Duke and Prelate

"You look tired, my friend." The Duke of Nurr, Cuelar Frenzio, inspected his old acquaintance more with his ears than his eyes. Cuelar's beast trait was large ears, many-folded and intensely sensitive. He was also blessed with a half-back[1] of soft gray fur, but it was his ears he valued. From the sound of his friend's heartbeat, Prelate Edmond DeGray was ragged with stress and sleep deprivation.

The stress was mainly due to the pesterings of Disciple Lucia, the powerful matrix of the Chapel of Compassionate Light located in the bricktown slum. She had been going quietly about her business for years, giving food to the hungry and overseeing religious services for the poorest of the city. Her tiny chapel was nothing compared to Prelate DeGray's magnificent Basilica of Majestic Light yet lately she had eclipsed the ambitious prelate: she had the patronage of Prince Estevan and his mother Queen Diana; she was rectress of the new school built in the name of the Missing Disciple; she had a say in the management of the school's extensive glebe; she had taken to telling people that the wealth of the church was in the hearts and minds of its worshipers and not in extravagant buildings.

Worst of all, she kept bringing large groups of people to DeGray's basilica to show them the Fragment of Sun, that miraculous artifact that lit the whole of the basilica's dome and its awe-inspiring illustrations. Blue-white light the color of the sun rippled down gently from the dome's oculus to the sanctuary floor in a slow aurora. Those who stood in its effect often reported feeling exposed, as if the one god Olyon was inspecting them and choosing to love them in spite of their sins and shortcomings. That too was a gift from the Missing Disciple, and every time Lucia reminded them of that fact it was like she was taking credit for finishing DeGray's great work. Worst of all these crowds were commoners, workers and the poor. Low people. DeGray had not spent more than a decade of his life refurbishing the creaky old temple into a grand basilica for them, he had built it so the wealthy and well-born would have a suitable place to pray and attend holy days.

"She was here again," said Edmond, "this time with a hundred of them. Church doctrine says we're open to everyone, but I wish she wouldn't bring them here. And she claims to have found another candidate for her little Arts School. She'll demand another increase in her budget."

Cuelar steeped a pot of jota while they talked. They were prominent men but they enjoyed these evening sessions together without servants or attendants. Alone together in the prelate's office they could be honest.

"I'm surprised she needs the funding," Cuelar said, "since the Colares estate got added to the school's glebe."

"She shouldn't," grumbled Edmond, "but the Colares family was stripped because of their assaults against the estate DeLanion left to the prince. It got put into the same foundation with the same rules: educate the poor and turn them into civil servants."

"Ah," said Cuelar, understanding finally, "and he only funded the school's basic scholarship role, not its training new practitioners of the spiritual arts."

Edmond nodded, and accepted a cup of hot jota from Cuelar. "Bibi[2] funds the music program, DeLanion funded reading and math, church leadership funds the future healers and disciples. The buildings are donated from other sources. I could admire her management skills, if she would just stay in bricktown."

They sipped their jota in silence for a few minutes.

"I have the king's payment prepared," Edmond said at last, pointing at a heavy wooden chest, "but how are you going to move it? A ton of gold isn't very large, but..."

"...it still weighs a ton," finished Cuelar. They had made the joke often when raising and managing the vast stores of wealth required to rebuild the basilica. "How are you going to account for it?"

"I won't," smiled the prelate. "This is my secret repair fund. Leadership will never know the gold is missing."

Cuelar went to the chest and opened it, to ensure the gold was there.

"Cuelar," asked the prelate, looking anxious, "can you really manage the public end of this mess? DeLanion was supposed to just disappear, quietly. Janocas Colares complicated things for us when he ransacked DeLanion's properties. People know the palace was involved because of him. If people keep talking like they have been, Leadership will send someone to investigate."

"You don't have to worry about that," said Cuelar, as he checked the pot and refreshed their tea, adding more water and more berries to the pot before pouring. "Janocas was my choice, so it's my mess and I will take proper care of it. DeLanion threatened your basilica, and was a threat to the future of my kingdom. We did the world a favor when we convinced the king to remove him, and you will never be censured for it. I promise."

The prelate, reassured by his reliable friend and ally, thanked Cuelar and drank from his cup.

From his seat across the table, the duke could hear the prelate's heart accelerate. He reached across the table and gracefully relieved him of the delicate clay cup so he would not drop it. Edmond's teeth clenched, audibly grinding together. His lips turned blue. As his heart pounded faster and faster, the man's eyes bulged and veins in the whites burst. When the heart died, so too did the man. Cuelar counted nineteen seconds, from ingestion to heart death.

Cuelar poured all the poisoned jota into a canteen using a small funnel, rinsed everything, made a new pot, and put one of the cups in the small cabinet where Edmond kept such things. He staged the scene to tell a story: the prelate was drinking jota alone and reading a stack of boards: a letter from an acquaintance in Unity City pulled at random from Edmond's in-box. He had died in the night, working, with nobody to witness it.

The prelate's private diary was kept in a drawer, stacks of thin wooden boards arranged by date. Cuelar scanned through them, substituted a couple day's worth of entries with forgeries of his own, then put everything neatly away.

The gold got packed into a special rucksack made of rare monster hide and bone, capable of carrying more than a ton of weight if your back was strong enough to bear it. Then he activated the ancient artifact he always wore around his waist, the one that gave him strength enough to carry the pack across town without significant effort. It was the kind of thing the church liked to confiscate, but to someone who was born without great stature or strength it was too useful to give up.

"I'm sorry, old friend, but in a quest for dominion nothing can be spared." The prelate's empty eyes and clenched face looked up at the ceiling, unresponsive.

Nobody had seen Duke Frenzio come in through the prelate's private entrance, and nobody saw him leave.

