Chapter 3: Into a World of Illusions

Author's Notes: For my older readers: This is an edited/re-written version of this chapter.

For the purposes of this story, Hugo is 17 and Chris is 23. In the game, Hugo is supposed to be 14 or 15, I forget which. My story works better if they're a bit closer in age.

The tower that held the knights' barracks and the associated offices and administrative chambers dedicated to the governance of the fortress was in the southeast corner of Brass Castle, near the east gate. Another, taller tower rose from the inner keep on the west side of the fortress, but the southeast tower, sometimes called the Knights' Tower, had a splendid view of the open fields and low, rolling hills of the Grasslands, and for generations, it had served as the fortress' administrative wing, from which the Knights of Zexen governed the keep.

As the knights drew rein near the stables set into the ground floor of the tower, Chris turned to Roland and remarked: "You should not have antagonized the Grasslander boy, Sir Roland. Remember that we are knights, and not bullies."

The elf bowed his head slightly, but gave no indication that he had taken offense. Roland could be extraordinarily sanguine. "Pardon me, milady, but you must be mindful of how you behave towards our enemies when the people of Zexen are watching. You said it yourself: these are troubled times. We must guard the people's morale as diligently as we guard our borders."

She considered this. The elf had a point, but his reasoning smacked of the same rhetoric employed by the Council. Chris had always felt that the knights ought to be held to a higher standard of conduct. They were the sword and shield of Zexen, but they should also be exemplars. Pragmatism and practicalities could wear a woman's soul down, if she let it.

"Even so," she said. "I will ask that you exercise restraint in the future." If she had not still been laboring under a splitting headache, she might have said more.

Chris dismounted and handed the reins of her mare, Arrow Feather, to a stablehand. As she turned to enter the tower, she caught sight of a young woman watching her from across the courtyard. She was young, perhaps a few years younger than Chris, and she cut a striking figure with her snow-white hair and sky-blue tunic over a dark blue cassock. The outfit reminded Chris of something a temple acolyte would wear, but this girl was no priestess-in-training. She carried a polished black staff set with a sparkling gem, and the way her eyes bore into Chris's skull from afar sent a sudden shiver down her spine.

Chris turned to exchange a few words with the fortress' farrier about replacing Arrow Feather's shoes. When she turned back, the young woman was gone.

The heart of the knights' barracks was the common room, a comfortable long hall covered with rugs and tapestries from faraway lands. The common room connected directly to the corridors that encircled the floor and provided access to the individual rooms assigned to the high-ranking knights. When Chris entered, Borus, Roland, and Salome were already seated in three of the room's well-worn leather armchairs. The knights had already gotten out of their armor, and relaxed in the more comfortable plainclothes they wore beneath. They stood at her appearance, and Borus grinned.

"Milady. We were just about to celebrate our safe and timely arrival with a glass of Razril's finest red wine." He gestured demonstratively to the bottle at the table. "Care to join us?"

"It really is an excellent vintage," Roland agreed.

Chris smiled. Goddess knew, she could use a quiet evening and a nice chat with friends, but with her head thumping as if it were about to crack open any moment, wine was the last thing on her mind. "I appreciate the offer," she said, "But no. I am going to sleep early tonight."

In Chris's chambers, Louis was already hard at work arranging things to her liking. Her squire had prepared the bed and laid out the belongings from her saddlebags while she made her way up to the knights' barracks. The boy looked up as she entered and bowed formally. "Madam. I've taken the liberty of drawing you a bath." He gestured to the adjacent bathroom, from where Chris could feel humid steam rising from the hot bath.

"Thank you, Louis." As she stepped inside the room and slipped out of her boots, the boy put down a bundle of towels and came over to help remove her armor. "I worry for you sometimes," she said as he worked on the buckles and straps that held the armor together. You spend so much time taking care of me, you might as well be my butler. You should be learning swordsmanship and horseplay, not how to wait on a lady at court."

