The squire hoisted both halves of the lifeless body of his fallen lord onto the back of an unfamiliar, saddled horse. He could not help but notice how different this creature looked to the horses of Cybele, an elegant nobleman’s breed as opposed to the stocky workhorses of his father’s fields. He wondered if this would be carrying him to an encampment filled with foreign things he had never seen before. All he knew were wheat and the barracks of the Knights he had served, and even then, he felt as if he knew very little of much at all. What could he offer the scholar-cavalryman?

A wave of heat buffeted his back. More towering blasts of flame appeared far in the distance behind him; the front must have advanced further than he realized. The land that his family had worked for generations would likely not be spared from the devastation. The smell of new smoke penetrated his nostrils and involuntary tears welled in his eyes fixed on the horizon.

The scholar finished writing in a small pocket-sized notebook and glanced back at the boy. “Let us be off to see the end of swords and the beginning of plowshares,” he said.

“There may not be fields to plow when I return,” Nils replied in low tones, “It is fine so long as I am able to bring honor to Sir Glenn.”

“Your commitment to duty is astonishing, and to the point that you were willing to cast your young life aside. What manner of obligation do you owe your master?”

He was quiet for a moment. He never had to think about what manner it was, simply that it was. After all, he was his rightful liege, but there was more to it. “He was the lord of my family’s land, and I believe he was a good man. During the Great Famine, none in his territory suffered, unlike the many who died under greedier men. When my sister was ill with pox, our family could not then afford medicine, but he paid for her care from his own coffers. She was a mere peasant girl without so much as a family name. A man such as that should be honored.” The tears rolled down his cheeks at last.

The man mounted his horse and extended a hand for the squire, who took it and sat atop the slender horse behind the mage. “Your love for your master is evident. I promise that with your help we’ll uncover what the nature of Cybele’s resurrection truly is.”

“Do you think I might be able to see him again? Alive?”

The horse began moving away from the battle front towards the Imperial forward camp. The man pondered the question before answering, “I should hope not, not to bring offense. I have not studied the culture of Cybele before my recruitment, but I recognize that perhaps permanent death exists only for the low caste of Cybele. It is not my intention to say that your master deserves death, but rather that all things must eventually die. It is our obligation as the living to eventually cease living, and none should be exempt from it.”

“He said much the same,” the boy said, recounting the distant look in his eyes whenever they spoke, almost as if he had been speaking to someone besides himself. “But he’s once said many odd things I scarcely understood.”

“For one who supposes himself a mere peasant, you certainly have picked up a knight’s manner of speaking. I imagine I myself would have enjoyed speaking with Sir Labroaig. From your description, I believe despite our vast cultural rifts, he and I shared similar beliefs.”

“He was not one for conversation,” he said, holding fast to the saddle with his legs alone, one hand on his lord’s corpse, one hand on Sir Glenn’s sword, cloudy with dust, dull from the wear of battle. He turned it once over with his fingers, a dexterous motion tempered from years of practice. The ancient blade was forged from an unknown iron alloy, never to rust and never to break, a symbol of a man’s oath taken long before the foundations of Cybele were laid. Nils was quiet as he inspected the blade.

“I think conversation to be a delight. In my youth, I was known among the students of my class as something of an information broker, revealing hidden knowledge for a cost. And, ah, perhaps in my immaturity there was a time when I did do that, but did I do it for the money? That couldn’t be farther from the truth. What possible value can one ascribe to knowledge? Can it even be paid in something as crude as money?”

“It sounds as if you were no more than a gossip.”

“And you sound exactly like my ward,” he said with an unseen smile, “She’s said the very same thing. How old are you, my boy? Perhaps twelve years of age?”

“I do not know my precise age.”

“She is twelve herself. A mere child but precocious in her insight, sure to be a mage of great renown in her future, but alas, the grooves of her soul run deep. Her father was the scion of a wealthy family that fell to ruin, and unable to pay his debts, offered his youngest daughter as a sort of collateral to his creditors. Fortunately, she came under my care before any harm could come to her, but such a heinous betrayal has affected her gravely. When you meet her, be gentle with her.”

