The glow of the pyramid fades. Lictor releases my wrist and rubs the back of his neck. ”That guy has way too good hearing. Oh well. Three attempts left. I guess you didn’t get to kill any Kertharians that time?”

  I touch my throat. There’s obviously nothing there. Then I remember, and touch my forehead. There’s nothing there either! I smile but the smile freezes, as I remember thinking I would be sore for days. I’m not, at all. I move my hand back to my throat and feel my Adam’s apple bob as I swallow. ”Why… What happened?”

  Lictor chuckles. “You tell me. I was dead.” He winks, then the smile falls from his face as suddenly as it appeared. He sniffs and shrugs. ”Anyway. Time to go.”

  He’s already walking toward the door out of the hall. I let go of my throat to catch up to him. ”I mean, he killed me! And you. Why?”

  “People don’t react well to realizing they are not included on a Ride. Especially Mandollel. He has a high opinion of himself and doesn’t handle insults well,” he says. “The mole is gone though. I told you it would disappear, didn’t I?”

  He pushes open the door to the clerk’s office, before I have time to answer. The clerk looks up, surprised as always. He opens his mouth to speak.

  Lictor shushes him. He raises a finger into the air and wiggles it from side to side at the clerk while walking past him. His gaze is stuck on the floor, but he keeps talking. ”You didn’t insult him. In a way. You made him realize he’s expendable. Irrelevant. You essentially told him that you matter and he does not, in a way that can’t be argued against. He’s a prop you meet on a Ride, use, and leave behind. That’s a thought a person like him can’t deal with.”

  The clerk is watching us go with eyes wide. He doesn’t say anything. The quill lies motionless in his hand.

  Lictor’s cloak billows and flaps behind him as he marches ahead. I jog to keep up with him. When he’s at the door, he again gestures to open it, but stops. He stands in place, moving his mouth sideways and wrinkling his nose. ”I’m sorry. I should have told you how people can react. That was one of the first things we learned when starting to test out the artifact. One of the very first rules we laid down. But oh well, maybe the lesson sticks, now that you experienced it firsthand.”

  He walks in and drops to sit down on the couch this time. He lifts his boots on the armrest and lays his head on the other backrest. ”Remember to put the teratome gland in your pocket again.”

  I put my hand in my pocket. It’s empty. I’m only mildly surprised. Maybe I’m getting the hang of this. I roll a bit of lint around in my pocket and start talking to organize my thoughts. ”So… when I’m on a Ride, I can’t let anyone know? I can’t outright explain things they know I can’t know?”

  “That’s the rule.”

  “But… you explain things to me constantly?”

  He keeps tapping the toes of his boots against each other, gazing at the ceiling. ”That’s different. I have been on a Ride before. I’m not, now. Well, I am, but we’re on the same one.” He waves his hand as if to wipe away something unnecessary. ”The point is that you can’t let people know you’re on a Ride they are not included on.”

  ”Wait, how do I actually know we’re on the same one? What if you—”

  Lictor pushes himself upright and interrupts me with another wave of his hand. ”Don’t think about it. It’ll only make you doubt everything and drive you insane. There’s nothing that you could do about it or nothing that it would change.” He reaches for the fruits and picks up a pear. He’s about to bite into it, but raises his eyebrow and throws the fruit behind his back. He then looks back at me with a serious look. ”But learning for a fact that you are merely a prop on someone else’s Ride, that’s different. It’s an existential insult like no other. If you understand the concept of how the Mountain Ride works, it pierces through your very core. We avoid letting it happen. Out of principle and out of practicality. It ruins Rides, it ruins lives.”

  I pick up the spiky teratome gland from the table. It’s exactly where it always has been, approximately in the middle of the pile, slightly to the left. ”It doesn’t feel right not to tell them,” I say, frowning.

  Lictor is reaching to grab a handful of nuts from the table. He stops and fixes his beady eyes on me. The gaze doesn’t waver an inch. ”It doesn’t matter. Nothing on a Ride does. Reality matters. Our home does. The people there. We have a responsibility to them. To the people who will die, unless you stop the Kertharians tonight.”

  ”My name is Locke, as you already knew.”

  I repeat the same actions as last time. Somehow it makes everything feel more normal. I turn to watch Finna greet me and wait for Rworg to challenge her about the importance of what we’re doing. I try to keep it natural, but get the order wrong. I turn to Mandollel even when it wasn’t his turn to speak yet.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  His brow furrows. ”What is it?”

  I remember his from the last Ride and rub my face to cover how shaken I am by the memory. ”Umm, I was thinking about what Lictor told me about the Kertharians. He’s going to take us somewhere with a full camp planning an attack on a small village.”

  Lictor nudges his head at me. ”I’ve briefed Locke while we were on the way. He has a plan worked out.”

  ”Let us hear it,” Rworg says.

  I swallow. I stop rubbing my face and realize I did have a plan. ”Rworg will march into the camp to offer them a chance to surrender. They won’t take it, but it will draw their attention. I know that you can handle whatever happens next… as Lictor has told me about you.” I add. ”Mandollel, you support Rworg and pick off people where you can. I think that the non-combatants will also attack us. Even if they don’t look like a soldier, be wary.”

