It's not always the same.

People who view what I do from a distance might think so, but they'd be wrong. It's never the same. The very nature of my enemy... the Empire's enemy... is to change. Constantly and unpredictably. And always for the worse.

Always for the worse.

We spend years studying our trade. Identifying. Classifying. Memorizing. Then, once we lay the down the books and set about the business of legalized mayhem, we'll go years before we see anything even remotely like what we spent so long learning. It might be another decade before we can finally appreciate the subtle, intricate similarities between one job and another.

But rather than make it boring, that's when it gets even more dangerous... that's when we finally start thinking that maybe we really know what the hell we're doing. Maybe we really are the experts that everybody claims we are.

That's when we walk out into a empty field with our eyes cast skyward, searching for the dragon in the clouds while completely ignoring the sound of wet, hungry digging from under our feet.

I've seen it happen.

Hell, I've almost done it myself.

If someone were to ask me... and, surprisingly, no one has... what traits determine whether a person can survive more than a day in my line of work, I'd have my answer:

First... a strong stomach.

Second... the ability to adapt. To change. To face a rapidly evolving situation and ride it out to the end no matter what unexpected turns it takes.

Take Blakmorr, for instance.

Blakmorr is... was... a small town of maybe a hundred people. It sat between an insignificant finger of the Aroot mountain range and an equally insignificant tributary of the mighty River Mairne. It was a range town. By that, I mean it was a farm town where most of the crops went down the throats of animals, which were in turn slaughtered for meat. The town proper centered around an auction house, a town hall, and a trader's square. A few families... the richer ones... lived there. Everyone else lived on farms scattered around it.

Everyone except Dermann Weir.

Weir was an eccentric. Every town has one, and if there's one universal truth about towns like Blakmorr, it's this: When something goes wrong... horribly, horribly wrong... the town nut is either the first victim, the first to know, or the one responsible. Sometimes, he's all three.

Blakmorr's resident eccentric, scapegoat, and chief suspect lived in the mountains a day's journey beyond what most people considered the edge of town. He was a local man, born and raised on one of the ranches along the path behind me. He was an only child; Weir's rather difficult birth left his mother unable to concieve. That left Weir in the fortunate position of sole inheritor of the family ranch, but young master Weir had other ideas. As soon as he was able, Dermann abandoned Blakmorr for Stockbridge, where he intended to become a scholar.

A scholar of WHAT, no one seems to know.

Right.

No one heard a word from him in six years... least of all the major centers of learning in Stockbridge. If Dermann was studying an art, craft, skill, trade or science, he wasn't doing it at any of the USUAL institutions. He had an address, but all correspondance sent to him from Blakmorr went unanswered...

...except the last one. That was the one informing him that his parents had died.

That got his attention.

Dermann showed up in Blakmorr a few weeks after that. He took possession of the family ranch, lived there for about two days, and then promptly sold it for what I'm told is a ridiculously small amount for the quantity and quality of land. Everyone expected him to return to his 'studies', but instead, he went east. To the castle.

Back in the days when the Empire was young and magic was not only legal, but encouraged, a baron built his seat of power in the low mountains that overlooked what would eventually be the Blakmorr region. Now, it's just my opinion, but I've always thought that rulers should either be benevolant, intelligent, or both. Being neither just makes for a short career, as this would-be mountain despot found out. He and his family were evicted (or impaled, depending on which version of the story you hear), and his castle torn down by angry peasants. Some portions of the castle... namely an oddly-shaped tower of dubious purpose... still remained, however. This is where Mr. Dermann Weir went to carry on his equally dubious studies. His ventures into town became fewer and more erratic as time passed, eventually halting altogether a few years later. On his last visit... well, perhaps not the LAST one.... he made a deal with the rancher who'd bought his property. The rancher was to provide Weir with the neccessities (parchment, books, and food... in that order) and keep his privacy as long as Weir kept paying him. Now, ten years later, the montly deliveries were at an end. Somehow I doubt it's because Weir ran out of money.

The last delivery was made by the rancher's son, Fetrick. The boy set out with two horses loaded with the usual cache of food... plus an extra allotment of blank parchment and ink, which Weir had been requesting in ever-increasing quantities over the few months.

Fetrick went up the mountain trail and never came back.

Not too long afterward, Fetrick's father and older brother went looking for him.

That was THEIR last trip up the mountain trail, too.

That's when people started getting suspiscious. Two men and a boy disappearing on a little-used trail in the mountains? It would have caught my attention, but there are a lot of explanations that have nothing at all to do with magic. Hillcats are hungry and desparate this time of year. Wolves pretty much own this part of the countryside. Bears. Bandits. There are a hundred simple ways a boy can get himself killed out here, and a good twenty or so that two grown men could do the same.

But the thing that happened afterward....

Ahh, well.... here I am.

The main road out of Blakmorr wa about four hours behind me, and nightfall was another hour ahead. Since I left the road I've seen the land around me transform from cultured farms, to unruly grasslands, to solid rock. The ground stopped being flat about an hour ago, but I had it on good authority that the passage never became so steep that a horse couldn't make the trip. It was slow going, though, which wasn't necessarily a bad thing.

I needed time to think. The details of what lay behind me were stubbornly refusing to yield any kind of idea about what might lay ahead. Usually I can tell what kind of man or beast I'm dealing with before I even pack my horse. That's the way it's supposed to be. I have far too many toys to drag them all along everywhere I go. I'd need three horses, a wagon, a wheelbarrow, and another pair of shoulders for that kind of arsenal. No, the idea is to always carry the basics... sword, daggers, test equipment and minimal armor... plus whatever extra equipment I need based on what I know about the situation.