“I see,” Nils replied, his attention wandering. He had heard of such things happening in Imperial lands, but it was unimaginable to him. The Cybeleans considered family bonds forged through women, and to sell one’s daughter to repay a monetary debt would have been as likely as selling one’s own mother. “Do all Imperials find it acceptable to do such a thing?”

“You will find that opinions in the Empire are as vast and myriad as the number of stars in the sky, and smooth runs the water where the brook is deep,” the man said, surprising even himself, and more slowly finished by saying, “And in his simple show he harbors treason.” The man felt a pinprick against his back, right below his lowest rib. “I did always think that precognitive poetry ill suits me.”

Nils had his master’s sword pointed against the man, a look of grim determination on his young face. This moment had been on his mind since he dropped the knife, and if he didn’t act now, it would soon be too late. As powerful as intermagia may have been, it could not deflect a strike this close. He had to act before the man took notice. He felt the dampness of sweat from within his gloves.

“Defer no time, delays have dangerous ends,” his target declared, “I am caught unaware and unarmed, and you would have the honor of slaying an enemy mage, yet you hesitate.”

Nils closed his eyes tight. His breath quickened, as did his very soul, as it seemed to beat in his chest and in his ears. Somehow, the mage must have known, but Nils imagined far worse retribution. They all had strange, unfathomable powers after all. “Seeking honor as a lowborn is as absurd as a dog seeking gold,” he said softly, his sword-arm now dangling to his side. He had planned on stabbing the mage in the back and seizing control of the horse to return to Sir Glenn’s manor to complete the burial. This was for his master’s honor, never his own. His mind wandered to the girl under his care. He would be slaying someone else’s master, someone who needed him. “I do not know how the lords of Cybele come back to life, but he tasked me with burying his body should he die in battle. I am bound to obey his final command, no matter what it takes. That is the oath of a squire to his liege. I had thought my only options were to kill you or die in the attempt, but my master’s words ring clear to me even now. His true final command was to cherish my life.”

“Is that so?”

“Do you cherish your own life?”

“Only in so much that I may seek the knowledge I desire,” the scholar laughed, relieved, “I make for a poor soldier in that regard.”

“And what will you do with the knowledge you obtain?”

“I will pass it on to whoever desires it. Without price. Even you, an enemy of the Empire.” The horse came to a stop. “Stay silent, young knight.”

As Nils peered past the mage, he noticed another mounted soldier approaching, regaled in an armor that indicated high rank. “Lord Hadler!” the male soldier bellowed from a distance in a refined tone befitting aristocracy, “You return defying orders? Is there a reason for this?”

“I have captured an enemy combatant for interrogation and a body for study.”

“That is precisely what I mean when I said defying orders. We are to burn thoroughly the bodies of all Cybeleans encountered, or were you intending to join them?”

“Your words, Guard Captain, mean nothing to me. We have been pressed into serving the Empire not to serve as mobile funeral pyres, but to understand the Cybelean esoteric. The mission supersedes the order.”

The captain interrupted him, “That is to be done once the threat of reprisal is eradicated. The order is not to be disobeyed on a whim according to your personal estimation of this mission. How can you alone take responsibility if your actions threaten the success of our operation?” He aimed an enormous metal lance at the mage, but Nils could feel the point trained on his head, “Kill the prisoner, burn the bodies, and return to the front at once.”

“Can you not see how that would undermine the mission?”

“This is why magicians and illusionists have no place in the Emperor’s employ. There is no bargaining. This is a command, Principal Option Hadler.”

Nils clenched tightly the sword in his hand. It wouldn’t be too late to take control of the horse and ride into battle against the armored cavalryman, or flee. The scholar looked back over his shoulder and gave the squire a knowing look. “We are mere minutes from camp. It would be easier to be detained and speak with the Commander about this situation. Do not let panic hasten your hands.”

