ahead."

Squalt waved his hand over his desk and a display was projected from nowhere Damien could see. Technology was certainly moving along, he thought. He saw the front-desk receptionist who had stamped his hand earlier. She was looking directly at Squalt when she said, "Sir, there's been an incident."

"I'm aware of the security drones, Beth."

"Yes, sir. I know. There's been a...discovery. Two, actually," she said.

"What do you mean?"

"Sir, I don't mean to pry, but are you okay? Your nose—"

"It's fine, Beth. What discoveries are you talking about?"

"Bodies, sir. Two of them. They're dead, and they were students."

Squalt's eyes jerked toward Damien, who still stood in front of the desk. "Who were they?" Squalt asked.

"The first one we found was Arla Smith. She was a new Phase II student this year. Cleanup details found her body...mutilated...near where the security drones were found."

Squalt nodded, but kept his eyes on Damien for a shimmer of reaction. There was none. "And the other?"

"Swarley Dann. His body was found on the seventh floor botanical terrace inside of the arboretums."

Squalt blinked. "Was his body mutilated like Arla's?"

"No, sir. First responders couldn't find any indication of a struggle. No bruising was apparent, and no marks of any kind. It looks like he just sat under the tree and died."

"Thank you for letting me know, Beth. Keep me apprised of any details that come through. I'll prepare statements for the families and contact them myself once we have a clearer picture of what's going on."

"Yes, sir," the receptionist said, and the screen disappeared.

"You killed two of my students before you murdered Nary Thralls." It was a statement. Not a question.

"One, actually," Damien said. "Swarley was...a mistake."

"So you had to kill a kid?" Squalt yelled.

"He was in the way, and he wasn't a kid. A student, but not a kid," Damien said. "The girl, however, was killed by your security golems. Designed to protect the school, huh? They kill kids?" Damien took a deep breath before the rage boiled too hot. "That seems like a pretty big problem in your security. You'd think someone would have noticed this before now."

"Like I believe that."

"Believe what you want. But it's the truth. She met me in the hall, was lost and looking for her dormitory. When I couldn't help her, your golems mowed her down like a weed in a garden. I would have tried to help her, but she was dead by the time I knew what was going on."

"I'm sure you would have," Squalt said.

"Now that that piece of unpleasantness has been taken care of..." Damien's voice trailed off, but he stood with a smile that mocked Squalt.

Gilbert Squalt had taken quite enough. The headmaster stood up from behind his desk and stared into Damien's eyes. "I hate that it's come to this, Damien."

"I've regretted every second."

Squalt lunged across the desk, a Flameblade materializing in his hand. The blade glowed a faint orange-brown as Squalt stabbed it forward, attempting to impale his hopefully off-guard opponent.

He had no such luck. Damien easily dodged to the side, which threw Squalt off balance, but he regained his footing quickly.

"Do we really have to do this, Gilbert?"

"Did you really have to kill those kids and that professor?"

"It was a necessary part of getting to see you, old friend. And I only killed one of the kids. I told you that."

"And I told you that I didn't believe you," said the headmaster as he slashed downward with the sword. Damien saw an opening and kicked Squalt squarely in the solar plexus. The blow knocked him down. Squalt recovered more quickly than Damien expected, so he released some nanites from his foot to entangle the headmaster, but recalled them when Squalt rolled out of the way.

"Get up," Damien said patiently, and Squalt shambled to his feet.

"Don't patronize me," said Squalt.

"Then don't do things that call for it. Why my grandson? Seriously. This doesn't have to be this messy. There's something you're not telling me, Squalt."

"I've said everything I'm going to."

"Something doesn't sit right about all this. You know so much about these terrorists, about me, my book, what it could be used for. You're holding out on me, Gilbert."

"Think what you want."

"I will."

Squalt teleported his Flameblade to the other hand and slashed at Damien. At the same time, he opened his mouth, but instead of speaking, he used his nanites to shove an almost-solid wall of sound toward Damien. The quickness—and uniqueness—of the attack took Damien off guard; he had never experienced anything quite like it. His head hurt, and his ears rang. For a moment, his vision was doubled. The force of the Conjuring pushed him backward, and he tripped over the arm of the couch and then lay face down on the floor.

Squalt took advantage of his stumble and rushed Damien. The headmaster gripped his Flameblade in both hands and stabbed downward toward his opponent's back. Had Damien been a fraction of a second slower in recovery, the encounter would have been over. As it was, he had moved in just enough time, and Squalt's stab caught only the outside edge of his shirt. It cut away from the headmaster's blade as Damien moved away and repositioned himself.

Damien knew that he could only do so much dodging before Squalt got lucky and wounded him enough to slow him down. Then he would be dead. He had already tired himself out just getting to Squalt's office; he knew that he could only push himself so far.

And without his own Flameblade to fight back, Conjuring was his only weapon. He didn't begrudge Ceril for bonding to the sword, but he certainly regretted it right now.

He had to do something—and quickly—because Squalt kept coming. Damien barely ducked a sidearm slash as he Conjured nanites to coat his arms and harden them in an exoskeletal sleeve that went all the way over his hands. When Squalt rushed him again, Damien blocked with his left arm, and Squalt's Flameblade flared brown-orange as it bounced off of Damien's nanites. The impact tossed Squalt off balance, and Damien saw it, so he took advantage of the opening. Damien slammed the back of his fist, enhanced by the hardened nanite sleeve, into Squalt's head. The blow forced the headmaster onto his hands and knees.

As Squalt hit the ground, he slashed backward. The attack was wild, unpredictable. It caught Damien's shin, but the cut was shallow enough that he could send a minimal number of nanites to the wound to patch it up as they fought. He might not be so lucky next time, and he couldn't coat his whole body in armor the way he had his arms. The loss of mobility would be deadly.

Damien had always been a cerebral Conjurer. He could do brute force when he had to, but his magic had always been more about detail than scope. It was that attention to detail that helped him construct Ennd's Academy out of the pocket of electromagnetism so many years ago, and it was that attention to detail that he hoped would give him the advantage now.

He kicked at Squalt, trying to knock him over, but found only air. Squalt had rolled away and now stood ready, waiting for Damien to attack. He wanted Damien to attack him physically; his stance told Damien that much. But if he charged Squalt, there was a good chance he would be rewarded with a sword in the gut. Instead, he concentrated for a few seconds as Squalt stood tense, and then he looked up.

He smiled. Yes, the ceiling was high enough.

The nanites rushed into Damien's back, and they exploded from the skin just over his shoulder blades. It should have hurt, but it didn't. He had gotten past the pain long ago. He loved how Conjuring felt, how the nanites came alive and worked with his body to create something that didn't or couldn't exist otherwise.

The nanites he Conjured built upon themselves until Damien stood before Squalt with two gigantic, shimmering, black wings coming from his back. He stretched his arms, rotated the stiffness from his neck, and began to flap the wings and lift off the ground. Flameblade or not, he was going to take control of the situation.

He rose higher into the air, and euphoria washed over him. Damien might as well have forgotten about Gilbert Squalt. For just a moment, at least. It had been a long time since he had allowed himself this pleasure.

Beneath him, Squalt almost dropped his Flameblade. The headmaster roared impotently. Regaining control of his Conjuring, he opened his mouth and shot a sonic burst at Damien. The attack didn't knock him out of the air, however. Instead, the shimmering wings folded toward the sound, and Damien used the force of the sound burst to rise higher into the air and even further out of range of Squalt's Flameblade.

Squalt held his blade in his left hand, its orange-brown glow shining even in the golden afternoon sun. It was not a fiery glow, but a steady one. Damien looked at it and smiled. He wanted that sword. He would need it by the end of this.

As his wings steadily beat, the two men were at a stalemate. "Why don't you join me, Gilbert?"

The balding man was silent. Damien shrugged and held out his right hand, a slight bump on the back of it now, where it had been perfectly smooth before. He shifted his weight, and the Conjured wings flew him directly over Squalt's head. The headmaster tried to move, but he was too slow—Damien Conjured a jet of flame from the small bump.

Conjured fire was not like normal fire. It had substance, mass. It was almost a liquid, almost a solid. It could strike an object and cling to it like gel, and the Conjurer would have complete control over every nanite creating the heat. Damien sprayed the flame toward Squalt, who was taken by surprise. He was crowned with flame, and he fell to his knees, burning.

Damien dropped from the air, but he let the stream of fiery nanites continue. He recalled them slowly as he descended, and the connection between his arm and Squalt was taut. When he landed, he flapped his wings one final time, and the gust of wind pushed Squalt flat on the ground. Damien recalled the fire and wings back into his body, and grabbed Squalt by the shoulders, tossing him against the desk. The headmaster sagged against it, his legs spread-eagle.

In the headmaster's left hand, the sword glowed dully. Its orange-brown glow still present, but fading. Damien walked toward him and kicked him in the stomach, but Squalt still held tightly to the Flameblade. His face was a mess. Squalt had been able to Conjure partial protection from the flame in the instant it came at him. He had protected his eyes and maybe a third of the rest of his face. The unprotected sections were charred black and red. Moisture was already beginning to seep out and bead along his face.

Half of Squalt's mouth wasn't charred, so Damien asked him again, "Gilbert, who is behind all this? It couldn't have been you. You're too stupid to be the brains behind anything, but you know who is."

"I—"

Damien cut him off. "You were in on it, if nothing else. So tell me, old friend. Or this is going to get significantly uglier than it already has."

"I don't kn—"

The headmaster's words were cut off by Damien's fist slamming into his temple. "Don't lie to me again. You may make it out of this alive, yet, Gilbert. But only if you tell me what I need to know. Where can I find the people who invaded my home?"

Damien could see the defeat in Squalt's eyes—nevermind the damage to his body. Damien had been the original Untouchable, a man with enough hubris and power to create pocket universes and life to populate them, and that man would never allow Squalt to live after all this. Damien had once set himself up as a vengeful and unforgiving god.

And from the look in his eyes, Gilbert Squalt remembered all of that, too. Gilbert Squalt understood that he was about to die.

"You're right," Squalt said. "I'm not...in charge. I wouldn't...want to be..." The half-seared part of his mouth obscured part of his words, but Damien could make out what he meant just fine.

"Then who is?" Damien asked, trying to sound like a friend. It might have worked, too, if he hadn't just burned off most of Gilbert Squalt's face.

"The Untouchable."

Damien kicked him in the side.

"Not you! I don't know...don't know his real name. When you find someone connected that's the only name you need."

"What does he want?"

Squalt laughed and blood dribbled down his chin from his mouth. "How...how should I know?" Damien punched the other side of his head, and Squalt screamed. "What does...anyone want, Damien?"

"Power, money, family, love, a good dog, nice clothes, a hot breakfast, a warm bath?" Damien was falling back into his old self far more quickly than he would have imagined. He was enjoying himself today, in spite of—no, because of—the things he was doing.

"Yes," Squalt said. "But more than anything, people want life."

"Life?"

The headmaster nodded. "That's the one thing the Charons have...that no one else on Erlon...or any other Instance," he coughed and more blood came from his mouth, "has access to. We live damn near forever, Damien. Everyone else lives and dies before they even have a chance to experience...life. This new Untouchable wants to fix that."

Damien blinked. "How?"

"By Riting them."

"Who?"

He looked directly into Damien's eyes. "Everyone," he said.

"And by doing so, he's exposing the Charons."

Squalt nodded. "He already has."

"Then why," Damien continued, "not just do it? Why go through the trouble of stealing my history, my book, Ceril? Why not just go public to begin with? Why all the cloaks and daggers?"

Damien saw Squalt's glance flicker to his sword, and he stepped firmly on the headmaster's wrist, pinning both hands and the weapon to the floor. "Nice try," he said.

Squalt smiled with the part of his mouth that would move and continued his explanation. "We don't know enough, Damien. Like you said, I'm one of the...new guys. Especially compared to you. Do you honestly think I know how the Blood Rites are done? I barely...made it through mine."

Damien looked at the Flameblade under his foot. Its orange-brown aura was dull, hardly visible. Squalt wasn't lying. He had very little aptitude for Conjuring. "And this Untouchable," he spat the name out with contempt, "thought that my book would have the process in it?"

Squalt nodded. "Guess so. Did it?"

Damien shifted and his nanites rushed into the foot holding down Squalt's sword arm. His foot tingled as the small machines packed themselves densely inside his foot, making it heavier and heavier. Eventually, Damien heard the wet crunch that came from Squalt's bones being crushed from the weight. The headmaster whimpered, but shut up when Damien backhanded him.

"I'll take that as a yes," said the headmaster.

"Where can I find him?"

"No idea," Squalt said. "He's not exactly a public figure."

Damien reached out, and Squalt flinched. Damien didn't let the pain come immediately. He rested his hand on Squalt's shoulder, so the headmaster did not relax.

Tendrils of nanites moved from Damien's fingers, up Squalt's neck, and surrounded his eyes. Squalt gasped as Damien took his vision, and he screamed when the nanites contracted.

After crushing the headmaster's eyeballs, the nanites returned to Damien. Jelly-like ichor oozed down the side of Gilbert Squalt's maimed face.

"Where can I find him?"

Squalt whimpered. His voice was barely a whisper. "Was that necessary?"

"I think so," Damien said. "Where can I find this new Untouchable?"

Squalt turned his head toward Damien. His face conveyed no emotion. His empty eye sockets oozed. "I really wish I could tell you that. I've met representatives here and there across Erlon and...in some Instances."

"Where?"

"Three times in Ferran. At a small café run by a man named Derin Sarnt. Once in Yagh, north of the city wall. I have the Instance locations in a...a file on my tablet."

"Where is it?" Damien asked.

Squalt was silent.

"Do you really want to play this game, Gilbert?"

The headmaster thought for a moment and shook his head. "On the bookshelf behind my desk. It's hidden inside a book called Before Our Eyes."

"You're a bastion of wit, aren't you, Gilbert? Are there any encryptions?"

"None you won't be able to break," he said. His voice was breathy now. He was having a harder time speaking. "I promise."

"What else can you tell me about this situation?"

"There's nothing else. The Untouchable...is a special kind of bastard, Damien. But you know all about that, don't you?" Squalt spit black blood.

"He invaded my home. Made me break my vow. That's enough for me to want him dead," Damien said. "But he's taken my name. Using what I did—and I did good, Gilbert, whether you want to admit it or not—to undo everything we've worked for. And you're helping him? You agree with him? Not to mention that you have Ceril. I told you years ago to act like he didn't exist, but you couldn't. You wouldn't. Now I know why."

"Get out...of my office."

"I intend to," Damien said. "I need one more thing first, Gilbert."

"Which is?"

Damien reached down and took the sword from the headmaster's hand. The dull orange-brown aura was immediately replaced with a bright purple-green fire. It illuminated the room even through the sunlight, and even though it put off no heat, the change in hue and radiance made the headmaster cower.

"How?" Squalt said. "How did you—"

Damien gripped the sword in both hands and plunged the sword into Squalt's neck. Black blood sprayed, and Damien pulled down as hard as he could, splitting the man in half. Organs rushed out of the dead headmaster, finally able to decompress from their positions in his body. Damien pulled the sword away and looked at it. There was no residue on the blade.

Damien held his arms wide and opened his hands. The Flameblade disappeared from one and appeared instantly in the other. Good, Damien thought. It's mine now.

He walked to the wall and found the book containing the headmaster's hidden tablet. He took a moment to look out the window, where the golden afternoon light still beamed in. Vivid greens, blues, and yellows were everywhere. He understood why the headmaster would have chosen this Instance for his office. It was a good place to spend a lot of time.

He checked the tablet, and Squalt was right. The encoding was simple, nothing his nanites couldn't bypass. Within a few minutes, Damien had access to the locations where Squalt had met with this new Untouchable's representatives. He read through the list and determined the best place to begin his search. He had a few contacts near some of these places. At least, he once had. If they were still around, he hoped to be able to call in a few favors, or barring that, make a few demands.

