When he awoke in the castle infirmary Turgeon felt like he’d been run over by a horse. It was the middle of the night, and the place was dark and quiet. He thought he might be the only one in the large room.

  Moonlight through the high windows did provide a bit of illumination, and as his eyes adjusted he could make out the outlines of a handful of other small beds like the one he was in.

  “Hello?” he tried his voice out, it was raspy and quiet. “Hello?” a bit louder this time, with effort and no small amount of pain.

  “Shhh,” a woman’s soft voice cut through the darkness. She rose from one of the beds near him, lighting a lamp and walking over to his bedside. “Don’t stress your vocal chords, they were damaged badly and will take time to heal.”

  As the castle healer took a seat on a small stool set next to his bed Turgeon got his first good look at her in the lamplight. She was a dark vision of beauty, with alabaster pale skin framed by straight black hair that shone almost as if it glowed from within and wasn’t just illuminated by her small lamp.

  She sat the lamp on the bedside table and began a quick inspection of Turgeon, checking his wounds and dressings. “How do you feel, boy?”

  “Fine, I guess. A bit sore. Tired,” he managed to rasp out.

  “All to be expected after what you went through. A fall foolish thing to do, attacking a monster like that with just a dagger.”

  “You saw it?” He was elated that someone else had seen it this time, an adult. People would believe his story!

  “No, I didna see it myself, but the ones who found you did and they told me of it.”

  “Who found me?” he was almost afraid to ask.

  “The King’s Own Swordmaster brought you to me in his own arms. He was near sobbing as he begged me to try to save you.”

  Turgeon was almost touched by the news that the Swordmaster might actually care for him. But his heart was cold to the man and his next thought was that he was probably just worried that his effort training Turgeon as his apprentice had been lost.

  “You should get some more rest, boy. I’m glad to see you’re awake, but once the news gets out tomorrow as it surely will you’ll likely have visitors. A lot of people have questions for you about what happened in that hallway.”

  With that, she blew out the lamp and left Turgeon alone in darkness again.

  *****

  Bright late morning light was bathing the room in a harsh glare when Turgeon next awoke to find his friend Daelrud at his bedside reading.

  When Turgeon stirred awake, Daelrud looked up from the book he had been engrossed in and smiled. Turgeon managed a weak smile back, and a rasped greeting. “Daelrud. Thank you for coming.”

  “Of course I came, I’ve been worried about you. And you can call me Dael, you’re my only friend in this place and I believe you’ve earned that.”

  “Dael. I suppose you can call me Turge. It’s what…” he paused, choking up for a moment. He hadn’t willingly allowed anyone to call him that since Aelfredd had died. He also remembered what the Swordmaster had implored him the day he’d killed Aelfredd. No one at the castle, even his friend Dael, could know of his origins. “I think maybe some people used to call me that?”

  Daelrud nodded, accepting his explanation. “Turge it is. How are you feeling?”

  “Like corruption,” he replied with a grimace. “Whatever that monster was, it kicked my ass good.”

  “The whole castle has been abuzz about it since it happened. Some think it was Tvetch-kin, others believe it was some sort of undead creature, made with skag magic.”

  Turgeon snorted at that. Tvetch-kin? “Tvetch-kin are just bedtime stories to scare children into behaving,” he said dismissively. But Dael took on a serious mien and shook his head in disagreement.

  “No, Turge. They may be rare these days, but Tvetch-kin are still very real. Some remain in this world from the time of the Fall, and others make their way to Atenla through smaller portals sometimes too.”

  “I didn’t take you as one to believe in children’s stories, Dael.”

  “I believe in what I’ve seen,” Dael responded with a grimace of his own. “When I was a boy our manor was raided by a small band of the monsters. They attacked at night, and our guard was able to repel them with heavy losses. The guards killed three Tvetch-kin, and in the morning I saw their bodies. They are very real.”

  Awed, and more than a little shocked, Turgeon probed for details. Perhaps what had attacked him was a Tvetch-kin after all.

  “What do they look like?”

  “Much like they are often described in the stories. They were massive, one was taller than the stable building even. Laid out in the mustering yard they stretched forever, especially to a small boy’s eye. Not just tall either, they were huge and heavily muscled, with great horns and snouts. A guard had been bitten by one on the arm and the wound was infected with poison from the bite, the arm had to be amputated. I didn’t see any alive, but the men said that their eyes glowed with a dark red light in the night.”

  Turgeon pondered this for a few moments. What Daelrud was describing was nothing like the monster that had attacked him. He said as much to his friend who nodded and pressed on.

  “So, probably it was a monster created by skag magic then. Some sort of undead beast chained to the skag witch’s will and sent to attack. Do you think it meant to attack you?”

  “No…”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, this wasn’t the first encounter,” Turgeon confessed, and told his friend about his previous encounter with a similar beast.

