Like all monks, his bandana was his symbol of rank. Green – the mark of a Guardian with basic training. Yet for one such as him, ‘basic’ meant nothing. To others, his ‘basic’ training would have been the equivalent of a century of expertise. Such was the way of a monk that Fenton Reese was unmatched in most battles and formidable at the very least. Trained since he could walk, he had bested many who had been considered the best amongst his kin. Yet all must pass through the trials of life; this was a fact even the gods could not have denied, try though they might.

Yet the gods, though fools they were not, had no inkling that one day their powers would fail them. That day might be the next. It might be ten thousand millennia from the present. Whatever day that was, though, all things must come to an end. Fenton realized this. He had been one of the few. Yet the others had ignored it. Perhaps he was a coward. Perhaps he had not been able to defend himself against the one thing that could destroy him: his fear of death.

All mortals feared death. This was a fact of life. Yet some were brave and decided not to accept death. Fenton had always believed that everything had a purpose; whether the meaning of that purpose was devised by the gods or by some other force was beyond his understanding, as it was beyond most mortals’, and he did not bother trying to determine it. Perhaps he had seen into the future. Perhaps he had discovered his fate and had now avoided it. Perhaps this was his penance.

Or perhaps he was merely a man with a camel, wandering through the Anfauglir desert in search of shade and water. For at the moment, that is precisely what Fenton Reese was: a wanderer. One hundred and fourteen dead souls were not enough to sate the Wizard, though. Barras Rike had destroyed more than the following of a god or goddess. He had destroyed more than the following of a set of principles. Barras Rike had destroyed hope. What had become of Fenton Reese since that time?

Fenton Reese had retaliated. Fenton Reese had destroyed Barras Rike.

Few like the Wizard he had faced ever realized the full value of life. For Barras and others of his kind, life and death were monikers for power and nothing more. They were tools to be utilized, manipulated, created, destroyed, and poured into the moulds that made reality possible. In the minds of Wizards like Barras Rike, magic was the key to reality and reality was just the plaything of those powerful enough to tap into the innate forces that connected a living being to everything else that had life. Yet as with all things, power had to come to an end some time. Barras Rike’s power had failed against Fenton Reese.

But Reese was not a man of murder. He had avenged his brothers of the Church of Divinity; he had done it out of anger, a most unfortunate reason for his slaying of the man who had called himself unstoppable. But he had not done it out of malice. In that manner, Reese had kept his sanity. Perhaps that was as much his curse as it was his blessing, for what was sanity without fellowship?

Reese pondered these things as he remembered the rain of fireballs that had come down upon the Church. He remembered clearly the explosions as Barras exerted his power upon ones who had done no harm. In his eyes, they were not messengers; they were not harbingers of peace or prosperity through solitude and devotion to a set of ideals. In the eyes of a Wizard obsessed with power and half-crazed within the delusions of grandeur that so tempted mortals, the Church of Divinity was nothing more than a threat to be exterminated.

The Church of Divinity had stood for four hundred years in the Anfauglir Desert. Now it was nothing more than a charred pile of rubble and broken bodies strewn across the stones of the flat lands – a portion of the desert where there were no dunes. For hundreds of miles in any given direction, one could see only the flat stones that led to the five-hundred-foot-tall cliffs of the southern border – a border which overlooked the Palanen Ocean south of Anfauglir; the horizon to the east and west; and more flat stones to the north. To the north, though, lay the dunes. It was through these dunes, as the sun finally reached its peak and beat down upon his sweat-polished bald skull, that Fenton Reese made his slow trek.

He was headed for Angband, a place he had only heard talk of from the other monks. He knew nothing of the place save that it was an unholy wasteland much like the rest of Anfauglir – only with walls and criminal enterprises that would have made even the most devout shudder and recoil in distaste. Indeed, it was haven for those who did not wish to be found and for those who did not want their business to be known to the world at large.

With him, Reese had carried enough water to last a month. The private underground wells the monks had dug provided ample water, for the long underground river led straight from the Palanen Ocean. It continued on through various minute tunnels into a major water supply far below where Angband now stood. Though it provided generous amounts of water to Angband, there were also other places were hard labor could dredge up fresh, clean water. The monks had used it for cooking, drinking, bathing, and other necessary chores. They had lived a solitary life partially based around that water supply, one that had apparently been months in the purveying. Now they were all dead – except for Reese.

