SMOKE ON THE HORIZON

The morning started like any other in Millhaven, with Marcus checking the cattle for parasites and helping his grandfather mend the fence posts. The improved feed rotation was showing results. The cows looked healthier, and milk production had increased enough that his aunt Mara smiled when she counted the morning's yield.

"Strange ideas or not," she muttered, patting one of the cows, "these beasts haven't looked this good since before the drought."

Marcus was calculating how much surplus milk they might have for the next market day when he heard the commotion from the village center. Shouting, but not the usual kind. Not like children playing or merchants haggling. This was different. Urgent. Afraid.

"Big Tom!" Marcus called to his cousin, who was struggling to lift a stubborn fence post. "You hear that?"

Tom straightened, his massive frame making the heavy wooden post look like a stick. He cocked his head like a confused ox. "Trouble sounds. Go look?"

"We'll both go."

They dropped their tools and jogged toward the village square, where a crowd had gathered around four figures Marcus didn't recognize. As they pushed through the cluster of neighbors, he caught sight of the strangers. They were travel-worn, filthy, and hollow-eyed with exhaustion.

Their clothes were torn, their faces gaunt, and one woman clutched a bundle that took Marcus a moment to realize was a sleeping child. The fourth refugee, a middle-aged woman with graying hair, stood slightly apart from the others, watching the crowd with an oddly cheerful expression that seemed completely inappropriate for the circumstances.

Elder Aldwin stood before them, his weathered face creased with concern. "Start from the beginning, travelers. Slowly now."

The tallest of the three, a man with prematurely gray hair and a scar running from his left temple to his jaw, took a shaky breath. "My name is Faris of Thornwick, or was, before Thornwick ceased to be. We've walked for nine days to bring word of what's coming."

A murmur rippled through the crowd. Thornwick was two days' hard ride to the east. It was a prosperous town known for its skilled weavers and fair markets.

"Coming?" Elder Aldwin's voice carried a note Marcus had never heard before. Fear.

Faris's companion, an older woman with steel-gray hair, stepped forward. "The wizard Malachar has turned his eyes westward. His armies struck Thornwick without warning, but that's not the worst of it." She paused, her hands trembling. "The stories are true. All of them."

Marcus felt his stomach drop. Stories? What stories? In all his time in Valdris, he'd heard tales of distant kingdoms and petty wars between lords, but nothing about wizards.

He'd assumed this world was simply a medieval parallel to his own. No magic, just a different path of technological development. But the crowd's reaction suggested otherwise. Several villagers crossed themselves, and someone muttered prayers behind him.

"What stories?" asked Marta, the innkeeper's wife, though her voice suggested she already knew.

The woman's voice dropped to barely above a whisper. "He commands the elements themselves. We saw fire rain from clear skies. The earth opened to swallow our guardsmen. And the dead..." She shuddered. "The dead rose to serve him."

Several more villagers crossed themselves, and Marcus heard someone mutter "Blessed Maker preserve us" behind him. His mind raced, trying to process what he was hearing. Magic. Magic was real.

All this time, he'd been thinking in terms of economic systems and agricultural improvements, treating Valdris like a less-developed version of his own world. But these people spoke of magic like it was a known thing. Terrible, but known.

"Surely you speak in metaphors," Elder Aldwin said, though his tone suggested he hoped rather than believed. "Men can seem to command elements through clever artifice..."

"No artifice." Garrett's voice was firm, bitter. "I watched a wizard stride through our town square. The fountain stones cracked at his word. When town elder Morris raised his sword against him, the wizard turned the air to ice around the man. Froze him solid where he stood, then shattered him like glass with a gesture."

Big Tom shifted beside Marcus, his sharp intake of breath audible. "Frozen solid?" Tom whispered. "Like water in winter, but in summer?"

"Exactly so, large fellow." Garrett nodded grimly. "And that was merely his greeting. What followed..." He trailed off, unable to continue.

The third refugee, a boy who couldn't be more than fourteen, finally spoke. His voice cracked with exhaustion and trauma.

"General Koroth leads his vanguard. He's the one who struck Thornwick. He froze Morris. And there's whispers of others. A woman who commands beasts, another who..." The boy's voice broke entirely.

"Easy, lad," Elder Aldwin said gently. "You've done well to bring us warning."

Elder Aldwin's gaze turned to the fourth refugee, the woman who had remained silent. "And you, goodwoman? What tale do you bring?"

The woman stepped forward with a bright, almost cheerful smile. "Celestine, from Rockwall, darling. Terrible business, all of it." Her voice was warm and pleasant. A stark contrast to the trauma evident in the other refugees. "I was visiting Thornwick when the attack came. Fortunate to escape with these brave souls, wasn't it?"

Marcus frowned. Something about her manner struck him as wrong. The others were clearly devastated, haunted by what they'd witnessed. But this Celestine spoke with the casual cheerfulness of someone discussing a mildly inconvenient rainstorm, not the destruction of a town and slaughter of its people.

Marcus's grandfather, who had been silent until now, stepped forward. Despite his age, his voice carried the authority of someone who had lived through hard times. "How long do we have?"

"General Koroth's forces were still burning the outer farms when we fled," Garrett replied. "Nine days past. If they move as they did toward Thornwick, perhaps a fortnight before the first scouts reach your borders. Maybe less."

The crowd erupted in frightened chatter. Marcus heard fragments of conversation. Arguments about fleeing versus fighting, debates over where to go, speculation about whether the warnings were even true.

