Boaz relaxed into his bed at the sight of Amais. He pulled his stump away from the healing acolyte sent to attend to him. The girl huffed, turning her eyes to Amais, signaling she was annoyed with her current patient.

  "It's alright, I will take it from here," Amais said with a kind smile, the girl nodded, shooting a scathing glare at Boaz who met her gaze with equal displeasure.

  "Tell me about the Tower of Wynd," Amais said, picking up the damp washcloth to clean the unwrapped bandages covering Boaz's stump. He wondered how the man had lost his arm, the flesh was healed in rough jagged strips reminiscent of something torn off by a wild beast.

  "It is the most difficult of the four treasures to find. Each tower is meant to impart some sort of knowledge, some wisdom from the realm of the gods they aren't so different from one another,"

  "So what did Wynd teach you?" Amais asked curiously, he smeared soothing oils and ointments on the skin, smoothening it out, this would be needed if Boaz was to be fitted with a prosthetic if he so chose.

  "As a cleric of Edain, it tested my faith," Boaz said after a brief pause, his stone gray eyes met Amais' gaze. "We are not men of wants, the tower sought to test that,"

  Amais looked away, screwing the caps back on the ointments and salves. He placed them back in their respective places on the infirmary shelves.

  "How was Gaius when you met him?" Amais asked, he tried not to be too eager but Boaz saw through him in an instant, the older man frowned, his face grimacing.

  "He does not want you to go to him Amais,"

  "I've said nothing about going to the Tower," Amais protested.

  "Yet,"

  The two stared at each other in tense silence, Amais willed himself not to interrogate the man lying pathetically in his cot. From the state of his body, Boaz had been a fierce warrior and even now he continued to be one.

  But that would not cowl Amais into silence.

  “He’s not waiting for you,” The man breaking the silence first.

  “He would want me to find him,” Amais said, pacing around the room restlessly. “If I know Master Gaius, he wouldn’t want me to abandon him!”

  “10 years in that tower would change a man, the desperation on his face would put anyone off going into the tower. Heed his warning young one. Do not go to Wynd.”

  “Why should I listen to the words of a stranger? I know him better than you do.”

  “You know the man who left you behind, not the man I met in Wynd. Not the desperate man, no. The man who without weapons would claw out the eyes of his enemies. You knew a teacher; I know a killer,”

  Amais clenches his fist, trying desperately to conceal his rage. Boaz was wrong, his master would never. Not Gaius, the teacher who taught him how to heal, who taught him that all life was sacred under the eyes of the Holy One.

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  Amais contained his rage, knowing Boaz was only trying to do as his master had told him. He changes the question.

  "How many demons had he killed by the time you two were acquainted?"

  "He was on his 200th I believe," Boaz said "You should know, that is no easy feat," Amais gave a single grief stricken nod.

  Above else Gaius had been a healer, one of the best. His teacher in whose footsteps he aspired to follow. The man deserved a long life after taking Amais in when no one else would. Giving him a chance when the world turned their backs on a heretic child.

  He owed bringing Gaius back to the temple safe and sound.

  “Why do you think people go to the tower Amais?” Boaz asked, interrupting his thoughts. The man moved his missing arm uncomfortably, prompting Amais to rush to his side and redo the tightened bandages.

  “I can’t say.” The cleric replied as he retired the bindings so they would be more comfortable.

  “Why do you think your master went to Wynd?”

  Amais stared down at his cleric uniform, crossing his arms in front of himself he looked away from Boaz and towards the window.

  “To prove his faith to the Holy One.” Although he was not quite sure, it was the answer he could think of at the moment.

  Boaz chuckles.

  "You know him better than that, you read the letter. What did he go to find?"

  "He was looking for someone," Amais frowned, he recalled his master's words about a cycle that must be ended, this couldn't be it.

  “Maybe you do know something about the man I met in that tower,” Boaz said, resting his back comfortably against the cot. “I’ve never known a cleric to enter the tower for riches, for fame, or anything like that. It’s always one thing.” He muttered.

  “I was like that too, I regret all the years I could never get back. I find myself thinking I should return, that there is nothing for me here now.” the stranger said sadly.

  “Why?”

  “I did not first walk to the temple after my escape Amais, to my home I first went. My siblings long since perished, my friends all but forgotten.” Pained eyes turned to Amais.

  “Where did the time go? I keep asking myself, a 100 years before I reached 500, and for what? To speak upon what I endured in the tower is to blaspheme against the Holy One. His eye is ever watchful but there is one place it does not reach.”

  A chill runs up Amais’ spine, if Master Anok was in the room with them Boaz would be charged for heresy.

  “I have to find him,” Amais said lowly but with conviction. He rested a hand on Boaz's shoulder, softening his gaze and trying to make the other understand.

  “He may not be alive by the time you reach the highest level,” Boaz said in warning once again.

  “Then I have to hurry, don’t I?”

  The injured man on the cot exhaled in pity, the urgency in Amais' prodding reminded him of someone once. A woman in the tower he would never see again. Boaz grumbled, brushing the healer's hand off his shoulder.

  “I’ll bring him back,” Amais declared to his audience of one. “On the Holy One, I swear it.” Boaz believed him, few had the conviction to enter the tower but it was not conviction the cleric before him lacked.

  The man on the cot studied the cleric, flicking his eyes up and down the cleric draped in white. Amais was strong of heart but he would need a weapon to see him through the tower.

  “I cannot change your mind, so I will say this. To even see your master again would be a miracle.”

  “I believe in miracles,” Amais said with a smile, Boaz had become warmer now that Amais had wormed his way past his tough exterior.

  Boaz laughed, short and amused.

  “I can see that. You know you remind me a bit of Gaius,” He admits. “I see where you get it from,”

  Amais beamed at Boaz’s words, taking any comparison to his master as a positive one and happy that on some level the other man approved of his quest.

  “Now sit down and I will tell you what I faced in The Tower of Wynd.”