Exhaling as slowly as he could, Five backed carefully away from the talking mage, Cicera, and the camp cook who wore a Velspean Logistics Officer’s garb. He wasn’t certain of the large man’s name, but he knew Cicera was a stronger mage than himself.

  She had been keeping the entire camp under a veil of some sort for days now. She had told the cook that she would be holding the giant Glamour over them all for at least two more days as they had planned to move their people past the town of Garn’s Creek.

  Her accent made it into “Garness Krek.”

  Five liked the way her voice made the words jump and justle together, and the bouncing nature of her voice she said it.

  Five didn't know the town, but from the way the two had been talking about it, and its name, it was not a large place either. But, the camp wanted to keep hidden from the citizens of that town regardless, and so their resident mage would hold up this spell that shielded them as long as they needed. She may not have had Six’s vast and ridiculous reservoir of power, but she had at the very least Four’s ability level and stamina.

  His own Glamour, a light, subtle spell took very little concentration and less effort. But, then, he was covering the form and sounds of one small man, and not those of a moving army camp of some 30 soldiers and more, several horses, 3 lisks, and he didn’t even want to guess at what else he had missed. Even having Delved this camp, his mentors had drilled into him to never assume he had seen it all.

  That kind of laziness would get him killed.

  But, now he was here, and Cicera had told the cook that there was a wizard following the camp. Tracking them, and skulking around just outside of her range to properly Delve, much less to attack and overcome.

  At first mention, Five had thought he had been the wizard Cicera was talking about with such anger in her eyes. This, however, couldn’t have been the case though, because he was here in the camp now, and the petite wizard in the pleasant peasant dress said she could feel this mystery mage even now skulking about back to the East of the camp even now. Five had come at them from the South and West.

  With an effort, Five calmed himself and slowly backtracked the path he had taken into the camp. It was a much less harrowing ordeal than entering had been. Five was nervous about being noticed magically, though he was more concerned with someone, some detail oriented deserter, noticing his footprints after he had passed and his Glamour had allowed them to see the trail he had left.

  He had argued with himself over carrying a branch to whisk away his trail as he moved, which might also provide Five with a stick with which to swat an attacher with, but knew his short sword, issued to every Hamurian soldier, even those mages of the Phoenix Corps, would serve him better than a random leafy stick. Also, the idea of leaving a dust cloud created by trying to wipe away his trail, a cloud that would have followed behind him after he and the Glamour had passed through, was more concerning.

  So now he trod on the rockiest parts of the paths he could find, knowing the spell would hide the sound of his steps on the stony path, and attempted to move as quickly away as he could to think about what he had heard of their plans. And to consider what to do about this other wizard.

  Once he had passed out of the camp in roughly the area he had entered from, Five could feel the air about him release its pressure from around his temples. He hadn’t realised in his agitation as he entered the area of Cicera’s Glamour how much his own spell had constricted around his body. It was a phenomenon mostly the Theory Master, Master Tauber, at the Kuljat Amulajat had taught him.

  “One spell of A School cast inside the radius of another Spell of that same School will attempt to either pull apart and consume the smaller, interior, spell or it will put pressure on that smaller spell, attempting to …,” and here the elderly mage had grinned at his own wit, “... expel it!”

  Not many others in the class had gotten the little joke, And Five, himself, had refused to laugh. There were too many other Apprentices who wanted any reason to bully the slight, bookish boy, he hadn’t been willing to just hand them more reasons to mistreat him.

  Now that he was out of the larger spell’s domain his own spell billowed loosely about him in its freedom. It was now as though he carried a refreshing cloud of warm air from a pleasant hearth about him, rather than the cloying blanket he had thought he had been stuffed into these last few hours.

  With that, it was also now easier to think. Five slowed his pace as he walked further from the deserters’ camp, and tried to find the little hollow he had taken shelter in the night before. He needed to figure out the best way to keep these people from attracting too much attention.

  Attention to them, from either his country’s government or from theirs would draw attention to himself. That would destroy his plans to live out his days in peace and tranquility in the little, cozy stone home he had cut from the living rock of the peak where he had settled.

  Five didn’t want to think of himself as a “hermit,” as such; but the idea of living alone for the first time in his memory appealed more than he might like to admit. He had entertained romantic thoughts that only going into one of the surrounding villages every other month or so for the rest of his life would be… peaceful. He wouldn’t have to be “the smart one” of anyone’s Circle, wizards or otherwise. He would only study what he wanted and he would never need to be a tutor for another mage-apprentice who couldn’t figure out how to balance his spells against his Talent.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  On the face of it, Five thought his future as a… well, a hermit, looked good. As long as he could keep other people from ruining it all, and weren’t “other people” always exactly what ruined being a hermit?

  Five had found, after more effort than he wanted to admit, the small hollow in the trees by a stone outcropping where he felt safely hidden from both view and inclement weather. The fact that the skies looked calm only helped feed his sense of security.