  Rworg makes a grunting sound. It’s probably an approval? Mandollel whistles. The sound is exactly like some bird’s call and I can’t understand if there’s some meaning behind it. I look at him with a questioning look.

  ”I’m willing to give it a try.” His tone is neutral. I can’t decide if he’s impressed, amused, or dubious.

  I turn to Finna. She’s glaring at me from under her brows and her tangle of dark hair. She’s much easier to read than Mandollel.

  ”I don’t know you, but I know that this is different from what you’ve been told earlier,” I start. She grunts in approval. ”But I need your help! We have the element of surprise and we know their numbers and position. I need you to—”

  ”Extra 200 gold coins.”

  My eyes feel like they’re about to bulge out from their sockets. For that amount of money, I could retire though I’m even not of age yet.

  Lictor’s face stays passive, but he turns slightly so Finna can’t see half of his face and winks at me. I rub my face to cover the smile I can’t hold back.

  “Agreed,“ he says.

  ”Deal,” she says.

  Rworg starts shouting. I have my arrow already trailed on the spot where the warmage should come out of his tent. I’ve tried to find the third warmage while waiting, but they are not anywhere in the camp. Finna is crouching next to me. She has a dagger in both hands. They look dirty, but sharp. The rest of the metal tarnished, but the edges shine bright. She’s going to run interference for me. I’m hoping she’ll catch the woman, so I don’t have to.

  The camp starts shouting. I take careful aim and watch the warmage exit the tent and raise his hands. I let loose the arrow. While it’s still in flight, I’m already looking for the next mage at the back of the camp. I don’t have to watch. The shot is easy. It’s better I don’t.

  ”Confident,” Mandollel says and bolts ahead. Even though I knew what he’d do, it still amazes me to see how fast he moves. I shake my head, but then I notice the silhouette of the mage. This time I have time to prepare the shot. It turns out the mage had been casting for a while, when I spotted them the last time. I still rush the shot so I can turn my attention to finding the last mage.

  Finna curses under her breath and moves forward. She doesn’t move as quietly as Mandollel, but I lose her the moment I stop focusing on her. It’s like she blends into the background, her dirty clothes fitting the dark greens and browns of the forest as she moves to intercept the woman coming at me.

  I finally spot the third mage. He rushes to the camp from the forest with a bag over his shoulder. Maybe he has been collecting something. I don’t know what a mage would be collecting and I don’t have time to wonder about it either. He’s closer than I expected. He must have spotted me right away on the first Ride. I nock an arrow and take aim. He stops as he sees me, which makes the shot even easier. I put the arrow straight through his throat, just below the chin. He grabs at his neck with both hands and falls back into the bushes with a gurgling sound.

  I turn back to the camp to avoid taking in more of what happens to the mage. Rworg stands in a pile of corpses again. There are maybe ten bodies around him. It’s ridiculous. How can anyone fight ten people and win? The rest of the camp is surprisingly quiet. I spot the occasional body, but there’s no active fighting going on. The woman who surprised me the last time lies still on her face some way away from me. I can’t see Finna anywhere. Mandollel steps out from one of the tents and flicks his sword in a sharp motion. He then pushes the blade back into the ring on his belt and it disappears into a blue glow. He slaps his hands together a few times and tosses his hair. There’s not a single speck of blood or dirt on him.

  Rworg, on the other hand, is covered in blood from head to toe. He shakes his head with downcast eyes and wipes the blood from his face with his huge hand. ”You’re finished?” he grunts.

  ”Yes,” Mandollel says. ”Locke handled the mages. Exceptional work. Finna is in the command tent, looking for something valuable.”

  I hear cursing from one of the tents. It’s the one the first warmage came out of, the largest one in the camp and made of finer materials than the rest. I keep my eyes off the mage and the rest of the corpses as I walk to the tent. I push open the flap and see Finna leaning on a desk. She has pulled open the drawers and left them hanging. Their contents are spread around the tent. Sacks have been cut open and papers strewn on the ground, dirty bootprints all over them.

  I approach her carefully. ”What did you find?”

  ”There’s more. A lot more. And they’re closer than what we were told. This is going to make getting through hell.”

  She’s looking at the desk and something on it. I inch to look over her shoulder and see a map as large as the table. It takes me a moment to understand the area it’s showing, but I finally recognize the part of the eastern border shown. The map has a collection of carved figurines placed on it, like pieces from some board game. There are nine camp-like figurines spread haphazardly on the map, all pushed right up to the border. More and more figurines are stacked deeper on Kerthar’s side of the border: infantry, cavalry, more tents.

  ”This is the Kertharian advance force,” Lictor says from behind me. He has appeared from somewhere and places his finger on a map next to one of the camps. ”We’re here. This is the smallest and the one nearest camp to our side. All these camps will launch attacks on civilian targets during this night.” He moves his finger from one figurine to the next while talking.

  ”Nine!” Finna screams. ”Forget this.”

  I hear the flap of the tent move. It could have been the wind, but it must have been Mandollel, as he’s now standing behind me.

  He rolls his shoulders back, cracks his neck. ”We’re going to have a long night.”