Only this time I didn't know squat about the situation. Not one damned thing. I'd been to Blakmorr. I saw what happened, and I had a pretty damned good idea who's handiwork it was. But I was missing the supremely-important HOW and the slightly less important WHY. My first guess was that I was dealing with some aberrant kind of vampirism... as if vampirism isn't aberrant enough on it's own. But that was too much of a stretch. Clearly this was something else. On the surface it was simple:. The people of Blakmorr had something that Dermann Weir... either the man or the beast... wanted. So he took it. But how? And WHY, dammit!? Why did he want...

I grunted in frustration. My mind was going in circles, and the thing they were circling was a big mound of absolutely nothing. I had no idea what was in front of me other than the ruins of an old castle. No clue as to what tools I'd need once I got there, or if I'd be greeted by a human being or something else.

In short, I was going in blind. No expectations. No ideas. No plan (other than the usual: 'kill what needs killing').

I didn't even know whether my little adventure up the mountain was going to be easy, hard, or fatal. Not that it would make a difference. I am what I am, after all. I am what I am, and I do what I do. I Kill What Needs Killing.

With that in mind, I make the quick decision not to camp for the night, but to continue on. The moon was full and I'd traveled worse paths in deeper darkness. I'd reach the ruins a few hours before dawn. I would (probably) be about my business soon afterward. Would I need a full night's rest? Would what I found up there have an advantage in the dark? I had no idea. But I did know one thing... the most important thing:

Something up there needed killing.

---

The ruins were hard to miss, but I knew I was getting close to SOMETHING even before I arrived.

The silence gave it away.

In its natural, undisturbed state, the night is always full of sounds. In the country its animals... predators and prey going about their dance. In the cities its pretty much the same thing, only with smarter predators and less intelligent prey. But as the trail rounded the last steep bend and leveled out, I noticed that the sounds I was hearing... the click of claws on stone.... the rustle of wings in the air...the chirp of lonely insects... had been getting increasingly distant. No, the animals weren't going anywhere, but somewhere not far behind I had crossed an invisible line. On one side of that line, the world ran as it should (except for maybe Blakmorr). But something on THIS side had staked a claim, and the creatures of the moonlight chorus dared not approach. The animals that lived here had either been killed or driven off, and none had wandered in to replace them.

Some types of magic actually attract animals. True. My guess was that wasn't dealing with one of those types.

I stopped to take stock of the situation.... or lack thereof.

Nothing in front of me but a lightly-travelled trail leading into darkness. More of the same behind me. The ground was a thin, brittle, useless kind of rock, broken occasionally by patches of dirt thick enough to support a few tufts of grass. I spotted a few large outcroppings of rock, but none were within ambush distance of the trail. I kept my eye on them anyway. There was nothing nearby that could hide an attacker, unless said attacker could shrink to the size of an insect, turn back moonlight or wrap darkness around itself-

-ahh, those were good old days.

Still, my instincts told me I was being watched, and I had no doubt that that bothersome pinprick of paranoia was right. I was being watched. Not just watched... no, the feeling I had was more akin to being studied. In detail.

My horse figited uneasily. I kept it still... waiting for my observer to drink his fill.

Then I moved on. By then the feeling had abated, but hadn't disappeared altogether. I was still being watched, but no longer studied. Whatever it was was just keeping track of my progress now, making sure that it had plenty of time to finish whatever trap it was undoubtedly preparing.

As it turned out, it didn't have much time at all.

The trail continued for another twenty minutes before narrowing between two large boulders (which I skirted around... crazy, not stupid...). On the other side of the stone 'gate' lay a field of pale, towering rocks and tall, dry grass. The rocks were the crumbled remains of walls, and the grass was what had taken over the once-cultivated land around Castle Sordia. The castle itself was gone, its destruction so complete that it even its general outline was lost. The only discernible trace that remained were two ancient walls that were barely intact enough to form a corner. The stone blocks that had formed the body of the castle were scattered about the grassy field like a child's toys. Broken toys... since the majority of the blocks were now mere fragments of their former imposing greatness. Time and weather had not been kind to the ruins, but I'd seen ruins before... enough to know that some serious magic had gone into this particular act of destruction. The castle had been literally blown apart... a feat complicated by the fact that magic had been used to fortify the castle in the first place. I didn't know that for a true fact, but it was a safe bet. It would take a mage of some power to blast another mage's fortifications to hell. Yet another mage... or possibly the same one, if he was good enough... had contained the explosion to the immediate area, preventing the resulting rain of boulders from pummeling the countryside into oblivion.

Ahhh, history. Such were the days of high magic... but those days were gone, and now there be monsters. One of them very close by.

I paused beside the crumbling corner and scanned the near-darkness. Plenty of places to hide here. Even in broad daylight there would be a thousand-and-one shadows. Moolight made things worse.

But my instincts were telling me that I was alone. What I was looking for was not crouched behind a stone, waiting to spring as I wandered past. Perhaps it wasn't all instinct... logic and experience had a say as well. A being capable of what happened in Blakmorr wouldn't need to hide. Springing out from behind boulders would be...beneath it. So much so that the idea probably never even occured to it at all. No, this thing would watch me until it was ready, and then either spring some pre-cast magical trap or just step calmly out into the open and attempt to dispatch me from a hundred paces away.

But that idea didn't quite seem right either. Hmmm...

If only I knew what the hell I was dealing with.

I shrugged off the worrying uncertainty and dismounted. I led the horse slowly through the stones. One hand was on the reigns. The other clutched a silver hunting knife that was made more for throwing that close-quarter combat. If anything did jump out of the shadows, I'd test its ability to catch a blade with its throat. By the time it figured out how to do that (or died trying) I'd have have one of my deadlier tools ready to entertain it.

Not much of a plan, but that's all I had to work with.

I continued across the field until the land began to slope downward. At first it was a gentle tilt... but soon it felt like I was headed back down the mountain. Then I saw it.

