A Guest Worth Testing
“H-huh...?”
“Johan. Finish it.”
Johan gave a small, apologetic bow and tightened his grip. Gullak felt his own body lift clean off the ground and went numb with shock.
“Wh... what... oof!”
“My apologies.”
“Where the hell did you dig up this bear of a man?!”
Sprawled on the floor, Gullak glared up at Suetleug in protest. The old man avoided his eyes with the studied air of someone who hadn't heard a word.
Gullak picked himself up, dusting off his clothes — and then his face suddenly brightened with recognition.
“Marcel! It's Marcel's troll-slayer!”
“Yes.”
“So you're that cowardly, conniving old bastard after all!”
“Bring out some chairs. Guests should be received properly.”
Gullak slapped his knee. He should have taken those rumors far more seriously when he'd heard them!
Gullak grumbled on and on, but he kept his word. Suetleug and Johan were seated as guests.
“I smell wolf. What have you been up to?”
“My wolf is outside.”
“Well, speak freely — you're guests. Ah... you command wolves, then?”
“Yes.”
“Might I see it?”
“If you don't mind.”
At Johan's call, Karamaf walked in from the stable. The sight of the enormous wolf startled Gullak — a beast of that size was a rare thing indeed.
“Remarkable! A wolf like this...”
-Grrr.
Karamaf growled low. It was a simple declaration: touch me and lose the hand. Gullak understood instantly and stopped.
“How did the two of you come to be close?”
“Well... it just happened. It followed me around, and we got along.”
“!”
At that, Gullak stared at Johan in genuine astonishment. But Johan didn't look like a man telling lies.
“The forest's magic. It has to be.”
“Don't go pinning magic on whatever suits you. What magic could ever come out of those dreary places?”
“Ignore that sly old codger. The forest is where true mystery dwells. A sacred darkness, passed down since time immemorial, blankets it. Rivers... well, rivers are just rivers. Just yesterday I watched a crew of sailors pissing right into one.”
“Does he think people only piss in forests and nowhere else?”
Gullak ignored Suetleug's jab and pressed on.
“Monsters are one of the forest's mysteries. If that mystery followed your bloodline here, then an even greater mystery must lie sleeping in your soul, if not your blood.”
Gullak went on to explain that when he entered the forest, he could hear and understand the speech of every beast within it — and speak back to them.
That, too, was because he had grasped the forest's secrets and taken its mystery into himself.
“Are there no knights in your ancestry with some connection to wolves?”
“I don't believe so.”
“Then it may simply be innate. The forest's love — what a gift the god has granted you.”
“......”
If not his bloodline, then his soul — on that point, Johan had his own suspicions. Was Johan's soul not, in fact, one of the greatest mysteries of all?
“If there's nothing more to say, let's leave it at wolves. We came here on business — that friend of yours is hard to find in the city except in winter.”
Suetleug pointed at Gullak as he said it.
“You only stay in the city during winter? For some magical reason?”
“No. It's cold in winter.”
“......”
“Anyway — why are you here?”
“To share with you the mysteries I've gathered in my wanderings.”
With that, Suetleug laid out a bundle wrapped in violet cloth — the Fire Cup — along with the journals that had belonged to the Nahra cultists.
“One is a magical tool dating back to the days of the Ancient Empire. The other is a book of mysteries concerning shadow and flame.”
“...What do you want for them?”
“This knight and I are bound for the Brudhe Duchy. As you know, the Empire's east is rough country.”
For all its forests and mountains and unclaimed wilds, nowhere in the Empire could compare to the east.
Tribes that had rejected both the Empire and its One-Faith, ambushing settlers on the frontier. Nobles holding to the old kingships of that land. And the vassals of the eastern empire, proud heirs claiming the bloodline of the Ancient Empire itself...
The Empire's east was a land of savage, seething barbarism.
“So hand over some hides.”
“......”
“Hides?”
