A strident caw echoed in the packed studio.

The man started and looked up from his book, the flickering light of the candle falling on parchment littered with odd glyphs and small, scrawled writing along its margins. His gaze fell on the crow making its perch on a nearby chair.

The bird cocked its head at him, beady eye staring impassively. It was not a large animal, hardly larger than the book he held in his hands, and its feathers had a sheen to them that suggested a certain amount of care. The crow let out another call and fluttered away into the next room, where the light of the candles did not reach.

A moment later, he could hear knocking coming from the front door. He muttered something impolite and rose, his lower back voicing its protest as it left the comfort of his seat. He deposited the book on his desk, among the various, seemingly random odds and ends that littered his workspace, and picked up the candle he had been using as a reading light. 

His left hand snaked around his walking cane as he made his way around the detritus that occupied most of the room. He had not needed to use the blackened length of wood for its more obvious purpose – at least within the confines of his home – for some time, but there were other uses for a three-foot long stick if one was creative.

The door rattled again as he made it to the living room, and he paused to wonder what someone could want of him at that time. It had rained for most of the day, barring most people inside, and even though the rain had stopped, nightfall meant it was no longer the time to be out an about. 

Then again, someone looking at him could very well label him a shady character. Sunken eyes, taut features, a rough, short beard that could probably use a trim regardless, and a small but noticeable limp on his right leg. The rain had brought with it a sudden wave of cold, and he had covered himself in old blankets he had kept stored around the house – at least those the moths hadn’t rendered completely useless. The hair on his temples had thinned, and enough gray had grown among the dark brown that it drew attention to itself. He leaned on six feet tall – not a freak of nature – but he had to duck his head to avoid some of the beams lining the roof of his small house. He was convinced the previous occupant had been a dwarf. At least the rain had not brought any leaks this time. He could think of better things to do with his time than to try and fix the roof.

Such as ignoring the knocking and hoping whoever was standing on the other side of the door would grow tired and seek someone else to pester.

The door shuddered again, the knocks coming more insistently, and he sighed, leaving the candle where it would illuminate the rest of the room. Then he approached the front of his house. As he neared the door he held his cane forward, the air around his hand humming as he temporarily lowered the wards surrounding his dwelling, and proceeded to open the door.

Outside, a small figure stood, about a head shorter than him. A cloak and hood shrouded their features in darkness, and what little light seeped from within his house did little to illuminate them. Their arms were folded before them, as if trying to ward off the cold. 

As if curious, his crow suddenly flew out of the darkness and perched on his shoulder, studying the stranger with a cocked head, and there he stood, scowling, veritable King of Rags at the step of the door.

“What do you want?” he asked impatiently.

“Oh.” The voice was distinctly feminine, and seemed taken aback by the brusqueness of his question. “Um… is Magus Mercer home?”

The man looked down at himself, the old blankets draped over him like a patchwork robe, and he scowled back up to the strange woman. “I am, last I checked.”

“Oh, right. Of course.” Something told Mercer this was not quite what she had expected when she knocked on his door. She hesitated when he merely continued to stare at her, until she realized he was waiting for her to answer his question. “Sorry. My name is Claire Asher, an apprentice from the Elsinian. I was told you offer lodging to members?”

Mercer’s expression turned guarded. It had been some time since a mage had passed through the little hamlet. There was little of interest to the magically talented in this town, and most travelling Elsinians tended to skip it entirely, heading for the larger capital of Thanadan or the port towns that gave entry to Royal. For those that did pass through, Mercer’s abode gave them a place to rest or study with tools of the trade and away from the populace.

“I’m afraid your name doesn’t ring any bells,” he said neutrally, as he began closing the door “and I commonly enjoy advance notice from my gues—”

“Wait!” she said with sudden urgency, moving so she could see down the closing gap into his house. “Hold on, I have a message for you! It’s from the Seer.”

That gave him pause. The Seer was a high ranking member of the Elsinian Council of mages, and the man currently occupying the position had been the one to introduce Mercer to the Art. The man was growing old, Mercer had heard – not that the old mage was not already ancient for human standards – and had grown rather reclusive as of late. What felt strange to him was the need for a messenger. Wizards of that caliber had ways of establishing long range communication.

He opened the door slightly, enough to see a pale hand holding out an envelope. He took it and half-turned, letting the light of the candle fall gently on the unbroken seal. The Seer’s insignia stared back at him. An hourglass figure decorated the surface of the letter, inscribed within a circle of runes of some unknown language. Mercer had always suspected they had been made up.

It seemed genuine. His crow cawed next to his ear, as if urging him on.

Grunting, he began opening the letter, keeping an eye trained on the supposed apprentice. That said, opening a letter with one hand was mildly inconvenient, but he was not about to set down his cane to free his left hand, so he took the undignified route of tearing the envelope open with his teeth. Letting the light of the candle fall over the letter, he hunched over, trying to make out the words in the dim lighting.

