The Insane Regressor: Throne of Pride

Ravian was about to ask Karius what he meant by that support when a knock sounded at the training ground’s door. The visitor waited for Karius’s permission before entering. Antonius stepped inside with a folded report in his hand, glanced at Ravian and the blood at the corner of his mouth, then approached the company commander without comment. Ravian flexed his aching hand at his side. They had stopped training only moments earlier, and Karius’s remark about the Taboos had left him with far more questions than answers. Whatever Antonius had brought, it was serious enough to interrupt a conversation his master had plainly wanted to finish.

"Your timing couldn’t be worse, Antonius," Karius said, sounding mildly annoyed by the interruption.

"You told me not to interrupt unless it concerned the front, sir. One of our scouting parties has returned, and this is their report." Antonius’s expression shifted as he mentioned it. "I think you’ll want to read it."

The look on Antonius’s face was enough to tell Ravian that the news would not be good.

Karius took the paper and opened it, and what remained of his smile soon vanished. His eyes traveled down the page once, then returned to the opening lines. Ravian could not read the report from where he stood, but he recognized the look of a man checking whether the words in front of him could really mean what they appeared to mean. Ravian stayed where he was, but his attention shifted from Karius’s remarks about the Taboos to the silence stretching between the two men. When Karius finally looked up from the report, he addressed Antonius.

"This... Are they certain of the location?"

The question sounded strange to Ravian, but he looked toward Antonius anyway.

"They confirmed it with tracking magic and the traces of orc movement around the site, sir. There’s no doubt they found the right place."

’Orcs?’ Ravian’s eyes twitched for a fraction of a second. ’Don’t tell me the place they’re talking about is...’

It was a wild guess. There were dozens of orc camps similar to the one he had destroyed, so the likelihood that they were discussing the very camp he had erased seemed small. He watched Antonius without asking anything himself. A vague mention of orcs was no reason to reveal his interest, and Karius was standing close enough to notice the wrong question asked a moment too soon.

"What else did they find?" Karius asked, his expression growing darker than the report alone seemed to warrant.

"Blackened ground marking the camp’s boundaries, and nothing that once stood inside them. No tents, bodies, or equipment. They examined the soil from a distance first, then two of them approached to confirm their findings after making sure no force was lying in wait."

Ravian’s expression did not change. He knew exactly what Antonius was describing, but hearing it from a soldier of the human camp made him realize that the orcs’ disappearance was no longer an event confined to the forest. Other people had seen the site, and each side would begin searching for an explanation that suited it. A burned camp would have been one thing; there would have been bodies, ruined weapons, or the remains of a fight to examine. This place offered none of those easy answers. Even people who had never heard of Ravian would keep searching until they found something they could report to their superiors.

But none of that concerned him. He had arrived there by accident, finished what he needed to do, and erased his traces. Anything that happened afterward would have nothing to do with him, and no one could connect it to him. Of that, he was certain.

Unless...

’Unless this old man asks me about it with that damned Taboo of Truth’s power.’

Karius turned the paper slightly and returned to a line near the bottom.

"These tracks?" he asked, indicating a particular passage.

Antonius did not need to look again to know which one he meant.

"They found footprints along the edge of the site—clearly left by more than one person—and followed some of them to a path leading toward a nearby cave. They didn’t enter the cave. The tracks looked recent, and they had no information about who left them or how many might still be in the area."

Ravian had just received a second shock.

’Footprints? How? I’m certain I left no tracks!’ His mind raced through the possibilities. ’No, wait... He didn’t say one person’s tracks. He said several people’s.’

This time, Ravian looked directly at Antonius. He had left the cave after the bodies and the array disappeared, and he had left no clear trail between it and the camp; he had used Void Shadow while moving through the area. The footprints in the report, however, might have appeared after the camp had become a patch of blackened ground.

’A third party reached the site before the scouts.’

That was the only possibility left.

Ravian did not know who had followed the tracks to the cave, but he disliked the most likely answer. The orcs had not been acting independently of the Twilight Empire. It was only natural that someone would come looking once they stopped sending reports.

Yet that was not the question that mattered.

How had those people found their way to the cave after examining the camp? What clue or trace had led them there?

That was what Ravian needed to know. If they possessed some technique or ability that could track his traces, the consequences could be fatal.

He looked up at the two men, who were still discussing the report.

"Were any of the footprints on the blackened ground itself?" Ravian asked, joining the conversation without waiting for permission.

Antonius turned toward him. He did not seem offended by the interruption, though his eyes narrowed slightly as he recalled the details.

"Some of them, yes. Why?"

Ravian considered it for a moment, then raised a finger as the thought settled.

"If the footprints are on top of the blackened ground, the people you followed reached the site after the camp disappeared, not before."

Antonius looked back at the report, while Karius turned his attention directly to Ravian. The deduction was simple enough for anyone to make, but the speed of his question and the way he had answered made Karius wait to hear what he would say next.

"You’d be wise to keep your patrols away from that cave for now," Ravian said, keeping his voice calm. "If those people belong to the Twilight Empire, they’ll already have examined the place before our men arrived. They may still be lying in wait nearby."

"I’ve already given that order," Karius said. He turned to Antonius. "Bring the scouts back inside our lines, and have the tracking squad leader record everything his men saw in a separate report. I don’t want anyone entering the site for further investigation or out of curiosity."

Antonius nodded, but lingered long enough to glance from his commander to Ravian. He had clearly noticed that another conversation remained unfinished between them, but did not ask to take part in it. He left the training ground and closed the door behind him; his footsteps remained audible for a little while before fading.

Karius read the report once more, then folded it and kept it in his hand instead of putting it away.

He looked at Ravian.

"Do you know the cave he’s talking about?" Karius asked, his expression caught somewhere between sadness and disappointment. "Doesn’t that cave remind you of anything?"

Ravian went still at the question. He had noticed the look in his master’s eyes, but said nothing. He knew exactly which cave Karius meant. To him, it was where the orcs had met their end; to Karius, it was where the search for his missing disciple had gone cold. Ravian had been so occupied with the fresh footprints that he had nearly overlooked the part of the report most likely to matter to the man standing before him.

"It’s the same cave where we found the last traces of you before you disappeared," Karius said, approaching until only a short distance separated them.

"So let me ask you one final question, my disciple, and settle this uncertainty. I promise I won’t ask you anything else about your disappearance after this."

The promise should have eased Ravian. Instead, the care Karius took in narrowing their conversation to one final question made him remember the white light that had appeared in his master’s eyes at the gate. Karius paused, then asked:

"Do you have anything to do with what happened to that orc camp, or do you know anything about what took place in the cave where your trail ended?"

As Karius finished speaking, his eyes gleamed white again. The question covered both the vanished camp and everything that had happened inside the cave. Answering only one part would not spare Ravian from the other, and the man before him knew it.

’Damn it,’ Ravian cursed inwardly, calmly holding his master’s gaze.

Then he answered in a low, steady voice.

"No. I have nothing to do with any of it, Master."

...And the Taboo of Truth’s power activated to determine whether he had spoken the truth.