Snapper gained entrance to the Liege’s castle via the tried and true method of asking politely. He stood in front of the castle gates, knocked on the iron bars, and applied his most sincere smile when the doorman opened a face-level greeting window.

“Good sir, might I come in?” Snapper politely asked.

The doorman’s eyes widened. He leapt backward three feet, pointing a shaky finger at Snapper.

“The Sage Doctor! The Sage Doctor has escaped!” the doorman screamed.

Snapper startled at the volume of the doorman’s cry. When the words registered, he frowned. If the Sage Doctor had already escaped the Liege’s castle, then Snapper was looking in the wrong place.

“Oh. I see. Thanks for the information,” Snapper said. He promptly turned on his heel and headed back toward the road, a dejected slump in his shoulders and footsteps.

Finding the Sage Doctor in a stone castle might be difficult enough—after all, the castle was as big as Snapper’s whole village and many times as high. However, finding the Sage Doctor in the surrounding wilderness would be infinitely more difficult, especially because an escaped prisoner had good reason to actively hide from pursuers. At this rate, Snapper might never learn how to use his powers.

No, no. Snapper was going about this all wrong. He needed to put himself in the Sage Doctor’s mindset. If Snapper had just escaped from a stone castle with a rock-toting madman who kept pointing a rock at his head, where would he go?

Somewhere without rocks, of course.

Now, all Snapper needed to do was find a place in the wilderness with few rocks and good shelter—likely a forest or grassland. The Sage Doctor would need water to survive, but most streams had rocks; perhaps a small pond surrounded by dirt?

Snapper nodded at his own deductive prowess. He would surely find the Sage Doctor at such a location. He paused in the middle of the road, scanning the surrounding wilds for a likely pond.

An arrow whizzed through the point where Snapper would have been, had he not momentarily paused. He watched it shoot into the distance, landing in the road several paces away. The shaft stuck into the air at a shallow angle.

Puzzled, Snapper pointed to the arrow and turned around. “Did someone lose this—”

Half a dozen soldiers tackled him to the ground.

The soldiers bound Snapper’s arms with ropes and brought him to the lower level of the castle. Snapper found all of the fanfare rather unnecessary, but he did not protest. Maybe the Liege’s soldiers treated all castle guests this way. In any case, it wasn’t Snapper’s place to argue with local customs.

The interior of the castle underwhelmed Snapper. It was all very grand, with carved stone and jewels prominently displayed at every corner, but it lacked the particular sense of authority that he expected. As he strolled through the stone halls, surrounded by an escort of no less than twenty soldiers, he wondered aloud if the atmosphere wouldn’t be improved by just a little more ambient lighting.

“Insolence,” one of the guards shouted, waving a spear in a vaguely threatening manner. Threatening, that is, to the wielder’s own health—Snapper sincerely hoped that the guard wouldn’t hit himself on the head with it.

They soon came to a door, wherein stood two chairs and the rock-toting madman from Snapper’s dream. The madman’s outfit was almost identical, and he even wore the same odd chicken-wire excuse for a crown. Snapper automatically glanced at the madman’s hands, and the madman indeed held a lump of grey pumice.

That dream had turned out to be uncannily accurate. Snapper briefly wondered if he’d recently acquired the talent of divination on top of his preexisting Casting abilities, fishing expertise, and the combination power of casting fishing lines.

Snapper took a seat opposite the madman. He had a plain wooden chair where the madman’s was dark mahogany with inlaid gems, but his plain chair was a few inches taller. When Snapper sat up straight, the madman’s eyes were level with his shoulder.

The madman seemed unsettled by this height difference as he raised the rock in front of Snapper’s face.

Remembering an old dream, Snapper braced himself for pain. However, it never came. No stabbing sensation, no headache, not one twinge behind the eyes—nothing.

The madman gasped. “Again?”

Snapper raised one eyebrow.

“Not even a drop,” said the madman, clenching a fist around his pet rock with evident dismay. “If I didn’t know better, I’d almost believe that you weren’t a Caster. But only a Caster or a fool would be bold enough to trespass in broad daylight looking like that.” The madman shook his head, still muttering to himself. “Should be impossible… yet… the resemblance is uncanny. How do you people resist?”

