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  Omer pressed his hands into the cool floor and tried to push himself up so he could take a drink. Even the small effort felt like he was trying to lift a mountain off its roots. He finally gave up and accepted as Taillus pulled him up to sit. The Magnia was cool and smooth, and the touch of it on his throat and lips was like being dipped in water on a hot summer day.

  Omer smiled. “I have never tasted anything so good,” he said, feeling his voice return.

  “Excellent, because you will not say the same for the next Will,” Taillus said. “No, no, do not worry, it is not dangerous, but it tastes quite awful. First, however, we ought to see if you have any immediate needs arising from your Cost.”

  “My Cost?” Omer said.

  “Yes, it will have taken hold by now,” Taillus said. “Unlikely though it is to impede your last Will, it is unwise to rush headlong into a new task when the last was so draining. Stand up!”

  Omer raised a brow to the request. “I’m not sure I can,” he said.

  “Nonsense, stand up,” Taillus said again, this time with commanding edge.

  Omer sighed but placed his hands once more on the floor. To his surprise, his muscles, though protesting greatly, obeyed as they lifted him up. The wracking agony of the Will to Stand was seeping away, water lost through an unseen leak, and in its place newfound strength was pouring. His muscles felt renewed, as if he had rested for many days, though there was a lingering prickle of pain that washed out of his limbs every now and then.

  “Does anything feel odd?” Taillus said.

  Omer looked about, tapping himself here and there, where just minutes before terrible evils had befallen him. All felt fine. Better, in fact. Each limb and bone felt as if it had been replaced by a brand new one, familiar and strange at the same time. It was only when a wave of prickly pain washed out from his chest and into his limbs that he grimaced. “I feel mostly fine,” he said. “There is an odd feeling that comes and goes. Not a wound but… like the memory of one. It comes and goes and comes again, painful but not overbearing. Is that normal?”

  “There is no normal with the Will to Stand,” Taillus said. “But what you say is not common. If I were to guess: this is your Cost. We will have Polis look you over later to be sure, but if that is the extent then I believe the last Will is safe.”

  Omer eyed the last Will, the Will to Hunt, where it sat on the table. “What does this Will do?” he asked. “Will it hurt?” He rubbed his chest where the washing pain sprouted.

  Taillus smiled and retrieved the flask. He set it in Omer’s lap. “No, it will not hurt. The Will to Hunt is untampered Mistveil, the sort that Magi spend most of their lives seeking, but whose ingredients only the Hunters cultivate. When you drink it, the brew will impose on your body a barrier to magic and mancy. It will not make you immune to a fire lit on your forehead, but you are more likely to come away without a burn than, say, a farmer in his field. It will hide you from distant scrying as well, though it will not be able to hide you from the eye near at hand. It will make you very hard to find through magical means, even by other Hunters.

  “You are not invisible, of course. A well-practiced hand could narrow you down, if given the chance, and I doubt you would escape the notice of a Nepharic; but the wandering hedgemage will be no more aware of you than a sleeping willow.” He tapped his nose then. “There are other benefits, but they are mostly unimportant, having to do with magical items or avoiding possession by greater minds. You will learn of them in time. It is, in short, a shield against those that wish you harm of the magical kind.”

  “It will not affect my ability to use the Mist?” Omer asked.

  “No. It is an internal ward, a grate over your mind. Water may flow freely through, but ice and rock, or hostile magics, will be caught and kept at bay. It is not impenetrable, of course; any grate will burst with sufficient force. If Ankor were to show up on your door and try to burn you away, he would likely succeed; but for the task of hunting Men and monster it will be vital.”

  Taillus waved a hand as if dismissing the potion. “Any Mage with enough years’ experience could mimic those effects, of course. The reason Mistveil brew is part of the Trial is for its most important, and most difficult to mirror, aspect. A Hunter, for the most obvious of reasons, cannot be allowed to… dwell after death. Wraiths are dangerous enough without having been En’shen in mortal life; how much worse if one of us should become such a monster?”

  “What does that mean?” Omer frowned. “Are you saying my spirit will… die?”