In the scrawling writing of his first mentor, the first line read, perhaps predictably, Be nice to the girl. A bit ham-fisted, if it was a fake, but he could honestly say it was something he would expect from the Seer.

Mercer let out a huff of air through his nose and studied the figure outside for a moment. Reaching a decision, he opened the door and made an inviting motion with one arm.

The woman moved past him and into the room, at his insistence leaving her mud streaked boots and cloak by the entrance. Claire must have been half his age, maybe a bit younger, with soft features and clear blond hair. Her blue eyes seemed to droop slightly from tiredness, but she still smiled gratefully as she thanked him for his hospitality, small dimples forming on her cheeks. Her traveling clothes were not particularly special in and of themselves, but she filled them well, in a manner that pleased the eye and painfully reminded him of how long it had been since he had last shared a bed with someone. He was not old enough that he could not appreciate beauty when he saw it. She was young enough to make the thought feel uncomfortable.

Two large, disk shaped silver earrings dangled from her ears, clashing with her ensemble. Had it not been for a coincidental flickering of the candlelight, he might have missed the tiny symbols etched along their edges edge.

Foci were one of the most important tools for magic-users, affording them better control of the forces and energies they wielded, and even amplifying the effects of their magic, depending on the make of the focus. The staff was among the oldest, most traditional and well-known examples of a magical focus, but there was no set rule that said a focus had to be a big stick. Jewelry could work just as well. As could a shorter stick. Or his cane.

Mercer went to light the hearth, directing the girl to sit on one of the chairs facing it. The crow jumped as he moved past her and landed on the girl’s shoulder, pecking at one of her earrings. That earned it a yelp and a reflexive slap that sent it tumbling off its perch, squawking indignantly as it disappeared into one of the adjacent rooms. 

“Sorry,” she said, catching Mercer’s look. “It startled me.”

He grumbled in answer and turned back to the fireplace. Soon, the warmth of the flames had begun spreading across the room, and Mercer dropped down next to his guest. 

“An apprentice, you said. It’s been years since I had to deal with an apprentice. The good ones are always filled with questions, which is probably what makes them so annoying.” Her lip curled down in a small grimace, as if she couldn’t decide if she should take umbrage. “You haven’t asked me anything. Must not be a very impressive student.”

She pursed her lips at that. “I didn’t come here to ask questions. I just needed to deliver a letter and find a place to stay.”

“Good. Then I’ll ask the questions. Let’s start with why I wasn’t told of your coming.”

Claire fidgeted, clearly feeling an interrogation coming. “I didn’t know it worked like that. I thought you simply let members of the Elsinian stay when they come by.”

That was true enough, he supposed, though normally he had more than an apprentice’s word of honor to go with it. “Who told you about this place?”

“The Seer. Or at least I’m pretty sure it was him. Never saw him in person before.” Her eyes moved to the letter Mercer had placed on his lap. “He caught me while I was leaving and asked me to give that to you. It was… inconvenient, but you know what they say about him.” Aye, that he did. Ignore the Seer at your own peril. “He told me I could rest here, and it was dark by the time I made it…” Which was about what he had guessed, but one did not go and answer his own questions when he expected an explanation to fill in the holes. He still had to wonder why he had not been warned. Even if magical communication was out of the table, a bird could easily have made it there in time. 

The alternative, that the Seer was unable or unwilling to use proper communication channels, was more than a little worrying.

“Where are you going?” Claire had said she had learned of him just before leaving Elsin, so he had to assume he was not the purpose of the trip.

“Thanadan.”

“To do what?”

“It’s personal,” she replied testily. Mercer felt a spike of irritation. She must have caught his unsatisfied expression, for she quickly amended with, “It’s… a family matter, sir. I’d rather not discuss it with a stranger.” Which was in truth a vaguely more polite way of saying it was none of his business.

Ah, family. If there ever existed a word to justify irrational behavior, that was it. “Even when you are counting on that stranger’s hospitality,” he observed.

The girl looked down at her hands, clasped together on her lap, but she remained silent.

Mercer grunted and rubbed at his temple. He decided to change tack. “What will you do once you finish your apprenticeship?”

The girl blinked, seemingly surprised by the change of direction. “I’m slated to join Elsin’s Battlemage Corps in a year’s time.”

A fledgling battlemage. Wasn’t that a coincidence? “Is Pratersten still harrying new recruits?”

“Pratersten?” 

That gave him some relief. He would have been worried if she had pretended to recognize a name he had made up. “Short, round, bald. Front teeth the size of this house.”

“Master Sergeant Mason?” she said in recognition. “The Mouse?”

“Ha! They still call him that?”

The girl gave him a tentative smile. “With good reason.”

Mercer nodded, facing the fire with a pleased expression. He was a good deal more confident that the girl was indeed who she claimed to be.

He found himself looking down at the letter he had been given, and withdrew it completely from the envelope. He skimmed through the beginning paragraphs, mostly pleasantries and a few news from Elsin and the Council. Nothing that immediately caught his attention or explained why the message had reached him the way it had. 