Resurrection

Nowhere-Everywhere

It knew this place, the place between lives. It had been here before, though It could never seem to remember the place when It was alive. A million distant souls winked at It through the darkness like stars, while a relative few plummeted in some direction or other leaving a thin trail behind them that faded in moments. Normally It would be one of them, hastily going to its next place as Fate or Design or Chance would have it. Never did It choose. Rather, It was Pulled.

Strange, that there was no Pull this time. But there was a string, a Tie to somewhere. It followed the string, Pulling Itself for a change, to the far far end of the string. To a far world orbiting a blue-white star, itself orbited by the three moons Silenz, Boraz, and Crevist. The string led down to a large continent, to a stone ledge clinging to the side of a lonely hill covered in a thin blanket of snow gleaming in the light of two of the moons. A cairn was there, covering a body.

Now here was a quandary. If this was Its body, and Its body was dead, from where was It thinking right now? The question was a good one, and It added the query to Its Sphere of Mysteries where all such unsolvables lived.

It could cut the tie that brought It here, that was an option: It could wait in the waiting place with the other souls and contemplate the flow of Time until the next Pull. If Its past was a statistically reliable sample, Its chances of being Pulled to a place worse than Tenobre (one name of this place) was about eighty percent. Its chance of finding another Emristar was closer to zero.

Or It could Live Again, in Tenobre.

As lives go, it hadn't been the worst. It graded itself A for heart; C for effectiveness, on account of brevity; F for survival, again on account of brevity. It was forever earning Fs in survival. But if It Lived Again then the grade wasn't final. It might even live to middle age and earn itself a coveted C. Coveted by Itself only, as there was no one else to compare grades with.

Spinning the wheel of Fate again was illogical when there was a perfectly promising life to be lived right here. It just required a little work to get the body started again.

First, It had to unbury the body. Even as an entity of pure spirit It could, if It focused hard enough, pluck the rocks up and throw them aside. This took a little time, and loudly scattered the stones down the steep hillside.

The body was well-preserved but naked. The people who had ended the life had also taken its material goods. And yet, someone had thought to bury the body in a scenic location and in possession of a good long knife, the weapon of a strong foe killed in combat. Remorse. Care. Honor. At least one other person hadn't liked the way things turned out. Likely not the person who had poisoned the body.

The spirit waited for sunrise, meditating on the grand view below while It drew in vast amounts of mana to nourish Its existence. Forests ran for many kilometers. North lay the older untouched stands, and to the south were many miles of coppiced stumps managed for lumber and firewood. Far to the south a grayness gathered in the sky as city people woke with the dawn and started their fires. It was time.

This body that was dead had no spirit or life of its own to aid in healing. It was also foul with poison and decay. It would have to be repaired and detoxified and inhabited with a single word. Any other body would have been too much to attempt, but the spirit had known this one intimately when It was alive so the feat was possible.

The spirit took all the mana it had gathered and formed Itself into a detailed mimicry of what the body had been in life, healthy and whole down to the last hair follicle. When It was as perfect as It could be made, the spirit struck itself into the corpse, and transformed dead flesh into a living person.

Lavradio, North of Girona

The first sensation was always pain. All the feelings of being alive, without order or understanding, was chaotic noise that the newly awakened consciousness groped at while trying to make sense of millions of unsorted nerve endings. The confusion was perceived as agony. Amid the static came signals that were recognized: this is hand touching rock. That is light touching eyes. This is chest, heaving for breath. The entity had done this before, several times, and knew how to explore and move all the parts of the body it could find, discover where everything was connected, and gradually bring order to all the sensory inputs.

The screaming was an entirely normal part of the process. It stopped once he figured out that he had ears, that some of their sensation was the noise of himself screaming, and where the vocal chords were and how to use them again. The blindness too, was resolved in time. The only unusual part of this awakening was the amount of filth. A black putrescence covered him from head to foot. The moment his sense of smell was discovered he was dry-heaving uncontrollably while he frantically tried to crawl away from the puddle of ichor that reeked of poison and rot.

He found snow and rolled in it, then found some fresh snow and rolled in that. Then, he learned to stand by grasping the rocky wall and pulling himself gradually up on shaking legs. With his new-found voice he first thanked the god Olyon. He didn't believe in the One God of Light exactly, but he believed in the existence of the divine and Olyon was as good a name for it as any other. And, if the divine being had a home nearby (in the astronomical sense) then there wasn't any reason he couldn't live inside the local star.

Finally upright, he uttered the Prayer of Cleansing thinking to wash away the remaining filth, but what he got was a cyclone of wind that knocked him off his feet with a yelp and nearly dragged him off the ledge. He dug his newly-discovered fingers desperately into any crack and crevice in the rock he could find to keep from being flung out and dropped into the forest below, narrowly averting another untimely death. When the storm finally passed, both he and the hilltop were sparkling clean and a little raw.

After some searching he was able to find the long bronze knife which had been thrown into a recess of the ledge. He couldn't remember how he knew to look for the knife but there it was: a long single-bladed knife with a sharp chisel-shaped point, freshly shined. Having a weapon was good. The tang looked long enough that he could remove the handle and remount the blade onto a spear, which would be ideal for him.

The morning was cold and the ground was snowy. Being naked here was not great. Nor was the lack of food or water. But he had a knife and he had, if he was careful not to destroy himself with it, magic. He was fairly sure he was north of Girona, which meant the safe house was south and east. The safe house would contain clothes and money and be a good place to rest for a few days, assuming he could find it.

His name, he remembered, was Taylor DeLanion. And he would call this life World 12.1.

Girona, Bricktown

On cold winter nights all three priests of the Chapel of Compassionate Light slept in the same bed. The aged Matrix Lucia, with her pair of broken horns and cloudy vision, slept on the side that was easiest to get out of. Her husband Brother Mika slept on the opposite side, with the younger Sister Lorena between them to keep them both warm.

