No reference was made of the dalliance come morning.

Dawn was like a torch to fog that banished the everstorm. Eris watched the sky, having awoken in contemplation just as night came to its close, and she saw the sun behind a cloak of clouds; then she blinked, and every spot of gray overhead disappeared in an instant.

Just like that. As if the natural order waited on her. The storm was gone. The sun was…

Warm, if not summer-hot. The last few flakes of snow drifted down from the heavens, but they were incinerated before they reached the ground. For a brief moment it rained even as the sky was blue. Then all was still and silent.

She could feel it. The aether cloaked this place like a death mask. Hot ink sealed around cold skin. Everywhere, all around, mana in the air—

An aurora overhead. Blue, green, red, and gold dancing in the sky. Clearer than she’d ever seen before. Even Zyd noticed.

“I hate this stupid place,” he said. “The storm will be back the second the sun sets.”

“Then we shouldn't waste daylight,” Rook said. He trudged out into the snow—and snow it still was, a foot deep at least.

Eris still stared upward. She spoke to herself: “Surely such an effect was not accidental—to have the storm abolished in an instant by daylight is a deliberate element in a spell, not the mere byproduct of aethereal coincidence with—"

“Eris,” Rook said. His fingers were around her wrist. “Wasting daylight.”

“Yeah,” Zyd said, “you can mumble while you walk!”

She pulled herself from Rook. “Fine. Lead on. I will follow.”

There was occasion for Eris to see snow growing up only rarely. The Tower of Pyrthos thrust outward from an arid desert; and although snow did fall, it was only once per year, or every other year. The Magisters did not leap to open the doors and let forth the students to play outside on those occasions. Play was the exception and not the rule at Pyrthos.

There was one day she remembered, however, and always would: the tower’s upper levels, where young mages were only taken to practice using their magic, were shrouded by a winter storm. Everything below was subject to snowfall for an entire night. Eris watched streaks of white fall beyond the dormitory’s window for hours. Come morning even the tyranny of the Wardens was broken. They found what little mirth they had and did nothing while all the children battered down the front gates to go outside and do whatever it is children do in the wake of a blizzard.

But not Eris. She was suspended. Only six years later and she couldn’t remember why; a fight with another pupil, course words at an instructor, a mean remark taken just as she intended. Any of these, or maybe all, or something similarly petty. How funny that she had no recollection what the punishment was for—but then there were many punishments. What she would never forget was sitting in the office of the Magister of Translation and looking through his window. While he lectured her on the dignity of Old Senerian, she stared down below, and there she saw a tide of her peers playing, laughing, and enjoying their day off—while she was still imprisoned.

No, she didn’t remember what her transgression was, nor the Magister’s lesson. But she would take that sight to her dying day. The feelings of isolation and anger lived still in her memory. That punishment was nothing compared to the trials of her earlier youth, where death or worse was on the line every day; nor did it compare to the torture of Eisolaz and Manasearing, or even to the punishments—harsh, corporal, cruel, always warranted but no doubt excessive—she earned as an older student. Yet that memory still stung worse than all the rest, for it represented the theft of what could have been an uncommon moment of contented normalcy in a bitter, unhappy childhood.

Now, she discovered, snow was not as fun as it had looked from on high.

They trudged southward. Where they used to make three miles an hour, now they were reduced to hardly one. The sun was a blessing; Eris could not imagine the misery of making this journey during night, much less when a storm raged. It would be impossible.

It felt like winter, but the day was very long.

A whole fortune no longer seemed worth the price by the time they crested the top of the ridge that overlooked the town of Snaiga. The snow-coated trees to either side thickened into a forest, which made the going somewhat easier, and there they spotted it: on the half-frozen shore of the sea, a small village. An ancient wall of icy, weathered stone protected its perimeter, and beyond, the one sight worth spotting: a Magister’s tower.

Not quite so tall as the Spire, and nothing compared to Pyrthos, but impressive still.

“Often I’ve wondered,” Rook said, “why are magicians so enamored by the shape of giant phalluses?”

