A man pushed through the crowd. Cerryl stared straight into the man's eyes... Who was he? He reminded Cerryl of someone, but who? . . . Cerryl froze as he recognized the face. The man looked so very much like Kesrik, so very much! But Kesrik had no siblings and his parents were forever banned from the city. But the bandit was to old to be Kesrik's father.. and the bandit that hurt Tellis looked a lot like Ullan... and that must have--

A sharp pain pierced his thoughts.

In the breif moment that Cerryl had stood in shock and wonder, the bandit had made his move.

A scream wretched from Cerryl's throat, but he knew not that it was his own.

Tellis looked on in horror as a young man in the crowd threw daggers at Cerryl with such skill and deftness that--before Tellis could even react--the bandit had landed five cold iron daggers in Cerryl. Tellis yelled and ran after the man, no longer caring about the now-minescule pain in his arm. It took Tellis and seven lancers to pin the man down. Tellis and the lancer captain ran over to Cerryl.

His wounds were severe. One dagger was embedded directly in his stomach. Blood squirted everywhere from where one of the daggers pierced the artery in his left leg. Another had barely missed Cerryl's heart and was instead little less than an inch into his sternum. Two others were in each of Cerryl's shoulders. Each dagger was cold iron, and where Cerryl's flesh touched the iron, the would festered so that his skin appeared to be burning off of him. A thin stream of gray-white smoke rose up from each of the wounds.

Cerryl writhed on the ground, no longer conscious of anything but the excruciating pain... and the fact that someone was deffinately trying to kill him...

The lancer captain yelled to one of his men, "Go and find a senior wizard, NOW! Tell him all that's happened!" The lancer captain turned back to Cerryl. "Someone help me with these daggers. I don't care where they are--if those daggers stay in, he'll die!" The captain had been trained well.

Kinowin was taking a rare and pleasant moment to himself walking in the courtyard, reflecting on all that had happened lately--and of the foreboding of war to come... He was snapped out of his thoughts by a shrill cry for help. Kinowin ran over to the distraught lancer and grabbed him firmly by the shoulders. "What is it, man? Out with it!"

"... in the city... artisan's square... attack... mage hurt... student... Cerryl, I think... cold iron daggers... healer... NOW!"

Cerryl is injured! What has happened now! "Go and summon High Wizard Sterol and tell him the entire story." Kinowin turned to the closest servant boy. "Go and find the healer Leyladin. Tell her to meet me in the artisan's square. There has been a serious attack and someone needs aid." Chaos built around Kinowin as he took a horse from an off-duty lancer and raced of the gates, into the wizard's square, and down the alley to the artisan's square.

"Make way! Make way!" Kinowin jumped off the horse and ran over to the heap of a white-clad body. The white is barely noticable, so thick is the blood! "Out of my way!"

The lancers stepped aside. "We took out the daggers, ser. They were killing him. We be keeping him from losing a lot of blood as best we can, but he still be losing a great deal. Don't know how much longer he can last, ser."

I've no time to wait for Leyladin. I will meet up with her inside the gates of the Wizard's Tower. "Hold the attacker. Await for the arival of the High Wizard." He glared at the cold iron daggers. "Have someone wrap those in cloth and bring them to the Tower. Present them to either me, the High Wizard, or the overmage Jeslek for inspection. No others." Without any further word, Kinowin removed his own cloak and wrapped it around Cerryl's body. A lancer helped Kinowin onto the horse with the young student mage, and the overmage Kinowin rode off towards the Tower.

There was an urgent knock at the door. "Enter."

"High Wizard Sterol, ser... overmage Jeslek, ser... Urgent news!"

Kinowin rode into the courtyard, holding Cerryl as gently as he could. "Leyladin!" The healer ran up to Kinowin and helped him lower the body.

"I am so very sorry, ser. I--" She looked into the injured student wizard's face. "Cerryl!" she shrieked. "Quickly, ser, help me unwrap him!"

A crowd gathered around, drawn by the flurry of a horse, overmage, blood, and bloodcurdling screams.

