A Shadow in the Mist

“The bond between a Warden and a Relic is something only the Voice truly understands. A Warden can never lose track of his Relic and will instinctively always know where it is. They are drawn together like two lodestones. This allows the Warden to call his Relic into his hand from across an entire battlefield if he is disarmed.”

-from Training a Warden by Sir Lindren Beige, 455 AB

Cain - Saturday, August 10th, 564 AB

Aranea and I walked the castle grounds in the early light. There was a section of the grounds reserved for a garden, with gravel paths that meandered between beds of flowers with lush red leafed maple trees and lilac bushes. We found a set of stairs leading to the castle’s outer wall and sat on the parapet overlooking the mist-covered forest to the north-east.

We’d brought a small picnic, and I used Achlys to slice the bread, cheese, and fruit we’d grabbed from the commissary kitchens.

Footsteps along the battlements alerted us to another presence as Sir Rineer wandered along. He spotted us, nodding in acknowledgement and heading over.

“Cain, I’ve been looking for you,” he said.

“Did I do something wrong?” I asked.

“No, I just wanted to talk to youThere. hasn’t been a time to speak with you in private since we assaulted the bandit base,” he said, waving off my concerns. “I wanted to talk to you about the fight I saw against their leader.”

“What of it?” I asked hesitant, I wasn’t sure I liked where this conversation was going.

“I saw you face him,” he said. “You did well, but then you froze.”

“Yes,” I admitted, the shame making my face flush.

“That kind of thing could get you killed in a fight, could get others killed as well,” Rineer said. “Which is why I’m going to give you an offer to train you privately.”

“Private lessons?” I asked, surprised. “Is that appropriate for the Master of the Mist School?”

“You think I’m the Master of the Mist School?” Rineer asked, laughing. “That’s far too prestigious a position for someone of my blood.”

“I assumed since you were traveling with Sir Valren…” I trailed off.

“No, the crotchety old bastard who runs the Mist School is an excellent Mist Warden but he’s of higher birth and that does…color his perspective on certain things,” Rineer said. “He’s still caught up in ideals of honor, facing your opponent head on. None of these are what a Mist Warden does and are worse than useless to us.”

“You are still a knight,” Aranea objected. “Ideals of honor are never useless.”

“They aren’t when they get you killed,” Rineer said. “I can teach you the things that will be most important to you as a Mist Warden. How to use your abilities without speaking, move silently through the woods and track man, beast and djinn. So what do you say?”

“Why me?” I asked.

Rineer shrugged. “Because you’ve got potential. You’re the son of a war hero from a well-respected noble house. Yes, you’re a bastard, but when your deeds grow in fame that will no longer be held against you.”

“I’m in,” I said. It was his last words that had convinced me. I was tired of always being reminded of my parentage, and being able to make my own name was something I’d do almost anything for.

“Great,” Rineer said. “I’ll train you every day for five hours before the fall term starts. After that, I can only train you once a week for three hours. We’ll start at noon today.”

He reached out and clasped my wrist, and we shook.

“Is that really what you want?” Aranea asked me. “To learn to be a woodsman and rogue out in the forest?”

I shrugged. “I’m a Mist Warden. I may have more direct combat powers than most, but stealth and obfuscation are what we do.”

“It’s why people look down on you though,” Aranea said.

I sighed. “This is the Relic I was given, fate meant for me to have it. I can play the hand I was dealt to the best of my ability, or I can die trying to act like I have skills that I don’t.”

Aranea didn’t have a response to that. We left the academy grounds heading into town. There were various vendors, but I currently didn’t have any coin. What I did have were some monster cores to sell. I also needed to send the relic I had collected from the bandit chief back to its owner’s family to collect the ransom.

I found an exchange and sold the monster cores I’d gained from all the djinn I’d harvested. This got us a decent amount of gold; it wouldn’t be enough to rent housing in town, but it would allow Aranea to purchase furnishings and necessities for our apartment. I found a ransom broker and gave them the mace I’d recovered from the bandit chief. He agreed to find and arrange a ransom with the fallen Warden’s family in exchange for a share of the ransom.

Aranea purchased some cutlery, wooden platters, bowls, cups and a copper tea kettle. While expensive we also purchased tea imported from the eastern holy lands. I helped carry the stuff back to our apartment before leaving to meet Rineer. He had sent a note for me to meet him outside of town. I rode there and dismounted.

Rineer stood in a small training field, another boy about my age also there.

“Cain, glad to see you’re punctual,” Rineer said. “This is my son Enoch. Against my advice, he followed my example and took a Mist Relic, instead of the Sun Relic I got for his seventeenth birthday.” He looked at his son, mild annoyance stifled by an obvious pride.