“Ah, what is this…” he muttered as he went over one of the last paragraphs.

[i]‘Alas, troubled times means my talents are ever in demand by those leading our Council, and the leisure to act freely has been in short supply. It seems all eyes are focused on the main continent, but I have been alerted to certain developments at the town of Nifu. I believe something may happen that you might wish to witness.’[/i] 

Mercer puzzled over that last bit of information. Something to witness? Was something about to happen, and he was to be a representative for the Elsinian? If so, why him? Why would he learn of it from a random apprentice instead of official channels? Was the Seer expecting some kind of discretion from him?

His eyes tracked the flames of the hearth, and for a moment he considered throwing the letter into the fire. 

Still, something nagged at him. Why would he be expected to act on his own? 

He pursed his lips. Simple. Easier to deny responsibility.

The apprentice had been studying his reaction while he read, so he said, “You did not read this.”

“No.”

“Why?”

She shook her head. “It felt impolite.”

He eyed her. “Do you not want to know what it says? This message that you carried all the way here on the dubious word of an old man that may or may not have been the high ranking Seer of the Elsinian?”

“I do.”

“So why don’t you ask?”

“Something tells me it might be best not to know.” Mercer blinked, and looked at the young girl. She had a thoughtful frown on her face, something that told him she had drawn a few conclusions of her own.

“Hum. You fill my heart with confidence.” 

The chair creaked as he rose. 

[hr]

Following the letter’s advice, Mercer set out the following day, and the apprentice stayed with him on the road to Thanadan. For some reason, she did not seem to be delighted by the prospect. 

Ungrateful girl.

Regardless, the trek was a calm one, and they separated at Teredor’s capital city without issue. Mercer then took a ship directly to the town specified in the letter.

And proceeded to stick his metaphorical thumb up his rear for the next several days.

Perhaps he was not being fair to himself in that regard. He had not sat idle for the entirety of his stay. Rather, most of his time had been spent outside, chasing rumors and gathering information. The problem was, there was very little of interest, and for the few things that seemed mildly relevant, he could not reliably relate to the message he had been given. Talk of soaring tensions in the main continent were vague, common, and so invariably filled of guesswork as to render them meaningless. As to the rest, he could hardly chase down every rumor housewives chewed over in that town.

He eventually had to make the decision to head back. He simply lacked the financial resources or connections to stay in Nifu indefinitely, and felt very little incentive to set up shop somewhere else with so few of his tools in hopes something would happen.

Instead, he sat grouchily over his plate, disinterestedly poking the food with his fork. He had left his cloak in his cabin, leaving him in just his plain cloth travelling clothes. His cane and satchel rested by his leg, and the small crow stood by the food, eyeing it like a cat eyes its prey.

It was good food. Seemed well-prepared. The cook deserved some praise. A shame it did not look very appetizing to him. In his younger days, some sailor had told him it would not take him long to get his sea legs under him, but Mercer suspected the man had lied to his face. His gut had started voicing its complaints minutes after he had set foot on the ship, and it did not seem to be improving. Mercer preferred to avoid sea travel when possible, but there were only so many ways to reach an island.

If he had known the trip would have been such a colossal waste of time, he could have avoided it, he thought irritated. It was entirely possible that he had been tricked by the Seer, and that the purpose of the trip had been fulfilled already without his noticing. Perhaps having someone accompany the apprentice – whose name was already slipping from his mind – meant she had been saved from some gruesome fate or other. Perhaps he would come back to a burning village and he would have died had he stayed. Perhaps he had simply missed his chance. The issue with prophecy was that even when it came from the most accurate reader, it was never set in stone. Even possessing the knowledge of one’s fate risked to change it, and not necessarily for the better. For readers, the best one could do was place the right person at the right time and place and hope for the best. How that person got there was irrelevant.

Or perhaps the old Seer had finally gone senile. It was a few centuries due, as far as he knew.

Conversation had started to pick up, but perhaps sensing his mood, no one had immediately approached him.

His bird darted in with a peck, snatching away a bite from his plate. Mercer ignored the dark look he got from one of the attending stewards, and decided that he might as well try to fill his stomach before it mounted an armed rebellion.

It really was good food. Too good, it would seem. A woman sitting a few paces away from him, short and exceedingly pale, let loose a theory that the only way the food would look this good was that it was poisoned.

But then, they were not in the midst of a long voyage by sea where they could expect their food rotting in their containers as time passed. It was not just the food, even. The ship itself had a somewhat ostentatious feel to it, and it likely spent enough time at shore to be kept in good condition. Which then left the issue of hostages. Something told him that if these were pirates orchestrating a fiendishly elaborate and expensive ruse, their bounty had not been worth the effort.

Of course, he had already swallowed a portion of their dinner, so it might have been wishful thinking. 

He paused for a moment, mid-chew, and considered the idea. Then swallowed again. “Do your best to avenge me, if that’s the case,” he said dryly over the din.