Louis smiled sheepishly. "I don't think swordsmanship or horseplay are my strong suits, madam. But that's okay. I like being a squire."

Chris shook her head and sighed. "That will not do, Louis. Your father will have my hide if I do not make a knight of you eventually." She rubbed at her temples, trying to work out some of the tension knotted there. The boy's hands slowed and stopped, and when he spoke, she heard a note of concern in his voice.

"The headache is still there?" When she confirmed it with a nod, the boy hesitated for a while, then said: "Tea. Yes, tea will do the trick." He scampered over to the cupboard and started producing cups and a teapot. "Mother always said, if tea won't cure what ails you, you might as well be dead. I'll be back in a moment." Louis disappeared out the room with the teapot, off to find the kitchen.

Chris slipped out of her armor, hung the pieces carefully on the rack provided in the corner of the room, then grabbed a towel and headed into the steamy bathroom. A bath sounded wonderful right now.

Hugo had his work cut out for him in convincing them, but after a lengthy argument, Sergeant Joe and Lulu agreed to take Fubar and wait for him at a small campsite in the woods by the side of the road, about half a mile from Brass Castle's west bridge.

"I've got something to take care of," he'd told them, stubbornly keeping Jimba's secret. Hugo could be stubborn when he had his heart set on a thing.

After leaving his friends, Hugo made his way back to the fortress and slipped through the gates. Before leaving Brass Castle, they'd all spent some of their precious potch to buy drab brown traveler's cloaks with hoods. The garments cost enough to make him wonder if they were spun from silver, but they'd protect against wind and rain, and more importantly, they'd help disguise Hugo's Karayan features. After his run-in with the knights, he figured it wouldn't be a bad thing to keep a low profile, seeing as how he was a barbarian and all.

Before leaving his friends, he'd questioned Joe about the woman they called the Silver Maiden. Joe was no expert on Zexen affairs, but as an officer in the duck clan legion, he knew enough.

"Chris Lightfellow is the captain of the knights, now that Galahad and Pelize fell in the last battle. Careful with that one – she might look soft, but she's anything but."

"Think she'd stay the night in Brass Castle?" he'd asked.

Joe had eyed him suspiciously. "Maybe. It's a likely resting place, if they're setting out for the Amur Plains and the peace conference tomorrow. Hugo, you're not planning something foolish, are you?"

As Hugo made his way across the courtyard in the afternoon's fading light, he pulled up his hood and considered that he WAS in fact doing something foolish. He should be focusing on Mother's task, not running secretive errands for his brother. But he'd promised Jimba, and what if he never got another chance to meet this woman? It was now or never.

Wrapped in his cloak and hood, people didn't look twice at Hugo. Now that they could look at him without seeing a clansman, people stopped staring and opened up more easily to boot. It was almost ridiculously easy to get information out of people. Before long, he found himself standing below the southeast tower, craning his neck to look up at the illuminated windows of the tower's sixth floor, where he'd been told the knights were quartered.

At first, he tried a direct approach. He simply walked up to the doors of the tower and asked to see Chris Lightfellow. The guards laughed at him. He would have pressed the issue, but when he started asking questions, he could sense the guardsmen growing uneasy and tilting their necks to try to get a better look at the face in the hood. Even if they couldn't recognize his face for a Karayan's, if he kept his mouth running, his accent would give him away.

For a while, he paced back and forth in the courtyard, considering his next move. No use sneaking in through the front, he thought. Too many ironheads. If only I could mimic the funny way they talk.

A sudden idea popped into his head as he looked up at the sheer-sided tower walls. He looked around cautiously, but no one was around to see him. Seeking out a shadowed spot by the corner of the southeast tower and the inner wall of the courtyard that formed the base of the fortress' battlements, Hugo braced himself between the two stone faces, and began to climb.

