I had no right to be out when I was, and I knew it.

Truth was, neither did Leariad, and he knew it too.

The sun had already arisen when I saw him appear out of the misted horizon. He was holding something in his left hand that closely resembled a stick of some kind and a long, black iron pole in the other. No, a pike, with a sharp point at the end for killing things.

He was bleeding, or at least there was blood on his cloak. Whether it was his or another’s was another story entirely. A story I didn’t want to delve into at this particular time, so I let him off slightly, for now at least.

In the clear morning light, crisp as an autumn’s apple, my master’s appearance was somewhat paled, faded almost, like some part of life and existence had slowly drained from him.

“You’re late,” I said, matter-of-fact, a sly grin creeping into the curve of my lips. “The only ones in this world allowed to be late are wizards, strange and old and twisted that they tend to be.” I looked him over.

It clearly wasn’t his blood, no. This was black, black as the shadows in a forest at night, with a certain eerie sheen to it, splattered across the front of his cloak. I wanted to say something about it, but he didn’t look particularly keen on explaining the details that occurred the previous night, and I wasn’t overly keen on pressing him. I’d seen him angry, and it was truly a sight to behold, one that I wished I hadn’t. It had unfortunately changed how I saw him.

Leariad brushed his hands off as he laid down the pike and stick, wiping the hair from his dirtied face, streaked with thin lines of black and soot. “Chapter seventeen,” he began saying, somewhat offhand, as if he wasn’t just standing there with blood on him. My eyes fell, because I already knew what was coming. “The currency conversions and origins of Elb. Have you finished reading? If I remember you were supposed to be finished by the morning.”

I put on my best lying face, which wasn’t terribly clever for that matter. “Yes.”

“Then enlighten me, would you Keadn?” he prompted, sarcasm creeping into his voice. “Say you have fifteen steel wights and wanted to convert them into Anturan Royals. How would you go about it, and how many royals might you have at the end?”

I bit my lip. Truth was, I had no idea. I quickly thought of something clever and logical, strung it through the gears of my mind, thought for a long second, quietly, then aloud, and rattled off a number. “Thirty-three and three fourths.” I said it as confident as I could, without being cocky of course.

“Wrong,” said Lear, disapproval in his words, but a quiet recognition that almost said he expected it. “If you were converting them into Gold Common, then I’d have said excellent, well done! However, since you were not, I must say you failed.”

I remained silent as Leariad pressed forward. “The steel wight, delving into your infinite knowledge of Elbish lore, who began to first use such currency?”

I racked my clogged and untidy brain, digging up some useless information I had heard a couple years ago. “A certain tribe, I want to say…the Eberiq…no, the Haeriv. Yes, the Haeriv tribe used to settle high in the mountains, and when they were mining for iron…”

“I shall expect answers of some degree of intuition later tonight,” Lear interrupted, holding a hand up nonchalantly. “You are to read Chapter Seventeen again, and this time use your eyes to read instead of yours ears. I have found it works a lot better.”

With that, Leariad turned his back and made his way toward the Elderway, the wooden structure grey and washed from rain and snow.

He stopped at the door and turned back to me. “We leave at second bell. Make sure the wagon is prepared and Timber and Timbre are properly saddled.” The door closed behind him and I was alone once more.

The sky was clear and cloudless, the trees bright with color, dancing in the soft breaths of wind: a perfect autumn day. I set to work soon after admiring the brief beauty, as moments after I finished saddling Timber and Timbre up to the wagon, unlocked the wheels, and threw back the canvas covering, the weather had taken a dramatic shift. Almost like lightning, the clouds rolled in, black and foreboding, the air chilling to an almost frigid temperature.

Staring up rather stupidly, I was caught off guard by a familiar voice nearby. “Keadn! I found it! I found it! Come one, you’ve got to come with me! I’ve got to show you! I’ve got to.” It was Bran; the voice was too high to be anybody else’s.

He was a small figure, barely up to my shoulders, with straight blond hair and a boyish, innocent look about him that made it nearly impossible to be mad at him. I laid my hand on his shoulder.

“Got to show me what?” I asked him, unaware of the situation before me.

Bran perked up. “Where I saw the faeries!”

“Faeries?” I asked him, looking confused, as I was.

“Yeah, faeries!” Brain continued, full of happiness. “Remember, you asked me to show you one of the town’s secrets. I found you faeries!”

I remembered now. Every town Lear and I stop at, I ask one of the children to show me their town’s secrets. I like to think of it as a culture study, when of course it is just to appease my intense curiosity. Either way, I usually receive details of where the prettiest lady bathes herself, or where the old man supposedly sleeps, or where the smithy makes fancy weapons, or where the innkeeper keeps his cider, but never anything concerning faeries. No, this was new.

Before I could say anything, Bran was off and running, away down the narrow dirt track, rutted and pocked as it was. “Down here! Follow me!” he cried, a smile prancing across his face. I had no choice, so I followed, kicking my feet off the dirt and running after the little boy.