Still, though, there had to be something else around here. He went to Squalt's desk, sat in the chair, and placed both his hands on the surface. Information flooded his mind—he had forgotten how much he loved that sensation—and he began to filter through the images and clips that were rushing behind his eyes. He focused on this impostor, and told the computer to project any videos pertaining to this new Untouchable. Damien wanted to see what had been done in his name.

Immediately, a gigantic representation of Cernt Academy floated in front of him. He hadn't been the one to build Cernt, that had been all Roman's doing, but he had always had a soft spot for it and Yagh in general. Something about the terseness of the people and the cold of their desert appealed to him. He hated to see the school on fire. He increased the speed of the video, and he watched as groups of impostors murdered innocents with Flameblades and nanotechnology.

Damien was a killer, but he was not without a conscience. He killed when he had to, not haphazardly, and this pretender was making a mockery of everything he had built and done. Damien would have never killed so indiscriminately. If there was a pattern to the mayhem he was viewing, it was lost on him. He was going to have to find this Untouchable and have a discussion with him about his methods. Damien would have to teach him a thing or two.

A whuff-pop sounded from beyond the projection, so Damien Vennar closed the holovid. The heavy, wooden door to the office creaked open, and a group of three people rushed through—a man and two women. Who the hell are they? Damien wondered. They hadn't seen him yet, which was good. He would hate to have to kill them, too, so he Conjured himself invisible once more. The nanites surged from his veins and through his pores, coating his body and initiating the veil instantaneously.

One of the newcomers looked directly at him, but Damien knew that he was hidden already because of the telltale tingle of the Conjuring. Lucky for whomever that was. Damien sat stock-still as he watched the trio come further into the room, and he noticed that the man was carrying someone covered in blood, who was either unconscious or dead. Damien couldn't tell which, but from the amount of damage to the body, he guessed it was a corpse being returned for burial.

They searched around the room for a bit, and then the man noticed Nary Thralls's body. He inspected it, and was about to alert his comrades when one of the women screamed: she had found Nary's head. The screamer was a small, blonde woman, and she stood directly in front of Damien. She did not see him; however, she did see Nary Thralls's skinless skull grinning at her.

It did not take her long to find Squalt's body, either, and when she alerted the other two, the second woman vomited. A chain reaction was started, and after much dry heaving, the three of them finally began to speak.

The blonde woman asked, "What is this? Where are we?"

"Dunno," answered the man. "But I'm not real excited to stick around."

"I don't see why you would be," the blonde woman said. "Who could or would do this to someone?"

"What about that?" he said and pointed at the headless body.

The blonde woman almost threw up again, but stopped. The other woman was not quite so lucky. She dry heaved as her companion walked past Thralls's body to stand in front of the giant wooden door.

"Oh, no," she said.

"What?" the second woman asked.

Instead of answering, the tiny, blonde woman ran across the room, back to the halved man in front of the desk. Damien watched in fascination as she leaned down and took hold of his head.

"What the hell are you doing?" the man asked.

"Checking something," she said. Her eyes scanned the office and then dropped to the dead man in her hands. She flipped the half she was holding over, and examined him in profile. "It's Headmaster Squalt," she confirmed. "This must be his office."

"What?" the other woman asked.

"It's him. It's Squalt. When the Gatekeeper sent us somewhere adjacent to Ennd's, the closest Instance must have been the headmaster's office."

Damien blinked at what he was hearing. The Gatekeeper? No, it couldn't be. He looked at each of the people in front of him, focused on the dead body in the man's arms, but couldn't identify any of them.

"There's always been a rumor that Academy headmasters were given private Instances," the woman continued, "and now I guess we've confirmed that."

"Who's the woman?" the man asked.

"No idea," the blonde said. "You know, doc?"

"No way to tell." So the second woman was a doctor. Interesting. "We'd have to run tests, and umm..."

"Yeah," the blonde said. "Yeah."

"So what do we do now?" asked the man.

"Get back to Ennd's. If their bodies are still here in this condition, that means no one else knows about this."

So they aren't a cleanup crew from Ennd's. No one was alerted when the headmaster died? Damien thought of the implications of that.

"Can you get us out of here?"

"Yes," said the blonde woman. "It's just the matter of putting in Ennd's code in the panel by the door."

"And you have the code?" asked the doctor.

"Yeah, unless they've changed the code." She let go of the dead headmaster, wiped her hands on her pants, and walked determinedly to the door.

She keyed the code and waited. She heard a slight buzzing, and when she pulled on the door, it opened with a whuff-pop. She peered through the opening, then threw the door open as far as she could. "It's Ennd's," she confirmed. "Let's go."

Damien Vennar watched them leave the office. If the Gatekeeper was involved...

He got up from Squalt's desk and looked at the two corpses he had made. He wanted to feel regret, but he couldn't.

With a sigh, he Conjured his Flameblade. Its green-purple aura was brilliant. He concentrated on this new Untouchable and what he had done to Damien's name. Anger flowed through him, and his knuckles whitened as he gripped the hilt of the sword. He raised the Flameblade above his head and slashed downward as hard as he could. He heard a whuff-pop as his weapon sliced through the membrane that separated this Instance from the others.

He stared at the portal in front of him, released his Flameblade, and stepped through.
Chapter Twenty-nine

The lights came on, and Saryn froze. Chuckie dropped to one knee and pressed his back to the wall. He wiggled his fingers, prepared to Conjure something—anything—at the nothing in front of him. He waited a moment and asked, "What did you do?" He never looked at Saryn.

"Nothing!"

"Right. Because lights just come on by themselves when you're underground."

"These did," Saryn said. "For all we know, Ceril might have had something to do with it."

"Maybe," Chuckie agreed. "If so, he'd have a lot more luck than we are right now."

"Let's hope so. I'm just about tired of walking down this hallway."

"Yeah, I'm kind of tired of staring at the same walls, too. It's been over an hour, and nothing has changed. Not even a little. It's kind of getting to me. But hey," Chuckie quipped, "at least it's not purple."

"I know," Saryn said. "But that's one of the things that bothers me about it. Everything was purple since we got there."

"The lightning wasn't. I don't think that acid was in that tree, either."

"Details," Saryn said. "And here we are in a gold and silver bunker or something."

"It's freaking me out a bit."

"A bit."

Chuckie stood up. "Do we keep going, then, or double back the way we came?"

"We keep going. If Ceril is the one who turned the lights on, then we could be walking directly at him. We could turn a corner and find him in five minutes."

"Or, we could find another set of nasty, purple angels who want us dead."

"Well, we know Ceril isn't behind us. There's no way we missed him. No doors, turns, corners, nothing on the way here. Unless you saw something I didn't."

Chuckie shook his head.

"Then forward it is."

"You're the boss, boss." Chuckie started walking. Saryn looked around at the ceiling and walls before she joined him. She didn't like the place one bit.

***

Saryn watched the floor as she walked, trying to make sense of the octagonal tiles and the symbols on them. She didn't see Chuckie stop, which caused her to run into him. She grunted and started to say more, but he shushed her. She edged around him and saw why.

The unchanging hallway had finally come to an end. Like a river flowing into the ocean, the hallway opened into a gigantic chamber that seemed like the one they had jumped into earlier. Only this time, instead of a pile of rubble and dust, a dais was suspended three-quarters of the way to the ceiling. From their low angle, they couldn't see what was actually on the platform, just flashing lights and changing colors.

"What's that?" Chuckie asked.

Saryn put a finger to her mouth to shush Chuckie, then whispered, "How should I know?"

Chuckie shrugged. "I'm going to find out." He took a couple of steps forward, but stopped when he heard a familiar voice coming from the dais.

"Saryn! Chuckie! Good to see you."

"Ceril?" Chuckie asked. "That you, boss?"

Ceril appeared at the edge of the platform and beckoned toward them. "Come on up!"

"Ternia!" Saryn said, relieved. "How are we supposed to get up there?"

"Just walk," Ceril shouted. "It's fine."

Saryn and Chuckie shared a look. "Umm," Chuckie said.

"Really, just walk up here. It's fine."

Chuckie toed the ground in front of him, and he finally took a tentative step. The ground rumbled beneath his foot. He took another step and noticed rather quickly that the ground was rising with him. He turned to Saryn, gave her the all-clear, and then the two of them made their way up the rising incline to the dais.

"Glad to see you're okay, boss," Chuckie said upon reaching the platform. He clapped Ceril on the back.

"Same for you, Chuckie."

"How did you survive that fall, Ternia?" Saryn asked, an edge of minor hysteria in her voice. She had been fine all the way—until she found out that Ceril was okay, and then she allowed herself the luxury of a small freak out.

"I...don't know," Ceril said honestly. "I woke up under some rubble. I worked my way out from under it and started walking. Eventually, I made my way here."

"Where is here, anyway?" Chuckie asked. He looked around the platform and pointed at the silent man standing beside the desk. "And who's he?"

Ceril turned his head toward the hologram. "That's the Archive," he said. "He's...sort of a curator for the database that's housed here."

"I see."

"He's a hologram, isn't he?" Saryn asked.

"I am indeed." The hologram stepped forward and waved at the newcomers. "Hello, Charons."

Saryn blinked twice. "Excuse me?"

"This place, this Archive, was built by the Charons," said Ceril.

"And he knows we're Charons how?" Chuckie asked.

"Because I told him you were."

"And he knew to trust you because?"

"I...don't know that, either. He said that I have authorization to be here, though."

"That's handy," Chuckie said and stared at the hologram. It stared back at him, periodically flickering. "I don't like it," Chuckie said at last.

"Me, either, Ceril," Saryn said, changing the subject. "By the way, about this meeting we were supposed to have with a priest of some sort?"

"Yeah, about that."

"We missed it," Chuckie said.

"Obviously," Saryn shot back.

"The audience was scheduled almost three hours ago by now, I think," Ceril said. He walked back to the desk and sat down. "Have a seat."

"Where?" Chuckie asked. The rest of the platform was bare. There were no chairs, except for the one Ceril sat in.

"Archive, we need chairs." Swirls of what appeared to be dust rose from the ground, and as they rose, the legs materialized, then the seat and back and arms. In seconds, two chairs grew from the platform. They could see them forming from the ground up.

"Did that hologram just Conjure?" Saryn asked.

Ceril nodded. "I think so, yeah. Somehow."

"I don't like this, Ternia," Saryn said. "Not one bit."

"I'm not the biggest fan, myself," Ceril said. He gestured at the chairs. "They're safe, though." Chuckie and Saryn sat down, and once they were sitting, Ceril continued. "I have found a few pieces of information in the Archive that could be useful. I don't understand a lot of it. It's written in the script we saw outside on the tower. The language really is a mixture of Erlonian symbols, and it doesn't use anything resembling modern syntax. I can glean a little meaning from it, though, here and there. And, as much as I hate to say it, there are pictures that I get a lot more from than I do the words."

Chuckie snickered. Ceril rolled his eyes.

"Not just illustrations. Maps. I think that this whole world, this whole Instance, was an experiment the Charons were conducting. It may have been the experiment they were conducting, actually."

"What do you mean?" Saryn asked.

"If I'm deciphering it correctly—and just so you know, I may not be—this Instance was the first one that ever successfully took."

"Took what?" Chuckie asked.

"Took, expanded, grew, worked, whatever," Ceril said. "And even if it wasn't the first, it was one of the first. It was called Jaronya—"

"That's familiar," Saryn said, and Ceril nodded.

"—and was used as, I think, a headquarters for Charonic activity."

"Like the Sigil?" Saryn asked.

"I think so, yeah. There was a war, though."

"Between who?" Chuckie asked.

"Charons," Ceril said. "It was pretty nasty stuff. The order had broken into two factions, and they just about wiped each other out. Or, at least out of, Jaronya. At one point, there were five major cities on Jaronya."

"Five?" Saryn asked, astonished. "Whole cities? There were that many Charons?"

"I'm assuming," Ceril continued. "Of those cities, Meshin, the one above us, was the largest. It served as the capital, and I think the central spire we were heading toward was the seat of the governing body."

"This is all fine and dandy, but what does this have to do with anything?"

"Well, it has to do with us getting home," Ceril said.

"How's that?" asked Chuckie.

"If this was one of the first Instances that ever worked—assuming we're correct in being taught that the technomages started on Erlon—there has to be a connection back there somewhere." Ceril turned his attention to Saryn. "Right? I mean, I assume that if the connection was made between two Instances that they always occupy the same space?"

She nodded. "Yeah...yeah, there should be. If this Instance originated in Erlonian space, then no matter how much it expanded afterward, there should still be parts of the terrain that overlap. It might only be a sliver if there has been a lot of shift, but they could still be connected."

"So we find that place and go home?" Chuckie asked.

"I hope it's that simple," Saryn said.

"Me, too," Ceril said. "There are maps here, too. Archive, can you download the maps to the tablet, please?"

"It is done, Charon."

"Also, will this tablet work outside of the Archive? I need to take it with me when we leave."

"Yes, Charon. I will set the nanites to be unresponsive to recall commands and break their bond with the network. That will program them to remain permanently as the tablet."

"Thank you, Archive," Ceril said as he turned to his friends. "Okay, these maps? They are from before the war, before these winged Jaronya, and before the ruins. That means we'll have to do a little work on our own. But I think we should be able to find the locations the old Charons used to Instance hop."

"Aren't those marked on the maps?" Saryn asked.

Ceril shook his head. "Not that I can tell. They might be, but I can't read it if they are."

"Did you ask him?" Chuckie said, tilting his head at the hologram.

"I..." Ceril paused. "No. I didn't."

Chuckie smiled. "Archive? That's your name, right?"

"Yes, Charon."

"Are there any Instance portals marked on those maps?"

"You do not currently have access to that information, Charon. I am sorry. If you believe that is a mistake, would you like to proceed with verification?"

"Damn right, I would. What do I have to do?"

"Remain still while the verification process is completed," the hologram said. It leaned close to Chuckie's face and flashed the same colors into his eyes as it had Ceril's. Seconds passed, and the hologram said, "I am sorry, Charon. You do not have authorization to access the Archive. You will be given five minutes to vacate the premises before you are terminated."

"Whoa, hold on there, Archive," Chuckie said, hopping to his feet and grabbing his gun.

"Will you verify me, please?" Saryn said, calm.

"Yes, Charon." The hologram leaned close to her and flashed lights in her eyes. "I am sorry, Charon," it said. "You do not have authorization to access the Archive. You will be given five minutes to vacate the premises before you are terminated."

"Ternia?" Saryn asked. "What's going on?"

"I'm not sure," Ceril said. "Archive, they have my permission to be here."

"I am aware of that, Charon. They do not, however, have authorization."

"I thought I had full authorization."

"To access the Archive," the hologram said.

"Can I not grant access to others?"

"No, Charon."

"Who can?"

"As stipulated by order PX1-767, only the ruling council of the Charonic Archive may grant authorization."

"Wait," Ceril said. "I thought you said no one was responsible for granting me access."

"That is correct. Your authorization did not come from an individual."

"But it came from a council?"

"Technically, Charon."

Ceril licked his lips as he leaned his head backward, stretching the muscles. "Can you tell me the names of those Charons who made up the council at the time the order was given?"

The Archive furrowed his brow. The holographic man peered at Ceril with his head cocked to the side. "No, Charon, I cannot. However, I should be able to. The information is not restricted from you."

"Why can't you then?"

"I cannot seem to locate the information. It appears as though the information was deleted from the database."

That caught Ceril's attention. "Why would someone do that? Who could do that?"

"I do not know why someone would delete information from the Archive, Charon. It has never happened before, to my knowledge. As for your inquiry regarding who would delete the information, only the council would have that ability."