“If one is to be enamored with phalluses, they may as well be giant,” Eris replied.

“Even so, yet that doesn’t answer the question.”

“A sword is built to be thrust into flesh, then slid back in its sheath. This seems no less phallic to me than a tower.”

“That’s born from necessity; the art of war requires an instrument suited for penetration, thus I’m left without choice. But why not build a sorcerer’s arena? Or basement? Or castle?”

“The Magisters of old built all those, and more. But if you want a true answer, ‘tis because of the aether. There is more mana in the air the higher up you go. A phallus happens to be the most efficient shape for penetrating the heavens.”

He considered this, before saying, “What do you think, Zydnus?”

“Fuck snow! We’re taking a boat back!”

He was already approaching the front gate.

Snaiga was the Rytusian word for ‘snow.’ It was also a common given name in these parts for girls, which said all one needed to know about the people who dwelt there. At least they had developed some effective mechanism for coping with the deplorable lot handed to them, but, as the party progressed through the eroded and snowed-in streets, past stone houses and wooden huts, Eris found herself loathing them for not seeking out something better. Only voluntary victims made life in a place like this, and there was no one she hated more than the willingly beaten wife.

The fishmongers, at least, did good business. In market stalls they sold creatures in the silhouette of salmon which were, on closer inspection, covered not in scales but fur.

Only a small, single-file path had been plowed through the streets. It led directly to the tower. Eris realized as she stepped onto it that it was something more important than the route cleared by a burly man with a shovel. Underfoot was painted a red line on the cobblestone. It radiated warmth, even through her boots, and glowed faintly like a blade within a forge.

Heating for the streets.

Curious, Eris followed the line into the village, where she saw it led to each permanent house, none of the newer structures of wood but all those made of stone. The line branched off at each like piping, bringing all its heat with it.

The paint smelled like burning mana. It was a delicious scent. That was how they managed in such a place. The Magister was keeping the townsfolk alive with her magic.

Tracing the line back to the tower, it led directly into an atrium—running over a set of stairs, then splitting into a dozen different pipes and fleeing up the walls.

The tower had no front door. The entrance was an open archway, with no barrier except the faintest, flickering pane of glass, like a sheen of liquid half an inch deep suspended on the threshold.

“Do we knock?” Rook said.

He took a step toward the arch, lifted his hands as if to knock on the liquid, but withdrew as a wave of caution overcame him. He instead scooped a handful of snow off a nearby wall and tossed it at the glass—

A buzzing noise. A snap, a crackle, and a whisper of thunder.

The snow sublimated. Steam trailed over their heads, then vanished.

Rook glanced for anyone to speak to, a guard or valet, but although the gate had been manned by a porter, there were no other signs of militia or watchmen.

“Hello?” he called once. A few seconds passed and he called again. Then they waited together in silence for some time; presently an echo came, like the beating of a drum from the upper storeys of the tower, and positioning herself for a better angle, Eris saw a golem descending a staircase which wrapped around the atrium’s walls.

It was only slightly larger than a man. Its figure was rectangular and boxish, its gait stilted and inelegant. The body was made of bronze, but each limb was connected to the torso by an unseen joint—the arms seemed to hover against the shoulders, the legs seemed suspended about the waist. Only the head connected entirely to the body, and it was not much for a head. A small hump of metal at the neck and nothing else.

At the center of its chest was a glowing blue Manastone gem.

“Impart the purpose of your visitation,” it hissed. The words sizzled forth from the gem.

Rook glanced to his companions. “We seek to answer the call of your master and recover her wayward apprentice.”

A moment.

“Impart your qualifications.”

“…I vanquished the chieftain of the lizardmen of Kaimas in single combat,” Rook said.

“I unsealed the sepulcher of Pyraz the Mighty atop Dakru Spire after three millennia forgotten,” Eris said.

“I killed a whole gang of highwaymen with my bow!” Zyd said.

Another moment.

The shifting liquid before them disappeared.

“Pursue,” the golem said. “Do not stray.”

