When a human body is freezing, cold creeps from toes and fingers to feet and hands, and then to legs and arms. The initial sensations are remarkably similar to a burn, but soon a numbness envelopes the limbs and creeps up, into the core. This numbness gives way to a pleasant illusion of warmth and comfort; the inner stream of consciousness slows down and grows fantastical, the heartbeat quiets – and then death comes.

With blood loss, this path into darkness must be swift. Casavir registers the stages listlessly: his body feels alien, his mind is clouded, he sees visions of things that should not be there – ripples of soft light in the air, sunset sparks reflected off his gloves when he crawls to the darker shape ahead, a wall of limestone slabs that is distorted at his touch, a wooden door he knocks at without making a contact with the surface – and then he is tired and does not care of anything. He is warm and snug and if there is a weight on his chest, it must be the soil. Remarkable. He would never guess that the dead can feel the weight of their grave. Can they hear fire crackling? Can they smell it?

Casavir opens his eyes and stares at the low wooden ceiling and the fluffy grey cat with pea-coloured eyes that is occupying his chest as if it has always been there. He raises his hand tentatively to stroke it between its pricked ears, and he can swear the cat rolls its eyes but tolerates his gesture of good will.

"How do you feel?" a youthful male voice asks impatiently, as if Casavir has already failed to answer, and the cat turns to the approaching voice and gives a loud purr of anticipation. Casavir turns his head and loses the gift of speech for good.

He had not expected to meet the green-eyed mage ever again.

The Hero of Neverwinter is plucking feathers off a chicken. There is fire roaring in the hearth in the middle of a large round room, and water is simmering in the pot above it. The place is small and very cramped: all the rooms of a regular house seem to be packed into one circular space. There is a kitchen area marked by a cupboard with jars and bottles; it shares a planked table with a library nook outlined by several dimly lit shelves and a pack of hay; a half-drawn curtain masks a washbasin and a privy; further to the left there is some sort of open storage space littered with… everything from a longbow and a broken cart to clothes and braids of garlic. There are two goats and a tiny kid, and several hens in cages by the door. By habit, Casavir registers that there are no windows. His gaze takes in the heap of his own armour pieces and the bed of furs which he currently occupies and returns to the owner of the house.

The mage exchanges an amused look with the cat and the animal smacks Casavir's arm with its soft paw.

"If you are done sightseeing, could you please answer the question?"

"I am… all right," Casavir replies slowly. Nothing hurts too much, and his ankle seems to ache and swell in the exact way it should. He inspects his hands. The skin is blackened and flakes off, but it will be fine. He is more preoccupied with the realization that the man whose fate he had been so obsessed with for years is sitting in the same room and making soup.

The sorcerer who bent storms to his liking proceeds to chop two large onions.

"You collapsed on my threshold and I carried you here," he pauses as if he cannot decide between annoyance and politeness. "You are heavy like a gargoyle in hibernation, and the bed is not designed for such bulky people."

"I bring my apologies," Casavir sits up and looks at the heap of his armour helplessly. "I did not mean to intrude. I will be on my way…"

"Oh, for gods' sake," the mage rolls his eyes in a way that is suspiciously reminiscent of the cat, "You are not going anywhere until your ankle heals, and even if you plan to lie that it is fine, the tempest is in full rage, and it is not going to subside any time soon. It is not like I mind you staying. We can put up with a single visitor per a decade."

"Thank you," Casavir cracks his neck and the mage perks up, startled by the sound. His face transforms into a grimace of slight disgust, and Casavir grows self-conscious again. So much for not disturbing epic heroes. He decides to remember his manners. "We've met before. I am…"

"We have met twice, Casavir of Tyr. I remember," the mage interrupts him and throws a chunk of bread in his general direction. Casavir catches it by reflex and is slightly dizzy both from the effort and the fact that this legendary person remembers his name. The mage rises to his feet, waves the fire to burn lower, sweeps the warmth around the room by a wide circle of his hand and with a snap of his fingers pushes the warm air in the paladin's direction.