"And you can't tell who was on the council at that time because it was deleted," Ceril said.

"Yes, Charon."

Then it hit him. Ceril asked the hologram, "When was that information deleted, Archive? Is there a timestamp for the event?"

The hologram stared blankly ahead, then said, "Yes, Charon. The information was removed from the database approximately five hundred years ago; however, I can tell you the information itself predates that by millennia."

Something about that bothered Ceril, but he couldn't figure out what.

"Boss?" Chuckie asked. "Could you hurry it up a bit?"

Chuckie was right. He didn't have enough time to dwell on it, no matter where it would lead and what he could learn. As much as he would like to stay and discuss, well, everything with the Archive, Saryn and Chuckie were kind of in mortal danger. He shouldn't have even taken as long as he did.

Ceril grabbed the tablet containing the maps. He secured it in his pack and said, "Archive, can you please direct us to the nearest exit?"

"Yes, Charon," the hologram said. "Warning: three minutes until termination of unauthorized access." Immediately following the warning, shallow stairs appeared. They spiraled toward the ceiling. Ceril and the others started up almost immediately. As they approached the ceiling, the tiles dissolved and purple light gleamed into the chamber. Ceril brought up the rear, and he said, "Go on out. I'll be right behind you. I need to do one thing first."

Saryn said, "But Ceril—"

"But nothing. I can be here; you guys can't. For whatever reason, I'm going to be safe in here."

"He's right, Saryn," Chuckie said. "We're the outsiders down there. We'll sort it out later. Come on, before we're all in trouble."

Saryn scowled. "I don't like this." She crawled through the opening.

"Unauthorized access has been contained. Termination protocols disengaged," the hologram said from the dais.

Ceril walked back down the ramp and stood in front of the hologram. "Hello, Charon," it said.

Ceril stood. "You were going to kill my friends?"

"They were unauthorized to be in the Archive. I am sorry."

"But you were going to kill them."

"They are unharmed, Charon."

"But they might not have been. Why kill them instead of force them to leave?"

"The data in the Archive is important and must be protected. Unauthorized access is prohibited."

Ceril gritted his teeth and nodded. There was no use in arguing with a machine. "Archive," he said, "can I gain access to you again if I need to? You said there was no network."

"You are correct. However, because you have authorization, you may utilize any of the designated entrances or terminals within the city of Meshin."

"Can you mark those on my maps?"

"It has been done. The locations have been highlighted on your maps." The hologram outstretched its arm, palm up, and projected a sample map into the air.

"That'll work," Ceril said.

"Is there anything else, Charon?"

"One more thing," Ceril said. "Is there a way to travel between cities on Jaronya?"

"The most efficient form of travel is by air, Charon. However, I do not believe any of the air transit systems still function."

"I don't suppose the Archives between each city could connect?"

"The archives are not networked. I am sorry."

"I don't mean like that. I mean, could you make this facility physically connect to the other archives? Like how you moved the hallways so my friends could find me?"

"That request has never been made," the hologram said. "I will perform the necessary calculations."

Ceril waited. He was almost becoming irritated when the Archive finally responded.

"No, Charon. This Archive does not possess the capability to connect to any other. I am sorry."

"Thanks, anyway." Ceril climbed the stairs toward his friends. He didn't particularly like the Archive, but he felt the need to say goodbye to it. It was the damnedest thing. He resisted, though; he didn't want to get too cozy with anything that was willing to kill Saryn and Chuckie, whether it was artificial or not.

As he stepped into the purple sun, Ceril's eyes closed automatically. The light, despite its ultraviolet shift, was incredibly bright and intense after the subdued golds and silvers of the Archive. Saryn and Chuckie stood at the base of a tower; they were looking upward.

It took Ceril a moment to realize what was different about this tower: it wasn't in ruins.

Various shades of purple wrapped the exterior of the building; green symbols and words decorated the violet bands.

"Well, that's convenient," Ceril said to let his team know he was back. "We made it to the high priest's temple, after all."

"Looks like it," Saryn said.

Chuckie said, "Better late than never, right, boss?"

"I'm not sure about that," Saryn said, pointing.

Out of the tower came three Jaronya. Their wings were fully Conjured and spread, but they were not flying. It was the first time Ceril could remember them just walking around, and the sight terrified him.

Each of the Jaronya was covered in thick plates of purple armor, and each plate connected to the others with swatches of cloth. The three Jaronya were each armed with a staff that had green energy spiraling up and down its length. Occasionally, a bolt would arc from the top of one staff and bounce to another.

Ceril pushed between Saryn and Chuckie, taking point. He was going to talk with the guards and apologize for being late. Before he could, green arcs of energy shot from the three staves simultaneously into Ceril's legs and stomach. He collapsed.

Chuckie braced his feet and held his hands in front of him. He wasn't going to let that happen to him. His fear and anger drove him to Conjure red fire from his palms. He directed the walls of flame at the left-most Jaronya, and the Conjured fire encompassed the angel.

The Jaronya took another step, and Chuckie gritted his teeth. Veins popped up on his forehead as he pushed at his Conjured flames.

The Jaronya fell, its wings dissolving along with the rest of its body as it died. Chuckie whipped his fire toward the second angel, but more arcs of energy came from the staves. This time they zapped both Chuckie and Saryn at the same time.

Chuckie's fire dissipated, and he whimpered as he collapsed, too drained from the force of his Conjuring to resist the attack. Saryn fell, too, interrupting whatever she had been Conjuring before it could even take form.

The Jaronya kept walking toward them.

Chapter Thirty

"Where can I get one of those?"

The large purple man just stood there, his hand wrapped around the hilt of a golden sword. He stared at Swinton.

"Really, I mean it. I want one."

The angel just stared ahead without acknowledging that Swinton was speaking.

"Not yours, you know, but one like it. You think that would be possible? I mean, that's why I became a soldier in the first place; to get a Flameblade. I started out as a scholar—a nerd, you know—but I saw one of those and knew that I had to have one."

Still no reaction.

Swinton hardly noticed. "You and your buddies all have them, right? Which means that they're not as rare or as hard to get as Roman and Bryt made out."

"I take it you're feeling better," Easter Harlo said.

Swinton turned away from the stoic guard. "I am. Thanks by the way, Harlo. I owe you one. Really. I'm not sure how you did it, but it doesn't feel like one of these guys ever stabbed me." He rotated his left arm in a circle and threw a couple of punches at the air in front of him. "See? I owe you one, doc. For real."

"You can pay me back right now, actually."

"Yeah? What do you need?"

"For you to give it a rest, Swinton. Please."

"What do you mean? What'd I do?"

"Talking to the guard like that. You're going to get us killed," Harlo said. "And I'm thinking that I don't really like the sound of that."

"What would you prefer me to do?"

"Sit quietly and wait for a while. That sounds pretty good."

"That sounds awful. I can't sit still, anyway. I can't just sit here and do nothing while these...things plan to kill us."

"We don't know they plan to kill us. They saved you when you fell off the building, remember?"

"Yeah, but how do we know that wasn't just, you know, buying time. We don't know what their plans are. They might want to kill us. They did kidnap us, remember?" Swinton said.

"You're right," Harlo sighed. "Whatever, Swinton. Do whatever you want, but do it quietly. And without bothering the guard. Please."

Swinton scowled at her and sat with his back against the wall. It had been hours since he had been thrown into their cell, and they still had no idea what was going on or why they had been taken.

Their cell was round and fairly small. It had no windows, and only a single latticed door in or out—if you didn't count the disintegrating wall that Swinton had been thrown through earlier. A guard dressed in purple robes stood outside the door, his eyes staring straight ahead into the cell. He had not moved or spoken since Harlo had finished operating on Swinton's arm.

There was no furniture in the cell, not even a bed or somewhere for them to relieve themselves. Swinton assumed that meant it was a short-term residence, but whether that was good or bad for them, he didn't know. The walls were purple and shiny, and the floor and ceiling were made out of lacquered tiles that had green symbols embossed in their centers.

"You didn't see Ceril or anyone when you were out there, did you?" Harlo asked.

"Nope," Swinton said. "All I saw was this tower and the ruins around it. The big angel guys were everywhere, but not Ceril, Chuckie, or Saryn."

"I hope they're okay. I mean, we heard shots after they were taken. I hope that they didn't get themselves killed."

"I doubt they did," Swinton said. "I took some potshots at one of those guys, and I'm still here."

"Barely. You got stabbed in the shoulder, and you had your neck cut."

"We have to assume they're alive, either way. Saryn and Ceril are smart cookies, you know? And Chuckie...well, he's Chuckie."

"So where does that leave us?" Harlo asked. She was sulking now, Swinton noticed. Her mood had drastically changed since she had finished fixing his arm. She had been so focused, so intent on making him better—saving his life, really—that everything else had kind of faded away. Now, though, she had time to think. She was bored now that she didn't have a goal to work toward. And he could tell that it was getting to her.

"Well, it leaves us here. Which doesn't mean that much," he said. "We have to find a way out of here."

"How?" she asked. "You messed with the wall forever, and it's still solid. Even if it wasn't, we'd just fall to our deaths if we went outside. And the door isn't likely to come open with him," she jerked her thumb toward the guard without looking, "standing there the whole time."

"Umm, Harlo."

She grunted acknowledgement.

"He's gone."

She looked up. Swinton was right. She rushed to the door and slid her fingers through the lattice. Swinton followed suit. It was warm to the touch, and Harlo pressed her face into it, trying to see as far as she could down the hallway, which wasn't very far, considering the corridor was curved just like the cell walls.

"Where'd he go?" Swinton asked.

"Beats me, but this is our chance to get out of here."

"And you plan on doing that how?"

"Watch," Harlo said. The holes in the door were just big enough for Harlo's hand to fit through. She pushed her arm out as far as she could, and held her hand out, palm up and open. Her nanite sleeve began to rush toward her hand, and within seconds, Harlo was holding a throbbing sphere of black liquid.

She closed her eyes, and a yellow dot appeared on the ball of nanites. It rotated around on its base like an eyeball out of its socket.

"There's a panel beside the door," Harlo said. "It looks like it's made out of the same kind of tiles that are on the floor in here, just smaller. I think it's a keypad."

"How do you know how to do that?" Swinton asked, amazed.

"I've used this Conjuring for surgery before," she said. "Well, I was taught how to do it, and then Dr. Howser used her own to actually perform the procedure."

"It's awfully big to be inside someone," Swinton said.

"This is an enlarged version, Swinton." As she spoke, the dot on the nanite scope turned red. A tendril extended from the sphere from beneath the red dot and snaked its way through the air to the left side of the door. "The panel hasn't been used in a while. There's no residual heat left on the buttons." The dot turned blue, and Harlo smiled. "There are, however, traces of oil or something left on some of them. I know which buttons open the door, at least."

Swinton beamed. "Well, that's good news. How many are there?"

"Four," she said. "It could take forever to get the right sequence, though. Any suggestions?"

Swinton thought about it. He had no idea. "No," he said. "I have no clue. Just start pressing them and hope you get lucky. If the guard comes back, pull yourself back in here and wait till he leaves to try again. We know he leaves now, at least."

"Yeah," she said. "Yeah, I'll try that." Her nanites pressed four buttons on the keypad.

Nothing happened. Four more. Still nothing. Another combination and another and another. None of them worked because the door never opened. Then, when Harlo thought she heard someone walking outside the cell, she pressed one last sequence of keys, and she heard a slight hiss. She jerked her hand back inside and recalled her nanites just in time for the door to the cell to slide open, granting them access to whatever was outside.

At roughly the same time, the guard reappeared from around the corner. If he was surprised to find the door open, his reaction didn't show it. He simply walked into the room, grabbed Swinton and Harlo by the necks, and pushed them against the back wall. They hit hard, and Harlo sagged as her head bounced off the wall.

The guard released her, and she fell into a pile. It let go of Swinton, too, and took a step backward. The large purple man cocked his head to the side and looked inquisitively at Swinton. The guard began to speak without moving his mouth, but it was the same language Swinton had heard them speak to each other on the balcony, and he couldn't understand anything it was saying.

"I don't understand," Swinton said. "What do you want?"

The guard's eyes narrowed. "What do...you want," it said, its mouth never moving.

"Umm..." Swinton said.

"You want..."

Swinton didn't answer.

The guard held out his hand, and his Flameblade appeared. He put his other hand beneath the blade and held it out to Swinton. Swinton blinked twice.

"You want..."

"Umm, yes," Swinton said. "I do. But why are you giving it to me?"

"You want..."

The conversation was going nowhere, and Swinton had no idea why his guard was offering him a weapon—a Flameblade!—but he wasn't going to turn it down. He reached out and grabbed the glowing weapon by the hilt. The aura dimmed from a steady purple to a pale yellow.

"Thank you," Swinton said. "Why give this to me?"

The guard looked at Harlo, unconscious on the floor. He walked over and kicked her.

"Hey, stop that!" Swinton said.

The guard kicked Harlo again. Swinton rushed his captor with his new weapon, but the angel blocked the attack with his arm and knocked Swinton off his feet. The guard kicked Harlo one more time and pointed at her. Then back to Swinton. Then back to Harlo.

It didn't take Swinton long to figure out what the angel wanted. "I'm not going to hurt her," Swinton said. "If that's the price of this thing, you can have it back." He tossed the Flameblade toward its previous owner.

The guard looked at him and cocked his head to the side once again. It made a fist, the Flameblade appeared in it, then he placed it back in Swinton's hand.

"I said—AAAAHHH!" Swinton's refusal was cut short when the guard made a slicing motion with his sword arm. Swinton's arm mimicked it involuntarily. The Jaronya was controlling Swinton like a puppet, making him hurt himself with the Flameblade he had wanted so badly.

The guard smiled, and he made another slashing motion toward the ground.

Swinton screamed as his arm made the exact same gesture. But where the guard's movement was harmless because he was unarmed, Swinton used the Flameblade to slice directly into his own calf. The sword lodged halfway through, and the angel lifted his arm and slammed it back down. Swinton did the same thing, finishing the job and lopping off the lower part of his right leg.

He cried out and sputtered incomprehensibly at the guard. He let go of the sword, and it reappeared in the guard's hand.

Swinton just screamed again. Harlo stirred at the noise, and she tried to focus on the source of the noise. Even in her stupor, she knew something was wrong. "What is it, Swinton? What happened?"

Another scream.

As her vision cleared, Harlo saw the details of what was going on. The guard stood over Swinton, who lay crying and stammering, his leg in front of him. She tried to stand up, but stumbled and fell. The room spun, and she tried again when it stopped. The guard moved over to her and pushed her back down.

She watched as the guard knelt down beside Swinton and grabbed the young man's severed leg and jammed the Flameblade against the stub. Swinton screamed, but the guard just kept working. Eventually, the sword's aura flared, and Swinton's leg began to heal.

Within moments of being inside the purple flame, there was no wound on it at all. Swinton's screaming subsided into mere panting and gasping.

The guard stood up and looked directly at Harlo. Then he walked out of the room as the door slid shut behind him and he took his place outside the cell once again.

***

"I can't stand another one, Harlo. I mean it."

"Maybe there won't be another one," she offered. She didn't believe it, but she had to offer the poor guy some kind of hope. For the past three hours, as close as she could tell anyway, the guard had regularly come into their cell and accosted Swinton. It handed him the Flameblade and somehow puppeteered him into slicing off one appendage or another.

The second time it had happened, Swinton had just lost a finger. That hadn't been too bad, seeing as how he had chopped off his own leg an hour before. Since then, though, the guard had forced him to self-amputate his other leg and the arm that Harlo had healed when he had first arrived in the cell. Each time, though, the guard somehow replaced the severed body part and healed it up with the Flameblade's aura. It was like magic. Harlo knew a lot about healing—she had better, she had worked, lived, and breathed it for the last six years—but she had never seen any kind of nanite treatment that worked as fast or as efficiently as this guard's sword did.

