Celeres found that the gold masks held little regard for the blood knights. As the only one dressed in red livery traveling with the Prince, the thirty men and women in yellow let him know just what they thought of an army built from thieves and criminals. Having lived in Tagerden, Celeres was tempted to point out just how corrupt the average gold mask was but prudently kept his opinions to himself. Not that he had many opportunities to express them, given the habit of the gold masks to exclude him from any conversation.

            It was clear the his soldiers’ prejudices did not extend to how Colonel Rafe handled his charge’s training. The sporadic training he had gotten from Sanura fell far short of the Colonel’s standards. The head of the troops felt that anyone responsible for guarding the Prince should be as well trained as possible, so he drilled Celeres in every free moment. While they rode, they discussed tactics and strategies. When they hunted, he taught the blood knight how to track his prey through fields, forest, and streams.

            After a few weeks, Celeres was beginning to almost feel competent. He took scouting duties whenever offered, eager to escape the hostility of the gold masks. He brought back small game to feed the company and on one occasion used his new skills to kill a giant eagle that was trying to make a quick meal of him.

            The Prince himself spent little time with his newest recruit, but neither did he fraternize much with the other soldiers. Only Colonel Rafe and the mage Katchen spent any amount of time in his presence. The gold masks, most of whom wore only the brass half-masks of the lowest ranks of the Imperial Guard, held their liege with a wary respect. Many had traveled and fought beside him for years, but all were content to maintain a professional distance between them.

            Katchen they all feared just a little bit. The island mage was as remote as the Prince. The masks found her trick of spawning multiple arms unnerving, and firmly refused to gossip about her even though she spent much of her time in her tent or the Prince’s. Some clearly thought she would know if they discussed her, and the fact that she spoke exclusively within the minds of her listeners only seemed to confirm those fears.

            Snubbed by his fellow soldiers, Celeres spent a fair amount of time watching the island mage in those odd moments when his free time corresponded with her public appearances. Idly, Celeres appreciated her fine features, but the young blood knight was so besotted by Sanura that his thoughts were simply an acknowledgement of what was there. Mostly, he watched for those moments where she actually worked magic.

            Every morning, the mage would dance a sinuous production that the masks would sneak nervous glimpses of as they packed up the camp. When she finished, Katchen would stand silently for several minutes with her eyes closed, listening. The masks studiously ignored her during this period, but Celeres continued to watch her. He eventually noticed her discretely drop four seeds from her hand before she took to her mount and relayed what she knew to the Prince. When Celeres made his way to the spot, the seeds were gone, as if they never reached the ground.

            In addition to the usual threats of the north-out arm, the company was shadowed by a distant scream that started in the morning and faded away before returning in the evening just to end abruptly. The source of the screams never came anywhere near the company, but the gold masks still found it unsettling. There was no agreement among the masks about which direction the noise came from. Each person seemed to favor the side of camp they were on when they heard it. Celeres did not like the screams but figured it was just a feature of the land they were passing through. It was only by chance that he eavesdropped on a conversation that indicated that although the sounds were more prevalent here, the company had been trailed by the screaming for several months now. Celeres knew the company had been on the south-in arm around the same time he had been, and he wondered why he had not run across the screams before.

            Then he realized he might have, just closer to its source.

            The company’s leaders had been fairly reluctant to discuss the screams. Rather than search for its source or even try to take precautions against it, they answered any fears expressed to them with admonitions not to borrow trouble and reassurances that the gold masks and Katchen could handle whatever was making the noise.

            Taking all that together, Celeres though he might have figured out what the noise was. Intrigued and with little to lose by expressing his suspicions, the blood knight decided to address the one person most likely to explain the mystery to him.

            Before taking her evening meal and retreating to her tent, Katchen would usually wander around the perimeter. Occasionally, she would bend down and pluck at the ground, considering a spot before her and then moving on. The masks thought she was casting a proxy to protect the camp and carefully avoided disturbing her. Having seen the Cheldeans as well as Katchen working magic, Celeres though her actions were not energetic enough for magic and dared to approach her during one of her walks.

            He stood near where she squatted in the grass, waiting patiently for her to look up. She completed her contemplation of the spot and looked up at him passively.

