s the sun angled west, the party drew into an abandoned encampment overhung with mossy lianas, cycads and great camphor trees. The buzz of insects intensified as the damp heat of day oozed from the litter covered earth. He stood beside the cart while Akemi and the two warriors, Vrael and Alric, raised the tent. Ronan, his only company during the long bumping ride, was busy attempting to build a fire for the evening’s repast. Having nothing better to do, Mog silently gathered what little dry wood had fallen to the thick duff of the forest floor and added it to the monk’s sparse pile just as Ronan had managed to raise a spark with this flint and tinder.

“Sometimes I wish I were a fire elementalist,” Ronan chuckled, as ever trying to lure Mog from his melancholy, “I’m not good for this chore.”

Mog helped him feed small pieces of wood to the delicate flame until it blazed brightly and cast its amber glow on the darkening camp.

“We’re going to forage,” Akemi announced with the two warriors in tow, “We’ll be back before night fall.”

It was a normal part of their routine and Ronan nodded and continued to feed the fire while Mog, for want of anything better to do, climbed onto the back of the cart and emptied some water into the iron kettle and delivered it to Ronan.

“Thanks,” he said, pleasantly surprised that Mog was at least feeling helpful if not talkative.

“Need me to do anything else?”

“If you would peel these I’d be much obliged,” Ronan said, fetching something earthy and turnipy from a rough sack in the back of the cart. Mog sat down beside the fire and set to work while Ronan set up the trio of iron poles from which the pot hung above the flames.

“Akemi mentioned that you were a Lyssan priest,” Ronan said as he sat down to help.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Sorry, I was just curious what order you belonged to. I don’t think I’ve met a Lyssan priest who was also a mesmer. Most temples prefer to send their Chosen into battle.”

Mog bit his lip. He considered telling the man to butt out but settled for sullen silence. Ronan sensed his annoyance and said nothing for a time, his face thoughtful as he chopped the peeled roots into cubes and put them into the kettle of not yet boiling water.

“When I was young, I liked the idea of Dwayna moving me about. These days, I would rather make my own choices for good or ill. I do not wish to be powerless.”

Mog ignored him, sensing Ronan was too curious to let the matter rest. It was not the first time someone had asked him what it had been like to be a priest of Lyssa. While all temples had both public and private ceremonies, Lyssan temples had earned a reputation for being places of splendor and worldly pleasures. His own experiences bore some of this out, but there were other tales shared among the uninitiated that had been incorporated into a series of bawdy jokes and stories. Mog had grown so tired of being asked if these were true that he had quickly learned to simply omit his past.

“I assume no one enjoys being powerless,” Mog said, his voice even and his emotions tightly under control. He could not afford enemies now.

“She is the goddess of choices, the chaos inherent in the branching path,” Ronan said, “I remember when I was early in my studies I used to meditate at Lyssa’s shrine. There were students who said it was unlucky to draw her gaze for she enjoyed toying with the hearts of men.”

Mog lowered his face, fighting off shame. He did not want to get into a theological discussion.

“Yes, many would agree with that,” he replied, trying to stay neutral and hoping Akemi would return to disrupt their conversation.

“I’ve always been curious how her priesthood serves her,” Ronan began, hesitating when Mog glared at him, “I hope you don’t mind me asking, but is it true that you vowed to surrender your will to her? Isn’t that contrary to what she stands for?”

Mog nodded, relieved that it had not been something much more awkward.

“It is the highest sacrifice one can give to her. It is called the arcane paradox.”

“So she had a purpose for you?”

“Beyond hours of free entertainment? I doubt it.”

Ronan laughed even though Mog could not hide the anger in his voice.

“If she had one, I plan to find out.”

Ronan stopped laughing and paused in his work, the harshness in Mog’s tone drawing his attention.

“How?”

Mog had no intention of telling anyone what he planned to do once they reached the temple ruins. Shrugging, he set the peeled vegetables on the blanket beside the others, deciding he had said too much already.

“I wish to be your friend, Mog. I sense that you could use one right now.”

“If you want to end up dead or injured, by all means, be my friend,” Mog replied, resenting Ronan’s obsequious tone, “I’m tired. I’m turning in early.”

Ronan opened his mouth to protest but nodded when Mog rose stiffly and shot him a warning look. Once inside the tent he kicked off his boots and lay on his back atop his bedding. For a long time he fumed while staring up at the canvas ceiling. When he heard the voices of Akemi and the two warriors returning to the camp, he rolled over to face away from the door, pretending to sleep so that he would not be compelled to speak to any of them.