It sat atop a hill surrounded by a narrow, low-lying area that reminded me of a moat without the water. The hill was the highest point in the region. The tower made it higher still.

It wasn't a watchtower, which is what I'd envisioned when they told me about it. The pale stone walls had no windows or slits for archers to defend the surrounding land. The slender cylindrical body had no balconies from which mages could rain fire (or ice or lightning or hordes of carnivourous insects) down upon potential invaders. The entire structure had only two openings: A door at the bottom, and a... hole... at the top. At first it seemed like a crack in the otherwise unbroken dome, but a second of study told me that the slit was part of the dome's construction. They'd made it that way... a perfectly smooth dome with a slim, rectangular hole in one side. It certainly wasn't for defense. All a man could see from inside that dome was a narrow sliver of sky and maybe a chunk of very distant mountainside. Nothing worthwhile.

"Odd..." I said. My first word since leaving Blakmorr. I'd said that word quite a few times in town, too, along with several other less pleasant ones.

I could see the door at the base of the tower quite clearly. It was closed. Between me and it was a narrow chasm that circled the entire hill. It was just steep and deep enough to make approach on horseback impossible. Approach on foot would be difficult if the trench had been full of water... as it was no doubt intended to be... but once dried out it formed little more than an inconvience. Since there was no bridge, I'd have to climb down, walk a grand total of twenty feet, and then climb back out. There'd certainly be no running charge to the door, but I hadn't planned on doing that anyway.

I was expecting an attack. The trench would have been a perfect place for one... certainly the place I would have chosen.... but nothing stopped, prevented, or otherwise hindered me from crossing the dry moat and marching right up to the wooden door.

Like the wall it occupied, the door was ancient. It had obviously been enchanted for sturdiness and longevity... otherwise it wouldn't be there at all... but enchantments fade over time, and this one had given up its ghost several decades ago. I doubted it would last another ten years.

Actually, it probably wouldn't last another ten minutes.

"DERMANN WEIR!" I shouted. I was six paces back from the door... face aimed straight ahead, but eyes watching every OTHER direction with focused attention. Nothing moved. Nothing answered. Something watched.

I shrugged the pack from my shoulders and undid the straps.

"DERMANN WEIR!" I called again, reaching into the pack.

Again... nothing.

When my hands returned from the crowded pack, they were holding the only piece of heavy armor that I had. The helm was a huge, ugly thing. When I put it on, my entire face would be covered, and my peripheral vision would be cut to almost nothing. Not the most practical of things to wear in a fight... But it was silver. I put it on. Then I drew my sword and tapped the silver blade against the door.

"DERMAN WEIR!" I said for a third time. But now, I added: "I AM MAGEKILLER REDORIK, HERE TO INVESTIGAGTE YOU AND THESE PREMISES ON SUSPISCION OF MAGERY! PRESENT YOURSELF NOW, OR RISK- ah, to hell with it!"



My armored boot split the half-rotten door down the center. Half of the door fell inward, striking the stone floor with an unexpectedly loud bang. The other half hung loosely from its one remaining hinge. The moon was behind me; its light beamed in through the doorway and pushed the darkness further back into the space beyond.

Not enough. Not nearly enough.

Even before the door had finished its dance, I had begun mine.

I went in sword-first... not the most balanced or graceful way to move, but necessary. Silver disrupts magic... sometimes violently. If there were any magical surprises inside, the silver in the blade would either set it off, destroy it, or give me some kind of warning before I got too close. Finding an acid web with one's face is NOT a good way to start a morning's work.

Step one took me past the doorway. As I moved, my other hand came around from behind me and tossed a fist-sized, egg-shaped object into the dark. There was a muffled 'crack' as the egg struck something hard enough to break the glass shell.

Light slowly bloomed in the darkness. The chemicals in the flare produced an eerie green light that reminded me of some of the nastier magics I'd encountered. But there was no magic at work here... at least not by my hand.

A second, smaller step brought me to the center of the area that I could see clearly with the moonlight. Pause. My third step passed out of the moonlight and into the light of the flare.

My eyes swept the room

The bottom level of the tower was a single circular chamber. A large table hugged the wall directly in front of me. To my left and right were wooden barrels that were more than likely empty judging from the number of books stacked on top of them. There was a sack of something on the floor beside the door... old garbage from the smell of it.

...odd that there were no flies buzzing around it...

In the center of the room was a winding, metal and stone staircase. My eyes followed it upward to the circular opening in the ceiling.

Darkness above. Something in that darkness moved. It was a small, quick motion that could easily be passed off as imagination... or rats. Perhaps Fetrick or his father had thought that very thing. But if there were rats here then there would be no untouched bag of garbage by the door. And the thing upstairs had drawn back from the stairway as soon as my eyes moved in its direction.

Not my head, because it had remained fixed... but my eyes, which it could barely see through the opening in my helm.

Instinct is the mother of survival. The father of survival is speed.

I had come bearing only one chemical flare, but the specially designed pouch on bottom edge of my pack still contained two eggs. Not needing to differentiate between the remaining two, I snatched the next one, shook it twice, cracked the leather-wrapped glass shell against the flat of my sword, and threw it up through the opening. As it flew, I spun to my right and dropped to a low crouching position. My sword hit the floor... both hands covered my head-

The explosion was low and muffled, not enough to damage the stairway or even shake the walls. But it was more than sufficient to distribute the egg's magic-disrupting payload... powered salt and razor sharp bits of silver... across the upstairs chamber. What it did to anything hiding IN that chamber was just icing on the cake.

Time to dance! One hand reached for my sword while the other shot into a long side-pocket on my backpack.

I was upstairs so fast that I may as well have disappeared from one place and reappeared in the next. Salt still hung thick in the air. I had already slipped the torch from my pack. Lighting it required neither flint nor flame... the two foot silver rod had a space on one end for a spherical glass ball. More chemicals... more green light. The salt was playing havok with my eyes, but I could see well enough.