“The ones your friend there carries aren't just fine in quality — they hold the power of magic within them.”
Living in the forest and speaking with the animals, Gullak could acquire hides of a quality no ordinary hunter could match.
“They must hold warmth enough to ward off the cold, and be tough enough that spear and blade can't easily breach them.”
“I never said I'd give you any!”
“So you're not interested?”
Gullak had hides aplenty — but nothing like what Suetleug carried. Scratching at his beard with naked longing written across his face, he asked,
“So where did you get this magical tool?”
“That I cannot say.”
“Ugh... it's fine if I unwrap it and look, though?”
“Do as you like.”
Gullak peeled back the cloth — and recoiled in astonishment.
“This is a Fire Cup!”
“It is. I knew you'd like it. Looks like just the thing for life in a forest, doesn't it?”
“...Hold on. Fire Cups are normally used in pairs.”
“I couldn't find the other one. It wouldn't be a bad use of your time to look for it, I'd say.”
Gullak's expression turned very, very suspicious.
“Lord Kaenerna. Might you tell us what manner of person this is we're to bring in?”
“Why so?”
“...We have sworn to obey your commands, my lord, but we have our honor as well. We believe we should know what manner of person we are being sent to seize.”
“If I don't tell you, do you mean to defy my orders?”
“......”
Kaenerna chuckled and spoke.
“A jest. Can I not jest? The one we're taking tonight is a mage.”
“Ah...”
The knights relaxed. Abducting a mage sat far easier on the conscience than abducting a noble. Granted, mages were unsettling folk in their own right — but their leader was a mage too. That much, they could accept.
“He's one skilled with forests and beasts. He will be of use in finding Gairendel.”
“So that's it...”
The knights accepted the mage's explanation with nods — and no small measure of surprise. There were things even Kaenerna could not do? At the Emperor's court he had seemed a man who knew everything...
“Let us hear the plan.”
The knights had already made contact with men loyal to the Emperor's faction and bought off those who needed buying.
The night watchmen they would encounter after dark. The gate guards they would slip past come morning.
Their target held no exalted station and belonged to no noble house — which made the whole business feel that much cleaner.
When Kaenerna gave the signal, the knights would swarm in, subdue the mage, and drag him out. From there they would use the cover of night to move him to their lodgings and wait out the rest until dawn. Reach that point, and it was a success.
“I would prefer it resolved with words, if possible.”
“Is it that you shrink from laying hands on a fellow mage, my lord?”
One of the knights asked it out of something like hope — hope that even Kaenerna, who seemed so far removed from ordinary human feeling, so bloodless and pitiless, might harbor such sentiment after all.
Truthfully, they wanted it to be true. What cannot be understood is always feared. To this day, the knights found the mage called Kaenerna difficult to grasp.
“No. That mage is simply strong.”
“Ha. Lord Kaenerna, however strong a mage may be—”
“Is there anyone here who could fight a bear barehanded and win?”
The knights were caught off guard by the non sequitur. Armed, perhaps — but who on earth fought a bear with bare hands?
“No one? Then don't get careless, and ready yourselves for a fight. That mage has the strength of a bear. He can likely take the form of a bear within the forest.”
Absurd as it sounded, the knights had no choice but to accept it. Kaenerna spoke in riddles often enough, but he did not lie in matters like this.
“A few blows are permitted, so don't hesitate — swing your cudgels. Don't rely on blades alone.”
“...Yes, my lord.”
With the matter settled, Kaenerna set a long pipe between his lips, wearing an expression of weariness. The pipe lit itself, though no flame had ever touched it. The knights watched, and were afraid.
Suetleug had once told Johan that conversations between mages are duller than you'd think.
He had been wrong.
Conversations between mages were far, far duller than you'd think.
Hours of the same exchange on loop — where the journals had come from, where the Fire Cup had come from — until at last Johan draped himself over Karamaf and lay down. Karamaf purred.