  “No,” Taillus laughed. “That is nonsense. You will not die. Well, not in spirit, at least. You will die in body one day, as all here will, but it will keep you from lingering when that day comes. This potion is suffused with Corpseweed, which you are no doubt familiar with. It would kill an average Man, but with your built tolerance and passing of the Stand, it will only taste… well, it will taste quite terrible, and there is nothing to be done for that. Once taken, it will bind your spirit to Beneath, the Land of the Dead, and when you die in body there will be no lingering malcontent; your spirit will be pulled there immediately. It is a safeguard, one made through long years of failures when Hunters battled creatures of their own making. We can ill afford to hunt our own mighty warriors anymore.” He stopped a moment, then raised a brow toward Omer. “This is not optional, once the third Will has been taken.”

  A wave of pain washed through Omer. He flexed his hands, trying to push it away, and grit his teeth. “I understand, Master,” he said through a wince.

  “Your trial is over then, Omer. Drink and join us, En’shen in full.”

  Omer raised the flask to his lips. The smell was strong, even more for his newly enhanced senses. He could separate the very base parts of the brew now, a sour and overpowering scent that seemed to punch up and into his nostrils, tinged by rot and the decaying sickness of Corpseweed. The texture was like gritted dirt mixed in water, foul and bitter, almost too much for his fresh awareness. A sensation of crawling slime slid drearily down his throat, causing him to retch, though thankfully not lose himself. He groaned. Then he frowned. He felt no different than he had before. “Did it work?” he wondered aloud. “I feel the same.”

  “You may feel the same, but we all see the change on your spirit,” Azod answered and stepped out from the Masters. “Welcome, Omer, Hunter En’shen. You have passed the Trial of Wills and with it the Testing of the Hunter.”

  Then Azod bowed to Omer, and behind him the remaining Masters bowed in turn, ending with Taillus near at hand. When they had all stood again, Azod held out his hand, by which he pulled Omer around the table to stand in their midst. Then each Master placed a hand on Omer, until he was surrounded by them. When each had a hand on Omer they spoke aloud, led by Azod, ‘Etar Menun ada, Gela’en’shen, The Trial ends, Hunter of the Star’. Then they stepped back and Azod produced from within his coat an emblem of iron shaped like a star. This he handed to Omer.

  “We will have that smithed for you soon,” Azod said. “We do not personalize them beforehand, given the nature of the Trial, but Koen is ever ready to inscribe a new signet for those who pass. Display it proudly. Few are the Men who earn such honor.”

  Omer held the star up to the dim candlelight, which now seemed bright to his enhanced eyes. It shone dull and grim, but to Omer, it was the most wonderful shine he had ever seen. “I will, Master,” Omer said.

  “Good, now go on and get rid of those bandages,” Azod waved towards the mess of wrap about Omer’s temple. “You will not need them anymore. I will come collect you in a moment. There is a final task to do before we announce your success to Shalim.”

  “Another?” Omer asked.

  “Do not fear, it is not difficult,” Azod smiled. “All En’shen must be tried by the Seeing Stone ere we admit them fully into the ranks. A final ceremony, if you will. But go! See how the Wills have undone your wounds. Your Trials are over and the Masters have their work.”

  ***

  Omer went i
mmediately to his room from the Chamber of Council. Shalim was empty. All the novices were pulled away to learning and tasks, it being just after noon, and of the few En’shen present, all were off on business or at least far away from the Chamber, as it was considered the highest form of rudeness to interrupt a novice’s Testing. He was not stopped or bothered by anyone along the way.

  Omer had only just finished unraveling his bandages and putting on a fresh shirt when Azod arrived with a knock. Omer drew open the door, expecting to find a retinue of Masters waiting, but Azod was alone, his hood thrown down to reveal his balding head glowing in the noon light. He smiled from behind his short gray beard.

  “Are you ready?” Azod asked.

  “Nearly,” Omer answered. He clenched his fists. The echoing pain of his Cost washed over, as it had a few times since he arrived back in his room. He winced, but it faded quickly.

  “Is it bothering you?” Azod asked. “The Cost, I mean.”