Casavir raises an eyebrow. He has a distinct impression the great Hero of Neverwinter is showing off.

"Sorry. I have not seen a sentient being for the last two years, and I do count orcs," he drops the chicken into the pot and closes the lid. "Imagine my feelings when I saw you propping my door with your back. You, of all people! Ah, I can see you are about to enlighten me how there is nothing special about you. Says the boy who volunteered to stand in the middle of the street full of zombies during the plague, really. Who stepped into that meatgrinder of a battle and was too shy to ask the logical question 'What the fuck?'. How old were you, seventeen?"

"Almost nineteen," Casavir counters in a slightly defensive voice. The mage rocks on his toes, his arms spread wide, and the shadows sprawl on the wall behind him like a large menacing eagle. The cat jumps off the bed, covers the room in several leaps like a fat grey squirrel, and the mage catches it midjump and cradles to his chest.

"Marvellous. Let us make a deal, like in good fairy tales. I share my roof, bed and food with you, and you tell me your life, Casavir of Tyr."

Casavir searches for objections and finds none. In fact, he aches to talk to this strange man who had not aged a bit in the decade that passed. He nods, and the mage nods back contentedly before his eyes suddenly grow sharp.

"One more thing. Do not pronounce my name. I have been… experimenting with it. Is it clear?"

Nothing is particularly clear, but Casavir nods again, and the mage relaxes.


The Hero of Neverwinter milks one of the snow-white goats. The Hero of Neverwinter has built a farm on the southern slope of a high peak and destroyed all paths to it. The Hero of Neverwinter keeps several beehives and beams at Casavir when the younger man savours the thick spiced honey at dinner. The Hero of Neverwinter is too short to reach for the top shelves in his own house and he grumbles about it.

The man shifts from task to task with an intensity that rivals the storm outside, and Casavir limps after him, leaning on his crudely made crutch, and tries to keep up with the questions that scatter in all directions. He wonders if his host is a half-elf or a quarter-elf, or if this manner to ask without telling is merely a habit of all arcane talents.

"I know you did not mean to intrude," the mage reveals in the evening sipping at his mint tea slowly. "I surrounded my household with a precipice, a dome of repelling and several wards against the searching eye. If you had been trying to find me, you would have never passed."

"It was a coincidence," Casavir agrees quietly and watches the shadows behind the shelves with his corner vision. They move too smoothly to be cast by the flame. "I stumbled across your wards, unaware and ignorant, and they let me in."

The mage turns his whole body to look at his face. He measures Casavir as if he attempts to judge how difficult it would be to defeat him, and his gaze stops at the symbol of Tyr.

"With you, oh vessels of divine providence, it is hardly ever a coincidence. The Weave tightens around you, you are moths in its web, every flutter of your wings sends a signal, a threat, a plea. For a dark sage, you are a perfect sacrifice, a martyr in the making, already chained between the worlds and waiting for the appropriate dagger. For a sorcerer like me, you are a flicker of a candle that lights the web around you. For a wizard, you must be an intrigue, a mystery to dissect on the laboratory table. Am I frightening you, my dear guest?"

"No," Casavir replies in a voice so untroubled that he surprises himself. "You are not speaking about me."

The mage smiles longingly and sadly, and they let the name hang in the air between them. Casavir nurses his mug for a good minute and probes gingerly.

"You control the elements, and they are neither virtuous nor corrupt, aren't they?"

"I am no wizard to control anything," the mage snorts and grins impishly. This grin is contagious, but Casavir is too concerned to catch it. "I am a sorcerer, I tap into raw powers by instinct, let them drive me, bind them to my will. I can wield fire, but I prefer ice. I dabbled in some arts you disapprove of, but I was not successful."

Casavir decides not to ask anything else for now.


