Chapter 1

  "Hey, wake up, the bar's closed." The familiar face, carved with worry lines and decorated with a well-maintained mustache, scowled down at the unconscious tavern patron. Another one, Torsk thought as he observed the red-haired tavern owner pick the twenty-something-year-old man from a pool of stale beer and drool by his greasy black hair. "You alive in there, stranger?" the man asked, slapping the kid with a wet rag. At least he hasn't changed much, Torsk thought as he watched the exchange.

  "Yesh, sir. I jus'… I just need… to find Private Yorrel. I turned around for one second and…" His face distorted like a child on the verge of weeping as he hunted around the bar for his drink. The tavern owner released the man and sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. He had seen this far too often lately. Men returning from the war in body, but not spirit. "Look, settle down. I'll set you up with a bed, and we'll find your friend in the morning, okay? I'll fix you some broth, and I'll have my wife show you to a cot, soldier."

  The young man gave a wobbly salute as the tavern owner's wife, a woman in her late forties with dark hair and a streak of almost white hair, grabbed the soldier by the arm. "Alright, son, it's been a long night. A little broth and maybe a song will have you right as rain. Then in the mornin' we can have a chat, sound nice?" She winked at her husband over her shoulder to let him know she had this handled. She could see only one patron was left, and she knew the man liked to keep her husband up late on the rare occasions he blew into town.

  "Kind of you to keep doing this for all the strays passing through." "If only a warm bed and a bowl of broth were all it took to fix these men," Azry said, glancing toward where the young soldier had exited the room. "Sometimes I wonder if this is worse than when all we received were corpses." The tavern owner sighed and looked down at the floor. "I'm sorry, that was wrong of me to say, Torsk."

  Torsk raised his hand to quiet the apology. "I have made my peace and felt my grief. You owe no apology for letting your hurt show, Azry," Torsk said to the lean man, with his ring of red hair around a bald head. Azry nodded and turned back to his chores. "So, it's never just a social call. What brings you to my corner of the world at so late an hour?"

  Torsk moved with a quiet grace for a tall, older fellow with wisps of grey in his light brown beard. He always wore his hood up, which often caused people to give him a wide berth. He liked it this way, but he didn't like putting a friend ill at ease. He lowered his hood, showing weathered features of a man in his early fifties. He had scars and pale grey eyes, the color of a storm cloud. He slipped a dark leather glove into his pocket and gently unfolded a drawing of a man in wireframe glasses, noble dress, and short-shaved hair. "Has this man passed by? He uses the name Vyre or sometimes Oskyr."

  Azry took one glance at the drawing. "Oof, hard one to forget." He returned to his chores as he spoke. "He was a traveling doctor, nobleman too." Azry turned back after cleaning out a bowl. "Please tell me he isn't some kind of sicko. I had him look at a sore tooth of mine, and he fixed it up real good. I'd rather not find out I traded a sore tooth for some kind of warlock's curse like the old hens gossip about."

  If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

  Torsk chuckled. "Nothing so dramatic. Just tell me what you know of his time here. I'm just trying to catch up to him. It seems we may be pulling on similar threads." Torsk returned the drawing to his pocket and pulled out a pipe, filling it with a pinch of Gravleroot. "I don't suppose you're going to share what you're working on? Or how it's better than finding a good woman to settle down with? You're not too old, you know. Jaine has a cousin around your age. She makes these wonderful..."

  Torsk cut Azry off by blowing a puff of Gravleroot smoke at him. Azry began sneezing as Torsk laughed. "I knew you'd circle back to that old dead horse, my friend. And if you want to know what I'm working on, I'd advise you to stick to the topic. The night isn't young, and I'm hoping to be back on the road come morning."

  "Changing the flow of the unseen would be easier than changing your mind." Azry walked around the bar and sat next to Torsk. "He came with three other men, two guards and one assistant. He said he needed practical experience in the field and was gathering data for his thesis." Azry cleaned his ear with one finger. "He said he'd fix my tooth if I let him examine me. I saw no harm, and our local doctor is a prideful old man stuck in the past; he wanted to pull my tooth despite his apprentice's objections. So when he rolled into town, and I saw how he'd helped others, I asked for treatment. He was nice enough, very lost in his own head, and he took a lot of notes on my eyes, ears, nose, and throat, but not in any language I could read. I suppose he was trying to keep his work hidden from rivals? Anyway, he also inspected our well and spent some time on the edge of town. He asked questions about the town's health and other mostly normal stuff."

  Azry thought for a moment. "He had a lot of modern tools with him, stuff I'd only heard about. It was powered by Hygantium ore." Azry looked thoughtful. "From what I could tell, he seemed genuinely concerned with the town's well-being, but his thoughts were elsewhere. I doubt he meant us harm, but I'm not surprised to hear he was looking for something more specific. So, do you know?"

  Torsk took a contemplative draw on his pipe. "You know how precariously balanced the powers have been. Those wealthy enough to modernize their forces with breach-loading rifles and biomagnetic armor have been strong-arming smaller nations, even with the accords in place." He looked distant. "Fluxmancers have grown in power and influence, considering how essential they were in the war. Now everyone is looking for the next big break, an edge to break this war of quiet aggression we've slipped into. Peace is still a long way off, whatever the accords might say, and I think I've stumbled onto something that will set the stage for the next phase of conflict."

  Torsk reached into his coat and pulled out a vial of greenish-brown liquid. "I found a tribe of indigenous people wiped out in the fallout of the last shattering. They had a shrine in a cave set around a pool of this liquid." Torsk shook it a little, and it glowed slightly. Azry felt like he could hear a distant voice of dissent. "After I took a sample from the pool, I spent time hiding what I'd found. Afterward, I went to Umbrial. As you know, the old librarian there still treats me as a Lord, despite my lands being gone. The only tome I could find with relevant information had already been checked out a week ago and was yet to be returned. A comprehensive study by a botanist that lived in those mountains for years. When I traced who borrowed it, I found that it was a doctor of noble descent, but that he had been using aliases as he traveled. I was lucky enough to get this drawing from a scholar he spoke with," Torsk explained, tapping the drawing for emphasis. "All I know is I need to catch up to this man before... well..." Torsk pulled his other glove off, showing his hand covered in a slimy coating of the same brown-green substance.