In lame stride it led them into the atrium. The red lines, just like the lines in the portal room of the Spire, ran all the way up the walls; here the ceiling was very high. A free-floating spiral staircase suspended by chains and wire and, in places, nothing at all, snaked up to a second storey. The golem began the ascent. On their way up they passed bookshelves and landings with chairs and tables, until finally, after so many steps that Eris was prepared to die from exhaustion, they reached another glass-covered doorway which dispelled itself at their guide’s approach.

Beyond, no more stairs, at least not immediately. They found themselves suddenly in darkness; the only source of light red lines that continued up the walls, emerging through the ground and continuing through the ceiling. Two of the lines branched off at the floor and led instead to the room’s center, where they met and formed a circle—where now sat one woman and stood another.

The standing woman turned. She was fair and very tall, taller than even Rook, but her figure was supple and gracefully curved, wrapped in tight-fitting leathers. Her hair was wild and dark but worn up, and at the sides of her head were two long, thin ears. There were no blemishes on her skin. No asymmetries to her features. She had no pupils; her eyes were pure white.

This was an elf.

The sitting woman did not turn. She was human. Her hair was dark and fretted with gray. She spoke first:

“You have excellent timing, young masters. We were just about to begin.”

“Who are you?” Zyd said. He was looking at the elf.

“I am Antigone,” the woman said. Her voice suggested age. “She is Astera. You have come to retrieve Aletheia, have you not?”

“We have,” Rook said.

“Then your purpose is at one with Astera’s. Come.”

They came closer with caution, until they were near the elf and looking over Antigone’s shoulders. Her legs were crossed. Everything in the room was silent.

She was casting a spell. Eris sensed it. Not just changes in the air, but in the power from the lines, the ground beneath them: the energy in the circle waned. Its light dimmed. Antigone reached downward, then raised her hands up high. Held in her fingers was a small vial of a golden substance. Seconds passed; the gold began to glow, and with every second hence the luminescence grew. Soon it was so bright Eris looked away, but she could still feel the mana this Antigone had suffused into its fluid, now radiating outward, leaking practically throughout the room.

Then all dropped. The light dimmed, even as the mana in the vial held. Antigone stood and held it outward.

“Aletheia is attuned to this manaserum,” she said. “Now it is potently charged. When you draw near her, it will shake in your hand. You will know if you are on the right course.”

The elf reached for it—and the vial shook. Antigone withdrew.

“You, Astera, will not suffice for the carrier. How kind providence was to deliver more assistance in time. Handsome boy, you: you take it.” She pointed at Rook.

Rook looked to Zyd and Eris for assistance.

“Your Eminence,” he said, the proper term of address for a Magister, “we hardly know what it is you want—we only just arrived—”

“You will combine forces with Astera and head east into the hills. There, with what I am giving you, will you find my ward and bring her back to me.”

“I’m not splitting my reward with an elf! That wasn’t part of the deal! That’s five hundred drachmae gone for help we don’t even need!” Zyd said.

“I was here first,” Astera, the elf, said. She approached Zyd and loomed over him. “A halfling is help I don’t need. If I can share my five thousand drachmae with you, you can share five hundred with me.”

Zyd’s morale collapsed instantly. “I—I, well—uh, you know—that does sound—when you put it that way, I mean like that…”

Antigone shushed the room with a hand.

“You will retrieve Aletheia and bring her back to me unharmed. Is that understood?”

“You know many spells,” Eris said, “why do you not retrieve her yourself?”

“I am no adventurer. I am old and the snow freezes my joints.”

“How old is she?” Rook said.

“Twelve.”

“You seem confident she is still alive. How long has she been missing?” Eris said.

“She is still alive, and I will know the moment she ceases to be,” Antigone said.

“What happened? Why is she gone?” Astera said.

“Silly little girls do silly things and get themselves in trouble they cannot soon escape. That is Aletheia’s fate if you do not see her returned home. I believe goblins have taken her captive; they are no doubt enthralled by her magic. It is beyond my means to fight them, as I am no warrior. Hence arises my need for mercenaries of your quality.”