All I saw was books.

Stacks of them covered the walls, and rows of shelves turned the interior space into a labyrinth. I had no idea how many of the tomes around me dealt with magic, but now was not the time to find out. I'd either burn them all myself when the job was done, or I'd call in someone else to handle the sorting and burning later. My concern about the books amounted to only one thing:

Shielding. The books on either side of the stairwell had taken the brunt of the explosion. Shrapnel had turned them into shreds of paper, parchment, and leather that any self-respecting rat would turn his nose up at. But they'd shielded the rest of the room from the same fate. The salt had gone everywhere, but the silver had gone no further than that first row of shelves. Salt isn't as strong of a 'universal disruptor' as silver, so the room wasn't as secure as I'd thought when I rushed in.

That could be bad.

I dropped into a crouch beside the stairs and began scanning the surroundings.

Shelves. Books. Scrolls. -A few dozen of the first and a few hundred of the second two. My index finger played along the surface of the shelf closest to me. Salt, yes. Dust... no. I plucked a random book from the shelf.

Sturdy, expensive construction with a heavy leather cover. The cover was blank. No title... no symbols... nothing. The pages inside were filled with small, handwritten text.

I didn't read it.

Reading random books in a mage's library is... well let's just say it isn't smart and leave it at that.

I did notice that the tome looked (and smelled) relatively new. Brand new, in fact.

This was starting to get serious.

Dermann Weir had been recieving shipments of books during his entire stay here in the tower. That much I already knew. The one crucial piece of information that I hadn't recieved in Blakmorr was that all or most of the books that he recieved were empty.

Blank books... waiting to be filled.

My stomach began to ache, and for an instant my entire body went weak.

Not magic... dread.

If the writing in these books had anything to do with magic, then any ONE of them could unleash a dozen disasters just like Blakmorr. The contents of just one SHELF could spawn an epidemic unlike anything we'd seen since the early days of the Fall. The contents of this ROOM could...

Calm down.

Calm down.

Calm... down...

...and think. Think about it.

I didn't know WHAT was in all these books. I'd just picked one at random and examined it without bothering to read the words. It could be magic. It could be history. Science. Philosphy. I could be crouching in the middle of the empire's largest collection of pornography. Weir claimed to be a scholar. Scholars kept books...

Ahhh, but those shelves. The ones hugging the wall rose all the way to the cieling, and THAT was a good 40 feet above me.

Odd that there was no ladder. A ladder tall enough to reach those top shelves would be plainly visible from anywhere in the room. But there wasn't one.

Very odd indeed.

But in truth, it didn't matter. Whether these were books of magic or a million differnt recipies for roast pork, I would do what I came here to do. Magical tomes were usually enchanted, and the disposal of enchanted materials was a science unto itself. But I doubted Wier had taken the trouble of enchanting these. It was just a guess... an instinct... but my gut told me that this room and everything in it would burn like kindling when the time came... no muss... no fuss... no fire-activated wards throwing my smoking entrails across the countyside like flaming paper streamers.

There.

Calm, logical thought. Training. Instinct.

Much better.

Now... back to work.

There was a scent in the air. Something wet and warm and...meaty. Not water... but not blood either. Mixed with salt, it almost reminded me of warm seawater and bile. Not the kind of scent I'd expect to find in a tower in the mountains. Smelling it made the room feel smaller...closer... like it was pressing in around me.

The light from my 'torch' glimmered in something on the floor. A puddle. There were several of them on just the small portion of the floor that I could see. Some were small. Some were large. One appeared to be not a puddle, but a trail left by some wet, legless thing as it slithered across the room. Whatever it was didn't seem to be eating through the wooden floor, so I wasn't too worried when I saw that the stairs leading up to the next level were soaked.

I sheathed my sword and held my chemical torch closer to one of the steps. Trails. Not puddles... trails. I drew my hunting knife and placed the tip in the center of one of them. The thin film of fluid bubbled with a brief, furious hiss, and then evaporated, leaving a scaly white crust behind. When I touched an adjacent trail with the knife's leather handle, there was no reaction.

I started up.

Ordinarilly I'd go room by room... not moving on to the next one until I had completely secured the one I was in. But in this case it was obvious that what I was looking for... whatever it was... was further up the tower. The staircase spiralled its way up past the labyrinth of shelves. I stopped within throwing distance of the opening to the third level. Given the height of the tower I expected there to be at least two more floors before I reached the dome... but I could see moonlight. The dome, with it's curious hole, was directly above me. That would make the next room about 60 feet high.

I bet I wouldn't find a ladder THERE, either.

I considered throwing the egg up through the opening, but decided against it. It might be useful, but it wouldn't be a surprise. Whatever was up there would be expecting it, and the last thing I wanted was to have my own explosives thrown back down in my face. I've seen THAT before, too... up close and personal. I was deciding my next move when I noticed that the graveyard silence of the tower was gone.

Sounds. From upstairs.

First I heard a wet long, gurgle, and a thump that sounded like a very large book being closed. While I was figuring THAT out, I heard several short dry sounds... like pages being turned. And scratching. Lots and lots of faint, barely audible scratching.

I expected there to be silence afterward, but the sounds continued. Mostly it was the scratching and dry page turning. But occasionally I would hear that wet sound again. It was in the middle of one of these that I could have sworn I heard the ocean.

What the hell was THAT?

I waited to hear it again.

More scratching. Gurgling. Another thump... and a dragging sound.

There was a lot of activity up there... and much of it seemed to be going on simultaneously. The idea that there could be more than one person moving around in the room above made me uneasy, but the idea immediatly lead to another, more unsettling one:

I knew those sounds.