Lucia's eyes weren't much good for detecting visible light any more, but she could see spirit light quite well. What other practitioners felt as a vague feeling of another's spiritual arts, the Matrix could see as plainly as sunlight. So when a massive source of spirit gathered itself in the north like a sun rising from the wrong horizon, it woke her.

Lucia rose and dressed in pre-dawn darkness, adding layers of felted wool to combat the cold. She lit a small stove using the arts and made the largest pot of jota she could, then took a cup with her to the dormitory next door. Lorena caught up with her, and helped her up the stairs to the big second-story balcony that looked north. She sipped and watched the north horizon, while Lorena went to fetch the pot and some more cups.

The dorm was only half-complete, but the first floor was fully occupied. The Fragment of Sun Taylor had created and hung in the basilica had the power to awaken the Light in others. Especially, it seemed, children. Nearly every time she took groups of people into the basilica to witness his "gift to the city" another potential practitioner was revealed.

Lucia had tapped the most likely among them (by talent and disposition) as candidates for training as practitioners of the spiritual arts, taking as many as she could handle. A few candidates' families declined the free education, preferring to keep their children in the family occupations, but most of the families were eager to give their children to such a prestigious profession in the Unity Church. There were some who had unstable homes, and those resided in the hastily-built dormitories.

In a few years they would be ready to make the journey to Unity City and the School of Spiritual Arts, thence to swell the school's pool of practitioner candidates to the breaking point. Lucia would need to find a way to spread out their entry enough not to overwhelm the Arts School, and she was already in regular correspondence with the deans about it. For decades the church had recruited practitioners almost exclusively from first families, descendant of the first disciples for whom the church was a family profession. Only occasionally did they bring in the odd outsider, usually some accidentally discovered talent too promising to be ignored. Here in Girona they had collected no fewer than twenty candidate practitioners, all of disciple-class talent: enough to double the yearly intake at the Arts School. Whereas most of the Arts School candidates were only healer-class talents, all of her arts students were of the higher disciple-class talents.

Facilities for the candidates were tacked on to the school Taylor had founded to teach writing and math to the public. With the addition of Bibi's endowment for music, and the church's funding for preparatory arts, the school had been awkwardly renamed "DeLanion's School for Math, Scripture, and Music" but everybody was calling it "DeLanion's". It was another of Taylor's gifts to Girona. The boy believed education was for everyone, so he built a place that gave the common person a chance to learn.

Lucia and Lorena were soon joined by Mika, and after a little time two of the city's healers joined as well. Healers, like disciples, were practitioners of the spiritual arts but they had less spirit. All of the people present had, either by long practice or decades of exposure, become highly sensitive to movements of spirit required for the spiritual arts. What was happening in the north right now was either a calamity or a miracle. To someone with the right senses, it was if a new sun was igniting just over the horizon.

Lucia let her own spirit bloom wide, as big as the dorm, and sampled the distant light that mingled with her own. The nearest description for what she was doing was "tasting" and the far-away spirit tasted just like their missing disciple. "It's him," breathed the matrix at last, releasing weeks of tension and uncertainty. "He's completed Sandim's Return. If you've ever wondered what a being of pure spirit looks like, there is your answer."

"Will he come back to Girona?" asked one of the healers.

"I hope not," said Mika. "The palace would be obliged to try to kill him again. Things could escalate."

"He'll stay away," Lucia told them all, "for now. He's young, and wants to get on with his adventures. For a while, we'll have to watch him through the Luminous Histories as Phillip the Younger."

Taylor's teachers had recorded his anointment twice: once as Taylor DeLanion in Girona, and again as Phillip the Younger in 'the wilderness'. The phrase was a seldom used term for a practitioner, usually from a wealthy non-church family, for whom life in the church meant rejecting their past. It was Dean Garsharp's idea, as a way to let Taylor travel without bringing his complicated past with him. That was what they had told Taylor when they asked him to choose a practicing name.

The secondary reason for the double anointment was to give Taylor a documented cover identity in case one of his powerful enemies made it impossible for him to stay in Girona, or in case Leadership decided to make him quietly disappear. The days of Leadership enforcing strict discipline on disciples was long past, but Taylor had been summoned from another world using an ancient summoning room. To a few people, like the disgraced Ambassador Serano who had tried to have him killed, Taylor's origin felt like a threat to the church.

Lucia was herself a disciple, trained during a time when Leadership had been adamant about enforcing oaths of loyalty on practitioners. Leadership's reform of the Art School had ended in disaster: their hand-picked loyalist disciples became scourges that had to be purged at enormous cost to both human life and the church's reputation. The reforms were repudiated and all disciple issues were returned to the Art School's deans. Lucia and others her age would never forget that the current balance of power with Leadership could not be taken for granted.

Together, the five of them prayed for the safety of Phillip the Younger.

Lavradio, North of Girona

It was snowing. He was naked, he didn't know exactly where he was, and it was snowing. It didn't take Taylor long to realize he would have to chance a few prayers just to make the run to his safe house, even though his magic was unstable. He had no money and he was pretty sure letting himself be seen would be a bad idea. He could attempt to steal clothing and food from an isolated house, maybe a woodsman's hut, but Taylor wasn't a fan of theft and everything he needed was at the safe house. He just had to get there.

Measuring out his spirit in the smallest amounts he could, he invoked blessings of endurance and warmth over a wide area including himself and everything within three meters. The snow around him immediately began to melt. He had maybe thirty kilometers to run, and he was going to leave a trail of melted snow behind him the whole way. The good news here was the falling snow would cover his trail.