            “I’ve heard the screams shadowing this group before,” Celeres said. “It was in the Yudoko Territory while Sanura and I were headed for the college at Mt. Clero. Except it passed right over us instead of sounding in the distance. It was really loud and completely invisible. Or maybe just very, very small-like a seed.

            “The noise is a side effect of the proxy you cast in the morning. It is centered on a few seeds that you release each morning that fly far away and don’t start screaming until they’re a comfortable distance away. They head out in different directions, look for the thief, and return in the evening. Then you pick them up and check their findings, which is what you are doing now.”

            Katchen gazed at him impassively. :Interesting,: she said. :Traveling with over thirty sharks, and one turns out to be a dolphin.: The mage extended her hand, revealing a single seed in her palm.

            :So, you’ve had a chance to watch the Cheldeans up close,: she said, standing up and resuming her search for the other seeds.

            “Well, yes.”

            :Tell me about them.:

            “I’m sure you know more about them than I do. There are some that attend to the imperial court. You must have dealt with them before.”

            :They think I’m some little island witch that the Prince has picked up for his own amusements. They don’t see me as an equal. The Cheldeans are arrogant enough to believe that they are the only ones capable of working the higher magics, and it suits my purposes not to disabuse them of the notion. So, I have not had many chances to watch them in action.:

            “Well, that’s something I have had a chance to do. The Cheldeans don’t know too much about the hirudin, so they kept working proxies to examine and heal me. Sometimes they gesture, but mostly they sing. They have this strange way of doing it with many voice at once, sort of like you do with your arms.”

            :The technique is called ‘splitting.’ It’s essential for casting any complicated proxies using motion instead of materials.: Katchen knelt down and picked up another seed. :Wait a moment, please.:

            Self-conscious, Celeres stood there and waited. The gold masks had taken notice of his approach of the mage, but none were close enough to hear his side of the discussion. Still, the blood knight guessed the encounter would spark a fresh set of camp rumors.

            After a few minutes, Katchen pocketed the seed and stood up.

            “If we’re following the trail of the Isole’s thief, and we know the general direction he took, why are you sending seeds out in every direction?” Celeres asked.

            :What makes you think the thief is the only thing I’m looking for?:

            Celeres considered that.

            Katchen interrupted him before he could come up with other things she might be looking for. :You’ve been to one of the Cheldean’s colleges, haven’t you? What was it like?:

            The young knight answered her questions, unconcerned that he might undermine the position of anyone trying to rescue him with Cheldean help. Katchen was attentive and almost as sharp at drawing out details as Arva was. Overall, Celeres rather enjoyed the conversation as a nice change of pace from the Colonel’s drills and the frigid reception of the gold masks.

            Their attitude became even chillier after that. Whatever ground he had gained as a diligent student of the Colonel’s was lost when he started associating with the island mage. When the Colonel finally set aside an evening to allow Celeres to join the cooking rotation, the blood knight made the food completely inedible in revenge. Ignorant that Celeres had done it deliberately, Prince Emhyr simply removed him from cooking detail and gave him more guard duties. That suited Celeres fine. If the masks were going to treat him so shabbily, he saw no reason to reward them.

            The blood knight found Katchen to be rather erratic company. While never directly rude, the island mage would sometime ignore him when he tried to initiate a conversation. He eventually noticed that the woman was more interested in useful information than idle gossip and observations on the weather. So, Celeres started telling her about the odd creatures he saw while scouting, and what he observed about them.

            The strange animals were getting more common as they rode further up the north-out arm. Around Bluthafen, the creatures were few as those that ventured near were quickly dispose of by the blood knights. However, to the north, the patrols of the knights became sparse and more monsters with deadly claws and wicked teeth risked establishing territories. Still, a group of thirty-four armored and mounted warriors kept all but the most dangerous in their holes.

            The risks for scouts from the company were greater. Initially, lone warriors would peel off of the group and return after a few hours. After numerous close calls and losing two soldiers in a single day, the Prince ordered that no group smaller than three risk leaving the company. With a consideration for the friction between Celeres and the gold masks, the blood knight often found himself scouting with Katchen and Colonel Rafe.

            In addition to looking for game and local dangers, the scouts spread out to find signs of their thief. Their target was unnaturally canny, but rarely did a day pass without turning up some trace of him. Still learning, Celeres found few signs in the first couple months. He had no clear idea of why he recognized those he did find as the thief’s. Still, when he called over to Katchen and the Colonel, they confirmed it was from their prey.