She felt more than a little bad that she was almost as curious about how it worked as she was disgusted at it happening.

His voice was distant as he said, "There's always another one, Harlo."

"That's the spirit, Swinton. Give on up."

"Good idea," he said. "I think I just might."

"It was sarcasm, Swinton. Cheer up a little."

"I think," he coughed as he spoke, "I think I'm doing a better job of cutting myself apart. That guy's doing a pretty good job of putting me together, though. I just can't take it again, Harlo. I just can't."

Harlo closed her eyes. She knew she couldn't do anything for him, but she said again, "Maybe there won't be another one."

The door hissed open and two of the purple angels came through instead of the typical one. "What, you're starting in on both of us now?" She wanted to sound tough for Swinton's sake, but she thought it came across as pathetic. She never had been good at sounding stern.

The guards ignored her comments and moved toward either Swinton or Harlo, picked them up, and walked back out the door. The Charons struggled against their captors, but it was no use. The angels barely even acknowledged they were resisting. Harlo struggled longer than Swinton did, but eventually even she stopped. She let them carry her through the hallways, but she made sure that she took stock of her surroundings as she passed by.

There were decorations here and there in the form of sculptures, but they were abstract, and she knew nothing about art. The walls all looked pretty much the same to her; they would descend a winding staircase that would lead to another curved hallway that led to another winding staircase. There were doors and rooms along some of the corridors, and even though they had latticed doors, too, she couldn't see inside them. They were moving too quickly through the halls.

Eventually, a winding staircase led to an open chamber on what Harlo assumed was the ground floor, or at least near the base of the tower. The room wasn't dissimilar from their cell. It had the same kind of tiled floor and ceiling, but it was much larger, had multiple entrances and exits, and in the very center, had two gleaming purple stakes standing upright.

That was where they were headed. The guards walked toward the stakes and dropped Swinton and Harlo. The guards forced them onto their knees. Even though they struggled, the angels tied their hands behind them and around the poles.

Then, the angels left the chamber, and Harlo and Swinton were alone.

Harlo broke the silence first. "See?" she said, "There wasn't another one. What did I tell you?" Her voice cracked before she finished speaking, which only emphasized the utter lack of confidence she felt at that moment.

Swinton laughed. It was a real laugh, and he kept laughing until Harlo joined in. Neither of them knew what was so funny, but after what they had been through, laughing like that was exactly what they needed.

When it subsided, Swinton said, "Yeah. You were right, doc. There wasn't another one. I'm sure that whatever this is, it's going to be a lot more fun."

"The upside of this is that there were only two stakes. That means that it's just us. Not Ceril, Saryn, or Chuckie."

"Lucky them," Swinton said. "Lucky us."

"Did you hear that?" Harlo asked.

"What?"

"I don't know. Like...buzzing and thumping. I don't know."

"No, I d—yeah, yeah, I hear that. What is it?" Swinton said. Beside him, three more stakes began to rise from the floor, the tiles that lined the floor topping them. "Uh oh."

"Yeah. That's bad."

The door to the chamber opened and violet sunlight poured into the chamber. Two more of the angels walked toward Swinton and Harlo. These were dressed much more nicely than the guard who had been accosting them for the past few hours, and they carried long staves they must have used for weapons. Behind them, they dragged three bodies.

"I think they found the others," Harlo said.

"Yeah, I think so."

The large purple men dragged Ceril, Saryn, and Chuckie's limp bodies to the new stakes and tied them up just like they had done with Harlo and Swinton. Harlo watched them bind her teammates to stakes. She wanted to do something to help them, help herself, but she had no idea what that could be.

"Swinton?"

"Yeah?" he answered.

"I think we're screwed."

"I've been saying that for a while, doc."

She started to reply, but one of the guards struck her in the forehead and slammed her head into the stake. She slumped into unconsciousness.
Chapter Thirty-one

Saryn woke up first. She was kneeling, and her hands were tied behind her back. No, not just behind her back—around a stake buried in the ground behind her. She tugged at it, but the pain in her wrists made her stop. She had been bound by someone who knew what they were doing.

Next to her on the right was Ceril. He was tied to a stake, too. On her left was...

"Harlo? Easter? Harlo! Are you awake?"

There was no answer, but she saw the girl's chest rise and fall, so at least she was alive. What have they been through? Saryn thought. She saw Chuckie was tied up on Ceril's right, and past him was Swinton. They're both alive. Relief rushed over her, but she noted its futility given their current situation.

The room they found themselves in was purple as usual, but it looked more like the Archive than the ruins of the rest of the city. Purple tiles with green symbols—rather than gold with silver symbols—lined the floor and ceiling. The rounded walls bore the same symbols, only in bands of writing rather than tiles of individual letters.

The others were waking up now, too. Saryn heard Ceril grunt as he found himself tied up.

"Swinton!" Ceril said as he noticed the once-missing teammates. "Harlo! You're alive!"

"The same could be said about you," Harlo said, her voice raspy. "When did you get here?"

"I don't know. I was outside, those Jaronya attacked us, and I woke up here."

Harlo said quickly, "Don't say that word, all right?" She cringed as though she were bracing herself to withstand something terrible.

"Ja—"

"Don't," she said. "They get pretty uppity about it."

Chuckie spoke next. "Why are we tied like this? You guys tied up like this?"

"Yeah," Saryn said. "I think we all are."

To no one in particular, Chuckie yelled, "Hey! Let me go! Untie me! Get me out of here!"

"Chuckie," Saryn said. "Calm down." But it was too late. He had already yelled, already alerted the guards that the group was awake. Directly in front of the prisoners, a door opened. Or more accurately, the wall dissolved, allowed three figures to enter, and solidified once again.

Ceril, Saryn, and Chuckie were already familiar with the two Jaronya guards. They carried the same electric staves that had incapacitated them outside the tower. The third figure was a sight to see, however, for all of them.

Ceril knew that not all Jaronya dressed in rags. While the initial kidnappers had worn tatters, they had been in contact with beings who had actually spoken with them and dressed in richly died robes with elegant embroideries. This third Jaronya, however, was head and shoulders above the others, both in quality of appearance and physical height.

The Jaronya's most striking aspect, though, was that it was quite obviously a female. Until then, all the Jaronya they had seen had been male. Very similarly male, too: wide shoulders, broad wings, chiseled chins, and severe purplish ponytails trailing the length of their backs.

The female was just the opposite. She was graceful in a way that would have indicated an aristocratic upbringing on Erlon. Her body was voluptuous and proportionate to her height. Her breasts and hips strained at her robe, which was styled similarly to the emissary Ceril had spoken with before he discovered the Archive. But her clothes were not just iridescent. They literally glowed.

A single stripe of purple hung down the front of her robe and connected to a hood that draped over her shoulders. The stripe was emblazoned with green symbols that floated a few inches away from the cloth. They looked like holograms being projected out of her clothing, and Ceril thought the symbols looked like the ones on the Archive's tiles.

Her face was soft, and her features were delicate. She had white skin, which stood out because of the strange purple all the other Jaronya had. And she was bald. Her baldness was the most striking thing about her.

Until she spoke.

You killed another of my flock, she said. Only she didn't say it. Her mouth never moved.

The Charons were silent.

Do you deny it? she asked. Your silence will assent to your complicity.

"When? Where?" Ceril asked, both to keep from admitting something he had no idea about and to get some answers.

Yesterday, she said. In front of the temple. My guards came to greet you and you murdered one of them.

Chuckie spoke up, "They attacked Ceril first! They shot him with those staff things, and I thought he was dead. What did you expect me to do? Sit there and let them kill me, too?"

My guards would never attack unprovoked. She paused, then said, Your attack did not seem to prevent them from incapacitating you.

"Guess not," Chuckie said.

Ceril turned his head toward Chuckie and asked him, "Is that what happened? I got shot and you killed one?"

"About sums it up."

Ceril's mind went to Harlo and Swinton. How long had they been here? What had they been through? Harlo seemed so...broken when he had mentioned the Jaronya before.

I brought the first two to my temple days ago, the female said to Ceril. He looked up at her, amazed that she reacted to what he was thinking about. While you and the two with you were being scryed.

"I don't understand."

I know. You had an audience today. You missed it.

"It was unavoidable," Ceril said. "There was an accident."

No, she said. There was disrespect.

"None was intended."

Intent is not always the precursor of effect.

Ceril blinked. "We're just trying to get home."

I know. As I said, you were all scryed.

"I'm sorry," Ceril said. "I don't know what that means."

It means that you were placed before the Holy, and your minds were opened before It. You have no secrets from us anymore, Ceril Bain.

Ceril didn't like the sound of that. He said, "Why are we tied up?"

You are standing trial.

"So you tie us up?" Saryn interjected.

That is our way.

Ceril said, "So if we had been on time for the audience—"

You would be as you are now.

"I'm kind of sad we showed up at all, then," Chuckie said.

Without moving, the female Jaronya called their attention. The five Charons' heads jerked toward her involuntarily, a compulsion they couldn't resist.

"So you're the high priest?" Ceril asked.

Yes.

"Then help us. You know our mission. We're Charons looking to help our ship get back to our home. We believe there are connections on this world that will allow us to do so."

I may know of what you speak, but there is more to your work than you indicate.

Ceril's hopes rose, but were dashed just as quickly as the priest continued to speak.

I will not help those who have killed members of my flock.

"What can we do?" Ceril asked.

Penance.

"What do you mean?"

Three of my flock are dead. Three of yours will be, too. Then, we will discuss these connections you claim to seek.

"I don't think so," Chuckie snapped.

You do not get to speak to me again, she said, turning toward Chuckie. You are responsible for two of the deaths. He, she pointed at Ceril, is responsible for the other.

"Why does he get to talk to you then?" Chuckie asked. As he spoke, his head snapped back. The others heard a dull, wet thud as it slammed into the post. Chuckie's body slumped.

The female Jaronya ignored him and moved to Ceril. He is not dead.

"Three of my people are not going to die here, Jaronya," Ceril said. His voice was far more firm than he thought he could muster.

Utter that word again, and you will all die.

Harlo whined, "I told you, Ceril." She clinched her eyes shut.

"Understood," Ceril said. He strained against his bound hands. "Can you please let us off these stakes so we can talk like civilized people?"

Would civilized people kill those around them?

"Would civilized people kidnap anyone who happened to walk by? Would civilized people put their prisoners in a situation like this?"

You have been informed why you were abducted. My emissary assumed you were the messiahs spoken of by the Ancestors. It is clear that you are not.

"How is it clear?" Saryn asked.

That is not for you to know. Her attention was suddenly away from the five captives, but returned just as quickly. It is time. You have been judged.

The sigils projected in front of her flared. A sequence of expanding and contracting symbols illuminated the front of her robe, and finally one sigil glowed larger and brighter than the others.

As it did, Swinton screamed.

Everyone's attention went to him. They craned their necks to see, pulling at their bindings as they saw a purple-green flame erupt from the top of the stake. It rolled down the spike and poured over his body. Conjured fire. Its gelatinous texture was impossible to miss as it oozed all over Swinton. He screamed as his skin darkened. Faint pops sounded as his eyes overheated and surged from their sockets. His skin ruptured as blisters formed and cracked. Chuckie was next to him, two feet away, and felt no heat.

"Swinton!" Ceril yelled. "Let him go."

He just kept screaming, the Conjured fire burning brighter as the execution drew on. Swinton's bindings eventually burned through, and he collapsed onto the floor of the chamber. The fire was recalled back to the top of the stake, and Swinton lay fleshless in front of the four of them.

It was fast, the priest said. Are we not merciful? Then, two more...

"Will not die," Ceril completed. He thought fast. He had no idea how long anyone else had before she burned them alive. He pulled and struggled at his bonds, even Conjured a wrist-coating of nanites to help slip his bonds, but he could not. And then it dawned on him.

His Flameblade. If the sword could be called, he could hopefully use it to cut his bonds. He focused his fear and anger at the sword, wherever it was now, confiscated by the Jaronya. He had one shot at this, and that was if it worked at all. His heart began to pound, and the veins in his temples throbbed. Ceril could feel the pressure inside his head as his fear and anger broke through whatever barrier the priest had placed between his weapon and him. The sword appeared in his hands with a whuff-pop, and its weight felt good. His anger dissipated and transformed into hope. Maybe he was going to get them out of this alive, after all. The ropes binding them fell away; the Flameblade had severed them as it materialized within them. Ceril had miscalculated and caught part of his arm and winced as the golden blade cut into his flesh, too. That would heal, though. He was free. He rotated his wrist, slicing the bindings on his feet, and bringing the sword to bear.

No, the priest said, and fire erupted from all four stakes. It poured downward toward the still-bound Charons. Though the fire radiated no external heat, the light it created was brilliant. The whole chamber was lit with flickers of purple and green. Shadows danced, and so did Ceril. He climbed to his feet and made a quick slash at Chuckie's hands, loosening the bonds enough for him to break free. Harlo was next. The fire had begun to burn her shoulder, but Ceril was able to knock her clear before it coated her like it had Swinton.

Saryn, however, was screaming by the time Ceril was able to move back to her. He cut at her hands, freeing them, and kicked her to the ground, away from the fire. Her back was badly burned already.

"Harlo," Ceril said to the medic. "Do what you can for her."

As he spoke, two arcs of green energy shot directly at him and hit the sword. The Flameblade's own purple-green aura seemed to get brighter in that moment as it absorbed the bolts. He had no time to marvel as the two Jaronya guards were on him, one reaching for his shoulders to push him to the ground. The other swung its sparking staff at his legs, going for the same result.

The priest remained silent. More of her robe's green symbols flared, and the fire that had once been limited to the stakes slithered across the floor toward the occupied Charons. Chuckie was the only member of the team capable of doing anything about it. He knelt behind Harlo as she worked on healing Saryn's back. He closed his eyes and placed his palms on the ground.

"Giving up already, Chuckie?" Harlo asked.

"Not hardly."

Saying a prayer, are you, Charon? The priest taunted him. Your heretic gods have no power here.

Through clenched teeth, Chuckie said, "They might not, but I do." His nanite sleeve erupted and ran off his body. He pushed as much anger as he could toward the tiny machines, and he was able to Conjure a dome of protective fire around himself, Saryn, and Harlo.

Harlo, noticing a change of light, looked up for a split-second to see what had happened. She saw Chuckie kneeling to maintain the Conjuring and turned immediately back to Saryn. She hoped that she could Conjure enough healing to be effective in the time Chuckie had bought them.

The purple-green flame washed over Chuckie's blue-white dome. The priest's weapon coated the shield, but could not penetrate it. Chuckie grunted as the priest increased the intensity of her onslaught. He concentrated on maintaining his Conjuring. He had been trained to focus his emotions, and the fear he felt at not being good enough to protect his team was enough for a little while. Hopefully, that would be long enough. In the back of his mind, he hoped that Ceril could find a way out of this. He wasn't sure how long he could keep this together.

The Jaronya guard had succeeded in pushing Ceril to the ground, but he went with it and tucked himself into a roll, avoiding the other guard's weapon altogether. He stood up and thrust his Flameblade blindly behind him—a maneuver Bryt had warned him against numerous times. It left him too open. But when it worked, it worked.

And this time, it worked. Ceril's blind strike grazed one of the Jaronya, cutting the angel's arm as he tried to swing his staff at Ceril. It was enough to deflect the blow. If only Bryt could have seen it save his life.

The unwounded guard came toward Ceril again with its staff pointed at him. A bolt of green electricity flew toward Ceril and then arced directly into his Flameblade. The sword flared and the arc of energy dissipated harmlessly.