“Detained?” Nils responded, “It would be more expedient to use your magic to influence his mind or cast a spell of sleep — or just kill him with fire. Are you even a mage?”

“I shall use magic far older, and far more effective than intermagia,” he replied, alighting from the horse altogether, approaching the soldier. Nils watched intently, his eyes focusing as hard as they could on the small glass object the scholar pulled from a pocket within his inner tunic. His mind spiraled with the possibilities in that brief instance. What display of ancient magic was he to witness? He braced himself for anything.

Seconds passed — then minutes. Nils heard only the rush of wind as the two men spoke. Nothing seemed to be happening. Before too long, the captain took the reins once more and bade them, “Very well, I shall escort you to camp myself. Speak of this to no one.”

“Of course, Captain.”

The scholar returned with a smile, “It is done. Let us continue.” He mounted the horse as easily as he dismounted and resumed the journey.

“What happened? How did you get him to comply? Did you use magic at all?”

“Well, yes, but perhaps not what you imagine. Magic is paradox with a result. To give a short lesson, intermagia is well-understood as the redefinition of context. Something, anything, must first be converted into pure and imaginary value, and then redefined. Most people instinctively understand this to be unnatural, and yet we see it in nature all the time.”

“How so?”

“It is simply violence. Mages in the Empire were once socially meager in the way an executioner or a slave trader is today, and yet no one questions the need for executions or slaves. Everyone benefits from it, yet those close to violence are considered crude or unclean.”

“Everyone benefits save for the enslaved. It is outlawed in Cybele.”

“And yet, I imagine there exists slaves in all but name even in Cybele, those who have no relations but to someone they are forced to call a master. Indeed, one can see magic as a form of metaphysical slavery. We are stripping something of its context in order to manipulate it according to our whims. Humans have the context of relationships, roles, ancestries, and to excise them of such vital things is the same as killing them. Magic is a sort of brutality in the same way.”

“No one thinks so lowly of woodcutters and carpenters, and they do much the same thing. What is it then that is so violent about your magic?”

“You are correct. Intermagia is not fueled by the burning of wood. It is human memory that is burned — and rarely ever ours. It would do a mage no good to forget how to cast the spell after all,” he paused to drink from a flask at his hip before continuing, “The citizens of the Empire are drawn into a contract from birth to offer the memories they naturally forget, crystallized. Mnemos crystals are more precious than any natural resource in the world. It is like your very soul given form. Young men will offer mnemos to the bride’s family. Elders will pay for their own funerals with it, in order to lift that burden from their children. And of course, those who study intermagia will purchase it at high value to cast our magic. Some say that it was the first form of currency, and that the word shares etymological roots with the word ‘money,’ but it often isn’t possible to purchase mnemos with base gold or silver.”

“And so to use such valuable objects to burn bodies on a battlefield…”

“Or to use unnecessary magic on a whim would be a flagrant abuse of something irreplaceable.”

The obvious dawned on Nils. It took a while, but the scholar’s explanation made it more than clear. In horror, he asked, “Is that it then? That is what you offered the captain of the guard?”

“Yes, my entire cache of memories,” the scholar said, his gaze unflinchingly set on the horizon where the tents of the Imperial camp had started to come into view. “You see, the guard captain has a son. That son is courting a nobleman’s daughter, and the captain is personally very invested in their union. I have overheard as much while eavesdropping during a communal dinner. In order to prove his son, his family, and his own worth to that nobleman, he would need to bring a substantial amount of mnemos as a bride-dowry. Information is the greatest sword, and the greatest and most ancient magic in the world that only humans are capable of is exchange.”

“Yet does that not mean you are incapable of using magic at all now? That is far too high a price!”

“When you offered your trust to me, I had nothing to offer in return. You even chose to spare my life when you had every opportunity not to. Consider this debt repaid.”

“That does not make any sense. I did not hold you in any such debt. Even if I had, how could you think to make such an imbalanced offer?”

“That is one such paradox that you will find that magic deals in. Debts must be repaid, and yet the price is never well-defined.”