Not all of them... but the more I listened, the more familiar some of it became. If I closed my eyes and dreamed just a little, I would swear I was listening to a room full of monks flipping their holy pages, busily making their notes on their scrolls, parchments, and bits of paper. Yes, that was it. That's exactly what I was hearing.

But those other sounds. The gurgling, and that... that ocean sound?

If there was a way to find out that didn't involve sticking my head up through that hole, I would have been all for it. I gave long, SERIOUS consideration to going outside, scaling the outside of the tower and dropping in through the hole in the dome, but I had no climbing equipment, and pulling that feat off with my bare hands would leave me too weak to fight whoever or whatever I dropped in on.

But then, if I was dealing with a room full of mages I was dead anyway, no matter direction I came-

That ocean sound came again... the long, low roar of waves on a beach.

I felt a stab of something that was almost fear, and quickly realized that I'd been standing motionless on the steps for over a minute. I was fooling myself... listening, trying to figure out what to do? No. That was a lie and I knew it. It was neither fear nor calculated caution that was keeping me out of that room. It was the uncertainty.

I lied.

I had to admit it. It WAS always the same.

Every time. Every job.

The faces and the locations changed, but it job was ALWAYS the same.

See the evidence. Pick the weapons. Find the monster and kill what needed killing. Over and over again... time after time... place after place. Repeat until dead. But this was different. Blakmorr was uniquely grotesque, yet not totally outside the realm of my experiences. But the reason? Why had it been done? It was no random, mindless act... it was done intentionally. Yet, despite all my years behind the sword, I know of no magic that would neccessitate such a thing. Not on such a scale. Not an entire town.

Then there was the fact that I had come completely unopposed from the heart of Blakmorr to the very edge of... whatever was up there. No attacks. No traps. No surprises, other than the utter lack of surprises. It was as if my quarry didn't care that I was coming to kill it/him... didn't care one way or another about my very existance.

And yet it had watched me. Not just watched, but STUDIED me with such intensity that I could sense it's attention with my merely human faculties. Why?

Did it care or did it NOT care? Was it man or beast? Was it alone, or...?

-And so another minute passed. Dammit, I was doing it again.

...this was insane. And so, lacking in any cohesive plan, I decided to go with insanity.

"DERMAN WEIR!"

My voice echoed across the stone. The point of my sword preceeded me up the remaining stairs and into the tower's uppermost chamber.

When I reached the top of the central staircase I saw that my journey was not quite over. A separate stairway curved up the interior wall to my right, ending at an elevated wooden platform halfway up the height of the room.

And there he sat.

My first impulse was to laugh. I don't know why. Perhaps it was the shock of what I was seeing. But as I stifled that laugh, I found myself also holding back a different, almost opposite urge. My stomach wanted to be somewhere else, and was apparently making preparations for immediate departure... with or without the rest of me.

I choked back the thick wad of nothing that had taken up residence at the back of my throat and squinted up at the thing on the platform. Light from both moon and torch played across the watery bulk, but did little to pick out the details of what I had already decided I didn't really want to see.

But see it, I must.

I picked my way through the heaps of scrolls and towering stacks of books... past the crates, boxes, barrels, and other items being used as writing tables... and started up the interior stairs leading to the platform.

My eyes never left it. My mind tried to make an illusion out of the thing above... surely it could not be real. But it was. It was very real, and I was seeing it with increasing clarily with every step I took. I was halfway up the stairs when the combination of my torch and the angle of my approach allowed me my first full, clear view.... although I was sure that Dermann Weir had had a full, clear view of ME for quite a long time.

He was still watching me, even as I watched him. I could see pieces of him floating deep within the thing he had become. His body was tangled in a net of what had to be nerves or receptors of some kind. They were holding him like a drowned man wrapped in seaweed. His torso was shrunken but mostly intact, but his limbs had shrivelled away to meaningless sticks of skin-wrapped bone floating in the transluscent goo. His head, however, probably looked much the same way it always had.

Except for the eyes.

At some point during a transformation that would have driven me mad had I witnessed it, Dermann Weir's eyes had swollen so large that they'd emerged from their sockets... and then kept right on growing. Eventually the two orbs had merged to form one larger one, and then the single enormous eye grew to completely engulf the head that once held it/them. Then it moved on to swallow the rest of the body as well. Now Dermann Weir existed only as a shrivelled speck floating inside his own monstrous eye.

But that state of affairs didn't stop Weir from continuing on his scholarly work. From the rear of the eye, where a normal orb would be attached to its optic nerve, there emerged a cluster of white, boneless appendages, each one no thicker than my smallest finger.

Tentacles.

Why did they always have to have tentacles.... like it was a damned unwritten law or something? Always the same...

These milk-colored strings of flesh descended from the platform into the lower portion of the room, where most of them were busy scribbling lines of perfectly-crafted text in Weir's books. The wet tendrils oozed a liquid onto whatever surface they touched, yet the care they took in their work kept Weir's words from being smeared even a little. Most of the books were completely dry, even while they were being transcribed.

I watched this for only a few seconds before my stomach began to bubble.

I continued up the stairs until I reached the the wide, flat plank that lead from the wall to the platform. It occured to me that the plank was completely unnecessary now. A man would need it. But Weir? No. Weir maybe have been capable of SOME motion... but leaving that platform was certainly beyond the capabilities of his new self. Not unless he wanted to splatter himself all over his precious books.

I inspected the plank.... no obvious sabotage... and started across.

Weir had yet to acknowlege my presence, and as I drew closer I saw that he wasn't even looking at me. The brilliant circle of bluish-gray color with the circle of abysmal black in its center was pointed upward... looking out of the slit in the domed roof of the tower.

I paused and rapped my blade against the metal handrail.

Nothing moved. Nothing except the busy tendrils below me.

I took another four steps and stopped again.

"...Weir..." I said, not expecting a reply.