But his mind had latched onto something else entirely.

Magic was real. All his careful plans about introducing modern farming techniques and business practices suddenly seemed naive. How do you compete with someone who can command the elements themselves? How do you apply modern military strategy against someone who can raise the dead?

"Marcus." Big Tom's voice cut through his spiraling thoughts. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

"Maybe I have," Marcus muttered, then louder: "Tom, we need to get back to the family. Grandfather will want to discuss this with everyone."

As they pushed back through the crowd, Marcus caught fragments of the refugees' continued testimony. Details about the speed of Malachar's conquest, whispers about those with the Spark fleeing ahead of his armies.

Marcus glanced back at the refugees one more time and noticed something that made his skin crawl. While Faris and the others were surrounded by concerned villagers offering food and shelter, Celestine stood alone at the edge of the square, humming softly to herself and watching the crowd with that same cheerful expression. It was as if she found the whole situation mildly amusing rather than terrifying. When she caught Marcus staring, she waved at him with a bright smile and called out, "Lovely village you have here, darling!"

When they reached the farm, Marcus found his extended family gathered in the main room, having already heard the news from neighbors. His grandfather sat in his carved chair, the one reserved for family councils, while aunts, uncles, and cousins filled the space around him.

"Thirteen souls under this roof," his grandfather was saying. "Forty acres of good land, livestock that's finally prospering. Do we abandon all of it on the word of strangers?"

"Strangers who've walked nine days to warn us," his uncle Henrik pointed out. Henrik had always been the cautious one, the brother who advised against taking risks. "If even half of what they say is true..."

"If it's true, then running won't save us," interrupted his aunt Celia. "A man who can command magic will find us wherever we go."

Marcus hesitated in the doorway, watching his family debate their future. He realized something had shifted in his understanding of this world. This wasn't about farming improvements or clever business strategies anymore. This was about survival against something his modern world knowledge couldn't explain or counter.

"What do you think, Marcus?" His grandfather's voice pulled him from his thoughts. "You've been quiet since you returned from the village."

All eyes turned to him. These people looked to him for guidance, had grown to trust his "strange ideas" because they produced results. But how could he advise them about something so far beyond his experience?

"I think," he said slowly, "that we need more information. The refugees spoke of Malachar having generals, of organized armies. That suggests structure, strategy, patterns we might understand. But they spoke of magic I can't comprehend."

He paused, looking around the room at faces that had become so familiar, so important to him. "If we stay, we might lose everything. If we flee, we definitely lose the farm, but we might save our lives. The question is whether we trust these strangers enough to abandon our home."

Big Tom, who had been silent through the family discussion, suddenly spoke up. "Marcus goes, I go. Simple as that."

"It's not that simple, Tom," Marcus said gently.

"Is for me." Tom's expression was earnest, uncomplicated. "You've never steered us wrong yet. Made the cows healthy, helped the crops grow better. Yeah, that rodent trap last year was a bust, but it was something. If you think we should run from this wizard fellow, then we run."

Several family members nodded agreement, and Marcus felt the weight of their trust settling on his shoulders. In his modern life, his biggest responsibility was passing his college courses. Here, thirteen people were prepared to abandon their home based on his judgment.

"I need to think," he said finally. "And we need to hear more. Elder Aldwin will want to question the refugees further. Let's learn what we can before making such a momentous decision."

His grandfather nodded approvingly. "Wisdom speaks through caution. We'll send you and Henrik to gather more details. The rest of us will begin preparations. If we must leave, we'll need to decide what we can carry and what we must abandon."

As the family dispersed to their tasks, Marcus stepped outside into the afternoon air. The sky was clear, the fields green and promising. It looked like any other day in Valdris, but everything had changed.

Magic was real. A dark wizard was conquering kingdoms to the east. And somehow, Marcus was going to have to figure out how to keep his family safe in a world that was far stranger and more dangerous than he'd ever imagined.

He thought about his chemistry textbook back in his Chicago dorm room, about Tyler's complaints about his latest speedrun attempts, about the comfortable predictability of his college routine. All of that seemed impossibly distant now.

"Strange ideas," he muttered to himself, echoing his aunt's earlier words. "I'm gonna need stranger ideas than I've ever had."

The wind picked up, carrying with it the scent of smoke. Not from cookfires or forge work, but something else. Something that reminded him of the refugees' hollow eyes and the terror in their voices when they spoke of General Koroth.

Marcus looked toward the eastern horizon and wondered how much time they really had left.

Late that evening, after the family had finally settled into uneasy sleep, Marcus sat by the dying embers of the fire with his crude writing materials. He carefully shaved thin curls from a dry piece of birch bark, layering them until he had something resembling paper.

Using his makeshift pencil of ash and tree sap, he began making marks. Recording the refugees' words, the family's reactions, his own churning thoughts about this world that had suddenly become far more dangerous than he'd ever imagined.

"Day thirty-seven since harvest," he wrote in his improvised alphabet, making a small notch on a separate piece of wood to mark another day in Valdris. "Magic is real. Malachar comes. Family debates fight."

He paused, staring at the crude symbols that only he could read. In his modern world, he could research anything, discuss his fears with friends, seek advice from professors. Here, he was alone with knowledge that might save lives if he could figure out how to use it.

"No one knows," he whispered to the dying fire. "No one knows I live in two worlds, and no one knows if I'm losing my mind."