  With a feeling of relief that startled Five, he slowly dropped the spell, shrugging off the Glamour like an oppressive coat on a day grown warmer than one anticipated. With the release of the spell came an almost jelly-legged collapse onto the ground in that little hidden space between the rocks and the sheltering boughs of the heavy limbed pines. Leaning back against the bole of one of the trees, Five pulled out his waterskin, and took a long, slow drink.

  He wanted tea.

  He wanted tea, and to put his feet up.

  He wanted tea, to put his feet up, and to wrap a blanket around himself as his fire crackled away in the little hearth of his mountain home.

  What he had was water, some dried fruits, and some dried and salted meat strips, and the shelter of the stone outcropping above him and the thick, bristle laden branches of the pines that kept the wind off of him. It would have to do.

  For now.

  His heart slowed as he sat and ate dried bog-berries, and drank more water. Five knew he had not exerted himself enough to risk asolgee, but the fear was always there for those as low on the power scale as he had always been.

  The sour flavor of the dried berries was invigorating, and he thought about all he had seen and heard white in the camp as he slowly chewed the little tart berries to a pulp, occasionally sipping more water. These people were moving fast, but they were also being followed.

  He needed to find this other mage who was also following the deserters. See what they might be up to, and what threat they posed to his secrecy.

  Five wondered what would have happened had he just stayed on his mountain and let the deserters pass by without coming down to poke about. Would they have just moved on, and become someone else’s problem? Would those problems have landed far enough away to not affect him? And who was this other mage? Would THEY have found his home?

  HIs problems were rated, in his estimation, as the Humarian Army, the Velspean Army, this camp of deserters, and this mage.

  The first two would always be there, and he could not change that.

  The third was actively trying to leave this region, and would be a problem that solved itself, if left to it and not interfered with by the first two factions. This fourth faction, that faction of this single trailing mage, might be a part of either the First or the Second, and may bring absolute chaos down on both his own head and those of the camp of Velspean deserters.

  …that fourth guy is an issue I can’t just let be… at least until I know HIS plans…

  With that thought, Five resolved to find this other mage.

  His attempts to keep his life simple and risk free meant, oddly enough, that he would need to seek out this OTHER source of chaos and strife. He would need to either neutralize the mage, or send the mage at the deserters, and let them do it. This would hopefully bring his worries back down from the four that were alarming him constantly now back down to the constant background worries posed by the two warring kingdoms that surrounded him.

  Five suddenly missed his family.

  “You want to live the life of a person who …is not.” The Elder Hearainan leaned slight;y forward as he spoke, trying to see something in Wallan that would explain his incomprehensible, to the Hearainan people at least.

  “I have had to shed my former life, to save the lives of others. People for whom I care. And many people I have never known. But, by doing this, living my new life, in this particular way, I can do even more good. Good for me. Good for you. Good for your granddaughter.”

  Crissho looked back at his people, gathered at the edges of the mill’s yard, just outside of the lift of the various flickering torches. “There is a price for what you propose. And a price deferred carries …” He spat a quick phrase at Beatheag, who answered in the soft, rapidfire language of the Forest Tribe. Wallan had known at least three Masters who would have loved to study their language; one of whom would have allowed the Hearainan to live through the experience.

  Crissho didn’t like Beatheag’s response, and pulled a face, Beatheag pointed at him angrily, and spat another rapid sentence at her grandfather.

  Crissho made a broad shrugging motion with his wide shoulders that caused his robes to swish and sway with emphasis, then turned back to Wallan. “Interest? Interest is the word my granddaughter says applies here. You pursue this course and there will be a cost, and that cost will ‘accrue interest’ the longer you live this life. Are you prepared to pay this life what it demands?” He held up his wide, long fingered hands, and made a stacking gesture.

  “Let me be who they think I am, so I might be who I need to be. For myself, and if I can be the me I need to be, I can be this for you, and your people, as well.” Wallan spoke haltingly, as the ideas solidified in his mind with the act of voicing them aloud. He then smiled, remembering the story they had told him the night before. “If I am to be buried, let them bury me for my actions to help more, not their fears that would help none.” It was an awkward phrase in Hamurat, but it sufficed for now.

  “Ah, let us look at this another way for a moment. Why should we?” His gesture encompassed all of his people in attendance. “Why would we play this game on your behalf?” Crissho asked, his head tilting in the moonlight, the light of the flickering torches reflecting in glints and flashes on his pronglike antlers that protruded from beneath his hood.

  “You want the people of Caerly to know you didn’t raid this mill. If they continue to think I am the nephew of the woman who died with her husband here, and I don’t think you raided the mill, this will carry more weight with many of those people. It will change their minds, and that will work to change other minds; it is a longer game, but it would make them rethink who their enemies might actually be. And who their allies are. It wont work on all of them, but, as I said, it will sway some, and those will influence others.” The walking stick that was helping to hold up his weight was beginning to creak as Wallan more tightly gripped the rough wood.

  Long, aquiline features of Crissho’s face creased in concern, his deep, dark eyes shining with what Wallan would have guessed might be unshed tears. He wasn't sure if those tears were in concern, gratitude, or if they were in frustration with Wallan’s inability to understand the Elder’s point.