I got one.

Deep inside the thing, Dermann's mouth opened and a stream of bubbles escaped into the soup around him. The entire mass responded with a contraction... and a gurgle. Perhaps this was how the thing drew in it's air, althougth the sounds that I now recognized weren't nearly regular enough to be healthy breathing. I heard something that sounded like a moan, but too low... almost inaudible. The sound came again, louder the second time, but still at a frequency almost below human hearing. It was this second, louder moan that my ears just barely interpreted as a voice.

"...you have come... to kill meeee..." said the thing. Weir's lips were moving, but the sound I heard was too clear to be coming from those shrivelled useless things. It was his NEW flesh that was speaking. With no mouth, nor lips, nor any organ other than its own eye, it was speaking. "I won't stop you."

"That's good to know," I replied. "But we're getting a little ahead of ourselves."

Weir obviously didn't know how much agony he'd purchased for himself when he'd spoken those first words. Now that I knew he could speak, there would be-

"Questionsss..." the giant eye gurgled. The secret of its speach still eluded me, but after moving another step forward I could now see the eye's milky interior vibrating with every syllable. That was likely as close to an answer as I was going to get on that matter. But there were other matters. "...first... there will be questionss. I will answer them."

This was new. I had grown accustomed to extracting my answers by force. Mages... even human ones... never volunteered information. It was more of a common character trait than a hard rule, but it was true even back in the Golden Age, when every third person on the street was an amateur spellcaster.

"Then start by telling me what particular flavor of madness you're about here," I said. Not the question that needed answering the most, but the one I wanted answered first.

"The same as you," said Weir. "Questions. And answers. We are the same, you and I-"

"You'll answer me with riddles, then?" I slipped my pack from my shouldes and let it fall to the plank at my feet. I flipped open the main pocket. "Then I'll answer your riddles with silver and pain-"

"No riddles," said Weir. "We are the same. You and your brothers are quite willing to commit atrocities to find your answers. So am I. We are the same."

"You have no idea what I'm willing to do. Yet."

"I know what you are. I have watched you. Watched the others. I see the truth of what you do.... the futility..."

"I'm willing to let my first question go unanswered," I said, "But if you're this evasive with the others, you're going to have a very long and painful death."

"And I will not die unsatisfied. I have seen.... I have seen...."

The phrase seemed almost comical considering its source: A man transformed into a giant eyeball. But there was nothing funny about the dreamy, distant tone in Weir's 'voice'. Like a voice from heaven.

"You did this to yourself, didn't you," I said. It was a stab in the dark, but it struck true. "This isn't the Fall. You... you MADE yourself into this. On purpose!"

"Yessss!"

"WHY!?"

"To see! To KNOW! No more secrets! No more shadows! The world drowns in the dark murk of ignorance, but no more! I have seen!"

"What have you seen?"

"EVERYTHINNNG!"

The monstrous eye rumbled like a mound of jelly... which I suppose it was.

"And Blakmorr? Their part in this?"

"Necessary," Weir sighed. "Necessary...."

"You blinded an entire town? You...stole their EYES just to bring them here and transform yourself into this... thing? And you did this for...?"

"The same reason you would torture me to find answers to your questions! Knowledge! Knowledge that will serve the greater good of ALL mankind!"

"Magic," I spat. "You did this to learn the secrets of magic-"

"Secrets, yes... but of so much more than mere magic! History... not the lies you believe, but the Truth! A truth that you will not believe until you see it for yourself! And you WILL see, for even the darkness of the future yields to my gaze!"

Weir's voice was a gurgle-hummm that rose continuously in volume. I had no idea what I'd said that set him off, but he showed no signs of stopping any time soon.

"And more still! Science! Alchemy! Categories of knowledge that do not even exist yet! I know the secrets of a science that your wisest monks cannot concieve. Limitless energies... travel beyond distances that cannot yet be measured! STARS! Stars and... and WORLDS!"

I followed the creature's unblinking gaze upward. I could see the night sky clearly through the slit in the dome. Stars. Stars and worlds. I remember a priest who once said that the stars were suns like our own, just seen from a distance. He was later branded (literally) a heretic. They said he was crazy. I wondered just how much of what Weir was saying now was true, and how much of it was pure madness.

"I have cast the light of knowledge upon the darkest, most hidden things imaginable! The hidden history of the first race! The secrets of the elves! I have seen their strongest magics... and I know what those magics protect! Their treasure is not gold or magic, but something else! Something... dark. I saw only a glimpse before their wizards-"

"That's all well and good," I said. "But none of that gives you the right to violate any law... least of all THE Law."

"It gives me EVERY right! The knowledge I have gathered... the things I've seen... It's all HERE! I wrote it all... every page is full of secrets and knowledge! Cures for every manner of disease! Answers to questions that will not be asked for generations! The end of starvation! Unlimited clean water! Perpetual motion! Instantaneous communication! SPACE TRAVEL!"

"At what price?"

"The price is already paid! By me! By the people of Blakmorr who gave me their eyes-"

"Gave?"

"-so that I could see through the eye of a GOD! Now I give the fruit of our sacrifice freely to the world! There is no price to be paid. Kill me, as you came all this way to do. Kill me and take the books! Give them to the world!"

"They won't leave this tower except as ashes," I said calmly.

"No!"

"They are not only the fruits of foul magics, but they likely contain the teaching of magic. I am the last person who will ever see them, and even that will be just long enough to set them aflame."

The eye hissed at me.... somehow. Then it moved.

I jumped back several steps as the enormous bulk shifted on the platform. The fluid inside moved with the sound of waves on the ocean. The eye rotated... lowered...

...and looked at me.

I backed away another step. I didn't know if this was a threat or not, but I knew I didn't like it.

Gods.... I could SEE myself reflected in that thing. I could see what it was seeing. I raised my sword, and my reflection did the same.