If he had a choice, the forests of Lavradio wasn't where Taylor would be right now. He'd rather be back in Emristar, a wealthy nation in a technologically advanced world where he had actual family who loved him. His adoptive parents and two older siblings were probably giving up on him about now. After all, what choice did they have? He had disappeared into thin air, in front of witnesses, and there was no way to track him here. He had been summoned to a different world and Emristar lacked both the scientific and magical technology to follow him. After six months, plus however long he had been recently dead, they would have no choice but to get on with their lives.

If you counted all the reincarnations and soul transfers he could remember, this was Taylor's twelfth world so far. It was a bronze age civilization, with a single inhabited continent called Tenobre. Most nations were governed aristocratically, and they spoke a unified language called Unity. Nearly everyone had some kind of animalistic features like claws or fur, and not having such a "blessing" made you a pitied "smooth skin" like himself. There was one religion, the Unity Church, that worshiped the sun god Olyon. Magic here was was controlled by the church, whose body of scripture included their canonical spell book the Book of Prayers. If you had a little talent and the church happened to find you then they might train you and anoint you as a healer. If you were very talented and you passed ethical muster, then you could be anointed as a disciple.

Taylor had been fortunate to connect with a semi-retired disciple only a few weeks after being summoned here. The king of Lavradio might not have taken a real interest in his summoned guest, but Disciple Lucia certainly had. She had arranged a crash course for him at the hands of the three best teachers she could lay her hands on, and had seen to his anointment as fast as possible. The church didn't have enough disciples to go around so they were eager to put him to work.

There were a lot of atypical aspects to Taylor's anointment: he was only twelve years old; he never went to the School of Spiritual Arts in Unity City where priests and practitioners were normally trained; he had an unusual amount of spirit; he wasn't a member of any of the first families that usually supplied practitioners; and his anointment was recorded twice.

"They knew," he said out loud, halting his jog. His teachers had told him the alternate name would let him travel and work without carrying the "summoned from another world" baggage with him everywhere. But then why have two names at all? They had prepared a second identity for him in case his old name became unusable.

The last words Micas had said as she poisoned him to death was that the church had put a bounty on his head and Duke Frenzio was trying to collect. But Micas didn't work for the duke, she was Queen Diana's creature through and through. The queen was far more ruthless than Taylor had imagined, but that didn't change the fact she was competent. The only reason she would kill off someone who was an ally and who wasn't a threat to the realm was if her husband the king had ordered it. The king, on the other hand, didn't have a lot of ethical qualms when it came to picking up a loose windfall here and there. If someone, anyone, offered King Joaquim Odemira enough money then he would have no qualms disposing of Taylor.

It was possible that the church's Council of Guardians, generally referred to simply as Leadership, had paid the king. Or maybe it was just Duke Frenzio duping the mentally lazy king. Either way, it seemed his teachers had anticipated this predicament.

"Dean Garsharp," he muttered to the snow, "you're a dodgy old codger."

Well then, he couldn't go back to Girona and he couldn't use his own name. In fact he should leave Lavradio entirely, just as soon as he had himself in some kind of order. If he was going to be Phillip the Younger then he needed to do something about his appearance, and he would have to rethink his other identifiable traits. One thing was for sure, he couldn't keeping singing in public. He had become famous for his performances, and singing would out him as Taylor in a minute. That fact alone made him regret needing a new identity. He was going to miss performing.

"Food," said Taylor out loud. His eyes had found fruit high up in a tree, dried up and wrinkled and probably frozen inside. Winter fruit was an excellent find: it would keep him going for the rest of the day.

Taylor laid his knife on the ground and used his toughened fingers and toes to scramble up the tree. With his slight frame he had no problem climbing high enough to knock down twenty of the little brown treasures. He jumped down, then had to consider how to carry them all. There was another tree nearby, older than the rest, that had fallen under the twin pressures of too many years and too much snow. Taylor used his arts to strip the best fibers he could get from a still-living branch and form them into two items: a couple meters of rope and a felt sack. The sack had to be felt because delicate threading and weaving was way beyond his magical abilities right then. Felt was simple to shape, and sturdy enough to withstand his poor control. It wasn't a very good bag and it might not last more than a few days, but it would let him carry his forage. The winter fruit went into the bag. The rope went around his waist, and the knife and the bag were tucked into the rope.

With one fruit in hand Taylor resumed his travel at a brisk walk, peeling and snacking on the sweet chewy flesh as he went. He might have been naked but thanks to the spiritual arts he was warm. He was armed with an excellent bronze knife. He had food and he knew how to find more. He might not know precisely where he was, but he knew how to get where he was going. He would avoid the city of Girona entirely and instead aim for the highway that ran east out of the city by setting his course southeast. The highway would be literally impossible to miss. As soon as he found a marker on that road he would know exactly where he was, and how to get to his temporary home.

Two fruits later his attitude was fully restored, and he broke into an easy lope that would chew up the kilometers.

Leo's Detour

Everything had been going fine, until suddenly it wasn't. Prince Leonardo had found himself with two extra weeks before he had to be home, and their gurantor train was fast enough to carry them all to Gallia for a short vacation. Their gurantor's name was Bonita, and she was a massive creature even compared to her own kind. Her six legs pulled a luxury car and a cargo wagon like they were children's toys. Her intact horns, magnificent and back-swept, were a warning to anyone who might get in their way. She was secretly a sweet animal, though: she would probe their pockets with her trunk, looking for fruit.

Gallia was warmer this time of year than Lavradio, where the nights were getting cold and the snows had already begun. They had enjoyed nine days of beaches and balmy sunshine away from the usual pressures of embassy life, then turned Bonita and their carriage homeward.