Ceril quickly looked around the room for his friends. He didn't see them, but he did notice Chuckie's dome. He hoped it was doing what it needed to and that Chuckie would be strong enough to hold it. Meanwhile, the priest's fire was creeping closer to Ceril and the two guards, and when it got there, Chuckie would be able to do nothing to help.

The guard whose arm Ceril had cut swung his staff at Ceril. Apparently, he had lost no strength from the slight wound Ceril had given him. Ceril ducked the attack and countered with a stabbing thrust of his own sword that the Jaronya parried gracefully. The other Jaronya took that opportunity to connect his fist with the back of Ceril's head.

Ceril's couldn't see, and then he collapsed. He found himself lying on his stomach, dazed from the blow, when one of the Jaronya's staves connected with his back. Ice ran up his spine, and Ceril was briefly thankful he hadn't heard a snap or a crack. He gathered his wits long enough to roll to his right, away from another bolt of electricity that had been directed at his head.

He tried to stand, but the second Jaronya kicked him back down. His face crashed into the floor, and blood filled his mouth. He bit down on something hard, and spit out a tooth that had broken off from the impact. He had little time to think about the injury because one of the Jaronya picked him up by the scruff of the neck and threw him backward toward the wall.

Ceril was astonished that he still held his Flameblade, so as he flew backward, he made sure he never lost his grip. He slammed into the wall and slid to the floor. He stood up, barely dodging another bolt of energy.

His vision was clearing, so as one of the Jaronya guards rushed him, Ceril slashed downward. His blade caught the guard's staff on its upswing. Ceril used his body's momentum and punched the Jaronya square in the jaw while he had the staff pinned down. The Jaronya barely flinched.

Another arc of energy flew at Ceril, and again, the Flameblade absorbed the bolt and flared its purple-green glow. Ceril gripped his sword with two hands, hoping to take advantage of any opportunity his punch had afforded him. He caught the second Jaronya on its chin with the edge of his blade. He felt it catch under the angel's chin, and he pushed harder into his enemy's flesh. It gave way and severed the lower half of the Jaronya's face. Black blood went everywhere, and the Jaronya's eyes went wide in pain. There were gurgles that probably would have been screams before its mouth had been cut off.

The wounded angel lunged at Ceril, swinging its staff with abandon. It was dying and desperate to take someone with it. Ceril ducked one swing and had to hop over the next. Purple electricity arced from the weapon as he did so, but it was all directed to his sword, which began to glow brighter and brighter.

The mouthless Jaronya stopped attacking and fixed its eyes on Ceril. The whole staff began to crackle with electricity—small and large arcs of green spiraled along its length. The weapon must have hit saturation because once the spiraling arcs began to appear as a solid glow around the staff, a storm leapt toward Ceril.

The young man had no time to move or dodge or even prepare himself. The only action he could take was to raise his sword to try to block it. He was lucky. The sword absorbed most of the incoming energy, but not all of it. Some energy rebounded and struck Ceril, scorching and burning him all along his arms and lower body. He knew that he couldn't withstand it for long, so he made one last charge at the dying Jaronya. The closer he got to the staff, the more of his body he could feel burning. He toughed through it—he had to if he didn't want to die—and slashed at his opponent's weapon. His Flameblade struck the staff hard, cutting through.

Ceril had not anticipated what would happen to all the staff's energy after he sliced through it. The small explosion that occurred as his blade passed through the staff knocked him off his feet. He tumbled head over heels, and the world spun around him.

The faceless Jaronya was not so lucky, since the angel had been holding the weapon when it discharged. Its arms disintegrated, and the shockwave from the explosion caved in its chest. The winged attacker fell backwards as it died, black blood gurgling from the remaining half of its face.

Ceril did not see his opponent die. As he righted himself, a scream from behind him brought his attention to the other Jaronya. The guard charged at him, twirling his staff with only the faintest hints of it being electrified. The staff came down on his left, and Ceril dodged to the right just in time to dodge backward for another downward strike. On the third, he was ready, and he met the staff with his sword.

The force of their meeting shot pain up Ceril's arm, so he whipped his sword into an attack before he lost control of his weapon from the strain. The Jaronya easily dodged and brought his staff back around, connecting with Ceril's open right side.

Air rushed out of Ceril's lungs, and he heard a wet crack. Pain clouded his vision, and he knew that at least one of his ribs was broken. From the way it felt, many probably were. He sucked in as much breath as he could and swung his sword again, but fell short of connecting with the Jaronya. He had to deal with broken ribs now; the pain was weakening his attacks. He knew he had to end the fight, and fast.

The Jaronya saw that Ceril was injured and backed up. It was not a move that indicated mercy, but instead a reevaluation of his attack strategy. The Jaronya Conjured his wings and lifted off the ground. His staff crackled with electricity that leapt at Ceril's sword in teasing jaunts. He circled high, and Ceril took the moment to be grateful for the reprieve. He knew that he could not let himself get too relaxed, but the moment of rest was nice.

The Jaronya noticed Ceril's slight relaxing and dove directly toward him. A scene from the field flashed in Ceril's mind. He saw the winged figure grab Chuckie and begin to fly away. He knew this wasn't the same Jaronya—that one was dead, and he had killed it—but Ceril felt this was an opportunity to make up for a missed opportunity. As the Jaronya swept by him, the staff burst with purple energy, connecting with Ceril's sword. The physical part of the staff connected with Ceril as he was distracted by the sword's energy absorption. He felt the bone just above his elbow snap, and he screamed in pain.

The Flameblade fell out of his hand, and rather than stoop to snatch it back up, he summoned it into his uninjured hand. The ribs on that side might be broken, but at least the arm wasn't. He could still use the arm. When he had secured his weapon, he looked down at his broken arm. The bone protruded at a severe angle, but surprisingly it didn't hurt. It would later. If later came. Blood flowed freely and pooled at his feet.

The Jaronya landed in front of him, knowing full well that Ceril was too injured to fight. The winged humanoid walked toward him as the Conjured fire from the priest crept up behind him. It had finally made its way to where they had been fighting. The Jaronya dropped his staff, letting the fire consume it. He did not need it to finish the injured young man.

The winged man reached out for Ceril with both arms, and picked him up by the neck. Ceril's lungs burned almost immediately. He had been caught on an exhale, which meant he had significantly less oxygen to sustain him while he was unable to breathe. He had to act quickly if he was going to act at all. "You are no messiah," the angel said.

You're damn right I'm not, Ceril thought as he thrust the sword upward with his good arm, which was still hindered by the broken ribs under it.

The Jaronya laughed at the wound. Ceril had stabbed him, he was sure of it, and he focused his eyes on where he had connected. It was a clean cut on the Jaronya's abdomen, but it was shallow. Ceril tried to push the blade further inside, tried to twist or cut some vital organ, but the pain in his ribs prevented him from putting any real force or leverage behind the weapon.

The Jaronya squeezed harder at Ceril's neck, and the edges of his vision began to dim. The world was framed in blackness, and Ceril had one last gambit before he died. He wasn't getting any air, so he didn't need his breather anymore. He let the nanites that filled his mouth and nose join the rest of the sleeve. He then sent every nanite at his disposal down his arm toward the sword that was stuck inside the Jaronya's side.

Ceril had to maintain a physical connection with the nanites to stay in control and prevent them from going inert, so he let a tendril of blackness wrap around his wrist, a lifeline. The rest of the tiny machines traveled down the glowing purple-green blade and into the Jaronya's body. They coated the inside of the wound, and with the last bit of energy he had, Ceril focused on the fear of his imminent death to power the tiny machines. His Flameblade flared brightly as it released what Ceril thought was the stolen energy from the staff weapons. The nanites absorbed and amplified that energy and focused it inside the Jaronya choking Ceril.

In an instant, Ceril found himself lying on the ground, gasping for breath. His right arm still held the Flameblade, but it was no longer stabbed inside the Jaronya. The guard's top half had toppled backward, but its legs remained balanced upright. The Jaronya's black blood covered Ceril's body, but his Flameblade had burned so intensely that no blood stuck to its surface.

The priest's Conjured fire, the fire that had killed Swinton and injured Saryn, continued to progress, as it coated both of the angels Ceril had killed and encircled him. His sword glowed brightly, and then extinguished. Ceril sat on a patch of tiled floor that was untouched by the priest's gelatinous fire.

The priest walked through the fire and stood in front of him. The fire never touched her or her clothes. The sigils on the collar she wore were much larger now, radiant and terrifying. They appeared to shield her.

Well done, she said. Unfortunately, it was for nothing.

She pointed at Ceril's sword, and it flew into the fire as she curled her finger. Her other hand manipulated one of the sigils in front of her, twisted it, and Ceril stood up through no effort of his own. The flames moved closer to his feet, but never touched him. He felt no heat.

You are not the messiah, boy.

She twisted the symbol again, and Ceril rose off the ground. The flames closed in on where his feet had once been. As he looked around, he realized that was the only space in the chamber that was not covered by fire. He saw a bulge he assumed to be Chuckie's dome and hoped that his team was safe. Would be safe.

The priest pushed the sigil into her robe like a button, and Ceril crashed hard against the back wall of the chamber.

Heretic, the priest said, walking toward him. She held her hands out, and Ceril screamed.

Chapter thirty-Two

Ceril had always possessed a very active imagination; however, one thing he had never wondered about was what it would feel like to have his arm ripped off. It had never seemed like an issue, so he never given it much thought.

If he had, he would have never been able to imagine the agony that actually came from having the flesh, muscle, and connective tissue torn and ripped until they were no longer part of his body.

If there were one positive for Ceril in that situation, it was that his arm was already broken. He was at least spared experiencing that pain at the same time he lost his arm. It was as though the Jaronya's high priest allowed him to atone for his heresy with an installment plan.

He saw his arm tear. He saw the flesh rend, and he saw the blood gush. The pain was the only reason he knew that it was happening to him. In one way, he felt disconnected from the torture, like he was watching a holovid back in his quarters at Ennd's. In another, far more painful way, he was connected all too intimately.

His screaming peaked when his arm was actually severed and dropped into the Conjured flames beneath him. Ceril watched his former flesh bubble and constrict, burn and char like any meat would. There was no indication that it had once been a part of his body. Blood flowed freely from the wound, fell into the fire, and sizzled into coagulation rather than pooling.

You Conjure as though you were the messiah, the high priest said inside Ceril's head. You blaspheme. You wear their divinity on your skin. You are a heretic. You wield the Ancestors' sanctified weapon as though you were a god. You commit sacrilege. Your presence here desecrates my temple. You kill my flock with no remorse. You are not welcome here. You are not divine. You are not the ones who will save us and return the Jaronya to their glory. You are pretenders, and you will die for it.

She stood in the fire, its flames licking her robes, but not burning her or her clothing. The fire might as well not have existed for her.

Ceril panted between screams. He managed to say, "I—never claimed to be—your messiah."

You did. Oh, you did. You came and you had their magic. Somehow, you had one of the swords.

"Yes," Ceril said. "We Conjured." He panted between words and sentences. He gritted his teeth and continued. "We are Charons—"

You lie, the priest said calmly. She waved her hand toward Ceril, and his head whipped to the side as though he had been slapped.

"No," said Ceril. "We are Charons—"

His head snapped in the other direction. You will not speak the sacred name of the Ancestors in my presence, unbeliever. You will not dishonor the gods.

Ceril closed his eyes. "If they are your gods, priest," he gasped, "then...I am not...an unbeliever." He spoke through clenched teeth. "My name is Ceril Bain, and I am the leader of a Charonic—"

Ceril barely felt the snap when the priest twisted one of her holographic symbols to break his femur. The loss of his arm had almost numbed him to lesser forms of pain.

"—team on a mission to find our way home," Ceril finished through clenched teeth. "I never claimed to be your messiah. We never meant to kill...anyone. We only did what we...had to do," he panted.

As do I, the priest said. She walked gracefully through the fire to Ceril. The lowest symbol on her collar became active, and she tapped its surface with three fingers.

Ceril dropped a few feet toward the flame, but he was still pressed solidly into the wall. His eyes became level with the high priest's, and their gaze met and lingered. The situation would probably have made Ceril uneasy under different circumstances.

It has been my duty longer than you can understand to protect the Jaronya. My people. My place. I will not believe that the messiahs referred to in the Text are careless, callous, ignorant whelps who abuse divinity.

Ceril had nothing to say to her. No amount of logic was going to help him. She was a zealot. He could try to reason, to explain what he and the others were doing, but she wouldn't understand.

Maybe she couldn't understand, given her interpretation and understanding of what Charons were.

Do you deny the charges? she asked.

Ceril almost laughed. They were in a noxious Instance where Charons were revered as gods. His leg was broken, he was missing an arm, and his friends would probably burn to death soon.

Yet, the part that Ceril wouldn't get past, the part that he felt was the most ludicrous was that this priest actually thought she was bringing him up on charges. The fire pit, the guards, all of this was her idea of a trial.

Of justice.

"No," Ceril said, his teeth clenched. "I don't deny anything."

I expected more pathetic lies. More of your heresy. I am impressed at your ability to recognize the truth in your final moments.

Ceril opened his eyes and stared at her. Her eyes unnerved him. She had been too far away for him to notice, but now that they were inches from one another, Ceril saw that her eyes had no pupils or irises. She saw the world somehow through pale whiteness. Ceril was barely lucid enough to note the irony.

"These are not my final moments," he said.

The priest sighed. Both her hands manipulated the glowing symbols projected from her collar. She twisted one to the left, another to the right; her hands working the holographic sigils like an expert musician would her instrument. She finally aligned the glyphs, reset each one's position, and finished by pressing them like a sequence of buttons.

As the last one depressed, Ceril felt a weight press against him, pushing him further into the wall.

He found it hard to breathe as the pressure forced the air from his lungs. He felt his ribs strain and then crack, one by one, the sound echoing dully in his torso. His fingers and toes snapped under the weight of the invisible force, and Ceril screamed. He barely even noticed his other leg breaking. His voice wore thin, and within a few seconds, no sound came when he tried.

The high priest waved at Ceril and his head snapped back and forth. He eventually found himself staring at her again. She said, It is time, heretic.

Ceril closed his eyes and tried to find calm, but all he found was fear. Anger. There was no cause for this. There never had been. He and the others had been taken against their will when they were just trying to do their job. They were trying to find a way home, to find some way to protect the people of their world from terror. The Jaronya had kidnapped them, held them prisoner, and then this priest had killed Swinton, maybe all of them. They were just kids, not even Rited Charons yet. None of them deserved this.

Ceril couldn't see if Chuckie's barrier was still active. If it was, he knew Chuckie had to be running out of juice soon.

Ceril focused on his fear and anger, hoping that his nanite skin had recalled to him after killing the last Jaronya. If it didn't, then he had no hope. He would die here. If it had, there was still a very good chance he would die, but at least he might be able to save his friends.

He thought about them dying senselessly. He thought about himself dying senselessly. He thought about never seeing Gramps again. His heart ached at the thought of the gentle old man, of the garden that they both loved. He thought of the twin suns beating down on them and the stories he had loved to hear at night. He became angry that he was never going to get to hear another one, never get a chance to give his grandfather another hug.

He thought about all the time he spent on his thesis, doing research that served no greater function now than to be archived away and probably never read again.

He thought about Ethan Triggs, and how the boy had been no older than Ceril was right now when he died. Ceril became angrier at the thought. Even though he had tried to atone for killing him, had worked hard to move past being a killer, the fact remained was that he had taken someone else's life.

Ethan Triggs had been roughly as old as Ceril was now. Which meant he was far too young to die. He had been able to leave nothing behind. Even if it had been an accident, Ethan was still dead.

