The Lich Without a Soul Vessel

His sword technique had developed entirely through self-instruction and had reached the knight tier, which was more than most people managed by that route. But magic and swordwork were different in a way he was only now fully understanding. Magic was a general tool. He had used it in combat, yes, but also to adjust the temperature of a hollow tree where he rested, to move objects, to probe his surroundings. It extended into life in all directions.

The sword only pointed one way.

He turned this over while he walked. Leonardo had said that death magic's real purpose was healing — that its practitioners had chosen violence when the tradition contained so much more. He wondered if the same question applied to the blade. Whether something designed to cut could also build. He couldn't find the answer, so he set the question aside. He was good at that.

Out of the forest finally, he came across a small mountain village and got his bearings. He had wandered into the Duchy of Purei. A narrow triangle of lowland territory lay ahead of him, and southwest through the valley was a market town called Greenwell, which belonged to no particular noble — a trading post for furs and high-grade timber, oak and similar, that passed through on its way to larger markets.

Greenwell's main street was the only part of it that made an effort. The rest was the organized disorder of commerce: fur traders arguing with hunters over the value of pelts, each side committed to a position they'd been taking for years, the prices at all the shops roughly identical and the negotiations equally predictable. The smell of treated and untreated animal hide hung over everything. Evan's nose was, at this point, genuinely a liability. He covered it with the edge of his sleeve and kept moving.

Then a familiar voice from inside one of the shops: "I want this fox pelt, brother-in-law. All right?"

Andrea. How she had gotten to Greenwell was a question for later. He looked toward the sound and found a group of five, all wearing cowls drawn low, but posture and build told him what the hoods were meant to hide: Andrea, Robin, the mage Sam, and two others positioned forward and back from the main group at watchful distances.

"This red fox pelt," Robin was saying to the shopkeeper. "What's the price?"

The shopkeeper's professional smile appeared. "A fine piece, my lord, truly. Unfortunately we've already committed it to the Countess Orvis, daughter of Count Normandy. But I'm sure something else here might —"

"That's the one I want," Andrea said. "It's from a first-tier magical beast. Everything else here is ordinary."

"Well, I —"

Robin's sword was under the shopkeeper's chin before the second syllable was out.

"Give it to her."

The shopkeeper transferred the pelt with shaking hands. Robin sheathed the sword and dropped a gold coin on the counter. "There's the price. You should have said yes earlier." He turned toward the door. "If Count Normandy asks, tell him Robin took his fox pelt."

"Brother-in-law is the best!" Andrea said, already outside.

Evan had watched this from a few steps down the street. The pelt was worth roughly what Robin had paid; the theatrical production of extracting it was either habit or a message directed at the Count specifically. He filed it under not his business and was about to move on when Robin, swinging into his saddle, glanced sideways and found him standing there.

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Robin grinned. "Toni — ride with Vincent. The spare horse is needed."

He brought the horse to Evan and extended the reins with the air of someone settling something that had already been decided. Andrea turned at the movement, saw Evan, and lit up.

"You! I thought you were with Franklin."

"I was. I've been on my own since." He took the reins and mounted. The horse protested briefly and settled. It had been a long time since he'd ridden. "Since you're offering."

They left Greenwell at a canter, heading south. The town had no garrison worth mentioning; the nearest soldiers were over a hundred li away. Robin was cheerful about this.

"You're not worried about being recognized?"

"Purei wants to catch me. So far that hasn't happened. Normandy swore he'd manage it." Robin shrugged. "I wanted to find out what he's been doing. The fox pelt was a bonus." He glanced across at Evan. "I heard you helped Franklin get his barony."

"I was there. It was his work more than mine."

"And then you walked away."

"I always walk away."

They rode south through thinning forest and into hill country, the terrain rising and falling, no villages in view, the road giving way to tracks and the tracks to no particular path at all. Robin read the terrain the way someone reads a familiar text.

At dusk he called a halt in an open stretch, two large trees visible at the edge of the clearing. A fire went up. Toni and Vincent went into the trees and stayed there. Robin threw up two legs from the roasting sheep and they caught them and ate without coming down.

The rest of them sat around the fire with their drinks. Robin's was strong. Sam's was watered. Andrea's was the same as Robin's, which probably explained some things about her personality.

"We could use someone like you," Robin said, not looking at Evan directly. "Magic and blade together. That's not common."

"I'm not built for staying in one place."

"We don't require it. Sam's free, more or less. And a mage at your level needs materials for the work — we can supply that."

"Tonight we're drinking," Evan said, and that was the end of it for now. Robin accepted it with the patience of someone who knew he hadn't lost.

He started to sing. The song was old and a little rough, a traveler's song about ambition and drink and the things said honestly after both. His voice had no particular beauty but it had conviction.

When he stopped, Andrea took it up. Her voice was entirely different — clear and floating, like something heard across water. She sang about a forest homeland, about returning, about someone waiting and the distance that kept growing. The words were simple. Something in her delivery made them not simple at all.

Toni and Vincent stopped moving in the trees. Everyone at the fire went quiet.

Andrea's eyes went bright in a way that had nothing to do with the firelight.

Evan sat under the stars and listened. The alcohol hadn't done much to him — it rarely did, though something in the sensation of swallowing it had always appealed to him even when the effect didn't arrive. He looked up. The stars here were different from Earth's, the patterns different, the sky distributed differently across the dark. But they were beautiful in the same way.

He thought about his parents for the first time in a long time. About the hospital room and the screen on the wall and the mouse in his hand. He had known, when he clicked that button on whatever impossible page had appeared, that he was leaving. He had not been afraid. He had been ready, and they had been ready, and in some ways the end had been a release for everyone.

He had not missed Earth until this moment.

Andrea's song ended. In the silence after it, Evan heard himself begin to sing — not something from this world, but something from his own, translated in his head as the words came:

The stars of last night have fallen nowgone into the far river of lightI reach for them, and find I've forgottenhow that love became this long quiet

Love is the star that doesn't falllove is the star that burns foreverit will not sink into the riverhold to the feeling, hold to the love

Last night's stars and tonight's starsstill shining

He hadn't known he was going to sing it. He didn't entirely know where it came from. He stopped when it seemed finished and looked at the fire.

No one said anything for a while.