"Oh, light! Cerryl! Kinowin, I need your help to put pressure on the wounds!" She gave him a cloth and pointed to the bloody spots on his shoulders and chest. "There." She sensed out each of the three chest wounds. Good. It did not hit the vitals...

"MAKE WAY! MAKE WAY! FOR LIGHT'S SAKE, MAKE WAY!"

Jeslek and Sterol pushed thought the crowd just as Leyladin screamed, "I need more help."

"I can," stated a cool voice.

Leyladin knew not who it was, and did not care. "Take over the compression of his chest bone wound with this cloth... Harder--!" she looked up to see Jeslek kneeling down. "Please, ser, a little firmer."

"How may I help?" asked Sterol.

"This part gets tricky." I need to heal his stomach... but if I do not tend to his leg, he will bleed to death... She sent her senses to Cerryl's stomach, at the same moment handing the High Wizard a wad of cloth. "I am going to do rather forceful, but temporary, healing in his stomach. As soon I say so, it is vital that you hold the cloth firmly to his stomach until I can fix his leg and get back to his stomach--"

Cerryl's screams grew louder as Leyladin let her order senses slip into the student wizard's belly. "Someone hold him down!" Several unknown helpers complied. She gave the word and the High Wizard compressed the wound, getting blood not only on his white sleeves, but on the front of his tunic as well from all the spatter.

A lancer walked into the courtyard, the students--terrified of the ordered iron daggers he bore--quickly moved out of his way. Kinowin nodded to him. "Wait until we're done."

"Yes, ser."

As Leyladin took off the temporary wrapping on Cerryl's thigh, she saw that the dagger had cut through the young man's artery, and that it had been ripped out rather harshly. "Light help him..." She compressed the wound and slowly used her order senses to withdraw the chaos infection already growing in the wound. Blood squirted all over her, but Cerryl began to calm down a bit. It still hurt, but the ordered iron and chaos infection did not burn him anymore. Leyladin flowed her senses across Cerryl's artery. She did not know how long it took her, but she finally managed to order-weave his artery roughly together. Taking out fresh bandages, she wrapped the wound. The stomach will be harder... Why a belly wound of all things... Can I even heal him? He has lost so much blood and the acids from his stomach have seeped into the rest of his body... "Are one of you able to guide the acids of his stomach out of his other organs and either completely remove it or put it back into his stomach?"

Sterol nodded. "I can guide it back into his stomach."

"While I am mending his stomach, I will pause momentarily every now and then. At those points, I will need you to put the acids back in his stomach, little by little... ser."

Sterol nodded, sweat beading on his forehead from the strain of trying to control the worst of Cerryl's stomach acids.

Leyladin cast out her senses once more. I feel tired... oh so tired... But I cannot quit... I must do all I can to save Cerryl . . . even if I don't succeed... Bit by bit, she mended the walls of Cerryl's stomach back together, which was a difficult task; in all his writhing, he had ripped the wound open even more. When the healer woman was finished, she looked up at Sterol. "Thank you, High Wizard."

Sterol felt tired and a wee bit faint, but the healer Leyladin looked as if she would pass out. "Will you be able to mend his other wounds?"

She nodded slowly as she wrapped Cerryl's stomach wound securly with bandages. She moved to the other three, more minor, dagger wounds; the healer was barely able to finish binding them. He's lost so much blood... This is a disaster... With a shudder--as if the student wizard's body agreed with Leyladin's assesment--Cerryl's head slouched, his body completely relaxed, and his eyes lolled back. "Cerryl!" Leyladin cried. "Cerryl! Come back! Don't you leave me! CERRYL!"

Sterol took Cerryl's head into his hands, staring into the whites of Cerryl's completely rolled back eyes. "Come now, lad! Do not die. We will not let a wizard be murdered in Fairhaven..."

Leyladin didn't care about status anymore. She lightly shoved Sterol out of the way and clasped Cerryl's head to her breast. "Please, Cerryl... Come back... Come back... Don't leave me..." Come back . . .