  “This time though, it was clearly after someone else. If it had been seeking me, it wouldn’t have pressed on towards the King’s chambers.”

  He realized what he had just said out loud and went pale as a ghost. Daelrud gave a low whistle and looked around to confirm they were still alone in the infirmary. Of course, in the castle you could never assume nobody was listening just because nobody was in sight.

  “I think this is something you should keep to yourself, friend.”

  “You don’t think anyone else will have figured it out? Who could’ve created such a beast? There can’t be many skag users in the castle.”

  Of course the emissary from Klaav was a known skag magic user, and the king had certainly given him a motive for an assassination attempt the night of the attack. It just didn’t seem to fit together though. Klaav sought Falkaria as an ally, and despite the King’s refusal of partnership if Klaav planned to wage war on Summor they wouldn’t want a second enemy on their flank. However… if, as the King’s spies had apparently reported, Klaav had also sent an emissary to Summor seeking an alliance against Falkaria… in that case assassinating the King would be in Klaav’s interest.

  If the monster had been summoned and controlled by Prince Gyuzski, perhaps the threat was past. The Prince would be well on his way back to Klaav by now, and it seemed unlikely he could summon a monster like that from Klaav and have it reach the castle without being detected and destroyed in transit.

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  For some reason the thought wasn’t as comforting as it should have been. Deep down, Turgeon’s instincts told him the threat – whatever it was – remained within striking distance, still lurking somewhere in the castle.

  “You’re right. The King’s spymaster is probably already all over this, I wouldn’t be surprised if he tries to question you at some point.”

  “Who is the King’s spymaster, Dael?”

  “Only the King and the spymaster himself know, Turge. That’s what makes him so dangerous. You could be talking to him in your cups, giving up all your secrets and not even realize it.”

  That was a scary thought. Another reminder that Turgeon needed to always keep his wits about him in the castle.

  They sat in silence as both considered the situation they found themselves in. Turgeon continued to ponder who else in the castle could be a skag magic user. He thought back to the Librarian’s lessons on the fuels and magic, considering the other applications of skag magic and the symptoms of corruption from its use.

  It occurred to him that a likely candidate would be the castle healer whose infirmary he currently resided in. Skag magic would be helpful to her practice, but she hadn’t borne the typical signs of skag use. She was pale, but in a healthy and attractive way, not sickly with waxy skin. She wasn’t overly thin or skeletal like most skag magic users ended up, especially after the frequent use he would expect if she used skag magic in her regular healing.

  Had she used skag magic to heal Turgeon? His wound had been fairly bad, and seemed to have healed surprisingly quickly. Perhaps there was a way of knowing whether or not magic had been used on someone? Did it leave residual traces?

  Daelrud had sat quietly with him as he thought through these questions on his own, eventually returning to his reading.

  “Thank you again for coming, Dael. I think I should probably get some more rest now though.” Turgeon’s head was spinning and it was the truth, he felt exhausted and was ready to sink back into sleep for a time.

  Dael smiled and nodded, closing his book and taking his leave. “I’ll visit again soon, Turge. Sleep well.”

  He closed his eyes, but sleep would not come. Despite his exhaustion, there was too much to think about for his mind to take it’s ease.

  Before long the healer returned to the infirmary bearing a simple meal of weak broth and watered wine with a slice of crusty bread. Turgeon hadn’t realized how hungry he was until he began to eat and devoured the meal in moments.

  The healer sat with him while he ate, and when he was finished she began to ask questions.

  “How are you feeling, boy?”

  “I’m ok, I guess,” he responded minimally, but she prodded for more.

  “My throat is sore, and I feel weak and tired, but other than that I’m fine. Given the injuries I sustained in the attack it seems like I should be much worse off…” he prompted, hoping she would give something away if she had in fact used skag magic to heal him.

  But she simply nodded and continued with the questions, straying from his health to the attack itself, which seemed to hold a peculiar interest for her.

  “I’m curious, what happened in that hallway? They told me you were attacked by some sort of monster?”

  “Aye, a skag conjured undead beast I think it was.”

  She was startled by that statement, “You seem pretty confident about that. Everyone else thinks it might have been a Tvetch-kin…”

  “It wasn’t. It looked nothing like a Tvetch-kin. It was almost human, but rotten – corrupted by magic. Skag magic.”

  She didn’t take the bait and ask him how he knew it had been skag magic though, simply nodding. She seemed about to ask another question but the door to the infirmary crashed open and the larger than life figure of the castle Librarian barged in with a gust of wind from the hallway outside.

  “Melora, my dear, thank you for nursing Turgeon back to health,” the large man gathered the castle healer up in a hug with a grin. “Is he ready to resume his lessons?”

  Turgeon groaned. More heraldry and noble houses of Summor was sure to put him to sleep quickly, especially now that he had eaten.