He traveled with his trusted entourage of guards: Rita, Nunio, and Jorgo, all from noble families and all with combat-enhancing beast traits. His fiancé Farava was with them, a beautiful young woman from a Unity first family that had produced many members of Leadership. She had her own two attendants with her: a healer-practitioner named Esther, and a guard named Malisa. The seven of them and their most essential luggage fit easily into the luxury carriage where they could rest comfortably between turns driving. Their personal mounts, appalons, rode in the cargo wagon. The thin snowfall was no challenge for Bonita's bulk, especially on such a wide and well-kept road.

Leonardo, known as Leo among his entourage when nobody else was around, knew he was fooling himself. He liked to think he was traveling in a low-key manner like some mild mannered knight or baron, unremarked by anyone. His large frame and dark mane of hair running vertically from scalp to the middle of his back was a dead give-away to anyone who had met an Odemira. Binding his hair in silver clasps and riding around in a massive carriage dedicated just to him and his well-dressed retinue was fairly screaming for attention. But as long as he kept his manner relaxed, didn't affix anyone with the royal glare, or introduce himself as a prince then nearly everyone was willing to temporarily believe the fiction that he was some wealthy person of no great import and he was best left alone.

Half a day from their destination in Girona was where misfortune struck. The carriage's front end was wrenched several feet to the right, throwing all the riders to one side. The gurantor screamed, which is a sound they seldom make, and heaved itself free by breaking the harness and nearly overthrowing the carriage. Then she spun about and swiped the front with her horns. Everything loose in the passenger compartment went flying towards the opposite side: books, cushions, luggage, food, drinks, playing cards, musical instruments and people all careened together from one side to the other into one cacophonous heap. The exception was Leonardo, who sailed through one window of the car breaking the shutters to land free and clear of the whole mess. He cleared his head just in time to watch the ornate vehicle balance on two wheels for an eternal moment. From inside he could hear a chorus of "no no no no no" before the vehicle made up its mind to crash onto its side.

The appalons broke free of the cargo wagon and fled in all directions.

Bonita was thrashing and bellowing, and trampled the ground around herself as if fighting some unseen enemy. Twice it kicked the overturned vehicle and sent it sliding and crunching against the cargo car, eliciting new rounds of panicked shouts from the riders inside. Leo tried approaching the rear of the carriage to attempt a rescue but almost ended up flattened when the beast kicked it again.

The mayhem ended as inexplicably as it began. The gurantor fell down dead and the afternoon became quiet.

Half an hour later, Leonardo was faced with a choice. They could stay here, make camp by the carriage, and hope to be found. They could go forward to the next village. Or they could take the essentials and hike back five kilometers to an old hunting lodge belonging to his family.

There were assorted bruises and strains, but Esther sorted out most of them using the arts.

They had two immediate problems. Nunio had been driving, but he was nowhere to be found. And Malisa could barely breathe.

"I've used all the arts I can on her," Esther explained, worried for her friend, "but she's struggling. Her lips are blue because she isn't getting enough air, but I don't know what to do for her. It doesn't seem like poison, but prayers aren't helping."

Farava knelt next to the stricken woman, holding her hand.

"We stay here, with Malisa," Leo decided, "and we'll make camp in the carriage. Rita, look for Nunio again."

Rita started retracing their path, to find out where Nunio fell off. Jorgo gathered wood, while Leo moved the clutter around in the carriage to make room for everyone. The interior was a wreck, but everything they could want to survive the night was in there.

An hour later their situation remained the same. Rita returned with no news of any sign of Nunio. Malisa's breathing became more labored, and continued attempts by Ester to heal her still weren't helping. Their only progress was they had a fire going. They ate jerky and dried fruit, because nobody felt like cooking. Nobody felt like doing much of anything. All they could do was watch for trouble and hope to be found. Ideally, they should be found by someone with a carriage large enough for them and all their luggage. Farava put on a brave face, but eventually started to weep silently over her friend and guard.

Leonardo would need to split his party. Two would go forward to the next town to find help and the rest would stay behind to tend Malisa.

"Leo," Ester said before he could give the order, "someone is coming. An arts user. They probably sensed me."

"Maybe they can help," Farava said hopefully.

"They're very powerful," Ester added. "A disciple."

Jorgo stood, "let me talk to them, in case they're dangerous."

"No noble airs," Farava warned him. "Disciples hate that. Say please and thank you."

"What for," asked Jorgo? "He should be honored to help his prince."

"That's the opposite of what you should say to him," Farava whispered. A figure could be seen on the road now, running in their direction. "It's like you learned nothing after three years in Unity City." She would have taken Jorgo's place but she couldn't leave her friend's side.

The person who approached them was a boy carrying a bag slung over one shoulder and a spear in one hand with a bronze head. He wore a small canvas backpack and a stone knife was in his belt. His hair was brindled brown, and his silver eyes reflected their campfire. Jorgo stood in the middle of the road, both to greet him and bar his way.

The boy spoke first. "We meet in the Light. I am Disciple Phillip the Younger. I offer you my assistance."

"Where did you come from, Phillip?"

"I rent a house nearby. May I have the honor of knowing your name?" His voice was creaky and breaking, undermining the courtesies.

"What's your family name," Jorgo demanded?

"I neither have nor need any lineage to speak of. Do you want my help or not?"

"I don't see why we should let some strange child meddle in our affairs. How do we know you aren't responsible for this ambush?"

"I see you don't want my help. I'll leave you in peace." The boy turned to leave. "By the way, you've lost a man on the left side of the road. Up a tree just there," he pointed with his spear. "Did you know?"

He began to jog away from them.

Leo slapped his friend and secretary on the back of the head. "Idiot." Then he shouted, "Please wait! Let's walk as brothers!"

The boy stopped walking and turned around. He looked guarded and angry.

"My idiot friend's name is Jorgo," he shouted to the boy. "My name is Leo. Please lend us your aid."