Ceril thought about how young he was himself. And how in his mind, he, too, had accomplished nothing. He had left nothing behind, either. He had made it his unspoken goal to amount to something because Ethan couldn't. And now, Ceril couldn't.

That made him angry. That scared him. He was scared of his existence meaning nothing.

So he visualized the nanites shooting from his face to the high priest's, penetrating her eyes, eating into her pores, filling her mouth and nose. He could see in his mind's eye the blackness burrowing its way through the soft tissue of her head and into her brain. He could see in his mind the nanites flowing across neural pathways, preventing synapses from firing, blocking vital electric current from reaching their destinations, making her body unresponsive.

He visualized the tiny machines releasing any energy they had left, depleting them and severing the bond that bound them together in order to liquefy the grey matter that controlled the priest. He could see the terrifying white eyes collapsing under the strain of the tsunami within her head. Ceril pictured her brain tissue, sodden with inert nanites, pouring from her eye sockets, her nostrils, even her ears and mouth. He saw the grey liquid, speckled with black clumps of tiny machines and streaked with red blood, dripping on a floor barren of fire.

He saw the priest's body go limp, her knees unlock themselves, her leg muscles no longer able to support the weight of her body.

Ceril watched in his mind the symbols from her collar go dark, as though they required her very life energy to exist. With them gone, he saw himself falling to the ground, and he could see Chuckie's black-and-white dome still intact. He could see any remaining fire the priest had Conjured die, the nanites being recalled to the octagonal stakes to which his team members had been bound.

Ceril saw all of this in his mind, focused on the outcome he needed, and with a tenacity and necessity he hoped was really inside him, he loosened any of the nanites still connected to his consciousness and made his vision a reality.
Chapter thirty-three

"I can't hold it for much longer," Chuckie said.

"Can you give me two or three minutes?" Harlo yelled.

He panted. "I doubt it."

Harlo went to work quickly. She placed her fear into the nanites, urging them to work faster. She needed to help Saryn, and Chuckie was giving everything he could so that would happen.

Then something changed. It took a moment for her to figure out what had happened. Harlo whipped her head toward Chuckie, who still held his palms to the ground, panting and shaking. She was pretty sure he was drooling, too, but she wouldn't mention that to him. He said between pants, "I think Ceril did it."

Harlo pursed her lips and turned back to Saryn. Regardless of whether that was true, Chuckie kept his Conjured shield up, and she worked more quickly, just to be sure. She was just putting the finishing touches on healing Saryn's burns when the shield disappeared, and Chuckie collapsed.

The Conjured fire from the stakes was gone, and Harlo looked around. She was the only conscious person in sight, which had its own special way of creeping her out. Saryn seemed to be stable for the moment, so Harlo took a few seconds of downtime to breathe and try to stop shaking. As she glanced around, she saw Ceril against the far wall. He looked like he was in bad shape.

Rest be damned, she rushed to him. She had seen a lot of things, had helped patch up some people who everyone but Professor Howser had said were too far gone, but when she looked down at Ceril, she was thankful she hadn't eaten in a while. Both her hands covered her mouth, and she dropped to both knees.

He was missing his left arm, and the wound was oozing blood, but not pouring it. He was lying in an unnatural sitting position, which indicated that more than one of his leg bones had been crushed. If she was correct and his posture was any indication, the right leg had sustained the worst injury. Harlo examined his arm more closely and saw his nanite sleeve covering as much of the arm wound as it could. That explained the lessened blood flow, but it would not keep him alive forever. She had to do something, but she had just spent everything she had—both in terms of her energy and her nanites—stabilizing Saryn's burns. There was no way she could help Ceril with this magnitude of injury with a depleted nanite sleeve and no other supplies. They had to get him out of there.

Chuckie stirred eventually from his position on the floor. His breathing was hard and ragged, but he forced himself to stand and go over to Swinton's body. He knelt down beside his friend and said, "I'm sorry, man." The high priest's Conjured fire had incinerated Swinton alive. The corpse could barely be recognized as having once been human. Chuckie was careful not to disturb the figure; the slightest touch could easily make it crumble, and for the moment, those ashes were still Swinton. Chuckie spoke slowly, quietly. "I'm sorry it was you, man. I am. But thank you. For letting it not be me."

Chuckie stood up and wiped his eyes. He moved beside Harlo and asked, "Did you see Swinton?"

She shook her head.

"He's gone." The words were harder to say than they were to think. "Ash."

Harlo understood. She pointed at Ceril.

"What the hell?" Chuckie said. "Is he—?"

"Not yet," she said. "He will be soon, though. I can't do anything for him, Chuckie. Not with him like...that." She swallowed audibly.

"This is a temple, right?" Chuckie asked.

"I would assume. Or a prison or something. I don't know. Sure, temple sounds good."

"Well," Chuckie said, "that means there very well might be something that can save him here. Some healing magic or some kind of mojo the priest had."

"Maybe," Harlo agreed.

"How's Saryn?"

"She needs to sleep, but when she wakes up, she should be just fine. It may take some time, though, for her to wake up, and that's what worries me."

"Why's that?"

"Ceril doesn't have time. If we wait much longer..."

Harlo saw Chuckie run the tip of his tongue across his front teeth. Then he blinked once and stood up. "Wake her up," he said.

"It's not that easy, Chuckie. She has nanites in her system that—"

"Wake her up. I'll get Ceril, and we're getting out of this room, cell, furnace, whatever."

"I don't think—"

"Do it, Harlo."

Harlo was not used to that level of sternness in Chuckie's voice, so she obeyed. She went to Saryn and gently nudged her, willing her nanite sleeve to stimulate those she had left inside her teammate's body. Saryn's eyes popped open, and she pushed herself off the ground like nothing had happened.

"Easy, Saryn," Harlo said. "You got a pretty bad burn, and you're still healing."

"I'm—I'm—" she stuttered.

"Yeah, you're going to be fine. Right now, we have to go. Ceril's in pretty bad shape, but I think he saved us."

Saryn said nothing as Harlo helped her to her feet. The two women moved slowly toward Chuckie, who was now holding Ceril like a mother cradling an infant. Chuckie pointed in the direction the priest had entered the room and said, "The bald bitch came from that direction. That's where we go."

Saryn and Harlo followed Chuckie. They passed by Swinton's ashy corpse and did their best not to disturb it.

They approached the wall that had opened up to grant the high priest access to her prisoners, but nothing happened. The wall remained solid. Aside from the exit into the city, there was nowhere else to go.

"Now what?" Saryn asked.

"She came from here. I saw it. She came through the wall."

"But how do we do that, Chuckie?"

"I don't know."

Harlo touched the wall and nothing happened. She then held her palm open to Conjure the nanite scope she had used in her and Swinton's cell, but she had too few nanites left in her sleeve for such a complex construction. Saryn touched the wall, trying to find some passkey in the symbols that glowed along its surface, but the wall stayed solid.

Chuckie touched the wall just as Ceril had a fit of coughing. He began to spit up blood, and Chuckie readjusted the way he carried his commanding officer. As he shifted Ceril's weight, one of Ceril's broken legs swung wide and kicked the wall. Ceril grunted in pain and coughed again. The wall began to shift immediately.

Instead of opening like it had for the high priest, two large purple doors shimmered into life in front of where the four of them stood.

"Something's going on with the boss," Chuckie said.

"We'll worry about that if we make it out of here," Saryn said. "There'll be time for questions when he's not as good as dead."

"Guess we're going in?"

"It doesn't appear that we have a lot of choice in the matter," Harlo said.

Chuckie yanked on the handle and stepped through the door without even checking what was on the other side. Saryn and Harlo followed after him. They stepped into a bright room, with no doors, no walls, no ceiling. It was like they were surrounded by intense violet light, supported by it, standing on it.

Then the floor fell from beneath their feet. A hissing sound filled their ears, and with a whuff-pop, they found themselves outside under the harsh purple light of the world's twin suns. Wind gusted at them, and they had to squint to see.

Chuckie almost dropped Ceril, but he found his legs quickly. Saryn dropped to her hands and knees, and Harlo had to brace herself against one of the spires lining the edge of the platform.

"What was that?" Chuckie asked.

"I...think we were teleported," Saryn answered. She shook her head and looked up at the two suns. Her back hurt, but when she looked at Ceril, she stood up and tried to hide the shakiness she felt. Always someone worse off than you are, she thought. But why'd it have to be Ternia?

"Where to?" Chuckie asked.

"My guess is on top of the temple," Harlo said. "From the looks of it. Swinton and I were in a cell pretty high up in the tower, and this looks like it could be kind of similar."

"Well, how do we get down? I don't think the boss is gonna do a whole lot of healing up here. It's not exactly a hospital."

"I'm not sure we get down, Chuckie," said Saryn. She pointed toward an altar in the middle of the platform. It was raised slightly, with stairs attached to it. She walked unsteadily toward it, and a man appeared in the center of the raised section. He was old, but one could only tell by the greying of his hair. He had bright eyes and smiled at Saryn as she approached.

"You are not the high priest," said the man.

"Not quite," Saryn said.

"He looks like that guy from before," Chuckie said. "What did Ceril call him? The Archive?"

"I am indeed a brother unit to the Archive," confirmed the man.

"What is your purpose?" Saryn asked.

"I am the Gatekeeper," replied the hologram. "It is my function to oversee the successful completion of Instance travel within Meshin and across Jaronya. The platform on which I stand is the most coherent point of energy conversion."

"So you're saying this is an Instance portal?" Chuckie asked.

"Indeed it is," said the hologram. "I am afraid, however, that without the high priest's permission, I cannot allow you access."

"You have got to be kidding me," Chuckie said. "What do we do, Saryn?"

Her eyes darted back and forth as she thought. What was it that Ceril had said in the Archive? He had some kind of authorization. "Would you scan our friend here?" Saryn asked. "He's not the high priest, but I believe he has access to the Archive. Could that grant us use of the Instance portal?"

"That would indeed be possible," said the Gatekeeper. "If you will all hold still for just a moment, please." The grey-haired hologram projected a horizontal purple light from its eyes, and it looked from Chuckie to Saryn to Harlo to Ceril. As the light passed over Ceril, the hologram paused. Its eyes closed and reopened. If Saryn had thought it were possible, she would have thought the Gatekeeper tensed up. He said, "I am very sorry to have kept you waiting. Where is your destination?"

Saryn said, "I'm not sure, actually. I don't think our home Instance connects to this one."

"I do not see how that is possible," said the Gatekeeper. "I'm sure that you already know that Jaronya was originally constructed to serve as a hub, a nexus for the Charonic Archive. The entire Instance system was built around the understanding that no matter where an agent might be, he or she would be able to travel here and find a portal that would lead elsewhere. While not every portal goes everywhere, every portal goes somewhere."

Saryn's eyes widened as she tried to grasp at the logistics of such an undertaking. She could not fathom the amount of power, skill, and calculation it would have taken to make an Instance in which every point of known space would overlap. She did not think it was possible.

"That's impossible," Saryn said.

"Not impossible," said the Gatekeeper. "Just difficult."

"Then you're saying that Jaronya is some kind of, I don't know, skeleton for the universe?"

"That is a fairly crude and unsophisticated way one could think about it," the Gatekeeper said.

"How is that even possible?"

"It took many years to perfect the system, and even now there are sometimes anomalies, but it works well enough and is constantly being overseen and tweaked. The high priest functions as curator for the system." The three of them shared a glance, but the Gatekeeper said nothing about it. "Now, where is your destination?"

Chuckie spoke up. "Erlon. Ennd's Academy."

"I am sorry," said the hologram, and the entire group let out a collective sigh. "Transportation to Erlon-Ennd's Academy is prohibited from this location by mandate of the Untouchable."

"Excuse me?" Saryn said.

"The Untouchable has stated very clearly that connections to Erlon-Ennd's Academy are unstable. All potential connections must be rerouted elsewhere for such transit."

"Can you get us anywhere on Erlon?" Chuckie asked. "Anywhere will work."

"I am sorry. The Untouchable has prohibited all travel to Erlon. Not just Erlon-Ennd's Academy."

"Who is this Untouchable?" Harlo asked. "He's..." Chuckie elbowed her between the shoulder blades. "...making life hard on us here. Our friend is in trouble. We have to get to Erlon."

"I see. The Untouchable is the head of the Charonic Archive, and his word is law. Your friend has a very," the hologram paused almost imperceptibly, "unique set of credentials that grant his authorization; however, even they cannot override a standing mandate from the Untouchable."

"He's going to die if we don't get back to Erlon," Harlo pleaded.

Saryn asked, "Where is the Untouchable? Can we talk to him?"

"The Untouchable's last known whereabouts are," the hologram paused again, "a region called Ternia in Instance Erlon."

"Last known?" Saryn said.

"I am sorry, my dear. I cannot provide any more information than that. Your dying friend's authorization only goes so far, you see."

"How far does it go?" Chuckie asked. "How close can you get us to Erlon?"

The grey-haired hologram smiled at Chuckie. "The Untouchable has prevented all travel to Erlon. It is within my programming, and I cannot alter nor contradict such a directive. However, your friend's dire medical situation as well as a genetic signature similar to the Untouchable's indicates that it is well within my parameters to transport you to an adjacent Instance from which you should find immediate transport to Erlon-Ennd's Academy. Would that be sufficient?"

"If we keep up this Q&A, Saryn, the only thing Ceril is gonna be related to is a pile of maggots." Chuckie turned to the hologram. "Yes," Chuckie said. "That'd be dandy. The faster the better."

"Very well," the Gatekeeper said. Behind him, the air split. All of them had seen Instance portals for years now and had become quite used to them. This one was different. It was raw somehow, primal. Its energy wasn't contained by a frame or doorway. Bridges of energy crackled at its edges and leapt from one side to the other. The overbearing purpleness of Jaronya was interrupted by a cozy room illuminated by golden sunlight.

"Is it safe?" asked Harlo.

"Perfectly," replied the Gatekeeper.

"Good enough for me," Chuckie said. He adjusted Ceril in his arms and rushed through the portal. Harlo and Saryn followed.

"Thank you," Saryn told the Gatekeeper as she passed. He nodded in return.

***

Golden sunlight beamed through high windows. The group found themselves in a circular office lined with bookshelves. A desk stood off to one side, and a meeting area with a couch and two chairs sat in front of it. In normal circumstances, the office would have been quite luxurious. Currently, however, the office was more terrifying than awe-inspiring.

Chuckie noticed the body on the chair first. It had been a woman, but she was headless and her skin had been flayed from her upper torso. Blood was everywhere. It coated the chair she was in as well as the couch opposite her, and there were random pools of it on the ground. Saryn screamed before Chuckie could bring anyone's attention to the dead woman.

Saryn had apparently found her head. Resting on the desk, bloody and skinless, its lipless grin and empty sockets stared at the newcomers.

Beneath the desk sat an even more disturbing sight: a man had been split in half, and his organs lay on the floor in clumps. Oddly, though, there was no blood, only a black gel coating everything near him. Upon seeing the head and the halved man, Harlo promptly threw up, which prompted Saryn to follow suit. Chuckie maintained his composure, but it was more out of stubbornness than anything else. He also didn't want to vomit all over Ceril, who was blissfully unconscious to the discoveries.

Saryn gagged a few more times then asked, "What is this? Where are we?"

"Dunno," Chuckie said. "But I'm not real excited to stick around."

"I don't see why you would be," Saryn said. "Who could or would do this to someone?"

"What about that?" Chuckie said, pointing to the headless woman.

Saryn choked back vomit again, but Harlo was not quite so lucky. She dry heaved because her earlier stint had emptied her of everything else she could have regurgitated. Saryn walked past the dead woman, barely daring a look, and stood in front of the giant wooden door.

"Oh, no," she said.

Harlo straightened from her heaving. "What?" she asked.