The days run into a week, and the storm passes over. The goats and the hens are moved to the den outside, and the green-eyed mage takes Casavir on a tour. There is not much to see, and it is not like it is safe for Casavir to climb the narrow path up where the host keeps the bees or the narrower path down the slope where he came from. The winter air is crisp so high in the mountains. The days grow shorter and shorter.

Casavir tries to be considerate and spend more time outside. There is a wooden bench overlooking the small kitchen garden, so he bundles up and sits there with his notes and maps. His host, however, always finds a reason to keep an eye on him. If Casavir is outside, the man is nearby, digging hard frozen soil and taking out roots of weeds. As soon as night drowns the slope in tentative dusk, the host calls Casavir in and requests another story.

The darker it grows, the closer he sits and the more questions he asks. When Casavir's voice is hoarse and his eyes are bleary, the mage releases him from the duty reluctantly and sends him to the bed of furs, but stays at the hearth himself, stooping and huddled. Sometimes Casavir can remember a fleeting sensation of a cold hand brushing against his shoulder in his sleep, so he assumes the mage goes to bed at some point. He always wakes up to the clutter of domestic chores, later and later every day.

The green-eyed man is very strange.

Once he suddenly rushes to the bookshelves and starts pushing the worn volumes into a heavy chest frantically. At Casavir's silent question, he drops the lid and winces at the sound.

"Too early, isn't it?" he enquires enigmatically and waves Casavir's concern off.

Another evening sees them repairing the cart. It is a job for two, and Casavir bends the planks while the mage drives nails into the wood. The hammer misses the nails half the time. Casavir squints to steal a look at his fellow carpenter. He is so concentrated that his lips are pressed into a thin line and his focus could kill. A basilisk has less intent in its murderous gaze than this man trying to hit some very large nails.


When two weeks creep by, Casavir's ankle can already hold some weight. The paladin sits by the hearth and massages it lightly. The mage gives the bare foot a distasteful look and huffs. He takes a large knife and cuts into a head of cabbage with too much force. Casavir tries to remember if elven offspring has acute sense of smell and takes a mental note to wash his feet in the morning to be on the safe side.

"Can't you heal it? I mean, half of your stories end in 'I was lucky to have my prayer intact'," the Hero of Neverwinter mimics Casavir's voice surprisingly well. "What prevents you from using your intact prayer now?"

Casavir inclines his head and struggles to fit several tomes of knowledge into a simple explanation.

"Divine healing is different from medicine, though priests are often educated in both. It is more like an immediate reversal of what was broken, torn, pierced, or smashed. The consensus is that the gods' power either restores flesh in its previous condition or accelerates the natural process. I pray, and flesh knits itself together under my hand. I cannot heal toothache, for instance. Neither can I grow a cut off finger. Scholars argue at what point the changes in the wound become irreparable; there were miracles when priests of great conviction raised those who had been dead for several days. For artless paladins like I am this borderline seems to be the simple sunrise. So – no, I cannot heal a ligament torn two weeks ago."

The mage forgets the cabbage; he has so much curiosity contained that it leaks outwards in thick waves.

"How does divine magic feel on your side? Sorcerers tap into the power of elements at hand, wizards – extract a force from something small, like moving rocks by the algebraic destruction of a stone. I read that the divine draws directly from the soul, from the force of emotions. Anger for some gods, greed for others. Is justice even a feeling?"

Casavir shakes his head and gives an awkward half-smile.

"It is… different. I can't explain."

The mage's eyes get an evil glint and Casavir realizes too late he is still holding a knife.

"Show me," the man demands in a voice that brooks no argument and runs his thumb against the blade. Casavir frowns.

"This is not a game," he warns in a low voice. "It is selfish to appeal to the gods for mindless entertainment."

The mage shrugs indifferently and sinks the knife into his own hip up to the handle without a sound. Casavir does not even remember how he rushes forward before this mad man can pull the blade out.

Twenty minutes later Casavir walks to the bed on unsteady legs and slumps next to the wall. The mage examines the clear skin without any trace of a scar and marvels aloud.