Getting onto the battlements was easy enough, but the real challenge had only started. Soldiers marched back and forth along the parapet, and the ironheads had made the side of the tower so sheer, climbing would be a chore. Pressing up against the wall to minimize his exposure to the patrolling soldiers, he looked up and considered his options. There wasn't much in the way of handholds to use on the ascent. All he had to work with were the windows which were spaced evenly along the sheer brick surface.

He lifted his left hand. On the back of the hand was a faint, tattoo-like design showing a sinuous line curling in on itself. It was a Wind Rune, an emblem imbued with some of the elemental magic that had shaped the world. The rune allowed him to exert some of his own stamina to call upon the wind and shape it into endless possibilities. It had been a gift from his mother, and she'd be furious if she knew how he intended to use it now.

Hugo waited for the patrolling soldiers to turn their backs to him before he clambered up the side of the tower, grabbing onto the lowest stone window frame. Grip by grip, step by step, he made his way up the wall. He used the windows where he could, and where he had to scale the nearly sheer brick wall to reach between two windows, he called upon the Wind Rune to boost him, giving himself a push from below and behind to lighten the load on his arms and keep himself from falling. The rune came to life at his command, spreading a soft green light from his hand.

Little by little he made his way further up the wall. Now and then he couldn't help but look down, and swallowed as he saw how far the ground beneath him had shrank. The soldiers patrolling the battlements looked like ants from this height. His heart began to pound in his chest, and his fingers turned slick with sweat. To make matters worse, he wasn't sure how much longer he could keep on drawing on the Wind Rune. His body was already aching with the effort of maintaining the magic.

You really are an idiot, Hugo of the Karaya. What are you doing here?

Finally, by some miracle, he found himself hanging by the ledge protruding from a window on the sixth floor. Pausing to catch his breath, he heaved himself up onto the ledge and peered through the window.

On the other side of the opening was a finely appointed room with a large bed stacked with soft sheets and pillows. A suit of knight's armor hung on a rack in one corner. Hugo was about to hoist himself through the window when a high-pitched voice issued from an adjacent room.

"Elia! Where's Sir Roland's sheets? You know how particular he can be about his bedding…"

Hugo ducked out of the opening and pressed himself against the outside wall. As two maids conversed about sheets and blankets inside the room, Hugo found himself staring down from the ledge, to the distant battlement, six stories below, and then onward to the chasm that surrounded Brass Castle. At the moment, that chasm seemed large enough to swallow the entire world.

Finally the two voices in the room trailed off and Hugo heard a door slam shut. He sidled over to the window and peered into the room. Seeing no one there, he hopped through the opening. For a moment, he just stood there, relishing the feeling of sturdy ground beneath his feet. He said a quick prayer to the spirits, promising he would never again do something so stupid.

Looking around the room, Hugo marveled at the richness of the room's contents. Finely embroidered pillows of some glossy textile lay stacked on the bed, on top of sheets smoother than any fabric Hugo had felt. Silver candlesticks stood on a cupboard, alongside a strange device that made a tick-tock sound and showed two hands moving on a circular face carved with strange symbols. And the servants! Clansmen didn't have servants, but he'd heard about them. People whose whole life was dedicated to helping others do things they didn't have time to do. Hugo shook his head. What a strange world the ironheads lived in, where a man needed two servants just to handle his bedsheets!

Opening the door and peering into the corridor, Hugo found the passage empty. He pulled the hood of his cloak over his head and slipped out into the corridor. Picking a direction at random, he walked until he came to a door that stood slightly ajar at the end of the hall. As he approached, he heard murmurs of conversation, interrupted now and then by good-natured laughter. Stopping by the doorway, he peeked through the opening and found the three knights he'd seen with Chris Lightfellow earlier. The men were seated in large leather armchairs, sipping something from transparent glass cups and gesturing wildly as they talked. He hoped they'd choke on whatever they were drinking.

Guess I'm in the right place. She can't be far.