Sterol and Jeslek, both covered in blood (but the former moreso), slowly made their way into the artisan's square, walking with such an air of authority, power, and rage that the people cowered before them. An opening was made to reveal a large, thick, and slightly browning area of once-white road-stones, now covered in blood. Not far beyond, more than five squads of lancers held a thrashing prisoner at bay.

The square hushed.

One of the lancers, an undercaptain, by the looks of him, approached the wizards, and gulped, "High Wizard, ser... overmage Jeslek, ser. This is the man who attacked the young student mage... sers..."

Sterol waved him off and stepped forward, almost walking right over a charred corpse that was slightly apart from six others. "The bandits that Cerryl punished?"

"Y-Yes, ser."

Sterol nodded to Jeslek, and the overmage turned the corpses into ash with the flick of a wrist. Next they stopped by Tellis, a single lancer tentatively standing by him. "What has he done?"

"I am Tellis, ser, master scriveneer."

"And why does this lancer guard you, and so hesitantly at that?"

"Because I attempted to attack Cer--the young wizard." At Sterol's glare, Tellis hastily added, "But I was forced to do it! Honest! Cerryl will tell you!"

"T-The young wizard, Cerryl, sers... He didn't seem to blame the scriveneer or anything... sers..." stammered the undercaptain.

"You were the man whose family was kidnapped?" Sterol asked Tellis.

"Yes, ser."

"Your judgement will impend when Cerryl awakens. We will hear him first. But mind you that we decide your punishment, not him."

Tellis bowed down. "Thank you, sers."

The two barely even took any more notice of the scriveneer as they walked toward the restrained bandit. "What have you to say?" asked Sterol.

"I see you be having his blood on you. The bastard must be dead."

"Oh, on the contary..." Jeslek sent a flare of chaos fire against the bandits face, burning the man's mouth shut and ruining his right eye. A moan of pain escaped his throat.

The undercaptain noticed that a hint of vague recognition lingered in the bandit's eye when he had clearly seen Jeslek's face. Is the overmage silencing him for a purpose... I wonder if I could somehow reach that young student wizard... What was his name? Cerryl? Yes... Cerryl...

"...Young Cerryl is quite alive."

"Everyone step back," ordered Sterol. "Even the lancers." A large radius of space was left around the panicing bandit. "Cerryl is under my protection. You are charged with attacking him. I am held to punish you."

Jeslek stepped up. "Cerryl is my pupil. You are charged with attacking him. I am held to punish you."

They nodded to each other. "We are held to punish you."

"... important... both of them... agree... severe..."

Sterol turned abruptly to the guard. "What?"

"N-N-Nothing, s-ser."

"No, repeat what you said." His voice was hard.

"I--I s-said... the lad must have been important and rather special t-to have made... b-b-both of... y---y-you... agree," he squeaked. "...and that the punishment will be very--" he gulped "--severe..."

"Indeed Jeslek and I have our differences, but surely you are not suggesting that the White Order is fighting amongst its members?"

"N-No, s-s-ser..."

"Good. Now, for your attempt at trying to spread false lies, you will be on the foulest part of sewer duty for the remainder of your service to Fairhaven." Sterol used chaos fire to leave a scar across the lancer's cheek. "Just a reminder."

Everyone accepted the fact that the lancer was relaying false information, either out of habit of forcing themselves to believe the wizards' words or out of subconscious effort to force themselves to believe it even though they knew it false. Very few actually believed Sterol's cover blindly. Only the bandit was open to reality--and he knew that he would suffer dearly for dealing with the wizard--

"The punishment for attempting to attack a wizard is instant death. The punishment for hurting one is even more fierce: You will be tortured to death; boiled by chaos."

Sterol and Jeslek both pointed at the man.

"AAAAEEEEIIIIIII!"

Slowly... slowly... the man began to boil from the inside out . . . Three whole hours later, the wailing bandit--unrecognizable from his boiled flesh--finally ceased his gargled cries. In an instant, Sterol turned him into ashes.