Kanick felt something sharp poke between the scales of his hauberk and lost his concentration. The pressure in the room released with a pop and the angry ember roared into a jet of fire that shot towards the ceiling. With a cry, Kanick twisted away...

And came face to face with Bera.

"What are you doing here?" Kanick embraced the boy and saw the huddle of soldiers standing in the doorway. They wore the mail shirts of the regular infantry. "I told you to stay behind," he tried to chide, but he could not keep the iron in his tone.

"I was practicing my spells, like you said, Master. There was knock on the door, the Magister's acolyte. He told me you planned to kill the Magister and he wanted my help." Bera shifted uncomfortably. "I noticed his hand was bandaged heavily..." Bera looked away. "I asked him about the cave, and we fought." Bera met his master's eye. "I killed him."

"It is fine," Kanick smiled. "Edian sent that same acolyte to kill Regius, the same acolyte who was injured trying to kill us. That bastard had been following us since we arrived." Kanick bent to pick up his satchel. "How did you find the fort"

"I didn't know where else to go, so I took the body to Valdez at the keep. He realised the Magister must have discovered your plan. He roused the garrison and we marched out here as quickly as we could."

"Valdez? Marching?" deLan asked, sceptical, and sheathed his sword.

"Well, the Court Mage rode..." Bera admitted.

"Edian, did you see him? Kanick asked, as they began to walk upstairs.

"We have prisoners," he replied, "But the magister escaped."

"How?"

"He pretended to surrender before killing his guards and escaping on horseback with one of his acolytes."

"And the spell?" Bera looked confused as they entered the main hall. A line of mages were tied up naked against one wall, overseen by Valdez. "Valdez," Kanick called out to the Court Mage, "Did you get the spell?"

"It wasn't on any of these," Valdez called back nodding at his prisoners. "But we found a laboratory in the barracks and tools for wood carving. This is where they prepared the spell, for certain, but I haven't found it yet."

"Why are they naked?" Bera asked, puzzled.

"Standard for captured Mages," Valdez shrugged. "It's easy to hide a rune, eh?"

"You'll never catch Edian!" One of the prone figures called out. "We have already won," he spat and was promptly felled by a kick from Valdez.

"We need to go after him," Kanick said, panic creeping into his voice. "He plans to resurrect Palregon using Regius's spell."

Valdez's eyes widened. "We brought your horses," he said. "Go! I will tell deLan to follow!" The court mage called after them, but they were already running out of the fort.

Through the gaps in the wall Kanick had a commanding view of the land. Although the moon had set, he could make out two figures atop a single horse, cutting a swathe through the meadow. They were riding hard, heading towards the greying mountains in the distance and towards Nerrath.

Kanick followed Bera down the hill, towards the throng of horses milling at the bottom of the hill, overseen by a handful of soldiers. "We're taking two horses, and going after the Magister," Kanick informed one of them, taking a bridle in his fist.

Bera mounted up and was away, wheeling the horse around gracefully and galloping off round the other side of the hill before Kanick had managed to clamber onto his own horse. He then spent a frustrated moment, trying to get the horse to face the right way before he kicked the beast into a gallop.

His stomach lurched as he gained speed, a reckless abandon overtaking him. The ground could be uneven, the horse could stumble and throw him, but none of it mattered. The only thing of any importance was catching the horse with two riders. Tall nettles whipped at his armoured legs as he cleaved a path through the wilderness.

The Low Ones, belaying their name, loomed high above them, the ground rising above the meadow, which gradually sparsened and gave way to patchy coarse grass and bare rocky ground.

Bera was riding hard, a few hundred yards ahead, his sword drawn, his horse kicking up a cloud of dust.

The Magister and his acolyte were a half a mile ahead. They were waiting at the entrance to a narrow valley into the mountains, looking out at the pursuit. Kanick could hear the beat of hooves behind him and turned to see deLan and four of the cavalrymen charging across the meadow to reach them.

Bera bowed his head, raising his sword out in front of him as he began to close the distance between his horse and the Magister. The apprentice's horse accelerated, pushing even further ahead of Kanick's

"Bera!" Kanick called, but the apprentice couldn't hear, focussed on where to put the point of his sword.