“He will be your training partner while you are with me,” he said.

Enoch extended his hand and I clasped his wrist. He had broader shoulders than me and thick, muscle-bound limbs. If my father had the physique of a bear, Enoch had that of a bull stuffed into a human’s skin.

“Most Wardens focus mostly on martial skill during their first years of training,” Rineer said. “I think they’re wrong. You’ve spent your entire lives since you were seven learning to fight. You can always learn more, but even a guard can kill a djinn. I’m an example of that. I killed a Mist Jotunn while still a base human. What separates a Warden from a skilled warrior is your Relic.”

Rineer gestured to his spear and Enoch’s and my dagger. “While any fool can use the skills their Relic gives them, our bond with our Relic is much more than that, and lets us do so much more.”

He threw his spear, hitting an upright log and spitting it down the middle. Before the spear could hit the ground, Rineer held out his hand and it shot back, slapping into his palm.

“We are bound to our Relics, but that bond goes both ways. In time you will learn to summon your Relic to your hand across a battlefield. Most Wardens don’t bother to learn that until they’ve hit Squire Tier. They also don’t learn how to use their skills by thought alone until they are at least Knight tier. This is their mistake; I was twenty-nine years old when I became a Warden. They tried teaching me their usual way, but I was already a better fighter than most of my instructors. That’s when I realized it’s not the skill of arms that makes a Warden but your skill with ether. Learn to be a Warden first, then a warrior.”

“How are we going to do that?” I asked after a moment of silence.

Rineer smiled. “I’m glad you asked.” He gestured to the training field. “I’ve set up an obstacle course here for you. Inoticed you’ve got a defensive ability to turn to mist, Cain. Enoch has an ability that lets him teleport five feet out of danger. You’re going to run my obstacle course for the first three hours while I lob these at you,” he said, hefting a heavy leather ball filled with sand.

“If you get knocked over, you restart. You’re not allowed to use your skills verbally the entire time,” he said. “I want you to think about your Relic while you run. Focus on that connection running from your palm all the way through your body. Pull on it, and try to use your defensive abilities without saying a word.”

“Yes sir!” Enoch and I said snapping off a salute.

Rineer sighed. “I’ll allow that while I’m your instructor but I’m just Rineer and father outside of here. Now both of you… start running!”

We took off running for the obstacle course. Stone pylons were set into the ground, rising in height, each as wide around as my forearm. I jumped onto one and pushed off to the next. I started hopping across them when a whistling sound caught my ear. I turned just in time to catch a leather ball to the chest, missing my next jump and hitting the ground hard from a ten-foot drop.

“Get up Cain!” Rineer shouted. “Don’t react physically, use your Relic!”

I pushed to my feet, racing back to the start of the obstacle course and started again. I heard the whistling again and tensed up. I tried thinking of my relic and felt for the connection Rineer had described. The ball struck and I managed to keep my balance, but no connection to my Relic emerged from within me. I kept running, jumping from pylon to pylon until I reached a series of wooden bars. Enoch swung from wooden run to wooden run and I started following behind him.

A leather ball hissed through the air, hitting Enoch in the gut as he was reaching for another rung, and he dropped to the ground.

“Start over!” Rineer shouted.

We kept it up, repeating the course over and over. Getting hit and slowly getting better at not getting knocked off. I managed to complete the entire course once, going from balancing logs to moving between swinging logs and wooden beams that would knock me off into a pit if I didn’t time it right. My body was bruised at the end of the three hours, and I didn’t feel a deeper connection to my Relic to make up for it.

“Don’t feel bad about not managing to non-verbally activate your Relic on the first day,” Rineer said. “One of the reasons Wardens wait so long is to let them slowly develop a bond with their Relic. It’s usually formed while under constant pressure, having the need to reach for its power at a moment’s notice. What I’m doing is speed running that slow process by using your fear to trick your Relic into constantly feeling like it’s in danger.”

“Trick the Relic?” I asked. “You're implying it has its own will?”

“Who’s to say it doesn’t?” Rineer asked. “They have their own names, who’s to say they don’t have their own spirits? That’s a debate for priests though, not Wardens. For our last two hours I’m going to beat the two of you.”

He picked up a heavy wooden training spear. “You are going to try and avoid being hit by my weapon while your Relics sit on opposite sides of the training field. While you’re avoiding being hit, I want you to reach out with your senses and try to pull your Relic towards you. This is a much easier technique so hopefully it will be a lot faster to learn.”

I placed Achlys down on a wooden stump and held my shield up as I circled around Rineer. Enoch doing the same on the other side. Rineer struck out and I jumped back, reaching for my Relic, trying to mentally summon it to my hand. The spear swung around striking me with its shaft on the side of the head before spinning about and striking Enoch on the knee.