He took me past the last wooden home, the thatched roof falling through, and into the woods nearby. There, we followed a new stone trail, rolling down the gentle slope to a small, quiet stream. Before I could cross, he stopped me, and pushed me behind a large oak tree and began whispering.

“Over there,” he said, pointing.

I followed his finger and was surprised to find a boy. I told him it was a boy, but apparently I was wrong.

“No, no, no,” he said hurriedly. “Look!”

I looked hard, keeping hidden behind the tree. On the crest of a hillock, crowned with willow trees, there was the boy. He wore a white shirt and green pants that cut just below his knee. His hair was black as the night sky and his face was pale as the moon, seemingly glowing. He was dancing.

“He’s a faey!” Bran said. “Faerie-folk, you know, the ones in all the old tales and songs. The ones that can freeze your breath before you speak; the ones that can speak to trees, the ones that sleep in blankets of pure shadow and starlight, the ones that have voices so sweet they can burn your ears. Faey!

“I don’t quiet know what he does here, but he’s always in these woods, and always alone; never at night though. I looked for him as soon as you went off to bed last night. He’s strange, as the faey are.”

I knew a bit about the faey. Lear had told me countless stories about them. They were all different. Some said they were demons, like to rip out your soul and eat it dry if you saw one. Other tales said they would sing you ancient hymns in their ancient language and tell you stories of Nevrast and Eldur, the lands beyond the mountains and the sea. I didn’t really know what to trust, but this one didn’t seem the type to rip out ones soul.

I was about to ask Bran a question about how he would get back up, when I accidentally stepped on a twig. It wasn’t one of those flimsy ones that snap with the gentle grace of ones fingers. No, it was one of the ones that split your ear in half.

It snapped, loud and clear, like a sword through butter it ripped the calm and serene silence of the woods. I stopped still as stone, frozen in fear, my ribs fighting to keep my heart behind them.

Then the faey-boy stopped dancing, and turned toward us, and I, looking a ripe fool, my shoulders arched in suspense, foot still over the broken twig, sunlight pouring over me, stood for him to see. For some reason, I stared directly into his eyes. They were sharp as swords, and purple, fair as lilac, yet deep as violet petals, still cold somehow, and distant, as though they saw things I did not. They made me shiver slightly.

The faey-boy began to walk toward us, down the slight hill and through the trees, his soft, weightless feet dancing over the rainbow of leaves. I say danced, because even though he had effectively stopped dancing, he still walked with a certain grace, and litheness that I though magical. He crossed the stream without touching the water and stood before me, taller than me, his face truly glowing like the moon, black lips pursed. I felt his intense gaze study me, felt them penetrate my body, my helpless soul.

I began to think of the nonsense stories about the faey. I began to feel my throat freeze, feel as if I couldn’t speak. I began to feel cold inside, like my soul was vanishing as I stood there.

The voice that flowed from the faey’s mouth was like cold, thin honey. “Eviet rhivi ai laieram.”

I heard Bran inch down to his knees and hide himself.

“Why do you wish to watch me dance?” asked the faey in a voice of silk.

I didn’t say anything. I didn’t know if I could. It was a strange feeling, like when you are parched and struggle to swallow, but this time, it hurt.

“I will not harm you,” it said. “If you do no harm me.”

I heard my voice squeak through my frozen throat, barely audible. “I will not harm you.”

“Ieria,” said the faey, “because I do not wish to harm you.”

My thoughts returned with my voice as a calm wave of protection swirled about me. “Why are you so far from your home?” I asked him, curious. “Why are you so alone?”

“The maeirar,” he said. “The demons.”

I thought of Lear almost immediately--the black blood. Everybody knows demon blood is black. “They’ve come from over the mountains,” I thought aloud.

The faey nodded and began to sing, tenor sweet and lurid.

“Ereniu isnar ele tirria,

Siere ae sore,

Omei ele mere aeniae.”

He looked me in the eyes. “There are many dark things in this world. There are many secrets, riddles hidden in the dark. Be wary of them. Beware their folly.”

The faey turned his back and drifted back across the stream, dancing his way atop the hill once again, beautiful, and elegant, and charming. That was the first time I saw the faey. It would not be the last.

***

I spent the night in the Elderway Inn, reading. I had made it a point to finish Chapter Seventeen before dawn broke. It took longer than I had hoped, or wished for that matter. For one, I was tired. Not the kind of tired you moan to your parents about when you go to bed, but the kind of tired that strips all energy from your limbs, from you mind most of all, and leaves it ablaze with pain. And I was tired from thinking about the encounter I had with the faey-boy. I rung my mind ragged thinking about him, what he was speaking, what he was saying, what he sung, why he was dancing, and why he was so dreadfully alone.

By first bell, with nothing more than an hour of sleep in me, heavy bags rested under my eyes and a deep blanket of mental fatigue gnawed at every inch of me. It was a miracle I even arose from my bed.