Reese had only barely survived the cataclysm Barras Rike had created with his magic. He had managed to dodge the spells and survive until the man ran out of mana. Then he had struck hard and fast. He had gathered what little was left of the Church of Divinity and moved on. The one place he most likely did not want to go now served as his only salvation from this rugged plain of shifting death. The dunes that surrounded him as he plodded on through the burning sands were only minor irritants, for he had learned to ignore all but the chores set before him. He was patient man.

All the monks had been.

He found it ironic now as he remembered why he had chosen to keep the camel that trudged alongside the solitary monk, albeit against his volition. The reins Reese now pulled on were durable enough for whatever was thrown their way; they would not break no matter how hard either Reese or the camel pulled, and pull he did at first – until he realized that it was no use. But it was the camel’s name that had made its presence ironic. It was called Barras. Reese had decided to let it keep its name as a reminder of what had happened. It would be with him always.

His footprints quickly disappeared as Reese trudged onward, the camel following and making impressions in the sand that also disappeared almost as quickly as they had been formed. The wind was not bad, but it was starting to pick up and had created gusts in certain places over the last couple of hours that had prompted the monk to wear his bandana as a mask. The pair came up over the dune only to find another waiting for them – many dunes, in fact. Reese stopped. At his present pace, it would be another hour before he made it to Angband. He was already down to his last ounce of water. He would have to preserve it for the time being. It had been a week’s hard travel, but it had been worth it – he hoped. If he was right, and he had an inkling that he was, another hour and a half was the most he would have to continue walking before he found shelter in the impenetrable walls of the hidden desert stronghold.

A particularly strong gust of wind, though, ripped the bandana from his face and then just as quickly ripped it from his neck. The camel bleated and reared back slightly, though it did not cause too much trouble as it was held in check by its owner, as the bandana flew past it. Such a desolate place this was that even death was not necessarily welcome in comparison with dehydration, yet it was all Reese had ever known. He turned and tried to catch his only protection against his home, but the green bandana flew out of his reach like a bird finally set free to sail upon the winds; perhaps it did not know its destination, but it was free nonetheless. Reese stared after it, knowing he would never catch it now, as it swiftly soared on the breeze until it was out of sight behind another dune – one he had passed only moments before. He caught brief glimpses of it here and there, but he knew it was gone. In a way, it reminded him of his own life: he was now free of the Church that had so bound him to their principles, though it had been the threat of the desert that had kept him from venturing forth to see what lay beyond those walls of red brick and clay, yet he was now also doomed to a fate he knew nothing of. He did not know what lay before him, but he had no choice save for continuation of his present journey – a journey toward the unknown.

Perhaps he had already reached his destination.

Finally, he could stare no longer at empty air. The wind died suddenly as though laughing at him, mocking him, daring him to try to catch what was already lost. AS he turned back toward his destination and stared at the endless dunes, he wondered why it was that the monks had chosen solitude over adventure. He thought that he was now beginning to understand why, but surely there had to be something beyond the desert. They had never mentioned anything and he had never dared to ask, but perhaps he should have; at least then he might have known that there was something other than endless sand and deadly heat.

Reese jerked on the reins lightly and looked down to mark where he was standing. A misstep could bury him in the sand or crush him under the weight of a camel lightly loaded with supplies. The camel resisted the urge and he glanced at it briefly with a stern look. The camel got the message, but its brief resistance had shaken the pack and the canteen fell loose. Reese tried desperately to grab it, but Barras’ left hind hoof stamped on it and it broke. The water spilled out and soaked into the sand. A silent sob of utter dismay came upon him then, for that had been the last of his water. He stood up and slapped the camel’s face in anger, but the camel could not have helped it. He realized this as he turned back and trudged angrily onward, harder than he’d been traveling and probably harder than was necessary, practically dragging the poor dumb animal with him.

As his trek carried him and his camel forward through the dunes, abandon tempting him and despair taunting him with every step, the wind continued to pick up and die down. As the day wore on, the heat pressing down upon the pair like a falling anvil coming to crush them, Reese decided that he could not give up. He would not give up. He refused to die in the place that had hardened him for twenty-nine years. He simply refused to concede. He set his focus and paced his steps once more after but a short bout of self-pity, an emotion unbecoming of a monk in his mind. Already he was ashamed of such thoughts, mentally berating himself for even half-thinking that he should give in to the timeless wind and sand of the Anfauglir Desert. He would not lie down and die; he would continue on and prove to himself and to the gods that he was more than merely mortal: he was a Monk of Divinity.