Hugo padded away from the half-open door and went down the hall in the opposite direction. As he went, he paused at each door to listen for sounds of inhabitants. He was just about to lean in against another door when he heard a click, and the handle turned from the inside. Cursing inwardly, Hugo threw himself to the side of the door with the hinges, flattened himself against the wall, and froze in place.

The door swung open and someone entered the corridor, pausing there for a moment. Hugo dared not breathe for fear the sound would give him away. Slowly he turned his head and peered through the gap between the hinges, but all he could see was a vertical slice of color. A common soldier's tabard over armor, if he had to guess, but he couldn't make out the person's head.

He's going to close the door, Hugo realized. And the moment he does, he'll spot me.

Hugo's head boiled with possibilities as he considered and discarded options. Should he attack? No, there's no way he'd get out of here if he started a fight. Should he run? Again, not much chance of reaching Chris Lightfellow if he set off a manhunt. Could he sneak into one of the other rooms down the corridor before the stranger saw him? Not likely; he'd have to move fast, and moving fast meant making noise.

Sudden inspiration hit him. He knew what might work. Looking through the gap between hinges and door again, Hugo awakened the Wind Rune on the back of his hand and drew a tendril of its power. He squinted, sighting along the corridor he could barely see through a tiny gap, until the door to the next room down came into focus in his mind. Swallowing hard, he seized the doorhandle with the Wind Rune and yanked down hard.

The sound of the rattling doorhandle startled the soldier into action, and he set off in the opposite direction like an arrow launched from a bow. As the soldier passed the open door, Hugo could see him clearly. A Zexen soldier, his face hidden by his helmet.

As soon as the soldier had cleared his hiding place, Hugo swung around the door and leaped into the open room the soldier had emerged from. The room resembled the others he'd seen. A bed, a table, a wardrobe and a pair of cupboards. The bed was neatly made, and a handful of decorative carved stones were lined up on the top of one of the cupboards. But what caught his eye was not the room's furnishings, but its single occupant.

A man lay sprawled belly-down on the floor. A pool of blood spread from his chest, seeping into the thick carpet to make a growing stain.

Hugo had seen dead bodies before, but never like this. He staggered back, clapping a hand over his mouth. Bile rose into his throat. Shakily he approached the man on the floor. Moving the man's limp body took a lot more force than he'd expected, and he got blood all over his hands as he turned him over, exposing a pale face frozen in a look of surprise. The man – a servant, Hugo thought – had had his throat cut with several savage lacerations that reminded Hugo almost of a tree trunk in the process of being cut down. But this was no tree, and the thick blackish-red liquid that still spurted from the wound was no sap. The servant was well beyond saving.

He tried to gather his thoughts. Not long since he died. Blood's still running. So that would mean… The soldier. He was acting weird. No way he's got nothing to do with this. But… why?

None of it made any sense. Hugo shook his head to try to clear his thoughts. What now? He hadn't come here to hunt for a murderer. All he needed to do was to find Chris Lightfellow and deliver her father's Pentacle of Knighthood. The last thing he should be doing is wandering around drawing attention to himself.

Worse, he realized as he looked at his bloody hands, anyone stepping inside this room right now would find a cloaked Grasslander kneeling over a dead Zexen citizen, hands bloody, and a knife sheathed at his waist. Not a good look, for the son of the Karayan chieftain. Spirits' mercy! The pentacle will have to wait for another time. I gotta get out of here.

First things first. He grabbed a towel and wiped the blood from his hands. It would've gone better if he'd had access to water, but the washbasin in the room sat empty. Once he'd gotten his hands as clean as he could, he hurried over to the window and clambered out onto the ledge. As he sat there, mentally preparing himself for a difficult descent, the look of shock in the dead man's face crept back into his mind. He tried to shake it, but he couldn't.

The murderer's still running around in there. What if he's not done? What if the poor bastard lying on the floor was just an innocent bystander who caught the murderer snooping around in weird place?