  “Some,” Omer sighed. “I feel oddly well beyond it, like every muscle and bone is more right than it has ever been, but the pain comes and goes and I cannot seem to ignore it yet.”

  Azod furrowed his brow and seemed to think a moment. Then he shrugged his shoulders. “Nothing to be done for that, I think, unless Master Polis has a remedy. Likely you will have to live alongside it, as most En’shen do with their cost.”

  “What was yours?” Omer asked. “I have never heard any En’shen talk of their Cost before, but now I cannot help but wonder.”

  Azod tapped his mouth lightly on the side. “I cannot taste,” he said with a grim smile. “Certainly not the worst Cost a Hunter has endured, but it has made me a terrible tracker. My sense of smell is damaged as well. Nearly useless in a hunt, though I was always a bit more capable of tackling Defiled than others. The stench did not bother me.”

  A shot of pain forced Omer to flex his hands once more, clenching and unclenching his fists. “I think I would trade for that,” Omer grimaced.

  “Oh? You would trade every fine chocolate in the world to get rid of a bit of pain?” Azod’s eyebrow shot up.

  Omer thought on that a moment. Finally, he shook his head. “Maybe not,” he said. “I do like food.”

  “As did I,” Azod said longingly. “Alas, no more. But do not fret. I am sure Polis will have something to help you cope. It is rare for a truly debilitating Cost to assail us these days. We have advanced far in our sciences. That will wait, though. You still have a task. Off to the Library.”

  Azod turned led Omer out of his room and along the western hall where wide windows looked out on the courtyard and let in the sun. The noonday light seemed unnaturally bright now, as if the sun had previously been hidden behind a blanket that was now thrown off. Omer found himself hiding his eyes with a raised hand, which brought a chuckle from Azod. “You will get used to it,” the Master said.

  They passed into the center of Shalim and the sun disappeared, hidden behind stone ceilings, replaced by dancing lamps that lined the hall and set aglow the wooden panels which replaced the windows. Azod waited a moment at the threshold, allowing Omer to adjust to the change in light, and when he felt enough time had passed he went on, walking down the hall for some ways until they came to a split in the path that led out into the antechamber of the fortress. They turned right along the angling. At the end of the hall was a small landing with another hall angled the opposite direction on its other side. At the top of the landing was a wide set of double doors, made of oak and iron, upon which runes were carved in an ancient tongue that few Men knew, being of the Romedun and reading Thual Emerar, or Place of Learning.

  Azod threw the doors open and waved Omer inside. The Library of Shalim was a huge, square section in the center of the dome, seven levels, each with a low ceiling only ten feet tall, and each lit by hanging chandeliers of silver and brass. The bottom level was for books on prophecy, dreams, and magic related movement, both between worlds and within them, but also for the more mundane items, such as a treatise on plants found only in the marsh of Sheven, or poems by poets no one outside of Shalim had ever heard. The Plainroom, it was affectionately called.

  In the center of the room were twin staircases that led up to the higher levels. Below the twin stairs was a long red rug that ran right up to the entrance and atop the rug sat many tables for students to use at need, all of them overlooked by the statue of a stoic Hunter made of white stone, holding a sword in one hand and an open book in the other. Omer always wondered who that Hunter was, but the statue had no name and none of the Masters could give an answer. ‘Older than I,’ they would say, and then no more.

  To the left and the right bookshelves ran in lines, separated by subject and filling the entire room, front to back. The smell of old paper always lingered, falling off the hundreds of opened pages that passed each day, tinged at times by the smoke of a candle snuffed out from yet another long session of study by a novice. Even the walls were fashioned into bookshelves, running the entire length of the floor save where the doors opened. The Hunters treated all stories with at least some seriousness. All truth must be held dearly, even surrounded by lies, and so the stacks of books would grow until they could grow no more, and the bookshelves multiplied by the year. Omer could see three new, empty shelves had been shuffled in to the right corner, ready to be placed and filled.