He had been visited once, when he was eight years old, by a man calling himself a priest of Lothlomendil. He said that his divine magic was as strong as their divine strength, but he clearly remembered the other monks disagreeing fervently. It was one of the few times, he now believed as he thought back to that moment, that the monks’ passion had been misdirected. Why was one man’s faith stronger than another’s? Why was magic greater than strength, or strength greater than magic? It was true that he saw Wizards and sorcerers as people delving into what they should not, but he had never had a problem with them for the most part. He believed that sorcerers should use their innate powers to seek out a deity to worship, not try to gain minor power in a world that dislike magic despite being filled with it. But he was not one to tell others what they should and should not do. Each man had his own path, a path he must follow whatever comes.

Reese had chosen his path at twelve years old when he began his ‘official’ training. He had learned some of the basics from his father beforehand and his mother had taught him the precepts of their faith, but though his father was scolded for teaching when he was not a teacher, Reese was nonetheless considered untrained. He realized quickly why the Masters had said such a thing, for many of his lessons were hard and fast-paced. Yet he learned with the rest and soon set into a steady rhythm. The work was almost as hard as the training, for they were herders of wild hogs, cattle, camels, asses, chickens, and similarly desert-capable animals. The camels were the only ones that did not require ample water and shade, but running water helped to keep everyone cool in the valley the desert had formed – a rock-bordered land of jagged peaks set deep into the flat lands of the desert – thus making their lives a bit easier.

Now Reese took what he knew and traveled onward, yet it did him no good. A single camel, a torch, and a small bit of food were all that he had in his pack. Carried by the camel were his pack and his staff. He carried his nanchakus on him. He didn’t need much, being a monk, but he did wish he at least had a herd with him. With a herd, he could at least find water more easily; animals typically knew how to find water when humans could not, after all, and so it was logical to assume that he would have been doing at least slightly better with a small herd than he was now. Now he was alone and unaided in the desert save by a camel that was apparently as stubborn as he was ugly and stupid. At least he was not a lesser man, though, for a lesser man would have given up long before he’d ever reached the dunes; a lesser man would never have come as far as Reese had now traveled without a party fully equipped with ample resources – including fresh, clean water. But Reese would have to make do, for he could not drink what he no longer had. He had to keep pressing on now, however, as what he no longer had would kill him if he did not. He now had no choice but to seek refuge at Angband. This desert would kill him if he did not. At least in Angband, he could find water and pay for it – or take it from whoever decided to attack him, if indeed attacked he was.

His bare feet noticed not the burning sand under them as he stomped across the silent desert, for he had long walked along stones equally hot. He did wish, however, that the dunes were not here, for the flat lands had been much easier travel, requiring far lesser effort on his part for even short distances. The size of a dune now gave him ten minutes’ travel, yet the same distance in the flat lands would have taken him perhaps a dozen steps. It was a mark of how alone he was that he did not see or hear even vultures or crows, scavengers dependent upon the corpses and carcasses that no doubt often filled such hostile countries as the one through which he now stumbled. The heat was relentless, but so was Reese and the camel was simply bored. Camels, after all, were desert animals that could go days – even weeks – without water. This had aided Reese greatly as he had not given the camel any water since leaving the Church a week earlier, and yet the camel was as strong now as he’d been with an adequate supply of both water and shade.

Camels were almost the only domesticated animal that could survive in the desert without the costly modifications the Church of Divinity had made to harness the cool refreshment of an underground river. Horses would certainly have perished by now even with ample water; cattle would have survived well enough, though not without double the water supply that the horses would have required in order to avoid dehydration – the horses would have died of heat stroke instead, you see; asses could have handled it with a decent water supply, for they were almost as rugged as camels; chickens would have perished after only a couple of days in this heat; wild hogs might have survived, though they would have been burnt to a crisp long before they dehydrated. In short, camels truly were the ideal pack animals. They were better for riding than as pack animals, but the asses had been dead when Reese had left the Church. Thus he was stuck with a camel.

It wasn’t a bad animal of choice, though. The camel could actually hold more than an ass if need be due to its size and it could run besides. He had never seen an ass run, though perhaps that was merely because the asses the monks had owned were too lazy to do anything but stare blandly at them unless they were forced to do what they were bred for: work. They had pulled wheelbarrows filled with hard-packed dirt and bricks used for building; they had carried supplies from one place to another; they had pulled small wagons used to carry the monks. They were quite useful, asses; but they were also as stubborn as they were useful, which only served to make them difficult to train and work. But the monks had accomplished it with their determination – the same determination that now drove Fenton Reese along his long, hard trek through Anfauglir.