Saryn turned from the door, keeping her eyes on it, and sprinted back to the halved man in front of the desk. She leaned down and took hold of his head as carefully as she could. The last thing she wanted was to mutilate him any worse than he already was. Or to put her hand inside him.

"What the hell are you doing?" Chuckie asked.

"Checking something," she said. Her eyes scanned the office and then dropped to the dead man in her hands. She flipped the half she was holding over, causing more of the black gel to ooze out of him, but she was able to get a good look at the dead man's profile. "It's Headmaster Squalt," Saryn confirmed. "This must be his office."

"What?" Harlo asked.

"It's him. It's Squalt," Saryn repeated. "When the Gatekeeper sent us somewhere adjacent to Ennd's, the closest Instance must have been the Headmaster's office. There's always been a rumor that Academy headmasters were given private Instances, and now I guess we've confirmed that."

"Who's the woman?" Chuckie asked.

Saryn looked at the body across the room and the head on the desk. "No idea," she said. "You know, doc?"

"No way to tell," Harlo said. "We'd have to run tests, and umm..."

"Yeah," Saryn said. "Yeah."

"So what do we do now?" Chuckie asked.

"Get back to Ennd's. If their bodies are still here in this condition, that means no one else knows about this."

Chuckie nodded. "Can you get us out of here?"

Saryn said, "Yes. It's just the matter of putting in Ennd's code in the panel by the door."

"And you have the code?" Harlo asked.

"Yeah, unless they've changed the code." Saryn let go of the dead headmaster, wiped her hands on her pants, and walked determinedly to the door.

She keyed the code and waited. She heard a slight buzzing, and when she pulled on the door, it opened with a whuff-pop. She peered through the opening, then threw the door open as far as she could. "It's Ennd's," she confirmed. "Let's go."
Chapter Thirty-four

"—just not sure," said a voice off to the left.

"What good are you then?" came a higher pitched voice from the right.

"I understand you're upset. The procedure was experimental in ways I can barely explain. Typical Blood Rites are one thing. His..." the voice on the left trailed off.

Ceril opened his eyes. Or at least he tried to. His eyelids moved about half of the distance he urged them to, and the light that streamed in was so bright that he only saw whiteness. He tried to speak, but his mouth could not form the words he wanted. He could not actually get sound to come out.

"His were what?" demanded the voice from the right.

"Complicated. And necessary. Don't forget that. Ceril's situation is unprecedented in the order. Honestly, I'm amazed he's not up and running by now. At this point, we shouldn't be shocked if he doesn't wake up at all. If he does, he might not...be his old self."

Ceril had no idea what was going on. Why would he not be himself? What about him was unprecedented? Where was he, anyway? Who were these people?

Questions flooded his mind, but they were trapped by his unresponsive mouth. He forced his eyes wide, the light searing the nerves, but he held them open as wide as he could. He would pay for that with a headache later. The world remained unfocused. Once he had mastered his eyelids, he tried to speak again, to yell, and he finally made a sound.

To him, he said, "What do you mean? What's wrong with me?" To everyone else, he said "Mmnnnnng."

Blurry shapes moved in from both sides of him, and Ceril thought they turned to face him.

"Did he—" said the voice to the right.

"He did. Thankfully," said the voice from the left. "We have to determine how much damage was done, where he stands."

"Right now?" asked the voice from the right.

"Preliminary determination is all. Awareness, muscle control, that sort of thing."

"Okay."

The voice from the left spoke very deliberately. "Ceril? Can you hear me?"

"Mmnnng," Ceril said, meaning, Yes.

"Good," said Left. "Can you see me?"

"Mmnnng."

"I can't understand you, Ceril. Can you shake your head yes or no if you can see me?"

Ceril nodded.

"Can you move your right hand?" asked Left.

Ceril flexed his right arm, feeling the fingers clench into a fist.

"Good," Left said. There was a slight pause, and the voice added, "What about the left one?"

Ceril flexed his left arm, again feeling the fingers clench into a fist.

What he felt and what actually happened, however, were not the same. The moment he felt his fist ball up, the figure to his left became obscured by a large, dark wave. The wave extended from Ceril's bed, and even in his blurred vision, he saw it slam into the person on his left and push him against the room's far wall.

Ceril heard Right say, "Are you all right, doctor?"

Doctor? Ceril thought. They found a doctor? On Jaronya?

Ceril's eyes were beginning to focus a little more, and he realized that he was no longer on Jaronya in a simple revelation: nothing around him was purple. Instead, the sterile whiteness of the room was so bright that it hurt his head. He blinked a few times and tried as hard as he could to make sense of the jumble of blurred colors to his left.

If he worked at it, Ceril could focus his eyes for a few seconds at a time. He could see Easter Harlo kneeling beside a larger form leaning against the wall. Ceril heard her say, "Doctor Saker? Answer me!" There was panic in her voice. She shook the larger figure, this Doctor Saker. Then, without warning, his vision blurred again.

Saker regained consciousness with a start and jumped to his feet. "I'm fine, Harlo. I'm fine." He moved back toward Ceril and leaned down. He seemed to ignore whatever had happened to him, and said, "That could use a little fine-tuning, but it took. What about your left leg?"

Ceril flexed it. His toes wiggled. He even felt the big one pop.

"Good," Saker said. "And your right one? But, wait, just hold on a second..." The man stepped back out of Ceril's field of vision. "You too, Harlo. Okay, now try, Ceril."

Ceril wiggled the toes on his right foot, and another dark wave erupted from that side of the bed. It, too, struck the far wall, and then dissipated.

"All right," the doctor said, "I guess that's good. You're responsive, at least."

"W-what's...gunn...on?" Ceril managed to say.

Harlo and Saker moved where he could see them again. They stood on opposite sides of his bed, framing his field of vision. They leaned in simultaneously, and Harlo spoke first.

"Ceril," she said, "this is going to be a little hard to talk about, but we have to, okay? Do you think you're up for it, or should we come back after you've had some rest?"

Ceril nodded. "Now's...fine."

"Good," she continued. "What do you remember? What is the last thing you remember?"

Ceril blinked a few times. He thought back, trying to recall anything about where he had been or what he had been doing before he had woken up in the bright white room.

Fire. He remembered that there was fire. And pain. He said, "Fire. Purple. A fight maybe. A priest. We were being burned. The J-Jaronya...Fire...everywhere." Ceril coughed. He breathed in and out rapidly, but it became harder to breathe as he thought about it. Harlo placed her hand on his chest, and it tingled lightly. It made him feel better, and he was able to catch his breath. After a few deep lungfuls, he asked, "Swinton?"

Harlo looked at Saker, who said, "He didn't make it."

"What?" Ceril asked. He saw Harlo flinch backward as his vision blurred again. Maybe he had yelled and expended too much energy on the emotion behind the question.

"Swinton was killed in the fire in the temple, Ceril," Harlo said. "There was a lovely memorial service. His brother was there. That would have meant a lot to him, I think."

"Saryn?" Ceril asked. "Chuckie?"

"They're fine, actually. Saryn's back was burned," Ceril tensed up, and Harlo spoke more deliberately, "but she's fine. Chuckie was able to Conjure a shield that gave me enough time to heal her. Chuckie and I were really lucky; we barely had a scratch on us. Chuckie and Saryn have both spent a lot of time in here with you, but they stepped out just before the doctor arrived. Do you remember anything else?"

Ceril shook his head. "What...happened to me?"

"You, umm, won," Harlo said. "If you consider this winning."

Then, very quickly, Harlo abridged the story of what had happened to them in the temple, the aftermath of their fight, and how they had found their way back to Erlon. Ceril listened in silence.

"Are you serious?" he asked when she was finished.

Harlo nodded. "Yeah, that about covers it."

Doctor Saker cleared his throat. "Ceril, I'd like your comments on...well, what happened in here a few moments ago."

"I don't know what you mean."

"How well can you see?" the doctor asked.

"Not well. I see blurs, colors. You're both standing there, but I can't see your faces."

"Can you see your body?"

Ceril looked down. "Yeah, but I'm as blurry as you are."

The doctor nodded. "Ceril, the fight you had with the high priest was intense. Traumatic. You almost didn't survive. Do you remember anything about it?"

Again, Ceril thought. He remembered pain. Not much else. "Pain," Ceril told him.

"Nothing more specific than that?"

Ceril shook his head.

"I see," Saker said. He sighed and then reached up and combed through his hair with his fingers. "There's no easy way for me to tell you this, Ceril, so do you mind if I'm blunt?"

"No," said Ceril.

"The Jaronya priest severed your left arm and crushed your right leg. We had to amputate."

Ceril closed his eyes and didn't speak. So those waves of dark that he saw, they were...what? His new prosthetics? He lay there in silence.

"We did the only thing we could, Ceril," Saker continued. "You were dying when you arrived. You had already bled a great deal. To be honest with you, I couldn't believe you weren't already dead. Apparently, your sleeve helped keep you from bleeding out entirely; however, it wasn't enough. You had simply lost too much blood for our normal procedures to help. The only thing we could do was perform your Blood Rites."

"So...I passed?" Ceril asked. "My Rites? We did it?"

"You could say that," the doctor said. "Your Rites weren't normal, though, Ceril. The test itself, nor your Blood Rites. The severity of your injuries prevented us from performing the typical ritual."

"What do you mean?" Ceril asked. "What is typical?"

Harlo broke in. "What had you been told about the Blood Rites before, Ceril?"

Ceril's eyes closed, and he drifted to the edge of consciousness.

"Ceril?" Doctor Saker asked.

"Sorry," he said, "Umm, the Blood Rites are a ceremony, right? Some kind of ritual after you pass the test to become a full agent."

Harlo nodded. "True. They are. That whole experience on Jaronya, that was the testing part of our Rites. The Blood Rites, though, are a physical change to your body to help you bond to Charonic technology. We're not told this coming in," she said. Ceril was too far gone to notice the hint of contempt in her voice. "The Rites are painful, Ceril. Even the normal ones. They hurt a lot."

"What happens?" Ceril asked. "Did I miss mine?"

"Yeah," she said. "You did. Normally, they perform a ceremony, and then they drain the initiate of blood. At the same time, they transfuse into them specially-tagged nanites to replace anything that is drained." She let that sink in for a moment and gave Ceril time to respond. When he didn't, she said, "A Rited Charon's entire circulatory system is nanite-based, Ceril. And yours is even more so."

Doctor Saker said, "When we performed your Blood Rites, it was an emergency. The nanites were going to have to do more than serve as your bloodstream. They would have to take over the physical aspects of your body that were missing. Do you understand?"

Ceril shook his head. "Not...really, no."

"It is going to take conscious effort at all times to maintain your arm and leg's structure, Ceril. The nanites are bonded to you in a way far different than normal Blood Rites. Until today, we were honestly not sure if you would survive the process. We weren't sure anyone could. Initial scans indicated that the nanites have clustered in your brainstem, and more recent tests show that they have begun restructuring your brain's synapse system."

Ceril blinked. "What?"

"It's nothing to worry about," Doctor Saker said.

"I...don't see that," Ceril said.

"It's not bad, I promise. Your body is just adapting to a new addition, and I wanted you to be aware of it. It's necessary for the nanites to function like the original organic tissue. I would assume that the restructuring may also be the cause of your blurred vision. That should correct itself within a few hours to a few days, as you use the nanotech, and it becomes more adapted to your physiology." Saker kept talking, telling Ceril about his new body systems, but Ceril's attention waned eventually, and he didn't hear anything the doctor was telling him.

Instead, Ceril thought about the fact that he was no longer entirely human. He thought about the dark blurs he had seen a few minutes before, the one that had knocked Saker to the wall and the one after it—the one from which Saker and Harlo had fled in advance. He was feared now. He was something new. Something different.

He looked down and concentrated on being able to see himself. His eyes did not want to focus, but he made them. Ceril was horrified. He was literally half the person he used to be. Gaping craters existed where his left arm and right leg should be. His entire right leg was gone, as though it had never existed. His body just kind of stopped at the hip. His left arm was worse. His chest was now concave, his left shoulder and a portion of his torso gone.

It took a few moments for the truth of what he was seeing to sink in. When it did, Ceril screamed. Tears welled in his eyes, and he tried to move his missing arm and leg. He felt a tingle he hadn't before, and waves of blackness exploded again. This time, luckily, Harlo and Saker were not in the way, and the nanites dissipated harmlessly.

"Where are they?" Ceril asked. He didn't care who answered.

"Your arm and leg are gone, son," Doctor Saker said as calmly as he could. "The arm was burned on Jaronya, I believe. Your legs were crushed—shattered, really—but we were able to repair the damage in the left one. The right one was just too...We had to amputate."

Ceril sat in stunned silence. The doctor continued, "When you're a little stronger and more able to concentrate, you'll be able to control these nanites," he gestured at the empty spaces on Ceril's body, "to work exactly like your old limbs. As you grow more comfortable with them, you'll be able to include them actively as you Conjure. Most of us can only do it with our blood, but you have pretty much your whole body at your disposal."

That's when Ceril started to cry. He hadn't asked for this. He didn't want this.

"Where are we?" Ceril asked when his sobs subsided.

"Erlon," Harlo told him.

"Where on Erlon? Ennd's?"

Harlo nodded. "We're at Ennd's, yeah, but there've been some developments in the time you've been out, Ceril."

"How long was I out?"

Harlo swallowed, and Doctor Saker said, "You were in a coma for three months."

Ceril just blinked. Three months of his life, just gone. He hadn't been dreaming, couldn't remember a thing. It was like those months never existed because, for him, they hadn't.

"Which is why," the doctor continued, "we had no idea if the procedure would take. You were unconscious the whole time, and until just now, we had no indication, other than tests, of how your body was reacting to the technology."

"But," Ceril asked, "I'm fine?"

"Time will tell," Saker said. "You're certainly better off than I anticipated."

"But you're not out of the woods yet," Harlo interjected.

Someone knocked rapidly on the door, and Saryn and Chuckie filed into the room. Saker motioned at Ceril, and their faces brightened.

"Nice to see you back in the land of the living, boss," Chuckie said, a smile on his face.

"Ternia!" Saryn said. "You're okay!"

"Hi, guys," Ceril said.

Doctor Saker took the opportunity to excuse himself. He shuffled some things around in his pockets before he left, and said, "I'll give you all some time to talk. Ceril, I'll be back later this evening to check on you. If you need anything at all, don't hesitate to call me."

Ceril nodded at him as he left the room. "Yeah," he said. "Will do."

Saryn said, "Are you—"

Ceril nodded. "I'm fine," he said and managed a pitiful smile.

Chuckie said, "You don't look like it, boss. You look like you've been through some kind of hell."

Ceril chuckled a little and closed his eyes. "From...what I'm told, I just might have been."

Chuckie smirked.

Saryn just stood there and looked at Ceril. She smiled awkwardly at him, unsure of what else to say now that he was finally awake, and then she turned her attention to Harlo. "There's some new information in Squalt's murder."

Ceril tried to sit up, but found that even a simple task like sitting up was harder than he thought it would be. Of course, he didn't want to slam his nanite arm and leg into his team, so he made a conscious effort not to instinctively flex his amputated limbs. He couldn't manage everything at once, so when his vision blurred, he just lay back where he was and said, "Squalt's murder?"

Everyone exchanged glances. Ceril could tell that they were uncomfortable. Saryn spoke first. She said, "When we came back to Ennd's from Jaronya, it was through Squalt's office. That was the only connection we were able to make."

"Harlo told me. Lucky break," Ceril said.

"When we got there, though," she choked up for a second, "we found two bodies. One of them was Headmaster Squalt. I recognized his, umm, face. The other we were able to identify later as Nary Thralls, a new culinary arts professor here."

"Bodies?" Ceril asked.