Staring incredulously at the madman, Snapper raised both eyebrows and spoke words that he’d wanted to utter for a while now.

“That is a rock.”

Snapper waited. The madman waited. Neither one experienced the sudden revelation that the other expected.

“Should be impossible,” the madman muttered again, sounding almost impressed. He flapped a hand at the soldiers. “Take him to the cells. I’ll deal with him later.”

The soldiers deposited Snapper in a stone cell with one other occupant: an old fellow curled up in the corner. The soldiers stopped for a quick chat with the regular prison guards, leaving Snapper and the other fellow alone in the cell.

Snapper poked around by the heavy wooden door, but the steel hinges and support bands seemed sturdily attached. Next, Snapper poked the other cell inhabitant. The old fellow groaned and rolled over, and Snapper saw himself.

Well, himself but sagely.

The prisoner had the same face and build as Snapper, but in all stylistic aspects, he looked exactly as Snapper expected a mountain mystic to look. The prisoner had a long, sweeping beard of sagely refinement with the same reddish-grey coloration as Snapper’s own. He wore a full-length cloak and flowing greenish robes that probably had looked elegant and otherworldly before imprisonment, and now might still look elegant if one ignored the bloodstains.

The prisoner’s eyelids fluttered open. Snapper’s gaze locked onto eerily bright eyes in an identical face, eyes that widened in shock at the sight of Snapper.

Snapper was quite certain that his own eyes had never been as green as sea kelp.

“You… are a fisherman,” the prisoner whispered, pushing himself to a sitting position against the nearest wall. He pinched Snapper’s sleeve between weak fingers, and disbelief played across familiar features.

The Sage Doctor was quite clever to guess his occupation on the first try, since the Liege’s soldiers had confiscated his telltale fisherman’s hat along with the rest of his belongings. Snapper gently pried his sleeve free from the Sage Doctor’s grasp and offered a polite smile.

“Yes. And you’re the Sage Doctor,” Snapper guessed. “Nice to meet you. I’m called Snapper.”

At the prisoner’s hesitant nod, Snapper’s smile widened. He had successfully found the Sage Doctor—not in years or decades, as he had initially feared, but in a few mere weeks. This was good fortune indeed.

Snapper retrieved Minnow’s pendant from beneath his outer tunic. Unhooking the black string from around his neck, he showed the Sage Doctor the symbol carved on the red stone.

“You made this, right? It keeps people safe from my power.”

The Sage Doctor frowned but nodded slowly. The motion seemed to pain him. “That is… one of its functions.”

Taking the murmured words as a yes, Snapper placed the string over the Sage Doctor’s head.

“Here, you keep the pendant for protection. I’ll use my power to get us out of here. Then we’ll go home to my village, and you can teach me how to stop the accidents.”

The Sage Doctor blinked quickly, running his thumb over the carved surface of the pendant.

Snapper walked over to the cell entrance, placed a hand on the middle of the wooden door, and concentrated on fire.

Nothing happened.

Snapper thought very hard about the sensation of several tons of seawater turning to steam.

Nothing happened.

Frustrated, Snapper kicked the door.

“Don’t waste your effort. Nothing will happen,” the Sage Doctor sighed from his corner. “You don’t have any powers.”

Impossible. Snapper clearly remembered having quite potent powers that always managed to go off at the exact wrong time. He cleared his mind and very carefully envisioned having a migraine.

Nothing happened.

Snapper frowned at the door. Was it just him, or did his palm feel the slightest bit warmer than before? Perhaps if he focused on the goal for long enough…

“It’s no use,” the Sage Doctor rasped again.

Snapper pointedly tuned him out.

Two hours later, Snapper was seriously considering banging his own head against the wall to induce a migraine. If head pain caused explosions, and explosions could help them escape, then surely the former would lead to the latter.

Snapper braced both hands against the door and leaned forward for a light tap.

The door swung open under his hands, and he stumbled forth. Several unamused faces greeted him, along with the round wooden tips of two batons. Three guards, the rock-toting madman, and two soldiers—one with more shiny uniform stripes than the other—stood outside the door.

“Ah, hello there.” Eyes wide, Snapper raised his hands and backed away.