"Kill me if you wish," said Weir. The exstatic energy of his earlier rant was gone. Now his voice was cold. "But my books... you WILL share them."

"Or what?"

"I have secrets for YOU, Magekiller. Did you think I could see so much... and not see the fire in your soul?"

"You don't know me-"

"I know enough. I know you are an intelligent man. Not intelligent enough to realize that your battle... your calling... is a cruel and futile joke. But intelligent enough to see the importance of what I have done. What I am offering to the world. And what I am offering to you."

You never really notice your peripheral vision is gone until something sneaks up on you. It was that damned silver helm. As heavy as it was, I had forgotten about it and its effect on my vision. I was watching Weir, searching his eye for the telltale glow of a magical spell being cast, when I heard a faint, wet sound behind me.

I spun, sword flashing in the moonlight. Sharp, hardened met ichor... and ichor lost.

I severed the tentacle cleanly in one swipe. The stump fell way, disintegrating as it went. The severed part... and the book that it had been carrying.... dropped onto the plank with a heavy thump.

I hopped over the book and turned back so that I was facing the eye. The book was between it and me.

"What is this?"

"Pick it up," said Weir. "It's yours."

"No," I said. "I'll ask my real question now. The one that matters."

"Pick up the book."

"Who taught you the magic?"

"Read it."

"It's a trap."

"A trap to do what? Kill you? And how long before another, far less enlightened member of your order comes calling? A week? A month? It doesn't matter; as you can see... I cannot move. I know two spells, and I have cast them both. My books and I will still be here, and I will gain nothing by killing you."

"Answer my question."

"Pick up your book."

I glanced at the tome. It was no different than any of the others I had seen. I tapped it once with my sword.

No reaction.

And then.... then I made the second biggest mistake that I have ever made.

I asked.

"What is it?"

"The Truth," Weir replied. "The Truth of magic."

"Magic is corrupt. Poison. That is the only truth."

"Poison? No. Poisoned. But it can be made right again."

"Lies-"

"Truth. A truth you will refuse until you read that book."

"I'll do no such thing-"

"Even then, you will question its answers... while you seek to answer its questions."

"More riddles-"

"It can be made right, Magekiller! The Fall... the change... it should never have happened! It is not the natural order-"

"Magic is not the natural order. That's why-"

"It IS the order! It is the life's blood of this world! Men like you and your Church... like the fools of Stockbridge... would replace it with science, but that is not the TRUTH of this world! Not was was meant to be. Magic is the truth.... But that truth was poisoned!"

"By who?"

I felt Weir's eye on me. Even if my own eyes were closed... even if I were standing a thousand miles away... I still would have felt that horrible eye studying. It made my skin want to crawl off of my body.

"Secrets," he said. "Even I have not seen them all. What I have seen is there... in that text. It will lead you to what still hides in darkness... to the secrets of the first race, and what came before! To the truth who's bones rest beneath the dust of the Hard Lands."

"You said it can be made right."

"It can! Sometimes... what is done cannot be undone."

"Like what you did to Blakmorr?"

"But not ALL things follow this truth. Some follow another... I have seen the shadows of what was done. I have seen the shadows of what can BE done. I have written them. Signposts. Only fitting that it be one of you that follows them. One of you who gives magic back to the world. This, Magekiller, is my gift. The book at your feet can make the world right, if you are strong enough to go where it leads. But even if you aren't... the OTHER books in this tower will make the world into a paradise."

"And the magic?" I said. "Who taught you? Is that in this book?"

The eye laughed. The thing gurgled and swelled and looked like for a moment like it was about to pop.

"...always the keeper of the Law."

"This, you knew before I came here."

"Pick up the book. Take it in your hands. Keep it closed if you fear it... but feel the weight of its importance. Do these things and I will answer your question."

I crouched down. Took the book in my hand. And brought it back up with me as I stood.

Gods... it was heavy.

"...magic," I said.

"Truth. You know I speak the truth now. Yes? You feel it in your heart..."

"Answer my question," I said.

This was what... the third or forth time I had demanded an answer?

Why, all of a sudden, did I not care if I got one?

Why, all of a sudden, did it seem so unimportant?

"Who taught you? Someone in Stockbridge?"

"Not Stockbridge. Here. Right here in this tower, he came to me. He said he felt the fire of my heart. Those were his words."

"Demon?" I asked. "Or man?"

"I don't know. And I don't care. He said he could not give me the truth... but he could show me how to get it for myself. He taught me the spell. And taught me everything I would need to know to cast it... so that I could give knowledge back to the world. Does it really matter what manner of creature he was?"

"He's either a mage or a demon. Neither is allowed to walk the land. I'll kill either, but only the first is my direct responsibility."

"You have a higher responsibility now."

"His name. What was his name."

"He never said. Not his name... nor his home... nor his place of learning. He said only that he came from the north. And when he left, he journeyed to the south. Seek him if you wish. I doubt you will find him unless he wills it."

"You've looked for him, haven't you. With your new power... you've looked and not seen him."

"No. He has hidden himself from me."

"How is that possible, Weir? I thought you said you could see everything?"

"I never said that."

"So if your power is not perfect... if it isn't TRUE omniscience... then how can you trust it? How can anyone trust it?"

"I never-"

"Could it be that your power is a lie? Could it be that everything he told you was a trap to lure you into destroying Blakmorr and turning yourself into a monster? Could it be... Dermann Weir... that everything you have SEEN is also a lie... an illusion? And that everything in all of these books is false-"

"No, it cannot!"

"-that you've filled these shelves with lies, while... somewhere that is neither north NOR south... a demon sits on his throne and laughs at your folly?"

"NO! It is TRUE! It's all true!"

"You don't sound too sure, Weir. In fact, you sound angry. But why would you be angry if you were absolutely SURE of your visions?"