But as had been said before, Reese was not a lesser man. He never had been, nor had any of his fellow monks. Working and training hard under the blazing light and infernal heat of the ever-present ball of fire lording it over them from its eternal perch in the heat- and sand-yellowed sky of the vast desert, the monks had adapted well to their solitary life in what some might call the next worst thing to hell. Yet for them, it was a good life overall. The work was hard; the training was hard; the life was hard. But the peace of mind given most monks there was more than worth the effort; it was generous reward. They had only a single chest filled with coin, but that was not from being poor; that was because they had no need of coin in the heart of the desert. Their tanned skin was a product of their adaptation – their evolution, one might say – and it protected them far better against the hot desert sun than one who had never seen such light or felt such burning influence upon their snow-white flesh. Their skin was far from snow-white and they were thus well-suited to desert life.

Perhaps that is why Reese had survived so long; perhaps it was his determination and stubborn will that had led him this far through the desert. He and the other monks had often debated whether the life they lived in the place they dwelt was a penance or a gift, yet even more often debated was whether it was their stubbornness or their hard life that had kept them going for so long. Most argued that it was their faith, yet one could not deny the fact that monks were a harder folk than most. Dwarves were certainly said to be even hardier than monks, though most of the monks there had never actually seen a dwarf. The same was said of barbarians, though none of the monks could even describe a mountain outside of the descriptions they heard from travelers. They had lived in the desert for centuries, after all. They had men and women both; they had families; they had lives. They were not nomadic by nature. Hence the difficulties of Reese’s present trek, perhaps. Perhaps had he learned to be nomadic years ago, he would not have lost all his water now and would not be having to push himself to keep going.

As with all good things, however, his destination came to him for his patience. He did not see it at once, for the dunes were tall and he often could not see more than ten feet ahead because of them. Yet as he crested a ridge of dunes that had melded together in their endless existence in the eternal desert, he began to notice what he thought were cliffs at first. Yet these were rounded cliffs, as though someone had taken a sheet of sand paper and smoothed them into a work of art. They quickly became more than a work of art, however, as he realized there was a gap in the rocks that was not merely filled with sky. As his trek carried him higher and higher along the sand ridge, he slowly began to notice the man-made structures that were gates into Angband. Beginning to grow excited as he realized what he was seeing, he led the camel onward and the broad, unbelievably high wall of Angband came into view.

He stopped on the ridge, marveling at the wondrous structure that man had built, and the camel stopped with him – though only because he had to, lest he should fall down the embankment of sand that formed the north wall of the ridge upon which he and his owner now stood. Reese’s own Church had been marvelous to him, for it was a work of art in everything that formed it – the doors; the walls; the stained-glass windows; the steeple; the gong that signaled meals and other important events in the life of a monk of the Church of Divinity. Yet such was the splendor of this place despite its rugged, desert-adapted look that Reese could hardly take his eyes from such a spectacle. What he saw before him was more massive than anything he could have dreamed of in his wildest and most imaginative thoughts. He knew, too, that it was nothing to what it would be as he neared it, for it was said to be dozens of miles long. What he saw now was perhaps still forty minutes’ hard travel away – and this, of course, only awed him all the more.

As the flat lands had slowly but surely faded away into nothingness in order to give way to the staggeringly defiant dunes that resisted every attempt of magic both divine and arcane to remove them, sand had formed upon the ground and turned the flat lands into the badlands he had heard so much about. He had not met any bandits, though he had heard that they were common in the badlands. Such lands, however, had a stark beauty that Reese had admired for a long time before realizing that he had stayed too long to admire them. He had taken too long in his trek, had pondered too much the wonder of everything from the way the scorpions had hardened their flesh into an unbreakable shell that somehow kept them cool to the coyote that had hunted down and killed a small group of meerkats that had crossed its path. He moved on – into the dunes, where no life stood. Even the cacti that had provided him with sustenance for the short time that he had been in the badlands had faded away once more, leaving that bleak and unforgiving territory to those who knew it far better than he.

Yet such fascination was nothing to the relief he felt now, for beautiful though it was, it was nothing to the feeling that he would at last have shelter. He could handle himself in most fights, though he did not yet know this for a certainty as he had never actually fought another outside his own priesthood within the Church of Divinity. He would find no trouble in Angband as a result – none that would be open, at any rate, and little that he could not handle with relative ease. Yet all he knew at that moment was the relief that flooded him. Forty minutes away Angband might have been, but that forty minutes was nothing for one that had spent eight days and seven nights in the wasteland that was Anfauglir. Now, at long last, he would be rewarded.