“Let's rest a bit.”
-Grrr.
“?”
Karamaf turned his head toward the door. Gullak caught it too and glanced over.
“Looks like we have a visitor.”
“So people other than me visit you?”
“Tell me about it.”
Gullak swept his filthy hair back. Unlike Suetleug, the revered Sage of the Ipael River, Gullak was a far less sociable creature. In the city, most people had never even heard of him.
“Stay inside for a moment. Guests must be received properly.”
“Same test as before, I take it?”
“Shut up and get in there.”
Gullak herded the two men and one wolf toward the back room. Then he opened the door.
“...My.”
Just as the visitor had recognized that Gullak was a mage, so Gullak recognized that his visitor was one.
“I've seen you once before. The wildman of the black forest — Gullak. Am I right?”
“And who might you be?”
“Court mage to the Emperor.”
“Lord Kaenerna?”
“You honor me, remembering my name. May I come in?”
Without waiting for an answer, Kaenerna stepped inside. In the space of a startled stammer, Gullak had already retreated a step.
“The Emperor's... court mage, here? What business brings you...?”
“A request. I must find someone, and finding people is not my specialty. You will help me. You won't refuse, I trust?”
“...I refuse.”
Gullak frowned as he answered. He had heard the name Kaenerna a few times. A mage of the Emperor's court, they said, one who handled every manner of secret.
But Gullak was a mage too, dealing in the same mysteries.
He was no fool to be cowed by another man's authority and office.
“Why refuse?”
“I have no interest in honor, and even less in the Emperor's wealth. I am no hunting dog that comes when called.”
“You misunderstand the Emperor sorely. Think of it as a simple favor.”
“Then I refuse all the more. I'm not in the habit of granting favors.”
“It's no great burden, and you'd refuse a guest's request?”
“You are not yet my guest. I have not accepted you as one.”
At Gullak's unbending answer, Kaenerna gave a contemptuous snort.
“I see. Then what must one do to be received as a guest?”
“Pass the test.”
Kaenerna smiled thinly.
“And would this test happen to be a test of strength?”
Gullak's face flushed with embarrassment.
“Setting only the tests you know you can win — that's beneath a mage, cowardly. Has anyone ever passed it?”
“Yes.”
“!”
For the first time, emotion crossed Kaenerna's face. The emotion was astonishment.
Gullak felt an inexplicable swell of pride. So this was what came of being swindled by Suetleug earlier today.
“Truly? Astonishing. In any case, I have no intention of taking your test. Do you truly refuse me?”
“I do.”
“Very well. Nothing to be done, then.”
Kaenerna rose and opened the door as if to leave. But through the open door came figures with their faces hidden behind masks.
“!”
“Subdue him.”
“Kaenerna! You come as a guest and dare this?!”
“You're the one who wouldn't treat me as a guest.”
Gullak's rage boiled into a growl. It seemed as though every hair on his body stood on end like chestnut burrs. Even the knights, who had privately dismissed the mage, flinched.
“I swear by the name of the black forest — everyone who lays a hand on me tonight leaves with a broken neck. Honorless filth, the lot of you!”
“...Subdue him!”
Stung where it hurt most, the knights charged.
They wore no armor, and each carried only a single well-honed cudgel — but that was more than enough to subdue one mage who knew nothing of fighting.
BANG!
The door burst open and Johan came charging out of the back room.
Johan and Suetleug, who had been listening in, were horrified by the scene unfolding before them.
-What did I tell you? Didn't I say to watch out for an attack by the Emperor's faction!
-No... no... how can it be us they're attacking?
-Get out there and help him, now!
“Uh... huh?”
The knights had landed a few blows on Gullak before faltering, wrong-footed by the sudden arrival.
Johan drew his sword.
Just because the enemy held cudgels didn't mean he intended to fight fair.
“W-wait...!”
Before the words had finished leaving the knight's mouth, his head went flying.