“I sure hope you don’t expect me to sleep out here,” he said to Sir Bearach, who opened his sack of beadhbh feathers to examine their contents.

“Well,” Bearach said, shooing away some flies that had gathered around the meat. “You can stay up and keep watch. If you’d prefer that.”

Farris certainly would have preferred that, but he answered as Chester. “I’ll take the first one, then, and I’ll sleep out the rest of the night.”

“Works for me,” the knight said. “You can take the first watch with Fionn.”

***

The meat wasn’t all that wonderful as far as normal food was concerned, but Farris gladly devoured his portion. Some of the other men grumbled, but there was no point. Unless they were to hunt down another beadhbh, it was likely this would be their last meal for the foreseeable future.

As they ate, the red Simian told bawdy tales of his drinking nights back in Cruachan. Farris laughed along with the others, though it was easy for him to pick out the lies in the story. Too much detail here, a strange description there… each anecdote served to make the Simian out to be the victor, and everyone’s words sounded too good to be real dialogue.

This one has a lot to learn, he thought, though he laughed along with the others and commended the storyteller on his conquests and campaigns amongst the female Simians of Cruachan.

There was little banter after that, and each made their way to their own camp-spots. Farris found himself left with the young Pyromancer named Fionn. They stared into the fire in silence.

“Did you make this?” Farris asked eventually, nodding towards the flames. “Did the fire come from your fingers, like before?”

The young mage sighed. “Nothing can ever be truly created or destroyed. That’s what all the masters said anyway. It’s basic Nature.” He pointed at the huge oak trees that stood like sentinels at the edge of the clearing. “Trees like those, they grow out from the ground. They take in light from the sun, nutrients from the soil, and water from the clouds. Then they just keep on growing. Up and up and up, until they drop another seed and it all starts over again. Nothing was created, I mean really created, but the very first trees and the very first seeds.”

“And who made those?”

“Lord Seletoth,” he said. “But I don’t know who made Him. I’ve asked before, but none of the druids I’ve spoken to ever gave me a good answer.”

“What about the fire?” asked Farris, watching as the smoke twisted up into the sky. “Where does that come from?”

There was silence, as the mage considered the question.

“The sun,” he said, eventually. “It takes light—sunlight—to make the trees grow. If you chop down a tree and apply the right amount of heat, then the power of the sun is released again. That’s what fire is. Pyromancers like me can manipulate fire. We can make it bigger, smaller, hotter, colder, but we can’t make it out of nowhere. If we could, we’d be able to make another sun, and it’d never be night again.”

The mage reached out to the fire and commanded it to sway back and forth as if it were connected to his fingers with invisible strings.

“As long as I carry a spark with me,” he said, causing the fire to shrink down into a tiny flame against the wood, “there’ll always be light.”

Each word Fionn said faded into the night, quivering with fear.

He’s only a lad. I was the same at his age. Afraid of most things dark. Farris reached into his pocket, found his vial of thainol, and tossed it to the boy.

“Drink this,” Farris said. “It’ll make you less scared, and it’ll warm up your insides. I bet you magic folk haven’t found a way to do that, eh?”

Fionn laughed meekly. He took a gulp and shook as he swallowed. “Gods be good, what’s in there?”

Farris laughed. “Why, it’s only liquid fire, forged by Simian hands. Here, watch this.”

When Fionn handed back the vial, Farris splashed some of the thainol into the fire. With a whoosh, the flames turned bright blue, crackling and raging more violently than before. The young Pyromancer almost jumped from his skin.

“That’s… that’s incredible! Where did you learn that? I mean, they never showed us anything like that in the Academy!”

“Aye, but they teach it to kids on the streets of Penance. On a cold night, a single spark and stolen bottle of thainol might be the only thing that keeps you from freezing. They call those beggar’s flames.”

Fionn smiled as he watched the blue flames dancing. He pointed a finger out to the fire, and the smile vanished from his face.