  Past the twin stairs and underneath their overhang was a small area of wood displays. Upon these displays were the most common books on prophecy and dreams, and the methods of interpreting, as well as fundamentals of magic and its use. A guide of sorts for novices who did not know where to start. Beside those books, in the very center beneath the overhang, was a raised dais of silver and iron, on which a glass case sat with three smooth stones inside. Azod led Omer to that dais and took from the case one of the smooth stones.

  “I am well aware that you know the effects of the Stone, given how fond you were of pranks in your youth; but you have never held the Seeing Stone as you will today, nor will the Trials allow me to give them to you without warning,” Azod said. His lips pressed into a thin line. “The stone is inert at the moment, suppressed by the wards we keep here, just as it was when you used it for mischief, but when I hand it to you, I will undo the ward and there shall be no hindrance upon it.

  “Understand, Omer, the Seeing Stones are relics of an unknown day, part of a comet that found its way down from the stars long ago, even before the Romedun built their kingdoms. Scholars believe that comet passed between every known world before it found its end in ours. It was suffused with Mist, wrapped in the magic of dozens of realms. Men pried it up and made of it jewels and covetous things. Most of those pieces have been lost to time, but these three remain in the care of the Hunters.

  “They are strange objects. Whatever path the comet took made of it a locus for the Mist, perhaps the greatest locus we Hunters have ever seen. The strands of magic were pulled taught, layered with each world it passed through, and with those wrappings were pulled also threads of Time, which move in unforeseen ways about the rocks. They are like clocks wound far, far too tightly and then let loose. They spin without ceasing. No one can halt them.

  “To hold a Seeing Stone bared true is to hold a fearful tool. Long ago, Men thought them prophetic objects, imbued with some ability to foresee the future, if one could bend them to their will. But long study revealed otherwise, for the Stones do not grant true visions. In truth, the Stones react with your spirit, attaching to your own Mistbound threads and forcing on you visions of questionable authenticity. What you see may indeed be real, or possibly real, but more likely you will see things which never have happened, or never will. The Stone is not a tool for knowing. It is a tool for understanding yourself. The knotted threads of the Mist will pull you to a place or person of deepest ties, someone or something which you are connected strongly to by the Mist, though you may not know it. Perhaps it will have great meaning to you in the future, or perhaps it will remind you of something in the past which
will aid you. It is different for every En’shen. But do not trust the vision itself. What you see will be nothing more than a dream, beyond control and ever odd. Focus only on the things which matter to you, be they objects or places or people.”

  Azod raised the stone. “You are En’shen now, but greater Men than I have taken this stone and been shaken by what they saw. Do not lightly enter the visions of the Seeing Stone.”

  Omer bowed his head. “I will not, Master.”

  “Good,” Azod said. “Take it. See what you may see and exercise great care to remember the vision. It may be of great importance in a day to come. I will record it and set it into our Dreambook for you to recall when you wish.”

  Omer held out his hand. Azod dropped the dark stone into his palm. Then Azod touched the stone and said ‘Eyada’. At once there was a ripple in the stone like disturbed water, on its heel there came a sensation of heat and pressing air, the feel of a hot fire pushing back a cold night and a smell like burned leather filled Omer’s nostrils. Crackling eddies of Mist rolled up and out of the stone, roiling back and forth over the surface in dark clouds. His fingers began to tingle and numb, spreading from there to his arms and then his shoulders, all the way down to his feet, causing even the pain of his Cost to subside for a moment. When it found the floor, the sensation shifted, becoming a weightlessness, as if he were deep underwater and it was pushing him back up to a distant surface. He felt as if he was floating, encompassed by the strange power of the Stone. Through all this, Omer did not take his eyes from the small object in his hand. It held him, forcibly, and though he was vaguely aware he could pull his eyes away if he desired, he found the desire itself hard to muster. He was locked into an unspoken agreement with the stone and he would not break it.

  Then it was gone. The stone was dormant, simply a black rock in his hands. He frowned and looked about, wondering if the ritual had failed. He nearly fell over when he did, for he was no longer in the Library, he was in the middle of a wide field of grass and low brake under a streaming noon sun. It took him a long moment to gather his wits, shake away the confusion, and calmly remind himself that this was what Azod had warned him of.