Cursing himself for a weak-minded fool, Hugo climbed back into the room and went to peer out into the corridor. Seeing no one there, he set off down the corridor the way the soldier had gone.

He didn't have to go far. As he rounded a corner, he saw a soldier standing outside a door halfway down the hall. He couldn't be sure it was the same man, but he thought he recognized something about the stiffness in the way the soldier moved. The man was hesitating outside the door, as if waiting to confirm something. Any doubt in Hugo's mind about whether he'd found the right man was washed away when the soldier drew his sword and approached the door.

Hugo started towards the soldier on light feet, keeping to the side of the corridor. He licked suddenly dry lips. How to handle this? If I attack him, I'm the one who's gonna take the blame. But I can't just stand by and watch him murder someone else, can I?

The soldier reached for the doorhandle. Hugo acted on instinct.

"Hey!" he called out. "What are you doing?"

It wasn't that the soldier started. He simply turned to regard Hugo, as if he were a mannequin on a swivel. The eyes that gazed out from under the helmet were cold as the grave. He started walking towards Hugo.

Cursing, Hugo slipped his knife from its sheath and took up a fighting stance. "If you're looking for another easy victim, you're out of luck, you bastard." If the man had heard Hugo's words, he gave no sign of it. His face didn't so much as twitch.

Unnerved, Hugo took a step back. He'd been training with knives since Mother had first placed the weapon in his hands as a small boy, but that was practice. This would be a real fight. Blood would be shed. Suddenly he wasn't so sure he knew what he was doing.

Halfway down the corridor, the man's form started to blur and ripple, like something seen through the surface of moving water. Moments later, the soldier's whole body dissolved into mist. The mist drifted forward as if the man's last steps had launched it forward into the corridor, and then began to solidify and take shape again. But this time, the man was no Zexen soldier.

Hugo gaped. For a moment, the knife hung forgotten in his hand. The man who walked towards him wore a Karayan fighting garb, and the weapon in his hand was a Karayan long knife. Only, he'd never seen the man's face in his life.

Magic? But… what sort of rune could do that?

"Who are you?" he blurted out.

Just then, the door opened behind the stranger, and a boy stepped out into the corridor, carrying a tray with a teapot and a teacup on it. The boy's eyes turned their way, and as he took in the scene before him, his eyes went wide as saucers.

The strange man in Karayan clothes spun around and ran towards the boy. The boy gave a start and backed up, but stumbled and fell. The tray fell, and porcelain crashed against the floor. The boy scuttled back on his hands, panic twisting his face. Hugo ran.

He reached them just as the stranger was about to bring his knife down on the boy. There wasn't enough time to stop the blow. But maybe he could knock the man off balance. He hurled himself against the stranger, bowling into his back and knocking him forward. The stranger's swing went wild, turning what would have been a killing blow into a shallow cut that ran from the boy's stomach to his throat.

Hugo's blood chilled at the sight of the wound, but there was no time. The stranger spun around to regard Hugo with his cold, unreadable eyes. Up close, the man's face looked almost unfinished, like a clay pot that hadn't spent long enough in the potter's hands. The bloody knife flashed towards Hugo's head. Hugo ducked, and the blade caught him on the shoulder, nicking him. Using the momentum from his dodge, Hugo swept around and kicked out the stranger's legs. The false Karayan fell flat on his back, and still didn't make a sound. Kicking away the stranger's dagger, Hugo put his shoe down on the man's wrist and knelt to place his knife at his throat. "Who are you?" he said. "Talk!"

Even now, the man's face betrayed no emotion. Hugo could clearly see how wrong the face was, now. It looked like something out of a half-remembered memory. The clothes, too, were off. What he'd recognized as Karayan garb was subtly off in several places. The colors and patterns were similar enough at a glance, but when he looked closer, they didn't hold up to scrutiny.

"Answer me!" Hugo shouted.

The body beneath him blurred and wavered. In an instant, the man exploded into a cloud of mist, and by the time Hugo regained his balance, even the mist was gone, evaporated into thin air.