Mog no longer trusted anyone, least of all himself. If he had arrived among the Shining Blade as a consequence of a summoning spell, his choices had determined the means by which he had arrived. His best recourse, he decided, was to do nothing, at least until he was in the one place where no spell could touch him.

His stomach rumbled as the unctuous odor of roasting pork drifted into the tent. There was talk of how they trapped the little warthog in a ravine, making it easy prey. Eventually he drifted off to sleep only to be nudged awake by Akemi. She set a steaming pile of freshly roasted meat beside his head.

“If you want to be angry, direct it at me where it belongs,” she said firmly, “Ronan is innocent. He is probably one of the kindest people I’ve met and he was anxious that he had annoyed you.”

“I warned him that I did not want to talk about my past.”

“He would not have asked crass questions. It’s not like him.”

“I’ll apologize in the morning.”

“I’d have thought after seven years you’d grow out of pretending you’re asleep to avoid conflict.”

Mog blushed. Of course she referred to all the times he had done this exact thing to avoid her during the early days of his training. He felt foolish for not remembering how well she had seen through him back then as well.

“Old habits die hard,” he mumbled.

“Indeed. You can go on pretending you’re asleep if you want, but at least have some supper. We plan to break camp early to avoid meeting up with Maziba before we have had a chance to scope out the ruins.”

“So we are close?”

“Yes. We might have pressed on and gotten there tonight, but there’s something about that place… I did not fancy sleeping there until we’ve had a thorough look around by daylight.”

Mog sat up and looked at the pork steaming pleasantly on a large leaf. He did not need further encouragement and tucked into it greedily.

“The ruins of the temples always put me on edge when I went back to Ascalon,” he said between bites, “There’s a wrongness… a holy place should not die like that.”

Akemi gazed thoughtfully upon him for a moment.

“Did you ever go back to the Sacred Twins?”

Grief flooded his senses and he blinked quickly to hold back tears. He shook his head.

“Me neither,” Akemi said softly, “It would have been like seeing a lover butchered and left for dead. I did not want that to be my last memory of that place.”

“Don’t…” he pleaded, nearly sobbing as the word slipped from his mouth.

“Sorry, bad choice of words,” Akemi murmured, flushing deep red.

“I never wanted this, I never wanted to kill. I loved her. I would have done anything for her.”

“I was jealous for a long time,” Akemi said, “You were my partner and we were bound as one, yet you slept in the arms of the goddess while my bed was empty. I could never accomplish with harshness what Lyssa sustained in you with love.”

He turned away, fighting to regain his composure. How could he tell Akemi about Maeve? That after all these years he had found her again, but having never seen her face nor known her name, he had missed his last opportunity for joy. Rage was his only salvation and his throat knotted with it, strangling the grief that threatened to overwhelm him. Lyssa owed him an explanation, and he would have it.

“Please, do not speak of her,” Mog snarled, “For seven years I have struggled to put the past behind me.”

Akemi nodded, her normally golden skin ashen. She gazed upon him as if he were demonic for he had never displayed such rage back then.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “Believe me when I tell you that if I could undo everything that has gone wrong, I would.”

Mog bit his lip, determined not to shout at her again. It was becoming a common way of ending the evening.

“Leave me, please,” he said, his voice barely louder than a sigh, “and take away the food. I’m done with it.”

To his relief, Akemi merely nodded and complied.

He slept, but not well. His dreams were dark and he awakened startled and frightened. For a moment he feared he was merely a ghost condemned to roam the earth reliving his greatest sorrows. Bird song glistened in the twilight before dawn and he felt relieved to hear something so ephemeral and beautiful. He rose, grabbing his boots before leaving the tent to stand beside the ashes of the night’s fire. Ronan sat alone on a log, the designated watchman while the others slept. He looked tired and gaunt in the gloom.

“I can take over if you need a rest,” Mog offered, “My back hurts and an hour of meditation would do me good.”

“I really shouldn’t,” Ronan murmured, looking away rather than state outright that Mog was not just under their protection, he was also their prisoner.

“Where am I going to run off to? I’m not keen to meet Maziba and Akemi is the only proof against his summoning me again. Trust me, I’m not going to up and leave.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Ronan yawned wearily, “Thanks. Sorry I was too nosy last night.”

Mog shrugged, and made a wan smile as he took his place on the log. He watched Ronan disappear inside the tent and reached for the walking stick that had become his makeshift staff. He amused himself by poking the ashes, all the while listening and reaching out with his mind until the anxious buzz of Ronan’s mind retreated into the fuzziness of sleep. Assured that everyone was asleep, he rose quietly and headed toward the perimeter of the camp, circling it slowly until he decided the faint trail that appeared to curl up the nearest hill might have once been a cart track.