Having never ridden a camel, he did not even know how to properly mount one for a ride. Thus Reese merely pulled the pack animal along carefully toward the ground some twenty feet below. It was a difficult walk, but one that was quickly finished. Perhaps these were the badlands of which the monks had spoken, for the ground was here as it had been before the dunes, but he saw no cacti immediately and nothing that would indicate any kind of life. As Reese and Barras made their now-swift trek across the last leg of the desert, hope filled Reese. Where there had been brief despair, now there was anticipation. Where there had been determination, now there resided within Reese a sense of finality in that his destination would soon be reached. He had survived. That thought alone resounded through his mind as he aimed directly for Angband. He had survived his long trek through the burning desert, which only showed – to him, at least – that monks most certainly were the ideal candidates for desert residents. Indeed, though he had lost his water, he was still hardy enough to have come so far. Now his indomitable spirit had led him to his reward: sanctuary (if such a thing could be said to exist in such an unholy place as Angband).

The silence of the desert was something that most people could not handle. It stifled them, drove them mad. Yet for a monk, silence was no big deal at all. It was comforting, actually, because it was what they lived in. There was nothing better in Fenton Reese’s mind than the noiseless machinations of a hard day’s labor. He was used to working with no words, no music, and no aid – yet there was always talk when there needed to be. If one became lonely, there was fellowship and companionship to be had in the monks that filled the Church of Divinity and the small valley they had carved their existence out of for somewhere around four centuries. They talked, ate, drank, and worked together. They produced beautiful artwork together, though Reese had never had much artistic talent. They had their little inside jokes, which greatly puzzled most outsiders, and their smiles were usually quiet and small (as though restrained) until they burst out laughing when at last their guests had left the room or building. They were not men of lazy intent, and though many considered them cowards, they had stepped up to defend the Church and its people in years (and centuries) past. One Wizard had ended their existence; his corpse now fed the rocks that paved the desert roads, if any roads could truly be said to be had by the desert.

But this was forgotten, for the moment at least, as Reese ploughed on toward his goal: Angband. The hidden desert stronghold was an unholy place of crime and little (if any) justice, or so he had been told, yet he forgot this as well. Perhaps it was his folly. Yet as his excitement settled into a comfortable satisfaction at having finally accomplished what he had set out to, his thoughts began to drift once more back to the faces and voices of those he had lost. His own peril at last ended for the most part, his saddened heart looked back once more upon the people that he had grown up with and the memories they had forged together – his parents; his grandparents on both sides of the family; his parents’ siblings; his own cousins; his friends; his Masters; his fellow monks; everyone was dead. He almost wished that he had died in that last explosion, that he had also perished when the Wizard struck, for such was the loss of the only survivor of that tragedy. His mental anguish was nothing to his emotional one, and he found himself – for the first time – weeping for his loss.

So many lives had been snuffed out by that evil man. Reese’s tears did not come in body-shaking sobs, but they came nonetheless. His faced softened not at all, for only the tears were signs that he was indeed human as he continued his merciless and defiant assault upon the ground, struggling forward with hardly a care that he was thirsty or that even the neck of a monk was now starting to turn from a dark tan to a slightly redder shade of flesh. Only his tears marked him as one of emotions and thoughts and memories. They came for some time as he walked tireless across the northern badlands. It seemed almost appropriate that, as he finally left the northern badlands for the northern flat lands, his tears for the dead finally began to give way to peace. He had grieved for them; now he could lay them to rest in his heart.

As the last of his tears soaked the sand beneath his feet and the badlands passed away to make room for the flat lands of the northern desert, the sun began its slow descent toward the horizon. Still was it noonday, yet the descent began nonetheless. It almost seemed to be looking down upon the lonely monk and his camel as it rolled slowly across the sky, as though it were following him to see what he would do next. He had traversed the vast Anfauglir desert and survived. He had allowed the last of his water supply to be vanquished – or perhaps that was merely fate or misfortune. He had slapped his camel in the face. Now he had practically cheered, though that was not in his personality, as he had discovered the last road of his long and arduous journey had made itself known. Now he had his destination set out clearly before him.

As he walked the last few miles toward his destination, Angband continually grew in size. In just ten minutes, it had gone from enormous to monstrously huge. By the time he reached it, he knew, its height and width – as well as the thickness of its walls and its pair of massive gates – would be impossible to determine. Indeed, perhaps only the gods could have worked out even approximate figures; no lowly monk could have done it. Of that much, Reese was absolutely certain. Yet massive it was, huge beyond mortal reckoning. If indeed it had been mortals that had forged such a thing, had carved such a monument out of the living rock face that had apparently once filled the desert valley here – for a valley it was, however large Angband and however vast the valley itself might have been – it was a testament to man’s indomitable spirit and relentless pursuit of the mastery of his environment that it thrived now as he knew any large city must. For what was a city without its people, and what was a people with a place in which to work and live? And what of the children: certainly they needed a place to play and to learn.