"Mutilated. It was brutal, Ternia"

"Who did it?"

"That's the thing," Saryn said. "There was an intruder a few months back who did a lot of damage to the school, but they were unable to identify him. He said he was Swarley Dann's uncle. Records show that Dann didn't actually have an uncle, but the receptionist didn't run a check when the visitor came in and just took his word for it. Because she didn't, Dann and another student are dead."

"Wait, what?" Ceril felt his amputated limbs begin to tingle. "Swarley's dead?"

Saryn sighed. "Yes, Ceril. I'm sorry."

Blackness exploded again, this time into the air. A fountain of nanites erupted, and Ceril's friends backed quickly away from the bed. When he had once again regained control of himself, Ceril asked, "Who was the man?"

"They're not sure. Somehow, all video feeds of where he went through the school were scrambled. It's like he was emitting his own low-level EM field."

"That's odd," Ceril said. "Who does that?" Do I do that now? Now that I'm a machine?

"Yeah, it is. That's what I was talking about there being a break in the murder. Turns out, there was a feed from Squalt's office that picks up some time after Thralls was murdered. I have it on my tablet, but so far no one on the team has been able to identify him. I was on my way to take it to Roman and the others aboard the Sigil when I stopped by here.

"So the Sigil's connected again?" Ceril asked.

"For the time being," Harlo chimed in. "Some kind of quick-fix, but Roman doesn't think it'll hold. Anyway, Jaronya was how they were testing us to make sure we could handle the Blood Rites and deserved to be Charons."

"And Swinton?" Ceril asked, pain in his voice.

"According to Roman, there are often more deaths than that. He says that our team was lucky."

Ceril's looked down at himself. "We were lucky?"

"I know," Harlo said. "It's hard to believe."

"Yeah," Ceril said. "Can we see the feed, Saryn?"

"Sure, I guess," she said. She rummaged through her pack and pulled out her tablet. She swiped at it a few times and tapped a few more, and eventually the screen lit up with a monochrome video of Squalt's office.

After a few minutes of watching, Ceril began to sob.

"Ceril," Harlo said. "Are you okay? What is it?"

Ceril just kept weeping.

"He's had a hard day," Harlo said. "We should probably go."

"No," Ceril said. "Don't." He paused, sobbed a couple more times, and took a deep breath before continuing. "Can you run the video back, Saryn? Maybe pause it on a good shot of the killer's face?"

"I think so," she said. She tapped the screen a few times and held the tablet in front of Ceril's face. "Is that clear enough?"

Ceril nodded, and he began to sob again.

Chuckie asked quietly, "You know who that is, don't you, boss?"

Ceril said nothing. Eventually, he swallowed hard and coughed. He took a deep breath. "It's my grandfather," he said. "Gramps killed those people."

"I don't think I heard you right, boss."

"That man. In the video," Ceril said. "He's my grandfather."

"I think I'm missing something here, boss."

"I don't know a lot. Roman told me before we left that Gramps used to be a Charon. His name is Damien Vennar—"

"Vennar?" Saryn asked. "Like—"

"Yeah," Ceril said. "He's that Vennar. The hero, the myth, the technomage they wrote stories about thousands of years ago..."

"Wasn't Vennar like a good guy, though?" Chuckie asked. "No offense to your grand-daddy, but that video don't show a real nice guy."

Ceril used his good arm to wipe his eyes before the tears could roll down his cheeks. "He was. In the stories, he was. Is. I don't know what's going on in the video. Roman said that Gramps somehow sabotaged the Sigil a long time ago, that he did it to get back at the other technomages somehow."

"That old guy looks familiar, though," Chuckie said. "I've seen him somewhere before, I think."

"Where?" Harlo asked. "I was thinking the same thing, but I can't place it."

"I don't mean to change the subject," Ceril asked, "but have you guys heard anything else about the Untouchable?"

"Only what the Gatekeeper said," Saryn told him.

"That's it!" Chuckie said. "Your granddaddy looks like the Gatekeeper in the temple! That's where I've seen him before!"

"Now that you mention it," Saryn said, "he kind of does. How odd."

"Yeah," chimed in Harlo. "I could see it."

"Who's the Gatekeeper?" Ceril asked. "Why does he look like Gramps?"

"He's a hologram like the Archive," Saryn replied. "He controlled the Instance portal in the temple. And, to answer your other question, he actually did mention the Untouchable."

Ceril raised his head off the pillow a bit and cocked an eyebrow up. "He did?"

"He said the Untouchable's last known location was," she paused and looked at the tablet, "in Ternia. It was a long time ago, I know, but...Ceril, I don't mean to be..."

"It's okay, Saryn."

"Could your grandfather be the Untouchable?"

"No," Ceril said quickly. Then he thought about the video he had seen and said, "Maybe. I hope not. I don't know. I..." His voice trailed off.

Ceril closed his eyes and clenched his teeth. He dropped back onto his pillow and began to gather himself. He felt betrayed and angry, sad, disappointed, and more than a little sickened by his grandfather. He focused on how he felt about the old man. In seconds, he was no longer an amputee, as shimmering black replicas of his missing limbs materialized.

"Ceril," Harlo said. "You need to be careful. I don't think you're ready for that kind of—"

"I think I can manage," Ceril said. He wiggled his toes, bent his knee, and pushed himself up off the pillow. Then the limbs disappeared as he lost concentration, and he collapsed again.

"See?" Harlo said.

"I'm fine," Ceril countered. But he wasn't. He was getting dizzy and the edges of his vision were fading to black. He spoke faster as he fought unconsciousness. "I promise. Saryn, I need any reports on Untouchable attacks since Squalt was killed. I have a hunch that those attacks really picked up, and I need to see a pattern to make sure. If the Gatekeeper said there was something in Ternia, then that's where we need to be. Part of our job was finding a connection to the Untouchable, and if you're right, and Gramps is the Untouchable, then I'm the best connection to the Untouchable we've got."

"You can't put yourself through this," Harlo said. "Saryn, talk some sense into him."

"She's right, Ternia. This isn't your fight right now. Maybe it was. Maybe it will be, but right now, you have more to worry about."

"No," Ceril said. "He killed Swarley, Saryn. He was the only friend I had before I went aboard the Sigil. I don't know what's going on, but I have to find out. I want to know—I need to know—why the man who raised me lied to me every day of my life."

"You don't know that," Saryn said. "You don't know that's your Gramps on that video. You just need to calm down for a while and get better."

The blackness was filling his vision more rapidly now. "Even if he's not the Untouchable, he's at least Vennar. He still lied to me. Maybe he's not a killer or a terrorist. Maybe he's just a ten-thousand-year-old Charon," Ceril said and laughed, but even it was weak, and he had to force himself to continue. "Either way, he is something that isn't my technophobic Gramps. And, right now, I don't even know who I am anymore, much less who he is." He flexed his left arm, and the nanites congealed into a fist, then dissipated again. "I just have to find that out, okay?"

"Okay," the three of them said at the same time.

"Thank you," he said. With that, Ceril lay his head down and closed his eyes. He fell asleep instantly.

When he woke up the next day, the world had changed.
Epilogue

Damien Vennar remembered when Ferran had not been so...ruined. He wondered if anyone had even bothered to repair any of the sandstone buildings in the past five hundred years. The streets were dusty and badly damaged, their cracked stones preventing anything but foot travel.

The twin suns beat down on Ferran worse than anywhere else Damien had ever been. He had been spoiled by so many years in Ternia. This kind of heat was going to take some getting used to. The streets were packed with people, and no one seemed to care who they bumped into as they rushed about. Merchants had tents lining both sides of the streets, and Damien picked a tent, seemingly at random. He weaved through the throng of pedestrians and stood in front of what appeared to be a jewelry vendor.

"Hello there," Damien said.

"Oh, hi!" The merchant replied. His voice was higher-pitched than Damien would have expected for such a burly man. "What can I do for you today? I know! You're looking for the perfect stone for a perfect lady! Try this!" He reached for a braided necklace with a large, orange stone as a pendant. "Perfect, no?"

"It's lovely," Damien said. "But I'm not here to buy jewelry."

The merchant's smile faded. Without the smile, his face was much more menacing. "Then I don't think I can help you. Move along, if you would."

"I don't think I will. I'm looking for someone."

"Aren't we all? I am not in the business of someone. I sell stones, necklaces, and rings. If this someone you are looking for is one of those, we can do business." He put the orange-stoned necklace back in its place. "If not, I don't think I can help you."

"Now why don't I think that's the truth?" Damien said. He reached for a ring. It was a simple piece, a carved band of stone with a tiny black gemstone embedded in one spot. He slid it on his finger. "I like this one."

"That one is ten rejans."

Damien scowled. "You're a thief. This is worth four rejans at most."

"Move along, old man," the merchant said. "But put my ring down first."

"I'm looking for a man named Derin Sarnt." That was the name Squalt had given him at Ennd's. Damien had double-checked that information with the dead headmaster's tablet, too. That much lined up, at least. "I was friends with his grandfather," Damien lied. "I'd like to catch up with the family. It's been a long time."

"You're older than you look, then. But I still can't help you." He nodded toward the ring. "Seven rejans, and that's as low as I can go."

Damien placed the hand with the ring on the merchant's table, and then looked up at him. "I'll tell you what," Damien said. "You tell me where I can find Derin Sarnt, and you won't run into any unfortunate accidents on your way home today."

"Are you threatening me, my friend?" The merchant crossed his arms and threw his head back to laugh. He guffawed, and looked directly at Damien. "You will leave my tent. Right now. And I will not call the constable and tell him how you tried to steal that ring from me."

Damien smiled. "The constable. How precious."

"You do know what the punishment for stealing in Ferran is, don't you?" The merchant placed his hand over Damien's, which still rested on the table. "Your hands. Both of them. They are cut off with a white-hot blade and given to you. You wear them around your neck for the next year. By the time that year is up, your hands have rotted away to almost nothing, and you have witnessed the whole thing." He looked Damien directly in the eye. "Do not threaten me, old man."

Before the merchant could pull his hand away, Damien had flipped his hand over and grabbed the merchant's wrist. "That sounds very fitting," Damien said. "Thank you for the idea." In his other hand, Damien summoned his new Flameblade, the prize he had won by killing Gilbert Squalt. As it appeared in Damien's hand, the Flameblade's green-purple aura flared. Even in the bright desert sun, the merchant could see the color around the suddenly-there weapon.

"Derin Sarnt?" the merchant said. "I-I do know him!"

Damien maneuvered the merchant's arm onto the table. The burly man struggled, but he couldn't break Damien's grip. When he was in position, Damien placed the tip of the Flameblade against the man's wrist and held it there. "I think right now would be the best time for you to tell me where to find Derin Sarnt."

"I-I can show you!"

Damien pressed the tip of the blade into his skin. The merchant screamed. "You will tell me."

"S-sure! Sure! Go down the street here and take a left. Go maybe, maybe, three blocks? And on your left should be Sarnt's restaurant. I can't remember the name. It's the one with the black door. You can't miss it!"

"And you're certain this is where I can find this man?"

The merchant nodded over and over again. "Yes, yes! I promise!"

"And if you're lying?"

"I'm not! I swear!"

Damien cocked his head to the side, then said, "Maybe. But I can't be sure of that right now." He rammed the Flameblade down through the man's wrist and into the display table. The hand came off cleanly, and no blood spilled. The merchant screeched in pain. Damien glared at him. "If you are lying to me, I will return. And I can assure you, my friend, this hand is nothing compared to what you will lose if that happens."

The Flameblade disappeared and the light around the small tent went back to normal. Damien took the man's ring off his finger and placed it back on the display. "I'll have to think about the ring. I like it. I may be back for it."

Then he walked away from the tent and disappeared into the crowd on the street.

End of Book One

To Be Continued in

 Lineage

 The Technomage Archive, Book Two

**If you would like to find out about new releases by B.J. Keeton, please sign up for his mailing list at** <http://bit.ly/bjkemail>

Your email will never be shared or sold, and you can unsubscribe whenever you want. You will never get more than two emails a month.

About the Author

B.J. KEETON is a writer, teacher, and runner. When he isn't trying to think of a way to trick Fox into putting Firefly back on the air, he is either writing science fiction, watching an obscene amount of genre television, or looking for new ways to integrate fitness into his geektastic lifestyle.

Kickstarter acknowledgements

I cannot even begin to express how thankful I am for all the support my friends, family, and online communities have offered me. Especially you fine folks who donated to the Kickstarter campaign. If not for you folks, Birthright would never have become the book it is. So thank you. Thank you bunches. This book is just as much yours as it is mine.

Kickstarter Backers – Archive Level

The Tidwells

Kickstarter Backers – Charon Level

K. Jespersen

Kickstarter Backers – Agent+ Level

Michael Birke – Michael.Birke@gmx.net

Kenneth Blankenberg – http://www.99269282.com

John Ayers – http://www.fx2k.net

Andrew Karnani

Miriam Halbrooks

Kickstarter Backers – Agent Level

Cathie B. Ayers – http://www.facebook.com/WoodmenLodge1115

Barry Rich – http://blehwithbarry.com

Colin Wetherbee – http://www.colinwetherbee.com

Adam – https://safesharkhosting.com

Ethic – http://KillTenRats.com

Kristen "Aurelis" Trzonkowski - http://epicslantpress.com

Dane Nielsen – http://thewrittentale.com

Ava G. Nielsen – http://www.joy2day.org

Margaret M. St. John

Craig Smith

Josef Prchal

Alexandre

Robin Holland

Brett Wilson

Kickstarter Backers

Apprentice Level

Andrew Nielsen - http://www.agreenmushroom.com

Andrew Parran – http://www.fark.com

Michael A. Keefe – http://CasualAggro.wordpress.com

Mandy Kilinskis – http://twitter.com/imamandajulius

Tesh – http://tishtoshtesh.wordpress.com

Mike Mertens – https://www.facebook.com/michael.mertens

Maria Coffey – http://www.twitter.com/BloodyGneisha

Stacy Stipes – http://www.wildboarinn.net

@grimnir_ – http://grimnir.me

Brent Schaffrick

C. Shuy

Brian Koehler

Matt Cupp

Paul Prestidge

T. D. Kelly

Brian LaShomb

Magentawolf

Rin Seilhan
Kickstarter Backers – Recruit Level

Gordon McLachlan – http://blog.weflyspitfires.com

Nerni Gnome – http://www.nerniandfriends.com

Pewter – http://www.decodingdragons.com

Even Skjervold - http://www.facebook.com/ClemsonBrewCrew

Wilhelm Arcturus – http://tagn.wordpress.com

Gareth "Gazimoff" Harmer – http://www.gazimoff.com

Flávia Denise – http://www.flaviadenise.com

Lyrania – http://www.lyrania.co.uk

Robert Triveri II - http://www.fictionpress.com/u/311059/

Victor Barreiro Jr. – http://www.gamesandgeekery.com

Matthew Ferris – http://www.twitter.com/Matthew_Ferris

Jonathan Ardua Doyle – http://www.twitter.com/ardua

Faith Holland – http://www.cfaithholland.com

CMcKane – http://www.annuarychit.com

Stephenie Sheung – http://mmogamerchick.wordpress.com

Brian Ruth

Jacob "Jondare" Madsen

Mario B

Erinina Marie Ness

Zach Bertram

Kickstarter Backers – Student+ Level

Adam "Ferrel" Trzonkowski – http://www.epicslantpress.com

Lewis Dix – http://www.crashaddict.com

Matt R. McLean – http://www.mattplanet.net

Rachel Palmarozzi

Kickstarter Backers – Student Level

Sir Frederick "The Cool Guy" Aaron Forker

Paul Melancon

Emily Rose Clayton

Shawn Richardson

Sabrina Norton

Wes & Jess Kinslow

Norman J. LaFave