"They are the truth! Everything I've said... everything I've written-"

"Lies. But maybe it goes beyond just you. After all... the knowledge you've assembled here could mislead a lot of people. If just enough is true to make it ALL seem true, you could have the beginnings of a new religion right here in this tower."

"Not religion! TRUTH! Science! History! Truth!"

"-a false religion. Yes... yes, that's exactly what I think has happened here. And look-"

I held up the book that Weir said was mine.

"Your demon friend thought of everything. He gave you a little something to keep the Magekillers busy... or at least give them a momentary lack of focus. Long enough for what, I imagine? What's supposed to happen while I'm looking the other way.... out chasing your shadows? There's not that many of us left... what if books like this got to all of us? What if we were ALL out chasing your shadows, Weir? What happens then? Have you seen THAT?"

"Everything I have told you is-"

"True. Right. I don't doubt that. I don't think you're lying to me, Weir. Only that you've been lied TO. You've been mislead.... mislead into breaking the Law... mislead into destroying a town. But it stops here. These books? THIS book? No one will ever see them. They are the beginning of something that will never see its end. Seeds that will never grow to bear fruit. They will burn-"

"NO! I've sacrificed everything for them!"

"They're ashes, Weir." I tossed the book away. It fell hard... smacking agiainst the sharp corner of a shelf and exploding into a spray of loose pages. "They're all just... ashes."

"NO! My WORK! The SECRETS! NO!"

Weir was shouting... but I was running. Not away, but toward the mouthless eye that was filling the room with helpless rage.

One slash with the sword-

The eye pulled away... and the ocean roared against the shore. Weir may have been trapped in that tower, but he was far from motionless. The platform had enough space for him to draw back... just enough...

The tip of my weapon sliced and burned a shallow line across the eye's surface an inch below below the contracting pupil. I could have split the whole thing open, but anger arrested my arm as it drew back for a second slice. Instead, I raised my final egg, gave it a shake, and SMACKED it against the flat of my sword.

Th glass broke. Waxed leather held the chemicals as they mixed, but I felt the whole thing growing warm.

I didn't throw it.

Perhaps I deserved to have it go off in my hand, sending me to a fool's hell...

...but instead, I thrust my fist forward, plunging my arm into the jelly-flesh of Weir's gigantic eye. My arm sank in up to the elbow. Then I release the egg.

I yanked my arm free, turned around, grabbed my pack and ran like hell.... counting every step.

Four... three...

"NOOOOO! NOT THE BOOKS!"

...two...

"DON'T DESTROY THE BOOKS!...

....one....


"DON'T DESTROY THEM, I BEG OF YOU!

....okay, so I was a little off...

"THE SACRIFICE WAS TOO GREAT! I BEG YOU! PLEASE-"

...damn, I was a LOT off...

"DON'T-"

I heard a distant 'ff-thwump' just as I reached the stairs leading down from the platform level. The shockwave alone was probably enough to pop the eye like a blister. But even if it wasn't... and it wasn't... there was still the payload:

Salt.

Silver slivers.

Giant eye.

The inhuman scream didn't last long, but it was enough to rattle my teeth in their sockets. The ocean sound came again... now accompanied by the sizzle of magic being introduced to its natural enemies. This time the not-so-gentle waves didn't stop at the shore... they kept right on going up the beach, swallowing everything they touched until finally-

-finally I couldn't resist, and I turned to look. Just in time to see Dermann Weir's eye split down the middle and erupt like a tortured blister. The sound was indescribable. The SIGHT was...

...strong stomach... strong stomach... strong stomach...

I got my helm off just in time to avoid having to spend the morning cleaning it. From my position, bent over on the stairs, I saw that the tentacles below me had ceased their writing and were now going about the business of quietly desolving into goo.

I could only not my head in silent, heaving approval.

It wasn't over, of course. There was the matter of investigation and clean-up. That would begin with another trip up the stairs to take a close, detailed look at whatever was left up there.

But I wanted to spend a few minutes in the fresh air before I did that. A few long minutes.

Making my way to the spiral staircase, I saw the remains of the book Weir had wanted to give me. I had to pass right by them to get to the steps.

I had come that close.

After all these years fighting the good fight and doing what needed to be done, I had come THAT close to falling for the most insane load of garbage I had ever encounterd... and that's saying a lot. Mages will say anything to save their lives. Weir didn't want to save his, but instead wanted something he thought was more important.

I believed him. I believed he THOUGHT he was telling the truth, but the things he was saying...? Such things simply weren't possible. Had he been a real mage, he may have known it. But since he wasn't... since he hadn't done the studying, but had simply been taught by someone with an ulterior motive... he actually thought he had a library full of books that would perfect the world.

And I had almost fallen in right behind him.

Undo the Fall. Give magic back to the world.

Right.

I'd have to burn them all. The books... I'd have to burn them to ashes, and then bury those ashes in a salt pit.

I knew just which one I'd start with.

I gathered all of the pages that had fallen out of Weir's gift and made a pile on the floor. I soaked them with a small container of fast-burning oil from my pack, and lit them. The sudden burst of heat flung a few of the pages off the pile, but the rest stayed put and burned nicely while I gathered the escapees. Not really caring whether the fire grew out of control or not, I stood back and watched lazily... still thinking about how close I had come to my own personal Fall.

I spotted a loose page under a shelf.

I'd missed it when I was gathering the others. I snatched it up and lit the corner of it from the fire still consuming its brothers.

As heat and darkness crawled upward from the bottom of the page, my eyes caught a few of the words near the top...

...then a few more.

And then a few more.

"Gods," I said. I flung the page to the floor and brought my boot down hard on the flaming piece of parchment.

Then...

Then... gods help me... I knelt down and began pulling the pages out of the fire.

[The End.]