As Reese came upon the structure that dwarfed him and his camel, he noticed at once that there were intricate designs no doubt made to ward off spells that would destroy or tamper with the walls of Angband. As he approached the last half-mile or so, however, he saw that said designs were well-planned grooves probably twenty or more feet deep and at least five or six feet wide. Each guard tower was a spire set atop a separate yet interconnected vertical tier of the walls. He could see several immediately, a couple of them in the distance to either side of the gargantuan gates, yet they were hardly needed. The walls themselves were not to be taken for granted in the slightest and Reese seriously doubted that even the Wizard could have made his way in here without feeling the presence of the powerful, ancient spellcraft that now wrapped itself so tightly around and embedded itself so deeply within the rock that formed Angband’s obvious first line of defense.

At last, though, the monk and his camel finally merged with a party already traveling in that direction as they came upon the gates. He and his camel got a few odd looks, but no one really noticed him any more than they noticed their own surroundings. For most that came to this place, the desert was bleak and bland and quickly forgotten. The mood of most of the people in the troupe, which seemed to be a mismatched group of tag-alongs and random travelers, seemed to be a tired one. Reese didn’t blame them, though he certainly wasn’t as tired or as bad off as most of them. After all, he was used to living out in the desert. True, they had what they needed there, but it was still the middle of the desert. And he had even more reason to be ‘bad off’, so to speak, for he was also used to working a full day in the simmering heat.

As the group of twenty-something people and roughly a dozen different caravans reached the gates of Angband, they opened wide – if slowly – and the people passed through them to reach the desert stronghold’s inner sanctum. At first, they stayed relatively close together and didn’t seem to move in any particular direction save for onward. But as they passed into the desert city, it was clear that they each had their own agenda. Some stayed together still, but after only a few swift moments, the large party had divided and Reese quickly found himself alone. That was fine by him as he preferred the solitude to a large party of travelers. What he saw beyond the gates, however, amazed him. Had he been a talker, he now would have been silent, for the silence of awe had now descended upon him as a hawk hunting a mouse. He was already lost to the sights and sounds of a city, something he had never seen before this time. He was lost to the people; the places; the buildings; the sheer size of the city. It was all new to him, but soon he took it in stride and moved on, realizing that he had stopped to stare.

Though his eyes were not saucers, they might as well have been for all that he was seeing and hearing now. This was an entirely new experience for him. At the Church of Divinity, there had been four hundred people – men, women, and children (though mostly men). Yet most of them lived throughout the small and secluded desert valley in caves that kept the sun’s heat at bay; they stayed cool in those caves and had access to the underground river from which they drew water, the same that led to the massive underground reservoir supposedly acting as the source of Angband’s prosperity. Yet here, there were probably four hundred people per building. Here, the buildings were so numerous that Fenton could not count even those immediately before his eyes. This was like nothing he had ever seen, at least not on such a grand scale, and his senses took it in as he led his camel slowly through the semi-crowded city.

As Fenton walked down one particularly narrow and winding street flowing through Angband like a river, he saw many people from many different places wearing many different kinds of clothes and weapons. They spoke in many language and dialects. Most he had never heard before and most of the weapons he had never seen before, but it was the varied forms of dress that baffled and bewildered more often than not. He would have thought that people would have strived not to make themselves any hotter than they had to, yet he saw many that were fully dressed head-to-food in shades of color ranging from blindingly white to pitch-black. Some were even wearing cloaks, and not many of them very light ones.

One thing Fenton noticed there were none of was children. He could certainly see why, though it was odd to be in a place with so many people and see no children anywhere. Evidence as to why there were none occurred before Fenton – perhaps ten feet from him – and no one paid it any mind at all! A woman was roughly pushed out of the way by a tall, physically imposing man dressed all in black with heavy armour. A crest was worn on the left breast of that armour – an elongated gold dragon wrapped protectively around a dark-blue egg. He narrowed his eyes at the symbol, for he had seen it upon the left breast of the robes of Barras Rike, the man that he had killed. The woman got up hurriedly, crying out apologies and disappearing almost as swiftly as she had appeared; the man in armour seemed not to notice, nor did the dozen or so identically-clad men surrounding him. They moved quickly and Fenton had to jerk him and his camel out of the way as they passed to avoid the same fate. He was about to follow them when he was grabbed by the arm and whirled about.