I peered out the window with my bleary eyes. The sun wasn’t anymore than a sliver above the horizon, dousing the room in a cold grey light, shadows pooling in the corners. I picked up the brown leather-bound book at my bedside.

Then I went searching for things I shouldn’t.

Curiosity is a marvelous thing, sometimes. Most of the time though, it is anything but. It kills innocent cats, feeds upon the weak-willed, and, chiefly for myself, gets me into more trouble than anyone deserves.

After inching my way slowly down the creaky wooden stairs and across the empty taproom, I found the road. In the night, the dirt path was barely recognizable; a mere sliver of trickled salt across a black table. Besides that of the pale white moonlight, no more than five lanterns burned with a warm red light, the flickering pool consumed by night’s enveloping cowl.

I passed the last house on the road as a gentle rain began to patter on my shoulders, making my cloak heavier. I stopped suddenly, my eyes following the dirt path into the deep dark, the rain tapping my shoulders like an annoying child whining for attention. Only I was the child.

It was a sign I should not have kept going. In hindsight, I so dearly wished I had turned around, walked back to the Elderway and waited for Lear in the taproom like the good boy I was supposed to be. Everything would have been so much simpler, so much easier.

Instead, I walked blindly, and with a fair degree of stupidity, into the forest, chasing things I had no right chasing. I was not the good boy I was supposed to be, and I hoped Lear knew that.

***

The forest at night is a strange place.

One would think it would be quiet, eerily silent, the deep shadows muffling any sound of life or motion. Quite the opposite is true. Loud and restless is hums, engulfing your footsteps; as when most of the outside world sleeps, the forest is alive. Alive with the voices of a thousand songs, all in chorus, all struggling to be heard.

I reached the small stream in little time, which I attributed to my unease, something that can take a man somewhere much quicker than he ever expected or intended. The water ran black and silver, sliding easily over the smoothed stones and choked leaves without little more than a gentle hiss that was nearly drowned out by all the other sounds amplified through the resounding quiet.

I saw the branch I had stepped over, hearing in my head the snap and my heart jump into my throat. With a wry expression, I grabbed it almost wistfully, pouring over it for some strange reason. I dropped it almost immediately once I heard the voices.

I shuffled over behind another tree, this one a birch, and laid my back against it, my heart thumping. I craned my neck around the trunk, but there was nothing, just the encroaching darkness. Upon the hillock, crowned with juniper, the faey-boy wasn’t there. The voices rushed through the forest again, this time quick, and like arrows through the air. They were speaking Anturan, the common tongue. I caught two words, mindless words, but Anturan nonetheless. I was certain it was not the faey-language.

Once more, I must repeat, curiosity is a marvelous thing. Just not for me. I followed the voices across the stream and up the hillock. On the other side, there was a ridge that led off into a steep slope. There were two people there I could see, the morning haze at granted me that much charity. One was quite tall, with a grey cloak wrapped about him, whilst the other was about normal height, fat, and garbed in all to expensive fabrics to be from anywhere nearby. Raenish, probably, I thought silently. That was the closest city in Lent that offered that much fashion. Still though, it was a while away, some ten leagues, to be out on a midnight stroll through the woods.

I approached as quiet as I could, keeping my footfalls light and lithe, checking the ground about me before I stepped. I knew one false move could reveal my location. There was a fallen tree far enough to be out of breathing distance, but close enough to hear them talking, so I slipped deftly under it and waited, and watched, and listened.

The fat man was berating the cloaked one, that much was obvious. “A fortnight! I gave you a fortnight you bloody oaf. Two weeks, fourteen days…a fortnight! I asked you to relay the information and you give me this!”

The fat man threw a piece of crumbled parchment to the floor, and stepped on it. “I required better. I needed better. I needed the information concerning Lord Ribern in order to turn him in so that I could place Lord Eredal in control of the city.” He turned around on his heel, and I caught a glimmer of something golden on his clothes. It was a star, stuck with a spike, and bleeding. My throat tightened. Everybody knows the church’s mark. This man wasn’t just some rich, stuck-up noble from Raenish. He was a constable of Aylar, and the Anturan Empire…My mind went deadly blank, and my mouth went dry as sand. If I was caught…interfering with the affairs of the church…

I needed to get out of there, and quick. But the constable wasn’t finished talking. “You are to return to Raenish, and kill Lord Ribern, as I have found you can do nothing but. Arlian could have been an asset. We could have used him to overthrow Ribern.” The constable stopped and stood amidst the silence, adding his own. “You would do well to remember this is your last opportunity. Antur must find its way back into the world.”

***

I left as soon as I could, darting back through the awakening forest, over the hillock, across the stream, and up the hill back to the town. To say I had been scared would be telling it dreadfully short. Don’t ask me to explain it though, as it is the kind of fear you cannot tell through words. You just can’t, simple as that. You see, I didn’t know what was happening, what was going to happen. It was a blind fear, the worst kinds, for when you fear what you know, or think you know, it is no longer a threat.

All I knew was that the faey-boy was no longer there. It had all been for naught and folly.