Lyssan temples were often in lofty places. He had been to a few in his day, and as he strode quietly over the leaf-strewn path, he decided the top of the hill looked like it might have been flattened at one time so that it could provide for the rings of walls that surrounded the cloisters and the inner sanctum. Gradually he saw other signs that his suspicions were right. There were stone markers and lanterns covered with moss and half buried under carpets of forest detritus. Eventually the grasping roots and dense canopy gave way to crumbled walls and pieces of statues dismembered by time and ancient violence. The architecture was unfamiliar, lacking the lancet lines of Ascalon or the onion curves of Elonan arches. As he strolled deeper into its midst, stepping carefully over piles of moss-cloaked blocks and fallen columns, he had the sense that it had been an immense complex. It was hard to imagine something so large and artfully made could simply be swallowed up by nature.

“So apparently your temples have a history of being destroyed horribly,” he muttered upon seeing the statue of Lyssa towering darkly in the wreckage. There was a firefly glow of magic dancing softly around its narrow base and drifting up toward the entwined figures of the twins. Time had been kind to the statue, a fact that was unnerving given the utter destruction and decay around it.

The hair of his nape rose inexplicably. He hesitated, listening and peering through the ethers with his inner eye. Sensing only the industrious whir of animal minds foraging in the thick duff, he stepped closer to the statue, unable to shake the sensation that he was being watched. For a moment he thought he saw the eyes of the dancing goddesses flick open to stare down at him. Mog froze, his palms sweating as he tightened his grip on the staff.

Beyond the statue he saw the great door of the inner sanctum, the holiest and most secure center of the temple. As elsewhere, moss carpeted the immense blocks of stone that formed its rounded walls, but the blue glazed tiles of the dome were intact and the protective sigils on the door were as fresh and potent as the day the gold had been hammered into them. Only the highest members of the priesthood would have been graced with the ability to open that door. And the tenebrae magician, if the temple had hosted such.

He inched closer until he was standing barely a pace away, strangely amused that Maziba had thought himself capable of taking Mog’s place. Of course, it might be conceit on his part to imagine he could open it now without Akemi’s help. It was equally conceivable that if he made a mistake the enchantments that warded the door would react with incapacitating, possibly lethal force. He raised his hand, annoyed that he was trembling as he pressed his palm over the tracery of sigils and ornamentation.

“Lyssa, hear me, for I am your champion. I beseech thee, O Beguiling One, open this door that I might kneel before you in readiness to serve.”

For once his hunch proved true and the golden embellishments flashed and burned in the twilight. A line of magenta blazed at its center and the stones slid silently aside, revealing a small chamber whose dimensions were strangely familiar. The faint light of dawn barely penetrated the amethyst glass of the high narrow windows that pierced the domed ceiling. It was perfectly round, barely twenty paces across and had at its center a dancing fountain encircled by a shimmering pool. As he stepped inside, he tried not to be alarmed when the doors boomed closed behind him and he was swallowed by darkness.

“I assume I’m here because you willed it,” he murmured, “So it won’t be a surprise to you when I expect some answers.”

He stood there for a time until his eyes adjusted to the violet shadows for there was a faint silvery luminescence curling from the laughing water. It was linked to the ethers, a substance neither of this plane nor of the other. A small sip from the pool would grant him the ability to return here at will. More than that was dangerous for the ethers were easily shaped by a sentient mind. Properly focused, the very fabric of reality could be torn asunder.

Mog knelt at the water’s edge, watching the bitter fluid curl and hiss softly. It flowed like mist, cold and formless. Born away in small vials, it was called the wine of Lyssa. It lost its potency, yet still had the ability to grant visions and reveal truths. The truth. He deserved it now after all of these years, after losing Maeve a second time. Trembling, he lowered his face, closing his eyes as the misty substance twisted coldly near his face. Fighting the urge to retch, he took a mouthful of it, swallowing before he was overcome with the urge to spit it out. Shuddering, he coughed as its coldness curled down his throat and settled leadenly in his belly. Already his limbs felt unsteady, as if everything below his neck were melting away.

“O Maeve, if I do not awaken, the punishment of the gods could not be worse than losing you. I will go to Torment gladly if it means I might gaze upon you a final time.”

The emptiness opened up and swallowed him as the ethers blazed coldly within him. A sip, the priestess had told him, only a small taste and nothing more for to do otherwise was death.