"You don't have to lower yourself like that," Jorgo objected. Leo motioned him to silence.

Phillip walked past them both and planted his spear by the back door of the overturned vehicle. He took the long stone knife from his belt and laid it down next to the spear, then ducked into the sideways portal.

"Jorgo," said Leo, pulling him aside, "what was that about?"

"I thought we should know more about him before we let him into the carriage."

"We'll talk about this later. Take Rita and search the trees where he pointed."

Leo saw them off and entered the carriage. Ester and Phillip had Malisa sitting up. Farava had moved to the opposite side of the carriage to give them room to work.

"Malisa, I'd like to take a look at your abdomen but we have to remove your shirt. Is that okay?" Malisa nodded, still struggling to breathe. They removed the guard's leather chest piece and opened her shirt. The healers seemed to see something Farava couldn't.

"She's suffocating from a hemothorax," Ester said, "but my arts won't heal it."

"There's nothing wrong with your arts," the boy said, "the ruptured vessels are already healed. This is the blood that collected before you healed her. It isn't broken, it's not an illness, and it isn't poison."

"So the normal arts don't have an effect. Can you perform a combat heal?" Combat healing was a technique to rapidly restore the body to its ideal condition very quickly, but required more spirit than healers could muster.

He took a black roll of leather from his bag and unfurled it. Inside was an array of surgical instruments made of silver alloy, all slotted into neat compartments. "I can, and that would make the hemothorax vanish, but combat healing is traumatic for the patient. Malisa, what I'd like to do is make a small incision and just let the excess blood out. Then you'll be able to breathe. I'll numb the area so you won't feel anything at all. Ester will be here to heal the incision. Is that okay for you?"

Malisa looked to Ester, who nodded, then she nodded to Phillip.

"Someone bring us a clean, shallow bowl, please? And a second bowl to catch blood in."

"You don't want to heal the incision?" Ester asked, while taking the bowl from Farava and helping to sterilize instruments.

"I can't heal soft tissue very well right now. I'm having to relearn all my fine control. It's neater if you do it."

"Is it puberty?" she asked with real concern. "Is your growth confusing your arts?"

"I really don't want to talk about it." Alcohol poured from a small bottle into the bowl, followed by instruments and the hands of both healers.

While they waited for everything to sterilize, Ester wanted to explore his problem more thoroughly. "It's okay, you know. Lots of practitioners go through it, especially the strong ones. I had a friend who couldn't pray for light without blinding everyone for the longest time. How long has this been happening?"

Phillip closed his eyes and whispered, "so embarrassing. Please stop talking about it."

"If you stress about it," she advised him, "it'll only get worse."

"I wasn't stressing about it, but now I might be."

Phillip took a cloth and dabbed alcohol over the area he was operating on, then used a prayer to numb the skin. He said the prayer in a rapid-fire string of syllables the lay person would not even recognize as coming from scripture. Ester could sense his spirit working: true to his word, the prayer didn't just numb the targeted area but also half of Malisa's torso. The church had undoubtedly anointed him at such a young age because of his extreme power, but he was right about his shaky control.

Malisa was smiling through her shortened breaths. "You're enjoying my embarrassment, aren't you?" said Phillip. She nodded, grinning but breathing in tiny sips. "Life is so unfair. Can you feel that? I'm touching your skin right now." The patient shook her head.

"Hold up the bowl," he said and, when Ester was ready, inserted the pointed scalpel into Malisa's abdomen and pulled it out again, replacing it with a short silver tube. Bloody fluid streamed from the wound into the bowl and Malisa's breaths gradually became deeper. They collected a quarter of a liter before the stream died down to a mere ooze. Phillip took the bowl and instruments outside for cleaning while Ester healed the incision, and they were done.

When Rita and Jorgo returned with an unconscious and badly injured Nunio, Ester and Phillip divided the work between them. He healed the bones, which required a great deal of spirit, while she focused on delicate soft tissues. After her repeated attempt to use the arts to heal Malisa, Ester didn't have a lot of spirit left and pushed herself nearly to exhaustion. At the end of it, Farava and Rita put Ester in the carriage on a bed of pillows and forced her to rest.

When Nunio was on his feet he gave a report. "I don't know what happened," he swore. "She went berserk and kicked the driver's seat so hard I went flying. That's the last thing I remember until pipsqueak here was setting bones. Thanks for that, by the way," he said to Phillip. "My name's Nunio." He offered the boy a bow, which was returned in kind.

"My pleasure. Has anyone looked at the gurantor yet? Tried to find a cause?"

"We've only confirmed she's dead," Leo told him.

Nunio made a sad face, his wide feline ears folding down. "Poor Bonita. She was sweet, for a gurantor."

Nunio went with Phillip as he took up his spear and knife and approached the fallen beast. She had been a truly magnificent specimen, standing three meters at the shoulder. Bonita's mouth hung open, tongue exposed, and blood seeped from the eyes. There was no obvious cause of death.

Phillip examined the the deceased gurantor, and eventually motioned to Nunio to crouch down next to him, and look at Bonita from low to the ground. "See that wound, under the right front leg? The blood has soaked into the ground right under it."

"Perfectly round. You think a sketterline got her?"

"They've been a problem around here lately. There's probably a burrow right under her. It ambushed her from below and ate straight for her heart. There's a bounty on these, too. Three silenz per head. If that's what this is."

"We can't leave it here," said Leo, crouching next to them. "Bounty or not, it's a danger. We should burn the poor girl in place. That would get rid of the sketterline, too."

"Or," Phillip offered, "we can lure it out and kill it. Then you can take some of Bonita as steaks, to remember her by. Your people are going to need big meals tonight. Healing is hard on the body."

"Shame to let her go to waste," Malisa agreed, approaching while donning her armor.