“Not here for you,” the nearest guard said, and he prodded Snapper to a corner of the cell with the baton. Snapper still had a fairly clear view of the cell over the top of the guard’s head, so he didn’t protest the confinement.

The other two guards grabbed both arms of the Sage Doctor, dragging the old fellow to his feet by the far wall. They propped him up on a wooden stool provided by the less decorated soldier. The more decorated one, likely a lieutenant of sorts, leaned against the cell entrance, arms crossed, and amusement played across his snow-colored face.

Lastly, the madman walked up to the Sage Doctor.

“Perhaps you will cooperate more, now that we have your look-alike here as well,” the madman said, tossing his favorite rock up and catching it again.

The Sage Doctor shook his head slowly. “Fool…”

Anger flashed in the madman’s eyes. One fist shot forward, pressing the rock against the Sage Doctor’s forehead with almost enough force to knock him over. The guard on the Sage Doctor’s left side steadied him before he could topple over.

Nothing happened.

The madman drew back, uncertainty crossing his face for a brief moment. He glanced at the rock as though to reassure himself of its presence.

“No reaction?” the madman mused. “How can this be?”

“Sir, look!” the lieutenant called out from the door. He stepped forward, pointing at a spot near the Sage Doctor’s collarbone.

The madman frowned, clearly not seeing whatever the lieutenant had noticed. In response, the lieutenant poked the slight lump under the Sage Doctor’s cloak.

The spot glowed faintly when poked. Watching from the corner, Snapper’s eyes widened.

“Wait—” Snapper lunged forward, but his guard intercepted the movement. A moment later, Snapper stared up at the ceiling, wondering when he had become clumsy enough to trip on another person’s foot. Old age must be to blame, he decided, sitting up again with a scowl.

The guard returned the scowl and raised a baton.

Snapper subsided.

The Sage Doctor squirmed and grumbled protests as the guards searched him. However, in his weakened state, he was no match for two guards. They quickly found Minnow’s pendant and wrenched it off of his person, breaking the black string in the process.

“That necklace must be blocking my power-sink,” the madman realized. He handed the pendant to his lieutenant. “Good find. Quickly, destroy it.”

“No… you mustn’t damage the stone,” the Sage Doctor gasped, glancing toward Snapper with a terrified expression.

This reaction only confirmed the madman’s suspicion, and he waved at the lieutenant to hurry up.

The lieutenant held Minnow’s pendant by the string, keeping the stone far from his body. Despite this isolation, the glow flared and dimmed every time the pendant swayed through the air, casting rays of light and shadow throughout the cell.

The lieutenant placed the pendant on the ground and took a drinking flask from his belt. For some reason, Snapper expected the lieutenant to drench the pendant before setting it afire. However, the lieutenant proceeded to do the exact opposite. He uncapped the flask, cupped his hand under the opening, and poured some water into the palm. Then, he pulled the hand and flask apart.

A pale, glossy sabre made of pure ice emerged from the flask mouth. Frost trailed in its wake, etching delicate white spirals along the black sleeve of the lieutenant’s uniform.

Snapper’s mouth dropped open. An ice Caster—a rarity in all lands south of the mountains, if the rumors were true! The lieutenant raised the icy sword high into the air, glistening and splendid, and Snapper watched the white blade with amazement.

The lieutenant swung the sword, aiming for the bright pendant. When ice met stone, the stone shattered into five pieces with a chime like breaking glass. The glow faded, and Snapper winced at the sight of Minnow’s pendant cut into lifeless shards of dull red stone.

“Done,” the lieutenant reported, sheathing his fancy ice sword in the water flask once again.

The madman held up his lump of pumice again, leaving two feet of distance between the rock and the Sage Doctor’s head. The surface of the rock seemed to fold in on itself as the pores darkened to the pitch black of a thousand hungry fish eyes.

The Sage Doctor cried out with pain, doubling over on his seat.

Snapper felt a sharp tug at the base of his skull. Then, a migraine struck in full force. He grabbed the sides of his head with both hands, groaning. His brain felt like it was being sucked out through his ears.

Light flooded the world. With a sound like a hundred simultaneous claps of thunder, the castle exploded.