            That bothered him , considering the amount of time Colonel Rafe had spent training him. He lingered over his finds, trying to figure out what made them so distinctive. His memory fought him, but Celeres eventually recalled enough to wonder what desiccated rabbit pellets, half of an antelopes hoof print, and old claw marks on a tree had in common. He found it difficult to spend any amount of time thinking about it, as the memories tended to slip away without notice.

            The strangeness of that finally sunk in as he crouched over a well gnawed bone. He realized that the sign was no more distinctive that the other traces he had found while scouting. Still, he made a guess about what he was sensing.

            “I found one,” Celeres called out confidently to his companions.

            The Colonel and the mage came over to examine his find. Colonel Rafe merely nodded when he saw it, but Katchen bent down and picked up the bone. She ran her fingers across the white surface, getting more out of it than Celeres could.

            “You’ve been using a proxy on us to find bits the thief left behind,” Celeres asserted.

            Katchen favored him with a raised eyebrow.

            Colonel Rafe just laughed. “I told you the boy was unusual.”

            :As you said. None of the others have noticed. Perhaps it is his hirudin blood. Only you and the Prince share that in the group, after all,: Katchen said.

            “No, I’ve worked with plenty of others with Zonneshin’s gift. This is something else,” the Colonel said.

            “So why do we need magic to find traces of the thief?” Celeres asked.

            “For starters, we’re over a month behind him. Regular signs simply don’t last that long. He also has a nasty habit of laying false trails, and we got snared by one early on. We’re gaining on him, but we probably won’t catch him until we’re almost to the tip of the arm,” Colonel Rafe said.

            :The thief is also a shapeshifter, which would make mere mortal tracking all but impossible. He’s even developed a technique to hide him from the Firstborn and Secondborn. But there are hints of presence that he can’t completely hide from proxies if you know how to look.:

            “Bits of his of true names?” Celeres hazarded.

            :Yes, but the gold masks do not trust me and would be disturbed to learn I was working magic on them. Do you understand?:

            “Yes, not that they talk to me anyway.”

            “The rivalry between the blood knights and gold masks is not always pretty,” the Colonel half-apologized.

            “They guard the Prince to the throne. I’ll fight beside them no matter how they feel about me. I don’t have much choice in the matter.”

            They moved away, hunting a more mundane prey to cook over the evening fires.

            Celeres quizzed them about the thief, trying to get a feel for what exactly they chased. In addition to its skill at avoiding detection, they knew it was powerful enough to risk the wrath of the Firstborn. Apparently, Zonneshin himself had an interest in the stolen Isole. In fact, the Sun Lord’s interest may have been the reason for its theft in the first place. The Prince had made a deal with Zonneshin to steal the Isole from Gawlchmai’s temple, but someone had beaten him to it. The Emperor’s orders to follow the thief were a convenient chance for the Prince to recover the prize. Beyond that, they were still unsure of the exact nature of the thief.

            So, the company marched after him week after week, hoping to find a being they could recover the Isole from. Their journey took them further north and into the mountains. The snow had been following them for a while, but here it accumulated in drifts that sometimes needed Katchen’s magic to clear away. Through the valleys, they followed a path that showed signs of once having been a road. Before the Shard War, the north-out arm was the center of civilization on the continent. What remained of those cities had mostly been claimed by the wild. The ragged patches of roadweed that remained fought the snow, melting the crystals that dared to settle on the plants.

            Deep into the valleys, the company heard a bellow. Its source eluded them, but the soldiers took extra precautions to watch for it. They did not spot the creature making the sounds until two days later.

            In the early morning, they had entered yet another valley in the mountains. The landscape in the far end of the valley was not the brown-spotted white they had come to expect. Instead of slumbering trees and blue-green roadweed, the valley reflected an unhealthy purple. As they got closer, it became clearer that the purple was the result of a mold that had taken over the area, choking the trees and clearing the snow as effectively as the roadweed.

            Disliking its appearance, Katchen stopped the company wall short of its territory. Dismounting, she approached the mold and sniffed the air. After one deep breath, the mage drew back.

            Somewhere behind them, a bellow cut through the air.

            That pulled all eyes off of Katchen and to their perimeter. There was some disagreement about which direction the sound had come from before a second and third howl clarified the issue.