  “Perhaps a short lesson, Jesphat. He’s still very weak and I suspect quite tired,” the healer, Melora, replied.

  Jesphat nodded and took a seat next to Turgeon’s sick bed. Melora made herself busy looking after her supplies across the room as the lesson began.

  “Well boy, I hear you acquitted yourself well in the fight.”

  “I nearly died sir, I doubt the Swordmaster would agree with that statement.”

  “We shall see, you did dispatch a monster twice your size.”

  Turgeon supposed that was true. This felt like an opening: the Librarian hadn’t launched immediately into a discussion of noble lineages and territorial disputes from centuries ago, perhaps Turgeon could direct the discussion elsewhere for a time.

  “Sir, may I ask a question?”

  “Of course, you may ask. I make no promises though that I will answer,” he replied with a friendly wink.

  “What is the King’s Ideal?”

  The Librarian gave him a stern glare for that impertinent question. “Boy, you know it is impolite to ask after or discuss another’s ideal. That is between a man and the perfects alone.”

  Turgeon nodded, saying nothing in hopes that he would continue.

  “However,” he sighed, “there are some few exceptions. In the case of the King, as the leader of Falkaria his ideal is of importance to everyone in the kingdom. The King’s ideal sets the course for Falkaria, and as a result can influence the life of everyone from the nobility to the meanest peasant. While it is not necessarily common knowledge, it is known to many that the King follows the ideal of Peace.”

  “Did the emissary from Klaav know that is the King’s idea?”

  “An astute observation, Turgeon. Yes, I believe he did. He attempted to use his knowledge of the King’s ideal to goad him into going to war. Of course, our King is too intelligent to fall for a silly argument that war is the only path to peace. In fact, Prince Gyuszki is not the first man in history to attempt to make such an argument, and in every instance the outcome has disproven the veracity of such logic…”

  With that the Librarian launched into a lecture on the historical instances of the misapplications of the ideal of Peace to justify war, of which there were a shocking number to extoll. Somewhere around the year four or five hundred AE Turgeon dozed off and fell into a deep, and restorative, slumber.

  *****

  When he awoke some time later, feeling refreshed and almost energetic, the presence of the Swordmaster sitting at his bedside brought him crashing back down to Atenla quickly.

  “Turgeon,” his master greeted him quietly as he saw Turgeon’s eyes peek open slowly.

  “Master,” Turgeon replied in kind.

  “Are you healing well?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good, we shall need to resume your training soon. You have much to learn and little time it seems.”

  Little time? What was so pressing?

  “How so, master?”

  “Those answers aren’t for today, boy. Try to get some more rest and heal up, Melora says you should be able to leave the infirmary and return to training tomorrow so I’ll return for you then.”

  He stood and made to leave, but paused and turned back to Turgeon after a few steps.

  “You did well, Turgeon.” His expression softened, “Your f-,” he paused, a pained expression crossing his face but leaving quickly, replaced with his typical stern glare, “Next time try not to get yourself nearly killed though.”

  With that, he left the infirmary and Turgeon alone with his thoughts.

  *****

  Melora was true to her word, and the next day she released Turgeon to return to his training with the Swordmaster, who came to collect him late in the morning. They returned to the tower just in time for lunch and their afternoon session with Suzette.

  When she arrived for her lesson Suzette seemed surprised to see Turgeon in his training garb and ready to spar.

  “You’re back already? Brigitta told me what happened to you and I thought it would surely be weeks before we trained together again…”

  “Melora is good at her job,” the Swordmaster replied for Turgeon. “Turgeon is restored to full health and ready to resume training, and I expect you not to take it easy on him.”

  Turgeon groaned quietly and the Princess flashed him a grin. While he felt better than should be expected after the wounds he sustained, he would not agree that he had been restored to full health. There was nothing to do for it though – if the Swordmaster wanted him to train, then train he must.

  Fortunately, and despite his words to Suzette, the Swordmaster did seem to understand that Turgeon was not quite ready for hard sparring. They spent the next few days working on learning a dagger practice sequence, what the Swordmaster called a catae, for working on dagger techniques on one’s own. Turgeon and Suzette flowed through the guards and strikes in the catae alongside each other but separate, avoiding any physical contact that could harm Turgeon in his slightly weakened state.

  Eventually, after a few days, Turgeon was truly beginning to feel as though he was restored to full health and they resumed full contact training with sparring. They learned more techniques for disarming a knife attacker, new arm locks and new throws, continuing to build upon their knowledge of the dagger. They trained dagger against dagger, learning to hold the long rondel daggers safely in two hands, with one on the hilt and at the point, so it could be used as a shield to deflect attacks and disarm an opponent.

  The weeks passed quickly as they trained, until one day the Swordmaster was waiting for his students in the salle with three of the wooden training swords he called dussacks.