Rineer didn’t even try. At his much higher level he could have used the wooden practice spear to break our spines. Instead he pushed us, always just a bit faster than we were, but not so fast that we had no chance of avoiding his attacks. I was gasping for air and wishing I’d invested a lot more points into Endurance by the time the two hours were up.

Enoch and I both collapsed to the ground as Rineer laughed and dumped a bucket of water over each of us. I couldn’t even complain as the icy water soaked through my clothes, my head slowly clearing. I placed a hand on Enoch’s shoulder.

“Celestial Healing,” I muttered, the bruises across his visible skin disappearing.

I did the same to myself, the aches finally disappearing. Rineer hadn’t allowed us to use any of our abilities while training, so my body had been one giant bruise by the end of the five hours. The sun was starting to set as we both pushed ourselves to our feet.

“Thanks,” Enoch said. “I wish I got a healing ability from my Moon Skills, but I just got an ability to let me purify poisons from creatures or consumables, and an attack skill.”

I looked his spear over. It was a fine piece, but I couldn’t imagine someone choosing it over a Sun Relic.

“Why did you become a Mist Warden?” I asked.

“The world needs more Mist Wardens than it does Sun Wardens,” Enoch said.

“There are plenty of Mist Wardens,” I pointed out. “Almost a quarter of all Wardens are Mist Wardens.”

“But how many of them are skilled?” Enoch asked. “I don’t mean to disparage them, but my father is the best of the Mist Wardens in Mistwall. He doesn’t even have the most powerful of relics, only six skills. But he’s a better fighter, tracker, and hunter than all the others. Mist Wardens are almost always chosen from the dregs from those who barely qualify to become a Warden in the first place.”

“You don’t desire the glory of having one of the royal relics?” I asked.

Enoch snorted. “The royal trio is just foolishness created by bards. Yes, I know the saying, every King who has ever risen has wielded a Relic of Storm, Sun, or Fire” but I would answer with this. Perhaps the reason has more to do with the person given the Relic than the relic itself. If you give a prodigy the same Relics every time then naturally, they will be the ones that rise to greatness.”

I smiled and shook my head.

“What?” Enoch asked.

“It’s just, you talk like a scholar, but you look like an ox,” I said, gesturing to his size.

Enoch laughed. “I’ve been told that before. My mother grew up in a convent, but she’d always thought she might take up the role of a Mother Superior before then. She still has those priestly tendencies and it rubbed off on me. Are you staying for dinner?”

I shook my head. “My wife will be expecting me back by now,” I said.

“I’ll see you tomorrow then,” Enoch said, and we clasped wrists again.

I ran back to the town, slowing as I passed through its gates, but still hurrying so as not to get shut behind the castle gates. I passed through the mess hall, but didn’t see Aranea there and grabbed some dinner rolls, making them into sandwiches with sliced ham and a thick sauce before heading up to our apartment. I stepped through the doors and looked around. Aranea had built up the fire and set out our plates.

“You’re back!” she said, throwing her arms around me then stepping back, wrinkling her nose. “Go bathe before we eat.”

I did as she said, slipping into the tub and scrubbing off the grit and sweat I’d accumulated. I dried myself off with a towel, switching into another pair of clothes. Aranea sat down with me and held out her hands. I took them and she bowed her head. For a moment I was confused, then I realized she was waiting for me to say the evening prayers. I usually avoided being around my step-mother, so I rarely had occasion to hear my father do the mealtime prayers. But, I closed my eyes, letting the words from when my mother had said them come back to me.

“Our father the Voice, whose word comes down to us from the heavens, may we follow your guidance always. Give us today the bread of the earth, that we may have strength for the days ahead. And let us not be overcome by corruption, but give us the power to cleanse it from the earth,” I said.

“Amen,” Aranea said, and let go of my hands. “I haven’t heard that prayer in a long time, it’s one of the older ones.”

“It was the one my mother taught me,” I said.

“Do you miss her?” Aranea asked. “I’m sorry that’s a silly question.”

“No, it wasn’t,” I said. “I do miss her, but I think I miss the memory of her more. I have to struggle to remember what she looked like most days. It’s why I play the flute, to better help me connect with her.”

“I wish I knew my mother,” Aranea said. “All I had was Mother Leora. She was very close to me, but I always wondered.”

I was very careful not to say anything, letting the silence end the conversation. We went to bed and I held Aranea close, a small conflict growing in me. I knew her mother, and could tell her, but to what end? To tell her she’d known her mother her entire life, but that the woman didn’t tell her herself? It wasn’t my secret to share, but the burden of knowledge was mine to bear. I closed my eyes, setting aside the conflict and guilt for now and fell asleep.