For a long while, Hugo simply stared at the place where the man had been, unable to accept that he was truly gone. Spirits save me! How?

Once the worst of the shock wore off, he remembered what had just happened. The boy! He swung around, expecting to see lifeless eyes staring up at him. When he saw the boy's chest rise and fall with labored breaths, a wave of relief rushed through him. He sheathed his dagger and knelt beside the boy to examine the wound.

"What's your name, kid?"

"L-Louis…" The boy's voice was no more than a whisper. His breath came in a disturbingly hoarse rasp.

The wound was shallow, but it had cut dangerously close at the throat. Hugo wasn't sure if the boy would make it without help. Pressing his hand against the boy's neck, Hugo called upon the Wind Rune and gathered its healing power into the boy's body. He wasn't a good healer, but it was better than nothing. He prayed it would be enough.

The rune's power surged into the wound, suffusing the boy's skin in a pale green glow. Hugo breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the wound begin to knit before his eyes.

"You'll be okay, Louis, thank the spirits. It's gonna leave a scar, I think, but I wouldn't worry about it. Girls will go crazy for it."

Louis managed a chuckle, and though he coughed violently for it, the boy's breathing sounded a lot less worrying. Remembering the purpose of his visit, Hugo untied the clasps on his satchel and pulled out the Pentacle of Knighthood. "I was supposed to deliver this on my own, but… I can't stay here any longer." He laid the iron symbol beside Louis. "Would you deliver this to Chris Lightfellow for me?"

The healing had taken its toll on Louis, and the boy was only half-awake when he nodded and said, "I… promise…"

The door creaked open, and in the opening stood the captain of the knights herself. Her silver hair was down, and still wet from washing. Her eyes fell upon Hugo, then upon Louis.

"In the name of the Goddess!" she hissed. She ducked back into the room and came back out a moment later with a bared sword in her hands. "What is the meaning of this?" she demanded, advancing on Hugo.

Hugo shot to his feet and stumbled back, out of reach. "Uh, it wasn't me… I didn't…"

White-hot anger flashed across Chris's eyes. "Assassin!" she shouted. "Assassins in the keep!" To Hugo, she said, "How dare you, barbarian? Is this how the Grasslanders honor a truce?"

No use talking - the captain was beyond words. Hugo looked for a way out of there, but he could hear heavy footsteps approaching from behind. There was no way out. Except… As they passed a closed door, Hugo shot to the side and yanked the door open, nearly slamming it into Chris's face. She leaped back with a yelp, giving Hugo a head-start as he ran into the room and slammed the door shut behind him.

The place was empty, thankfully, but that's as far as the good news extended. He'd still have to leap out the window and climb down the face of the tower while the ironheads did their best to dislodge him. And if he made it down, they'd be waiting for him at the bottom. He threw a cupboard on its side and shoved it in front of the door, hearing delicate objects clatter and crash inside the drawers. He hurried over to the window and looked out over the ledge outside, and a sick feeling rose in his stomach. Spirits, he was well and truly screwed.

"In here!" Chris shouted from the corridor. "He went inside this room!"

Hugo was about to turn around and surrender when he heard a familiar, high-pitched shriek carried on the wind. A surge of hope filled his chest, and he leaned out the window to scan the sky. There, beating towards the tower on giant wings, was Fubar. Soldiers ran along the parapet below, pointing and waving at the gryphon. Elsewhere, men were readying siege weapons that looked like giant crossbows, cranking windlasses to turn the unwieldy weapons.

"Fubar!" Hugo called, leaning out onto the ledge as far as he dared go. He waved his hands frantically.

Fubar gave a shriek of recognition and dove towards the window. Behind Hugo, something heavy thudded against the door, and the cupboard grated across the wooden floor with each thud. Heart pounding, Hugo sank into a crouch on the ledge, waiting for Fubar to draw closer. Alright, Hugo. You've practiced this. You've done this before. You can do it again. Only, he'd never tried it from a hundred feet up. He gulped, and said a prayer to the spirits.