The man that had done so was a rather portly and unclean fellow with a toothless grin. He was demanding rather fervently that Fenton purchase something from his stall and kept pointing at it excitedly. By the time Fenton had turned around, trying desperately to ignore the man, the soldiers – if that was indeed what they had been – were just disappearing into the crowd once more. He pursed his lips and decided that he would never be able to follow them in this – not with his camel by his side, at any rate. Now he was spun about again and he yanked his arm out of the now-irritated man’s grasp.

He silently went over to the man’s stall just to shut him up and he looked over the things that were there. The man was constantly jumping up and down and bouncing about on thet balls of his feet as he tried to get Fenton to buy something, but Fenton was not at all enthusiastic about anything except some water and a bit of shade. Nonetheless, he took a look at what the man had for sale. Most of what he saw were odd fetishes made up of what seemed to be teeth, claws, pincers, scorpions’ tails, hooves, and just about anything else one could imagine a fetish being made up of. He even saw a few that he was certain were made of human body parts, though he wasn’t about to mention that aloud. After all, he didn’t know anything about whether or not that was common here and he wasn’t about to draw attention to himself – not after seeing those soldiers’ crests.

He finally moved away and quickly disappeared into the crowd himself, leaving the shouting man behind him as he angrily demanded that he returned to the stall and buy something. Fenton was soon lost in thought, pondering the sudden appearance and disappearance of the soldiers. Who were they? What connection did the Wizard that had attacked the Church of Divinity have to them? Why had he attacked the Church? Was this part of some larger plot? If so, what part could the Church of Divininty’s destruction possibly have played in that plot? The Church of Divinity, after all, was a remote and purely peaceful organization. They had no business in the affairs of the world at large, nor did they wish to. There were far too many questions and not enough answers at this point. Even more unfortunately than that, however, was the fact that Fenton was by no means in any condition at the present time to ponder such questions or pursue answers. He needed water and he needed shade; it was as simple as that. He wouldn’t be able to rest until he had both.

It wasn’t long before Fenton eventually came to the edge of some kind of massive city square. Thousands of people were packed into it like so many fish in a barrel. On the other side, a series of huge buildings could be seen. Fenton headed off to one side of the city square, though, toward what looked like an inn. Sure enough, it was – and it had a small sign next to the building pointing to some paid stables behind the place. He followed the path through the small gate indicated by the sign’s half-gone words and soon found himself staring at a rather large set of stables housing what looked to be around forty or so camels. Each camel had a sign hanging around its neck with a large, dusty number painted on it. Some had names instead of numbers, though, and some had red-painted signs with faded yellow lettering that simply read ‘Inn’. He went up to a stable hand and inquired where he might be able to purchase a stable. The stable hand pointed to a small hut on the other side of the vacant field – vacant save for the stables and the camels, of course – and Fenton thanked him before turning away.

He spoke with the man only very briefly before shelling out the gold for a stable. It would do until tomorrow morning, at any rate. A sign was hung around Barras’ neck with a number, which Fenton wrote upon a scrap of paper he had borrowed from the man. He headed back to the path and went along it slowly, making his way around to the front of the inn once more. He headed inside the inn and looked around a bit before spotting the bar. It was a crowded bar and very noisy besides, but he didn’t have much choice; beggars couldn’t be choosers, he supposed, and right now he was almost a beggar himself. He went up to the bar and ordered some water. The bartender looked at him like he was nuts but gave him what he wanted. He was paid generously for it.

Fenton took the water gratefully and drank it quickly. He then ordered and paid for another glass – and for a jug. He was quickly out of the water, but he was satisfied and the bartender certainly wasn’t complaining; it was three gold a glass and six for a pitcher, after all, and he’d gotten what he wanted out of the man – fifteen gold in all. Then he got another twenty as Fenton paid for a room for the night. He bought a small meal and sat eating it as he watched the patrons around him.

The bar was filled with every form of creature imaginable (and possibly a few that weren’t), all of them talking and laughing. Many were doing business – probably not legal business, Fenton would have been willing to wager, but it wasn’t his concern – and most were drunk or getting drunk. There were a number of serving ladies and some ladies that were serving much more than food and alcohol, but he turned away from them. They had their reasons for doing what they did, he was sure, just as he had his reasons for being here.