With Phillip's blessing of protection in place, they tapped the ground near the belly of the gurantor rhythmically until the many-legged anthropod stuck its head out to investigate. It's antennae waved around in circles, unsure if it was safe to come out.

Malisa was the first to strike, putting her spear into a body segment and nailing it to the ground. The remainder of the the sketterline poured out of the carcass a meter at a time, attempting to wrap itself around the spear and pry itself free. Swords chopped it to bits, and the sections were dragged into the campfire to burn, making a green flame as the carapaces burned to white ash.

After they had all taken some cuts from Bonita the Gurantor, Phillip purified the meat then blessed the men with strength so they could drag the massive body to the side of the road. He helped them bury the huge gurantor by reshaping the ground. Since their strength was already enhanced, Leo's party turned the carriage right-side up, but had to catch it to keep it from flopping right over to the other side. The contents clattered and crashed.

With the deadly sketterline gone, the group's appalons returned. They were shy at first and didn't want to get too near the pooled blood in the road but they knew they had to let themselves be collected if they wanted to eat. The sole holdout was a creature belonging to Nunio, apparently named Hateful Ben, whose absence seemed to cheer up his owner. "Maybe a sketterline got him," speculated the guard hopefully.

Phillip packed his equipment and prepared to leave. Spear in hand, he spoke to Nunio. "Unless there's some other dire need, I'm heading out. Send your donation to any of the church-run programs in Girona. And try to stay out of trees."

Nunio grinned and was about to say something witty in return, but Jorgo interrupted. "You can't leave us stranded out here. Look around! It's the wilderness! Do you know who our master is?"

"Crown Prince Leonardo Odemira," Phillip said flatly, "soon to be the ninth Odemira to sit the throne of Lavradio."

"And you're just going to leave him here, stranded?"

"Jorgo, was it?" Phillip pointed at the massive carriage with his spear. "You have shelter and a defensible location. You have food, weapons, mounts, money. You have no injuries, and you have a healer." He pointed down the road. "The next town is ten kilometers that way, less than an hour by appalon. You are not stranded."

Phillip turned to leave, sparing only a nod for Leonardo. "Your Highness," is all he said, and then he ran directly into the woods at an easy lope. In a moment he was gone from sight, swallowed up by trees and snow.

"Jorgo," said the prince, "we need to have a conversation about how you talk to people that we need."

The royal party loaded their most important goods onto appalons and headed back the way they had come. The prince's family had a hunting lodge in the area, closer to them than the next town. Ester rode because of her weakened condition, but everyone else walked. That left most of the appalons free to carry baggage: trunks full of the most valuable items in the carriage, plus their food and warmest bedding. It took them over an hour to pack, and most of another to reach their destination.

Their first sight of the lodge came as the winter sun was dying. The two story building was made of fieldstone cleverly stacked then held together with mortar, sitting on top of a course of cut stone at ground level, with a second course of cut stone where the second floor began. The loft was timber, and the roof looked recently thatched. A single chimney was located in the center, rising high enough to avoid catching the roof on fire. To one side was a stable for mounts, and on the other a smokehouse for treating game. The space immediately around the house was paved in stone and marked by a low hedge. By royal standards it was rustic to an extreme, but a commoner would have called it a grand cottage.

What was surprising about the scene was the smoke coming from the chimney and the light sneaking past shuttered windows. The house was occupied.

"I'll talk to them," said Nunio, looking at Jorgo. "We don't need another pointless altercation." The guard checked his armor, in case the reception was poor, and approached the door only to have it open for him preemptively. The boy disciple stood on the threshold, the warm fire inside backlighting him, wiping his hands on a gray towel. His silver pupils gleamed in the shadowed face.

"Phillip" he cried happily, "it's been ages."

"Nunio," the boy replied. His silver eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Did you follow me here?"

"Funny story," Nunio explained, "this lodge is owned by the royal family. We came here to stay the night."

"Well that's unfortunate. I have a rental contract, paid in advance. The house is occupied."

Nunio considered the situation. Surely the boy didn't intend to refuse them shelter. He had already helped them once today, and done so without making a fuss about it. It was only Jorgo who had soured the encounter. The prince's secretary had a general dislike of anyone who couldn't trace their families through five generations of nobility. Even Ester had been subject to his scorn: it had been so bad that the prince intervened to set him straight. The boy might be sore at his poor treatment at the end of Jorgo's tongue.

Nunio bowed with a flourish and spoke in the Unity language's supplicative voice. "Our party is tired and the night is long and cold. We ask you, master of this house, for your hospitality."

"You have my hospitality, unfit for royals though it is," replied the boy formally. The he sighed, "you didn't have to go that far -- all you had to do was ask. You can see where the stable is. Smallest bedroom is mine, divide up the rest as you like." The disciple went back inside, leaving them to their own devices.

Most of the ground floor was a single room, interrupted by the great posts that held up the beams for the second floor. Phillip had installed half a dozen cloth lanterns lit by the arts, which reflected their soft light against the smoothed walls and an immaculate wooden floor. The fireplace in the center added a warm natural flickering to the steady light of spiritual arts. Near the fire was a rough wooden table covered with ingredients prepared for cooking: diced aromatics, root vegetables, sliced mushrooms, winter spices, filets of river trout, and baby greens that had probably been grown indoors using the arts. A stack of eight fine white saucers and cups stood at one corner of the table hinting at the availability of jota, confirmed by the oversized pot steeping on the table.

Phillip kept on with his preparations while prince and party moved in. Appalons had to be stabled and cared for, baggage unloaded and transported into the house, certain items had to be unpacked and the rest stowed neatly on one side of the great room. The party of seven had to decide on sleeping arrangements and move bedding upstairs. There was no real facility for bathing, but their host had prepared a copper pot of hot water over the fire they could draw from using a big wooden ladle. They could put hot water into a basin and then take it upstairs to wipe themselves down. Fresh jota kept them fueled through the whole unpacking and settling-in phases of the night.