Fubar swooped down before the window and arrested his descent with a mighty flap that sent a draft strong to throw Hugo up against the wall. As the pressure lightened, he almost fell forward, but caught himself on the window frame at the last moment.

The door to the room burst open, splintering the side with the lock. The golden-haired knight leaped over the toppled cupboard and rushed towards the window, sword in hand.

Hugo leaped from the ledge. He heard a shout of surprise from behind him as he sailed into the sky. For a moment he felt weightless, staring down past Fubar's flapping wings and feathered form to the infinite yawn of the abyss beneath the keep. Then he was falling, screaming, flailing his arms wildly for anything to catch. He couldn't see Fubar anymore. He didn't know where his friend was. He couldn't—

Suddenly a big shape was beneath him and he thumped into something soft. His hands grasped madly and caught feathers, and he gripped so hard, Fubar cried out in protest. Arms and legs all but rigid with terror, Hugo adjusted his position to sit properly astride Fubar's back, and as his hands dug into the fluff around his friend's neck, fear turned to exhilaration. He screamed out in sheer joy at being alive.

There came shouts from above. When Hugo turned and craned his neck, he saw faces peering out from the window of the room he'd leapt out of. "Crossbow!" one of them called. The word brought Hugo back to the present, and he warily leaned to the side to scan the battlements below. The soldiers working at the wicked siege weapons below looked just about ready to start firing. Better get out of here.

But first, there was one more thing he'd promised to do. Gently pressing his knees against Fubar's flanks, he commanded his friend to take him higher, to hover beside the window. Chris and the golden-haired knight leaning on the windowsill, watching his ascent. The man's face was twisted in hate, but the captain's eyes regarded him coldly.

Chris activated the Wind Rune one last time, and wove a simple spell to make his voice carry. "Your father died a hero's death!" he called out, and the words surged on the wind towards the people standing in the window. He couldn't be sure, but he thought he saw the captain of the knights flinch.

With a gentle nudge on Fubar's back, Hugo guided his friend into a dive, away from the tower.

Chris sat in the common room, stewing in her rage. She would not let it show, but everyone know how she felt. The others tread lightly around her – even Roland. The elven knight, who had commanded the archers and ballista crew in a vain attempt to catch the assassin, now stood before her to deliver his report. He bowed his head and cleared his throat, and spoke the words that hardly needed to be said: "The barbarian got away."

She accepted the knight's words with a mere nod, and dismissed him. There was no point crying over spilled milk – the assassin was long gone, on his beastly steed – but there were many questions that needed answering. She had commanded Borus to arrange for a thorough search of the entire tower, and all of Brass Castle besides. If there were any more unpleasant surprises hiding in the fortress, she would know of them.

Why now? she wondered. The barbarians want the truce as much as we do. Why send an assassin, days before the armistice? Was it a unilateral action? A malcontent going against the will of the chieftains? Or was this a coordinated attack? If so, was this meant to be only the first stroke in a larger scheme?

She turned the Pentacle of Knighthood over in her hands, trying to makes sense of it. Out of everything she had no answers for, this one thing baffled her more than anything. The barbarian had brought Father's pentacle to lay it at Louis' feet. Why? Was it a warning? Or some bizarre Karayan insult she could not understand? If so, why had the boy called her father a hero?

A door pushed open, and Salome entered, closing the door gently behind him. Chris rose from her seat and turned towards him. "Louis?" she asked.

"He'll live," Salome said. He hesitated, frowning.

"What is it, Sir Salome?"

"Milady… It's something I can't explain. The boy… the wound to his neck appears to have been healed using magic. It should have been fatal. But…"

Chris's eyes widened in surprise. "Are you saying… The barbarian? But why?"

Salome shook his head. "As I said, I can't explain it. But I think the barbarian saved Louis's life."