Chapter 6

When the pair rushed back into the hall, they saw mountains of black corpses before them, still growing as Lekh and Mekh swung their gigantic flamberges.

“Damn, there’s no end to them either!” Sovt cursed, cutting down another creature himself. “You two, fall back!” He pointed the adepts toward the exit.

All four of them dashed for the door. But once they were outside, they quickly realized that their plans for retreat would have to change.

Magnol was simply crawling with black creatures, tearing the locals apart like bloody clumps of cotton. Screams and shrieks echoed throughout the area, while rivers of blood flowed through the streets like rainwater.

“Damn you, Lacilius!” Yan cursed, kicking the nearest corpse of some merchant.

“Who?!” Sovt asked in surprise, skewering another monster on his blade.

“The necromancer! The necromancer!” the rogue replied, deftly dodging the creature’s clawed paw. “Listen, Sovt, what do we do?”

“And the famous rogue Yan Di Wonderwalk is asking me that?” the knight wanted to reply, but kept silent.

Even with the circumstances having changed so abruptly, they still had one way to escape. However, if he used it, he would violate one of the main tenets of their Order and would be practically useless for some time afterward.

But better to be half-dead for a while than dead forever, right?!

“Lekh, Mekh!” Sovt blurted out by force of habit, addressing the adepts.

Surprisingly, they responded to his call.

“Cover me! I’ll teleport us as far away from here as I can. But know that after this, I won’t be much use for quite a while! Taking care of the rogue and our further journey will fall to you!”

The knights nodded in agreement, moving closer to their master. Yan automatically followed their example.

“Well then!” Sovt roared, driving the energy blade straight into the ground before him. “Everyone, grab onto me!”

A bright blue flash erupted for a moment in the middle of Magnol’s square, causing a powerful explosion that hurled the nearest monsters backward.

When the light faded, the group of four was already gone. In their place remained only a black crater and emptiness.

The hapless travelers reappeared several miles from the village, at the edge of a forest.

Yan threw up. Lekh and Mekh were visibly swaying, bracing themselves against the ground with the blades of their swords.

Sovt, however, had it worst of all.

Knights of the Blue Paths traveled from world to world with little difficulty. They had been taught to do so from a young age, from the moment they first joined the Order.

But traveling within a world was anything but easy for them. Only true masters—or true madmen unafraid of the consequences—were capable of it.

Which of those two Sovt was was hard to say. But after the teleportation, the knight collapsed to the ground as though his legs had been cut out from under him. The blue glow of his blade immediately went out, while heavy breaths began tearing from his chest.

“I-I-I’ll s-s-sleep for a b-bit…” were the last words the knight managed before passing out.

That was the price of breaking the dogma.

The sun lazily rolled out from behind the horizon, bathing everything in shades of pink. Morning birds sang. Near the edge of the forest, a thin wisp of smoke rose from a small campfire, beside which three people sat.

“All right, all right, my turn now!” Yan said. “So how old were you when you joined the Order?”

Lekh, sitting across from the rogue on his right, raised three fingers. Mekh, sitting across from the rogue on his left, raised five.

“What? At that age? Man, they really don’t go easy on you at all!” the lad declared, taking a sip of wine from a leather flask.

And where had he even managed to get it?

Now it was the adepts’ turn to ask a question. It was a peculiar sort of game meant to build “more trusting relations.”

Mekh raised an old notebook, where question number “4” read: Why is Archbishop Kont Dyu looking for you?

“Oh, that’s a long story,” Yan waved it off. “I just kept getting in his way too often. You know how that goes, don’t you?”

Both adepts shook their heads in unison: no.

“What do you mean?” Yan sighed. “A guild’s reputation drops if things keep going wrong for them. In Kont Dyu’s case—assassinations. Prestige drops, clients start running away. Business suffers.”

Mekh raised his notebook again. Written there was: “So how exactly did you ruin his business?”

“Well now,” the rogue said, thinking of how to say something close to the truth, but not quite. “Let’s put it this way: the guild was hired to kill one big shot from the Magical Vault. And it just so happened that I knew that guy personally. That’s how the interests of the great me and Kont Dyu collided.”

Mekh and Lekh nodded simultaneously in understanding.
Yan took another sip from his flask, apparently satisfied with his explanation.
What a confession indeed.

“Ooh-ooh-ho-ho,” a groan suddenly came from somewhere to the right.

“Oh! Our Sleeping Beauty is finally awake,” Yan remarked, nodding toward Sovt. “How are you feeling?”

“Awful,” the knight rasped, still unable to move so much as a finger.

“And how long are you going to be like this?”

“A couple of days,” he replied.

“O-o-oh.” Yan grimaced. “So Zolotoros will have to wait?”

“No,” Sovt groaned, nodding to Lekh, who quickly understood and helped the knight sit beside them, leaning him against an oak log. “The mage cannot wait. We have to leave right now.”

“How?” Yan asked sceptically. “Am I supposed to conjure you a flying carpet?”

“Can you?” Sovt asked sarcastically.

Yan wondered: could he?

You never know unless you try.

“Hm, who knows,” the rogue finally replied with a shrug. “But since you hired me, it would be a sin not to try!” Yan abruptly stood up and began waving his arms through the air.

Sovt, Lekh, and Mekh looked at him as though he were insane.

“VOILÀ!” Yan finally declared, pointing toward the road, and…

“Damn, what a lucky bastard,” Sovt thought with a smile.

A large three-wheeled magical wagon was coming straight toward them along the road. Smoke from liquid mana billowed from its pipe, while the faces of mages could be seen inside behind transparent blue glass.

Yan cheerfully waved to them and hurried over.

Lekh and Mekh took Sovt under the arms and followed.

The rogue stopped the wagon.

The blue glass opened, and the rogue announced:

“My dear sorcerers, would you happen to be heading to the capital of this world to visit Triverd Academy and its famous Ahu... or Ahar Library?”

A pair of rather eccentric mages stared back at him. One wore a pointed hat, had a beard reaching all the way to the floor, and a crazed look in his eyes. The other wore a pink robe, had a completely shaved head, and looked like a shriveled, evil morel mushroom.

“What? We-ell, actually, we are,” replied the mage with the enormous hat on his head. “Who’s asking?”

Yan grinned from ear to ear.

“My name is Lim Lucius Leadastray! My humble companions and I are travelers between worlds. We study magic and every possible manifestation of it!”

“Ah, magic scholars?” the mage in the hat nodded.

“Exactly!” Yan declared. “Only there’s one problem: all our belongings and our transport were left behind in the village of Magnol, which is currently overrun with monsters!”

“Saw it, slap-dash,” the bald, shriveled mage chewed out the words and spat them. “When we passed by.”

“A terrible sight!” the mage in the hat threw up his hands.

“You can say that again!” Yan agreed. “Which is exactly why I would ask for your help! One of our companions was badly wounded while we were escaping. We won’t make it to the capital on our own.”

“What do you say, give them a ride, Chadun?” the mage in the hat asked his neighbor.

“Do whatever you want, Morik, slap-dash,” the second mage replied roughly again, spitting straight inside the wagon’s cabin. “Just don’t regret it later.”

“Hop in, my fellow guerrillas! We’ll be in the capital, Aradeyn, in a couple of hours,” Morik told them.

“May the Gods of Concepts keep you, gentlemen!” Yan concluded solemnly.