“I can’t grasp it. Are you sure this… this is truly fire?”

Farris laughed. “Well, I don’t think it came from the sun, if that’s what you’re asking. Who knows, maybe someday us Simians will make our own sun!”

Some time passed while they watched the blue flames slowly return to normal as the last of the thainol burned out. Fionn told Farris about the other schools of magic. There were Geomancers, capable of manipulating the earth itself, and somehow that even included wood, iron, and steel. There were Hydromancers, who worked with water, ice, and steam, and then there were Aeromancers. Fionn struggled to find a practical application of Aeromancy, though. He said that they used to be popular on ships, but that was before the Simians learned how to make engines that ran on steam.

As Fionn began talking about alchemy, Farris felt a gentle hand on his shoulder.

“Bearach and I are to relieve you two,” Sláine said, taking a seat beside him. “Chester, I want to examine your wounds again before you go.”

Fionn nodded to Farris as he passed, and Sláine placed her hand on Farris’s knee. Once more, he felt a soothing power resonate in his flesh, like thainol running through his veins.

Not quite sure where to look, Farris found himself staring at Sláine’s necklace as she worked. It depicted the three interlocking rings of the Trinity, and he felt a burning question slip from his lips.

“Why are you helping me?”

“You say that as if I need a reason,” the healer said with a smile.

Farris shook his head. “Seriously, though, why go through all this trouble to help a stranger? You risked your life to save mine. Why?”

“Well… I am helping you because you need help. I am tending to your wounds because I need practice in the mending of wounds. I protect the weak and heal the sick, because I took an oath to do those things, whenever it is in my power to do so.”

She leaned closer to Farris, her voice dropping to a whisper. “But why you? Why here? Why now? Because the Gods have willed it, Chester. I live my life in the Light of the Lady, and She shines Her light upon you too. I am only doing what I have been destined for. You may not realise it, but you, too, are bound by fate. We are trapped here because the ship crashed, and the ship crashed because there were imposters on board. Why that was, I don’t know.”

Because the king is delusional. Because he wants war.

The healer’s eyes met his, and Farris knew she sensed his apprehension.

“But,” he began, “if the Gods are watching over us, then why would they let something as horrible as this happen?”

He asked because he wanted to keep the conversation away from the motives of those who infiltrated the ship. Deep down, however, he was eager to hear how she’d respond.

“It’s fate, Chester,” Sláine said, casting her eyes up to the sky. “Everything that happens to us has already been fated to be. I can’t say what role we have in the Lady’s plan, but I have faith that She will lead us to happiness.”

Farris had nothing to say to that, but Sláine seemed to know what he was thinking. “But you don’t believe in fate, Chester, do you?”

He nodded, staring into the waning flames. “My choices are my own, nobody else’s. I’ve made lots of decisions in my life. Some I stand by, some I don’t, but nobody chose them but me.”

The healer smiled. “I used to be like you, Chester. Not a nonbeliever in the Trinity, but an advocate of free will. Of course, these choices seem like your own, but….”

She paused and closed her eyes, running her fingers through her dry, straw-like hair. “But then I met Catríona Ní Marra. She was the daughter of the Earl of Dromán, back when I started studying white magic. The Mage’s Academy looked out over the manor’s courtyard, and it was a common sight to see the little lords and ladies playing amongst the flowers. The Earl took ill during my first autumn there, and he passed away some weeks later.

“Shortly after he died, when winter had really set in, young Catríona fell from her horse and hit her head. It was quite serious. Her elder brother brought the unconscious girl to us, and we did everything in our power to save her. The master healer saw that she was still breathing and put us on shifts to monitor her condition through the night. Although there were three of us taking turns to watch over her, Catríona’s brother never left her side. Not even once.

“The Academy is an institute of research just as much as it is an institute of education. We were ordered to take records of everything we observed. There was no need, though, for I’ll never forget what I saw.