Kanick was close enough now to see Edian dig into a pocket in his robes and pull out a rectangular piece of paper. There was a shower of purple sparks and then a blinding flash, leaving purple, green and white after images forking across Kanick's vision.

Kanick's horse screamed and reared, sending the mage tumbling onto the loose earth with a clatter of metal. The horse whinnied and bucked as it ran, the sound of the hooves thundering through the earth. Instinctively Kanick covered his head with his hands.

After a moment the sound abated, and his horse was gone, back into the meadow. Looking over, the lightning burned like the strike of a whip across his vision, Kanick saw Bera on his back, twitching on the dry earth.

Without a thought, Kanick scrambled towards him, fear thumping in his chest, his breaths ragged.

"Bera!" He called out, but the boy just continued to twitch.

Reflexively, Kanick reached for a pulse before stopping himself. The boy's blue eyes were staring fixed at the cloudy sky above, his mouth agape as though in shock.

"No," Kanick's voice came out high with anguish. "No, Bera. Bera!" He wanted to scream. A moment ago, the boy had been alive, just a few seconds, but now forever out of reach. The bounds of the boy's life had now been met and his death loomed forever into the future.

A voice cut through the noise ringing through Kanick's head as he realised, he was lying on the ground next to the body of his apprentice.

"Take this into Nerrath and then back through to the Scar." Edian said, and Kanick turned on hands and knees to face him. The magister had dismounted and was reaching into his satchel.

In his hands was a glossy wooden plate, catching some distant light, it's outline almost glowing purple with magic. In a moment it changed hands as the acolyte took it, gazing at the spell.

"I will meet you there," Edian continued, turning his attention to Kanick and the rapidly approaching cavalry. "But first, I will avenge our true King!" Edian smiled thinly and took a step forward.

Kanick's gaze was fixed solely on the wooden plate, being turned over by the acolyte. Even from a hundred yards distance, Kanick could feel the power held in the rune, dormant but ready to fizzle to life.

Kanick leaned back, kneeling on the cold ground. He braced himself, remembering the bile and exhaustion of twenty years ago. This spell couldn't be as powerful as that one? Please, Regius, he prayed silently, don't let it be that bad.

The block of wood began to fizzle with purple sparks, which rapidly bloomed into a small inferno in the acolyte's hands.

"Gah!" Kanick heard the acolyte cry out, alarmed, as she recoiled from the burning wood, letting it fall. The most powerful spell crafted in twenty, maybe even a thousand years was ash on the breeze before it hit the floor.

Kanick willed the energy of the spell towards his apprentice. The boy was dead, he reasoned, it didn't matter that Kanick had no talent for healing. What damage could he possibly do? Besides, he thought smiling, his thoughts coming slower than usual, the last thing he would ever see was unfolding in front of him.

And it was a beautiful sight of impotent rage.

Edian howled with fury as the block went up in purple flames. He shrieked at his acolyte and pulled her from the horse. Kanick couldn't tell if the scream came from the horse or the girl as the beast bolted into the mountains and out of sight. The acolyte let out a long, wailing screech, ending with a wet, choking squeak as Edian crushed her throat.

Kanick's vision was fading now, darkness gathering at the edges while strange patterns danced across his vision like a hive of tiny insects growing over his eyes. He heard deLan's voice boom out somewhere in the distance and he felt strangely content.

As a laugh bubbled uncontrollably through his lips Edian, or Gonian or whoever he had been in the thousands of years in between, turned his fury on the mage kneeling in the dirt.

Kanick decided, in the end, that he would rather not look his death in the eye. He had seen so much of it, been responsible for so much of it, and he was tired of it. The mage hoped that he had managed to save Bera, at least.

He didn't even have the energy left to draw his own sword before he remembered that his scabbard was empty anyway and its sword was shattered to pieces back in the fort.

You. Belong. To. Me.

A whisper on the breeze.

Looking to the east, Kanick could see a fire on the horizon rushing towards him as implacable and inevitable as a tsunami. At its focus Kanick could just make out the vision of a fiery woman, wings high and arms outstretched for in an embrace.

No, Kanick thought. "Not any more."