            :We cannot go forward. The mold would be the death of us,: Katchen announced.

            “I’m afraid that’s not good, mage,” the Prince answered. “It sounds like we have a guest behind us that may not be entirely welcome. I’m afraid that moving forward and away from it would be best.”

            The bellow came again, much closer.

            “On. Katchen, how exactly is the mold dangerous?” Celeres asked.

            :Its spores would quickly overwhelm our lungs, inflaming them and suffocating us. Afterwards, it would grow across our flesh until all that remained were fuzzy, purple skeletons.:

            “The dead always rot away. How long would it take for it to eat its way through our skin?” Prince Emhyr asked.

            :A few days, perhaps.:

            “Then we need a proxy to protect our lungs, mage. Now, mount up. I don’t want to be caught by that beast. We’ll skirt the moldy area and try to avoid him. Any preference, Colonel?”

            “North. The land is clearer and should be easier on the antelopes,” Colonel Rafe said.

            “You heard the Colonel. Move out!” the Prince ordered.

            The gold masks took off, carefully keeping out of the mold’s territory as they dashed along. They rode hard, dodging trees and snow-covered rocks while trying to stay ahead of the bellows. Unfortunately, the calls of the beast gradually got louder, and the area of mold just kept going and going.

            :I may have a solution,: Katchen announced.

            “Tell me,” the Prince ordered.

            :There is a proxy the swimmers among my people use to stay underwater for long periods. It will be a nuisance to keep it on the entire company for any length of time, but it’s worth it right now. Once we’re out of the mold, I should be able to decontaminate us, so the lingering spores don’t eat us alive. However, I don’t think we’ll be able to salvage our food after the mold gets to it.:

            “We’ll deal with that later. Do it.”

            :I can’t cast the proxy while riding.:

            Nearby, the creature howled.

            “Company, halt!” Prince Emhyr commanded. “Hurry it up, mage.”

            :No one will be able to remove their masks or their antelopes’ bridles until I tell you that we’re clear,: Katchen told the company. :Remove your tabards and cloaks and pack them away. Tie your bags as tightly as you can.:

            The bellowing danced closer.

            :Quickly.:

            The troops attended to her commands, hurrying to remount before the beast arrived. The mage turned her concentration inward only to be interrupted by Celeres. “I don’t have a mask,” he told her, concerned.

            :You’re hirudin. The mold can’t hurt you. Now, let me work!: she snapped.

            Mollified, Celeres removed his cloak and tabard and shoved them into his saddle bags.

            The company had remounted and were ready to run when the beast came into sight. Oblivious, Katchen continued to work her magic. The company responded like the professionals they were, moving into a line between her and the beast.

            It was a giant, standing two humans in height, challenging the trees around him for the sky. Every inch of his body was covered in shaggy blond hair that shook as he stomped across the ground. The giant bellow anew as it spotted its prey waiting for it patiently near the border of the purple mold.

            The gold masks roared back in challenge, shaking their crossbows belligerently at the beast. If their display intimidated the giant at all, it certainly did not slow him down. Celeres shifted his grip on his staff nervously, watching the hairy thing bearing down on them. The Colonel call out commands as the giant came in range, launching a wave of bolts from the gold masks. Most hit their mark, thudding into the flesh hidden under the fur. The giant did not slow.

            :Done!: Katchen called out, pulling herself onto her antelope. :Let’s go!:

            “Fall back!” Colonel Rafe roared.

            The gold masks peeled away from the line one at a time, following the mage as she plunged through the mold-infested area. Celeres pressed his mount hard, as eager as the rest to try and outrun the giant. He was as surprised when the monster stopped at the edge of the purple area, howling in frustration.

            Katchen pulled up to look back at the stymied beast. She crossed her arms across her chest, wiggled her fingers rhythmically, and split two extra sets of limbs from her body. After an intricate wave of those, a bolt of lightening launched from her fingertips, zapping across the giant’s chest. He squeaked in pain and retreated, casting baleful glances back at his lost prey.

            Prince Emhyr nodded in satisfaction as she rejoined the company. “Where to?” he asked the Colonel.

            :If it pleases Your Highness, I would like to make our way back to the road. Our thief showed every sign of crossing into the mold along it,: Katchen interrupted.