As the pain in Snapper’s head faded, so too did the radiance emanating from his person. However, unlike in the past, Snapper felt heat pulsing through him even after the migraine cleared entirely. The warmth subsided until it sat firmly in his core, a steady and comforting glow lingering just beneath the surface. With this presence came the knowledge that, if he so desired, the power would appear in his fingertips at a moment’s notice.

A ray of sunshine fell upon Snapper’s shoulders, and he looked up. He had once stood at the bottom of a well during a drought, and that experience came to mind now. Piles of stone encircled Snapper, but the ceiling directly above had transformed into sky, blue and immense as the sea. If only he could fly, he would be free in an instant. If not, a long climb awaited Snapper and the Sage Doctor.

The Sage Doctor!

Snapper frantically glanced around, searching for his companion. He had journeyed far and wide in search of the Sage Doctor; if all that effort led to vaporizing the Sage Doctor only a few hours after they met, Snapper would be furious with himself. Furthermore, Minnow would be furious with him, and after calming down, she would probably never stop laughing at the irony.

Faded green cloth caught Snapper’s eye, and he let out a relieved sigh. The Sage Doctor had survived. Even better, the Sage Doctor was miraculously unharmed, though he had curled up in a tight ball after the evident discomfort of being exposed to the madman’s rock.

Deep within the rubble, stone shifted and tumbled aside. A young fellow struggled free from the collapsed architecture. It was the lieutenant with fancy metallic stripes on his uniform collar. He tried to crawl over the rubble, aiming for a tunnel that might once have been a staircase, but was now isolated fifteen feet off ground level. One twisted ankle hindered his progress significantly.

“You there.” Snapper jabbed a threatening finger at the lieutenant, barely masking his surprise when his own sleeve caught on fire. Well, finding the Sage Doctor hadn’t exactly helped Snapper control his power, but it made for a far more intimidating display than when he couldn’t even manage a single flicker of power.

The lieutenant froze in place, turned around, and whimpered at the sight of Snapper. He might have originally had a fair complexion, but already it had reddened with the unhealthy tinge of sunburn. Frost gathered around the tips of the lieutenant’s hair, but it melted as quickly as it appeared before the waves of heat radiating from Snapper’s presence. The lieutenant flattened himself against the nearest piece of broken wall.

“You… you… got a name?” Snapper snapped his fingers, and sparks crackled in the air around his hand. The sudden brilliance blinded Snapper, and he half-raised the other hand to block the yellow glow of sparks that refused to fade. The bright points of energy tracked his motion, flitting around his two raised arms like a miniature whirlpool of glowworms.

The young lieutenant raised a shaking hand in front of his face, shielding watery eyes from the burn of Snapper’s energy. He mumbled something that sounded like, “Apple.”

Snapper’s brows went up. Strange name for an ice Caster, but then again, these were strange lands.

“Apple, you tell your leader that the Sage Doctor is under my protection. Come after us again and I’ll do to him what I’ve done to your fancy stone house. Understand?”

Apple nodded vigorously and scrambled away, leaving an uneven trail of frosty footprints in his wake.

Snapper concentrated on the thought of a candle extinguishing. The lightshow around his arms slowly faded into wisps of nothing, while his sleeves slowly faded into wisps of smoke. Satisfied, he brushed the soot from his shirt as he turned back to the Sage Doctor.

The Sage Doctor was almost as pale as the inside of a fresh-caught sea bass, and his eyes had shut in unconsciousness. Poor old fellow had clearly been mistreated by Apple and the Liege’s other followers. His hand was curled tightly around the lump of grey pumice that had been used to torture him.

Snapper hauled the Sage Doctor over one shoulder. Even when dragged upright, the Sage Doctor did not release his grasp on the rock. Since the grey pumice did not seem to be doing any harm at the moment, Snapper left it in the Sage Doctor’s hand.

As they left the cell, red shards in the corner caught Snapper’s eye—the broken bits of Minnow’s stone pendant. Although its protective abilities had probably failed upon cracking, Minnow would likely want it back for sentimental purposes. Snapper collected the pendant pieces, coiling the string around the fragments of stone, and tucked it all into a pocket for safekeeping.