"If your compassion can heal, how beautiful it must be inside your mind," he turns to Casavir with obvious envy in his voice. "It must feel good to be a righteous, honest person – ironcast and unconflicted."

Something changes in Casavir's face, and the envy evaporates from the mage's voice.

"Or maybe not. Forgive me. Rest."

Casavir nods obediently, lies down, and tries to rein in his growing headache. Everything about today was weird. When he touched the knife and freed the flesh underneath it, the wound blurred in his eyes. He tried to keep it in focus, but his soft magic was bleeding into nothingness and struggled to latch on the cut. Cold sweat runs down his back when he can discern individual shapes in the shadows behind the mage by the hearth. He thinks of studying the titles of the books on the shelves, but the shelves are already empty.

He makes a sign against evil and drowns in a shallow, sticky sleep.


Another evening, and another conversation pulls them into this awkward guessing game of what is wrong. They sit together on the wooden bench they hauled inside, and the mage is wrapped in half the blankets he owns. Casavir is sure that trouble is brewing in the dusty corners. It is only a matter of time before it hits them.

"I read your letter," the mage states out of the blue and stares at Casavir, unblinking, like a caged bird with all the time in the world. "The letter that so eloquently pictured Fenthick as a good person. Well-written, ill-received."

Casavir does not respond, and the mage continues after a short wait.

"I thought: what a sincere boy. What a naïve, innocent person. How stupid and brave he is to brand himself with the lost cause. I thought: I will be clever and save my political suicide until the day when it matters. I thought: if I ask once, I will be granted that only wish," he smiles crookedly. Bitterly. Casavir stirs uneasily.

"You pleaded for Aribeth's life when every voice demanded her death," he reminds the mage and bares one of his secret truths. "I prayed for you for years because of that impossible mercy you showed to her."

The mage flinches and opens his mouth but says nothing at first. He hugs himself tighter and continues.

"She could escape, she had that choice. I offered her to flee the prison, and she refused."

The truth drops to the ground heavily. Casavir wonders how many conversations they are in fact leading.

"Were the rumours about you two…"

"No, nothing like that," the mage cuts him off quickly. "We did not even talk about it, not once."

He keeps silent for a long time, and Casavir's heart breaks for him, because he can sense it is a blatant lie.

"I know where she is, paladin," the Hero of Neverwinter hisses through his teeth, and Casavir is reminded of an animal in pain. If only hands could heal these fractures. "She is in hell. She wants to be there."

Shadows lengthen around them and circle the hearth like angry hyenas.

"What is wrong with you." Casavir demands in a voice of order. "How can I help."

The mage peers at him from the heap of his blankets.

"If I tell you, I am lost," he states without any expression. The shadows crawl closer.

"Lost," Casavir echoes. "I will tell you what is wrong then. You attempted to bring her back."

The mage swallows a short mirthless laugh.

"I am no wizard. I could not if I wanted. Necromancy is beyond me."

"But you talked to her."

"If a monologue can be called talking, yes. I did."

Casavir thinks hard. The mage stares at him hopelessly. Casavir attempts again.

"You do not want me to leave."

"I am afraid to let you leave."

Casavir digests this piece of information. He inches closer to the mage's end of the bench and watches the shadows recoil slightly. With a sudden determination, he pulls the lost man into his arms and hears him give a relieved sigh. The shadows flinch back and deepen.

"Let me tell you what happened," Casavir's voice grows stronger and he feels the familiar hum of his faith course through his veins.

"You were desperate and dabbled in dark arts. Scrying, most likely," he can feel the mage nod against his shoulder. "Scrying into the hells always comes with a price. You bargained. You promised secrecy, of course, but also… You sacrificed something."

He looks around for ideas, and he can feel the mage gulp down his tears. The shadows literally howl. Casavir presses the shaking body to his chest. Not on his watch. He fishes for the sudden idea that glistens in the depths like a silver fish in a dark pond and he knows it is the truth as the words form on his lips.