            “It would be as good a way as any through this muck,” Colonel Rafe agreed.

            The Prince nodded again. “Move them out, Colonel.”

            Colonel Rafe barked out a command, leading them to the south at a more sedate pace. The road stood out in startling blue-green against the purple of the mold around it. Apparently, there was something about the octagonal plant that kept the mold from growing on its eight stems and their leaves. A sign found early on confirmed the thief had come along the road, reassuring the company.

            Unfortunately, by late afternoon they had discovered too many signs. This valley had once been a crossroad for traffic in the north-out arm, and the roadweed split in three different directions. Scouting along all three roads revealed the thief had taken all of them for quite a way.

            The gold masks grumbled at the delay, considering their moldy surroundings with unease. When Katchen declared they would have to stay overnight for her to determine which was the thief’s ultimate path, the complaints became noticeably more vocal.

            Colonel Rafe cut them off without sympathy. “Look at the horizon,” he said. “This mold goes on too far for us to escape it before tomorrow. Whether we stop now or in a couple of hours makes no difference.”

            That did nothing to improve the company’s mood but did make the gold masks more discrete in their complaints. Not being able to risk eating spoor laden food or use their bedrolls on the frozen ground did not improve the situation at all.

            The tension in the camp made Celeres just as happy to have guard duty early in the evening. He had found the early morning shifts left him feeling faint, and he imagined he might be able to sleep even in his armor on the icy ground. Still, there did not seem to be anything to guard against. The mold had driven everything living out of its area, even insects. Any motion or noise that broke the silence would have gotten the attention of even to most inattentive guard, so Celeres let his mind wander more than he usually did.

            He found himself looking at the horizon, above the mold-laden sights Colonel Rafe had pointed out to his troops. As Zonneshin went down, the stars came out and the nightglow twinkled on the edge of the sky. Celeres had been told once that despite the random dance of the stars across the sky, the stars were evenly distributed in the heavens. They sited the nightglow that circled the horizon as proof of that. Everyone knew that the sky went on forever, like the ether ocean below it. As Tiran drifted along, the stars above it separated, drifting out of the nightglow and through the sky until they rejoined the light on the horizon. The nightglow itself was all those stars too far away to be seen individually but bright enough to still reach Tiran with their light.

            Celeres happened to find himself facing the direction the green star he shared with Sanura had taken. He tried to find it among the light of the nightglow, but it had been too long and the star had melted its light with its siblings’. Celeres heaved a sigh, missing his wife.

            “It should only be a night, boy,” Colonel Rafe said, coming up behind him. “Missing a couple of meals isn’t fun, but it’s hardly a tragedy.”

            “It’s not that, honorable. I was trying to find the courting star I shared with my wife. It’s disappeared into the nightglow.”

            “You’re missing her then. I miss my wife, too.”

            Celeres tried to reconcile that image with the man who had been drilling him remorselessly for months now. “How long have you been married, Colonel?” he asked politely.

            “Seventeen years. We have four children, three of the old enough to have received Zonneshin’s gift.”

            “How long have you worked for the Prince?”

            “Fifteen. The Emperor himself assigned me to him when he was ready for combat training. Royalty rarely lead troops into battle anymore, but they still need to know how to fight. As it turned out, the Prince has a real flair for it. Really, I’ve only trained one with more talent.”

            “Who?”

            “You.”

            “Really?” Celeres asked, incredulous.

            “Yes. You’ve been a very strange student. You’ve learned things in months that should have taken years. It’s been more like you already knew things, and I was just reminding you of them.”

            “Sanura’s always been the soldier, not me,” Celeres said lamely.

            “Not anymore.”

            “So, has the Prince always been so cold?” the blood knight asked, desperate to change the subject.

            Spotting the Colonel’s raised eyebrow, he immediately regretted the presumptuous question.

            Colonel Rafe grunted. “I suppose he might seem that way, considering how little you’ve actually dealt with him. He has his ambitions, and he is pretty focused on them. He’s been trained for a job where millions will depend on him, and he sometimes loses focus on how it can affect individuals.”

            “Like his troops?” Celeres asked dryly.

            The Colonel looked puzzled, then smiled in understanding. “Oh. No, Prince Emhyr just understands the restrictions of station.”

            Now it was Celeres turn to appear puzzled.