She said these last words as if she had anticipated the size of her bounty attracting more impressive adventurers.

“Now. Need you know anything else?”

“The reward,” Eris said. “Six thousand. Yes?”

“If the girl is harmed, you will receive nothing. If she is returned to me as she left, then six thousand.”

Rook took the manaserum vial. “Okay. We’ll find her.”

An elf looked mostly human, but Eris knew better than to be deceived. They were beings of aethereal sinew. Their flesh was pure mana. In form and fashion they seemed mortal, as any other creature, but they did not age past adulthood, and they alone amongst the ‘civilized’ peoples of Esenia possessed the inborn talent to use magic and cast spells. The feminine physique of this Astera did indeed seem to rival Eris’ in its perfect sculpture, and her slender shoulders and narrow waist contrasted strangely with her traveler’s clothes and the dagger she had at her hip, but this too was an illusion. As mana made manifest and given sapience in the physical world, the appearance of an elf corresponded not to her physical strength, her endurance, or her actual athleticism. Thus she appeared feminine to human eyes, as a human actress, a queen, or a runaway magician, yet no sacrifice was made to her prowess as a warrior. Such beauty came to her as effortlessly as ugliness came to Guinevere. It required no cultivation.

So Astera was beautiful, if any man wanted a woman taller than he. And she was strong. She could fight, no doubt, although she was not well armed currently. She knew magic. She would also live forever. That one consciousness belonged to her, and another was forced to be Zydnus’—truly, this world was not a fair one. But then Eris knew that already.

She found herself very concerned about who had Rook’s attention as, come the next morning, they proceeded east, back out into the tundra.

Once without Snaiga’s walls Rook held the gold manaserum in the air. Like a pathfinder holding a licked finger to deduce the direction of a wind, he waved it about, watching its luminescence. In the direction the color was brightest, they all began their trek. It was into another forest and toward a lonely mountain, uphill, for most of the day.

“Look,” Rook said. He held the vial again, clutched in two fingers: the substance within jittered slightly, as if his hands were shaking from the cold. “This way.”

Astera bounded as if the fields of snow were plains of daisies. She also wore no special winter clothes; the cold did not affect her. The two humans gazed on as she forged ahead with some envious contempt, while Zydnus was too distracted with his endless battle of crawling through ice to pay attention to anyone but himself.

The everblizzard returned early that night. They were forced to make camp in the cover of a cliff face; they constructed a wall of snow where the rock offered no protection and set down their bedrolls. It was too early still to sleep, so they were forced to spend some hours in interlocution. That was not Eris’ first choice of activities. Indeed she had little to say to the tallest and shortest of her companions, and speaking was not the thing she most desired to do with Rook any longer. So, sullenly, she did her best not to listen; but in the dark and cold, she sometimes faltered:

“How came you to Chionos?” Rook said.

“In the pursuit of an orc,” Astera said. “But he slipped away from me and I found myself stranded.”

“If you were hunting orcs, where’s your armor, huh? Or your bow? Or sword?” Zyd said.

“I intend to acquire new weaponry soon,” she said.

“And take the hunt up again?” Rook said.

“Yes. But there is much time. I intend to help those in need along the way.”

Such ludicrous ravings could not stand without derision. Eris rolled onto her back and proclaimed, “How shockingly noble, brave, and altruistic of you. Shall we all clap for the elf’s heart of gold?”

“I don’t seek your approval,” Astera said.

“Good, for you shan’t earn it.”

“If I had known we were to meet,” Rook said, trying to calm tempers, “I would have brought an extra sword.”

“If anyone among us will pull her weight, it’s me. You don’t need to worry,” Astera said.

Eris opened her mouth to spit forth another insult, but with a glare from Rook held her tongue. There was no use in arguing. She covered her ears and retreated back to her bedroll, doing her best to ignore the conversation that continued; and luckily, she was disinterested enough in their newest companion that she fell asleep sooner before later.