"You had nothing left, so you sacrificed your name. Your fame that travels with it. Lord Nasher does not even know why he wants to erase you from history so badly."

Perhaps Lord Nasher is a better man than Casavir gave him credit to be.

"But you were tricked… Your name was not wholly yours to give. Dark magic has no power over many people. I remembered you. Many people remembered you. You went to the hells and talked to Aribeth de Tylmarande, but you could not pay all the price you promised."

Casavir watches dark outlines take shape in the corners. They have claws. He summons his holy shield and a halo of cold light encompasses himself and the poor man locked in his embrace. His signet ring gives a steady glimmer. He continues louder.

"Something followed you from the hells, and crept into your house, and you returned misplaced and torn apart by their claims on you," Casavir takes a deep breath and invokes all the power he can to manifest in his steady, ringing voice. He hopes it is enough.

"I appeal to Tyr, the Maimed God, for justice on your behalf. I judge to seal this matter at its worth: one cannot pay in what he does not possess. By Tyr's holy power, I declare this bargain forfeit."

The room grows light, both in appearance and sense.

The Hero of Neverwinter extricates himself from Casavir's embrace, looks up into the paladin's face with his clear eyes and smiles a slow, sincere smile.


They climb the tricky narrow path to the top of the mountain, and Casavir already knows what he will see there. The white rocks cradle a tomb. It is a simple slab of the same white stone, seven feet long and three feet wide. No blade of grass can survive at this height. The tomb is open to all winds, all stars. A cold grave with a famous name on it.

In the recent days, the mage has lost the wild energy that pushed at him from the inside and made him skip in time, but Casavir likes this serious, contemplative person even more. The quarter of elven blood – now Casavir knows for sure – gives his sadness a melodic touch that makes a mortal human heart ache all the more.

The mage presses his palm against the polished surface.

"Have you ever looked at a person and had that single moment of clarity that you two… matched? That you could be electrocuted by their pain. That you could… live in silence by their side and feel blessed?"

It is a rhetorical question, so Casavir does not bother to respond.

"I had that moment and kept it to myself. I could not let her be buried in the Tomb of Betrayers to linger there as a spirit, to find no peace for centuries. She did not deserve to be chained to her shame. Perhaps she deserved her execution, but she did not deserve torture."

They get back to the house, each lost in their own thoughts.


It is a cold and sunny spring day when Casavir finally believes that the Hero of Neverwinter can do without him and assembles his meagre belongings. They walk to the precipice together, and the mage snorts at the sight of Casavir tying his ropes to a perfectly steady rock.

"Oh, for gods' sake, are you some crazy grasshopper?" he laughs too hard and tears well in his eyes. Casavir understands that this is the way he masks his true emotion and takes no offense. "Let me demonstrate the proper way."

The mage swings his arms in a shape of a crescent and an ice bridge builds itself out of thin air. Casavir inclines his head and inspects its integrity with a tip of his boot.

"Not bad," the paladin admits with reserved kindness. The mage snorts and adds an intricate wave of his fingers that weaves beautiful banisters on both sides of the bridge. "Will do. I have a gift for you."

He slips his signet ring off his thumb and drops it in the palm of the mage. The man turns it in his fingers and the sun reflects off the well-polished 'C'.

"My mentor gave it to me, but it was a half-hearted gift. It has some magic in it, allegedly it guards your presence of mind. It witnessed the sealing of your bargain, and I think you need it more than I do."

The mage nods absent-mindedly and stares at Casavir. They speak at the same time.

"You can stay here."

"You can leave this place."

"Ah, I am done fighting and travelling," the mage smirks and inhales the crispy air. "I never really liked people. I have my cat and the bees and the goats and all the peace and quiet that I need. It is nice here in the summer. Are you sure you want to go out there?"

"I am not done fighting," Casavir looks at the ice bridge with distrust and takes the first careful step. "The biggest orc clans are relocating to the northern hills, and people there are already in danger. I think I will travel to Old Owl Well and see what I can do about it."