            “Do you know how Supreme Commander Vuon ended up with the blood knights?”

            Celeres shook his head.

            “You can tell by looking at him that he used to be nobility. Like everyone who’s received Zonneshin’s gift, his skin has turned yellow. He was, in fact, an officer in the Imperial Guard, several years my senior. He was young and talented, and it seemed like he would go far.

            “The Emperor’s brother, Prince Dokusai, was also young and talented, but he had reached a limit on how much further he could go. There were certainly other directions he could have turned to, but he was not content simply being a prince. In the end, he led a coup, and some of the gold masks, including Vuon, joined him.

            “The Prince lost, of course, and died during the conflict. Vuon was one of the few that escaped. Pledging himself to the blood knights let him keep his head, and his talents eventually led him to the role of Supreme Commander. And for my role against the rebellion, I came to the attention of the Emperor himself.

            “Now, the Emperor’s son, Emhyr, turns out to be much like his uncle-talented and ambitious. He’ll be a good emperor, capable of balancing the needs of so many people and keeping his rule intact. But he is clearly impatient to be in charge rather than waiting for his father to step down.

            “So, rather than risking a coup from his son, the Emperor sought a way to keep him occupied. However, to truly keep his ambitions in check would require something bigger than an empire. It would have to be on the scale of the games the Firstborn play. Arranging for the Prince to seek them out on his own required a great deal of subtlety, but the Emperor managed it when the Prince was still a teen.

            “Which eventually leads us to running across the Empire looking for a magic crystal with an island witch, a reluctant blood knight, and a company full of gold masks from the very lowest ranks of society. Gold masks with no connections to noble houses that could help Prince Emhyr overthrow the Emperor. Common soldiers who hold the ruling family in awe and would be confused if the Prince was not remote.

            “I’m rather surprised you don’t share their awe, but as I’ve already noted, you’re rather odd.”

            Together, they watched the stars for a few minutes in silence.

            Celeres turned to Colonel Rafe and said, “No, I don’t think that’s it.”

            The Colonel laughed and walked away, shaking his head.

            The blood knight shrugged and returned to the dull duty of guarding the camp.

            Katchen had spent much of the night consulting her seeds and casting her proxies. :He took the center path,: she declared to the company in the early morning hours.

            “We’ll leave as soon as it’s light enough,” Prince Emhyr answered.

            As miserable as the camp was, there were still a few who had to be woken as Zonneshin’s light crested over the horizon.

            Confident in their path, the company crossed the mold-infested area without pausing to check for further signs of their prey. By noon, the road passed beyond the range of the mold. They paused at mid-afternoon to let Katchen purge the last of the spoors off the company. She examined their food and declared it unfit to eat. The company tossed it away. Prince Emhyr had just ordered the company to split into hunting and scavenging parties when the attack came.

            A boulder whipped through the riders, crushing a gold mask and her mount outright. The company scrambled to defend themselves, trying to locate their attacker. Prince Emhyr found him as a second rock bounced perilously close.

            “Katchen, the giant!” the Prince yelled, pointing at the hairy beast standing in the distance, hefting another boulder to throw. “Colonel!” The Prince called out, waving an arm along the road, away from the giant.

            “Move out!” the Colonel bellowed, leading the company along the roadweed.

            Celeres lingered, waiting to ensure Katchen escaped and needing to protect Prince Emhyr, who was waiting to see how effective her proxy would be. Another boulder pounded in, catching the last of the gold masks as he moved to follow the Colonel. This one came in low, killing the antelope and crushing his leg. Cursing, the Prince rushed to help.

            With his liege busy, the blood knight was the only one to see Katchen’s proxy take effect. Like water from a fountain, fire leapt from the ground and shot up, engulfing the giant. Its howls were anguished.

            That proxy, along with holding the mold at bay and spending all night tracking the thief, took the last of Katchen’s energy. She swayed in her saddle, heading for the ground, but Celeres caught her. After futilely trying to prop her back up, the blood knight picked her up and slung her over his saddle.

            “Go!” the Prince barked, the wounded gold mask over his own mount. Swatting the mage’s antelope to get it moving, Celeres took off after Colonel Rafe and the rest of the company. Prince Emhyr grimly noted Katchen’s handiwork, nodded in satisfaction, and followed his troops.