“And how goes the search for the red wizard? The one prophesised?” Tun, the head of the Search division, asked this innocuously, as though he cared not one whit for the answer. Klan noted the big Protocrat’s eyes glowed as brightly as his own.

“Alas, it goes badly,” Klan admitted. “We have not found sign or marker of the wizard’s resting place. I begin to doubt he even exists.”

“Oh, he exists alright. The Island Archive mentions him, as do our scrolls. It is just a matter of looking in the right place.”

“If only we could utilise our magics. We are hunting blindly, and the ice plains of Teryithyr are vast indeed.”

Klan took a moment to examine his brethren and sistren. Mermi had yet to join him among the ascendants, but her eyes were showing a hint of red where ordinarily there was only grey. The ascendancy was gathering pace.

He voiced his thoughts, although he knew what it meant for him.

“Ascendancy is coming to us already. Time grows short before the return of the old ones.”

“And you understand what this means?”

“Yes, my lord. We must find the wizard, or the three, before long.”

“And you can do this?”

“I have spies in every port. I believe the Saviour, the one known as Shorn, still hides on the land of Sturma. There are few ports there, and we are searching still. The Watcher is with him, hiding him from our scryers. The one known as the Sacrifice is similarly hidden, by our enemies, the Sard. Had we known of them sooner, perhaps we could have acted differently.” He looked pointedly at Paenth, who was responsible for this. She had the good grace to look away from Klan’s terrible eyes.

“We do not know either of their locations,” he added. “I have my men scouring Lianthre as we speak. She cannot hide for long.”

“We will disband for this night. You all know what to do.”

Klan left last. His Anamnesors would do his work in his stead. He could use some time to relax, even an ascendant was still subject to the demands of the body.

After a short trip to the residential quarters, Klan Mard laid softly upon his bed, and stared up at the ceiling in the darkened room. Grinning faces peered down at him, from where they were pinned upon the wood. He smiled, comforted by the sight of his delegation. He wondered if his faces had missed him as he missed them.

As he stared at them, his eyelids grew heavy.

For the first time in a month, surrounded by his only friends, the mage fell into a peaceful sleep.

There is a certain clarity that comes at the moment of your own death, Shorn realised. Never had he felt such a sharpening of the senses as he felt looking at his old master. That clarity never came when he had killed. In battle, before, time seemed to speed. A battle that lasted for hours passed in a daze, senses taking in each important detail, and discarding the rest. To note the cut of a man’s beard, or the colour of his eyes, when a blade was thrust toward your chest…well, you would merely become an observant corpse.

Faerblane clutched lightly in his right hand, he noted Wen Gossar’s eyes first. They were shot through with crazed lines of blood. The width of shoulder had not changed, but the weapons’ master no longer stood proud. The intervening years since he had last seen the man had not been kind. He wore a tattered robe over a leather breastplate, robe and leather worn thin with time. The man himself slumped, his head thrown forward with the ravages of age, staring at a painful angle toward his pupil. Thick hands, scarred and calloused with bruising knuckles, held Faerblane’s brother, the Cruor Bract.

Memories flooded through Shorn’s heightened mind. The past and present merged into one. He remembered his last meeting, a stronger, faster Wen, smashing his ruby encrusted blade into Shorn’s nose, his vision blackening as the weapons’ master turned his back on his student, leaving him for dead, not even worthy of a finishing thrust to the neck. That last sight of the man was etched into Shorn’s memory. The broad back turning away from him as darkness fell and he succumbed to the lure of insensibility.

The man before him was a mere shadow of that man. And yet, why did Shorn see everything with such clarity?

The mercenary raised his sword.

Wen’s head glistened with sweat despite the chill. Shorn saw that the old man’s hand trembled slightly as he raised his own sword in salute. He was not fooled though. The old man’s dark forearms were still powerful.

He did not run. The swords had waited so long that there was something leisurely in their meeting. It was as though they savoured their first contact, took pleasure in the moment of joining.

Wen’s sword, held high over his head, shone red along the blade, Where once a thousand tiny rubies had glinted red along the edge, only a few remained. The rubies were wearing thin. Legend had it that the rubies would wear down and the blood of the slain would rest in their place, crusted between the shards until they too broke away. The sword was designed never to be broken, never to be sharpened. No one knew who made it, or why they chose such an exquisite edge, but legend also said when the row of gems was gone that edge would blunt, and that Cruor Bract would cut no more. That time, Shorn observed sadly as he took his own fighting stance, was not yet. The few rubies remaining caught the high sun’s glare and turned it aside, prisms on a sword created from light.

Shorn’s held onto sound, a chime that sung in the presence of magic. Its song rose as Wen neared.

Shorn looked through sharp and weathered eyes, taking the measure of the man. He shook, and stumbled forward. He was sick, and yet Shorn felt his death, finally, approaching. Perhaps Wen himself was waiting for the day that peace came and his sword could retire itself.

Wen screamed. The sword fell and suddenly the old man revealed his true nature. Shivers travelled up Shorn’s arm at the power of the blow. He turned Cruor Bract aside and spun on his leg, strong enough to support him now, whirling his sword in his good hand. Wen was already facing him, and seemingly without a space in between thought and action the swords clashed once more. The old man was gone, whatever ailed his old master forgotten as the blood cry of battle rose. The swords rose and fell, one shining in the light, one singing boldly, its song loud enough to cover the screaming wind.

As one, almost choreographed, the swords danced through the air. The warriors’ feet shuffled, lunged and leapt. The two men created a spinning, whirring blaze of energy, swords never leaving each other for long, as though they had missed each other so strongly that they could not bear to part.

Slashing a high cut at Shorn’s neck, Wen grunted with effort. He often left himself open, Shorn recalled, but struck with such power that there was no opportunity to return a strike with equal fervour. Under such an onslaught it was all Shorn could do to stay alive, turning the blade aside when he was able, blocking with all his strength when he had no choice.

Wen must be well into his winter years by now, old even when he had tutored Shorn in the way of the sword, but his power and speed had not abated. Each time Shorn’s sword found its way through Wen’s guard, the old man was not there, or his sword travelled to cover a gap so swiftly that Shorn often thought the man was immortal, or protected by the gods themselves.

The years had not changed him. He was bowed outside of the battle, but when his blood was up, he was faster than ever.

Shorn felt his hope diminish. His leg tired, and his left arm more than once failed to grip his sword. He was reduced to using one hand on his sword when he was able, his brace blocking blows when he could not bring Faerblane to bear in time. The sword’s song rose, and Wen seemed distracted — for anyone else, it would have been fatal under Shorn’s counter attack, but again the ruby blade met its brother, but this time a ruby careened from the edge of Wen’s sword, leaving only thirteen — Shorn was amazed at this clarity of sight that was upon him. He was faster than he ever had been, and he understood now that only being at the edge of death granted him this remarkable perception. He had never been so close before. He had not needed it all these years, travelling from one battle to the next, fighting as though asleep.