Rita was their best cook, so she helped Phillip with the food. The first course would be herbed fish on a bed of baby greens dressed with nuts, honey, and vinegar. That would be followed by meat from the unfortunate Bonita, stewed with roots and mushrooms served in a rich broth. Third course was futobel ribs, braised in winter fruit, served with coarse brown bread to mop up the tangy sauce. Prince Leo promised to provide aperitifs and cheeses for desert.

When Phillip sat at the table during the first course Jorgo tried to object, only to have the boy cut him off and reprimand him. "Don't even start. I'm the host, so I eat at the table. If you're too good to dine with me, then you're too good to eat my food." In his anger, even the whites of the boy's eyes turned to silver. The cloth lanterns, lit as they were with the arts, responded to his temper by growing brighter.

"You can endure my company or you can go to bed hungry. Choose."

Jorgo slammed his hands onto the table and shot up to his feet, ready to put the commoner boy in his place. He was about to declare he wouldn't be treated so poorly, but Leo spoke first.

"I apologize for the behavior of my secretary." Leonardo's voice was gentle, but his glance towards Jorgo was hard. "He truly is talented, but there are some days he isn't worth the bother. You have been very free with your time on our behalf, but I've allowed my man to antagonize you. I had hoped he would recognize his mistake on his own, but his incivility has demeaned us all. I am sorry."

The speech was given in the disciple's direction, but it was largely for Jorgo's benefit the apology was made. Jorgo was so imperious because he insisted everyone else demonstrate the same reverence towards the prince that he himself felt. To have that same prince make an apology on Jorgo's behalf was more painful than a thousand remonstrations from some random disciple.

"I accept your gracious apology," returned Phillip. "If Jorgo can confine himself to positive comments, or be silent, there's no need to dwell on this any further. Please, everyone enjoy." As host he took the first bite, and complemented Rita on her skill with the fish. Everyone else joined in, leaving Jorgo standing alone and unheeded. Eventually he sat down and ate, and kept to himself for the whole meal.

There was a lot the royal party couldn't talk about in the presence of an outsider, so they mostly stuck to discussing their time in Unity City. Apparently Phillip had never been there, so he was keen to know more about Enclave, the section of the city that housed the Unity Church, and the Art School especially. The fact he was anointed 'in the wilderness' meant his background would be highly unusual, so Leo wasn't surprised when the boy refused to reveal anything about his past. The quorum that had trained and anointed him included Dean Garsharp, Disciple Leila, and Disciple Mobeen whose moniker was Sacred Blade.

After dinner the guests helped clear the table and put everything away, but it was Phillip who did the washing. He took all the tableware and cookware outside to the courtyard and scrubbed it all in one huge cleansing with a great clattering and some shattering noises. He then remade the several pieces that had broken.

"Only eight breaks," he said proudly to Ester, "I'm getting better."

They entertained each other with music in the Lavradio way, taking turns signing or playing. The royal party had an excellent lap harp they shared, an expensive gilt instrument with impressive resonance. Farava and Leo sang duets, as any affianced couple were expected to do. Nunio chose a Lavradio classic with his own off-color lyrics added to the originals. Malisa and Rita performed songs they had learned in Gallia, while Jorgo sang old classic tunes that seemed to go on a little too long. Phillip didn't sing a lick, but he had a nickleharp that he played to good effect. Only when the winter moon had climbed high did they call an end to the evening. Phillip was the first to bed down, leaving his guests to set their own watch.

The next morning Leo went downstairs to find breakfast in a pot over the fire ready for serving: porridge and dried meat. The crew was already at table eating by candlelight and firelight. One window was cracked open to let in fresh air and a gray winter light that promised more snow.

"Where is our disciple," he yawned?

"He left before dawn," reported Nunio, "and said he wouldn't be back until at least mid-winter, so we can use the place as we like. 'Just leave it clean,' he said."

Leo sniffed the bowl Jorgo handed to him. Compared to last night's feast, it was the most boring of meals. "Did he say anything else?"

"He said to walk in the Light," reported Ester, "and send your donation to Matrix Lucia."

"That's going to be a problem," said Jorgo, "since we don't know who or where she is."

"Lucia is a retired disciple who ministers to the poor in your bricktown," Ester explained, "so there should be no trouble at all getting a suitable donation into the right hands. You don't approve, Jorgo?"

Jorgo felt safer speaking his mind now that the disciple wasn't around to complain. "I'm surprised he would throw away a royal reward, that's all."

"He's not throwing it away," insisted Ester. "He's using it to continue the Work, which is helping people. Helping people is not a waste. He helped us, even after you insulted him." She turned to Farava, "he must have enough money to travel with, or he would have stuck around." Mendicant disciples and healers had to pay their own way using donations they received. Once they had enough to secure their own needs plus a little security (say, a few month's worth of expenses) the rest of their donations went to the coffers of some nearby temple or towards a church-related activity.

"It still seems ungrateful," complained the secretary. "The next king wants to bestow a reward on him, and he just disappears? He's probably hiding something."

"He's definitely hiding something," Nunio agreed with him, dramatically. "He's a noble son who abandoned the family name to go out into the world and exercise his true talent and perform dangerous heroics. He can't stick around for a bunch of nobles when he has deeds to perform!"

"Enough about Phillip," enjoined the prince, "we need to discuss my entry into the capital. Mother wants us to make a spectacle of it. Since we're already encamped we might as well do the advance planning from here, then move to a staging area a day before the parade."

Crown Prince Leonardo got to work, readying himself to parade in front of his future subjects, and ascend the throne at the solstice.