“Thank you,” Lukias said, bowing his head respectfully to Khiara. “The sensation of being healed so quickly is quite unnerving. I do not understand the power you possess, but I am in your debt.”

“It was freely given,” Khiara replied, rising and fetching her staff.

“What were those creatures?” Annon asked, staring at the gaping corpse of the one Lukias had slit his way out of. Erasmus knelt by it, studying it with obvious fascination. Nizeera prowled nearby, stalking back and forth and sensing the air for danger.

“I don’t know,” Lukias muttered. “I was not expecting them to be here. The protections I know of are inside the temple. They are equally dangerous, I assure you. This presages difficulties ahead. You recognize that, don’t you, Annon?”

The young Druidecht stared at the flat lake, dreading to go any nearer to Basilides.

“I do,” Annon answered softly, searching for a spark of courage in his heart to keep going.

“I heard this phrase once by a Vaettir, who are by nature very superstitious and believe in the existence of gods and spirit beings. It is wise nonetheless: Beauty is indeed a good gift of the gods; but that the good may not think it a great good, the gods dispense it even to the wicked. The same can be said for wisdom.”

—Possidius Adeodat, Archivist of Kenatos

The encounter with Sanbiorn Paracelsus happened when Tyrus was twelve years old and lived in an orphanage in Kenatos. Even though Tyrus was young, he was uncommonly clever and quick to comprehend the world of adults. Though he lived in the orphanage, he was unlike the other orphans, since he still had family in the city. His older sister had brought her two brothers from Stonehollow when Tyrus was just a little baby, and so he had no memory of his birthplace. She loomed large in his life, a sister-mother who worked hard as an Archivist and was eventually chosen by the Arch-Rike himself to begin training as a Paracelsus. His sister was the most important person in the world to him, and he studied with iron will to master the lessons in the orphanage school so that he might be selected someday to become a Paracelsus. He was fascinated by the powers they manipulated. Occasionally, members of the order would come to observe the progress of the young. They were not easily impressed. Sanbiorn Paracelsus was one of those.

That autumn day, Sanbiorn arrived unannounced and began interrogating the students. He challenged them with material higher than their abilities and scoffed when they could not answer his questions. Sometimes he would withdraw a trinket from his voluminous robes and ask them to explain the swirling mist contained inside a gemstone. Some he would begin speaking to in Cruithne or Preachán to see what languages they had mastered. One could never anticipate the kind of questions he would ask. His intent and purpose was to make the students feel ignorant and unworthy. Tyrus hated him for it.

On that visit, Sanbiorn had begun quizzing other students but with lackluster enthusiasm. He was bored of them, he declared. No one had advanced very far since his previous visit. He chided the schoolmasters for producing such an inept crop of students. He roamed the room, skipping several completely with only a look of distaste to signal his rejection. Tyrus clenched his fists, feeling his fingers tingle with heat.

Suddenly, Sanbiorn Paracelsus was standing in front of Tyrus, gazing down his long nose at the boy. “What hour does the south bell toll?” he asked in the Vaettir tongue.

Vaettir was Tyrus’s biggest strength. They did not teach it at the school. He had learned it from his sister. “Dusk in the winter. Dawn in the summer,” Tyrus answered.

The response caught Sanbiorn off guard. He switched his language to Cruithne. “What is the best stone used to harness emotions?”

“Diamond, for it will not shatter,” the boy replied in Preachán.

Again, a startled look. He proceeded in Aeduan. “What device do Lydian sailors use to navigate on the seas?”

“A lodestone compass, sir.”

“Describe the principles of the lodestone magnet, boy.”

Tyrus did, launching into an extensive treatise on the subject. Cartography and navigation had always fascinated him.

The Paracelsus’s eyes were gleaming. Not with pleasure, but rage. Sanbiorn started on another series of questions, all of which Tyrus answered without hesitating. His mouth went dry with the effort, but he kept the older man’s gaze, challenging him to test the depths of his knowledge. He would show him that he was not an ignorant little orphan to be intimidated.

Sanbiorn was growing flustered. Every question, regardless of the difficulty, was being handled by a mere child. There was a sickening pasty color filling his cheeks. His eyes bulged with animosity.