As he was reaching the mid-point of his meal, though, someone else strode in that he recognized at once: the black-clad men from earlier. They threw three large tables’ worth of people out and ordered the waitresses to come clear them of the food and booze. They did so instantly and obediently. Whoever these men were, they were not friendly and – as before – Fenton found himself disliking them severely. First they had treated the woman outside very poorly; now they were acting as though they owned this inn. Perhaps they did, too, but it hardly mattered. A little common courtesy would have been much appreciated, Fenton was sure. He didn’t understand people that had no respect for others. Oh, he realized why they had no respect for others: they had power, wealth, prestige, or something else that supposedly allowed them to lord it over others they considered inferior in some way. He simply didn’t ‘get it’.

He watched the men for the better part of an hour, going slowly about his meal – much more slowly than he had been, as he wanted to find out what he could about these men. That crest, he now saw, was in fact identical the one on the now-dead Wizard’s robes. Fenton had not been at all mistaken. But he knew he couldn’t just approach them and find out who they were using the direct approach. That would have been suicide at best. Perhaps they didn’t know about Barras’ activities, though that was very highly unlikely. All Fenton knew for sure right then and there was that it would have been foolhardy at best to go after them alone and in public, especially considering the way they were treated (and they way they treated those around them).

Finally, they left. Fenton finished his meal quickly, but he apparently didn’t need to. He started to follow them and watched as they entered another part of the building through a doorway in the side of one wall. He approached the man guarding the door, but he was quickly stopped by two other guards. These three were not wearing any kind of uniform, but their armour was thick and heavy and they were obviously battle-hardened, evidenced not only by their look by the battle-worn broadswords they all wore. These were inn guards. As he was turned away, his questions ignored and his curiosity answered only with threats and promises of pain, suffering, and eternal hardship whilst rotting in a dingy, lightless underground cell made of stone walls and iron bars, he noticed the bartender and several barmaids staring at him but pretending not to; they turned away as soon as he noticed them looking at him. Clearly, these were not men he wanted to follow openly – something he’d assumed previously that had now been all too blatantly confirmed for him. Fenton was just sitting down, though, as he noticed something else that made him stare.

“Jorkam?” he muttered.

His mutters weren’t even heard to him, so loud was the tavern, but he knew that the man he saw being helped out of the tavern through another side door (not the same one that the soldiers had gone through) had to be one of the men from the Church of Divinity. How had Jorkam made it here before him? Far more importantly, why did he have to have someone help him out of the tavern? Could he not walk on his own? Did he have not the strength to support himself any longer? This he had to find out. He would not be so easily distracted this time. He waited for nearly fifteen minutes for the group of people near that door to get up – and then he made his move.

Once inside the small hallway, he headed past two doors on the right and one on the left into a small backroom with a bath, a bed, a changing screen, and a few other essentials. There was a woman helping someone into the bed. It was Jorkam.

“Jorkam!”

He couldn’t help himself. The woman started and Jorkam stared, but he grinned and fell back to the bed. The woman hurried out after Jorkam told her it was all right. Fenton just stared as he lifted himself the rest of the way into a comfortable position. Then he went over to his bedside and knelt beside him, staring at him as though he were someone completely alien instead of one of the Masters from the Church of Divinity – a Master that he had trained under and befriended a number of years before, at that.

“Jorkam…what has happened to you, Master Jorkam?”

Jorkam was an old monk – at least three times Fenton’s age – yet his physical training throughout his life had rendered him almost immortal in terms of his health. He would have been almost impossible to weaken, let alone kill. Yet here he lay, clearly wounded and just as clearly possessing no additional strength in his body other than that with which he had just lain down.

“The Wizard did something to me,” Jorkam began, “I am dying.”

Jorkam was dying? This was incredulous at best and very difficult for Fenton to believe. But here Jorkam lay, telling him that he was dying. Fenton had no choice but to accept his Master’s words – unless there was a way to save him, of course.

“Is there no cure? Is there no way to remove whatever taint you have been affected with, my Master?”

Jorkam shook his head. It was a clearly painful act, as he stopped almost immediately.

“No, Fenton,” he continued, “but you must listen to me – and listen very closely.”

Fenton nodded, tight-lipped and bearing the look of a man that was watching his father die. For Jorkam was like a father to him. He had taught him many things that Fenton had kept with him from his youth. While Fenton was essentially still young, he was far more experience than some of the monks at the Church of Divinity because of Master Jorkam’s teachings.

“It has been decreed,” Jorkam said, “that there will come a day when the Church of Divinity is destroyed. The last survivor will be guided by a dying man and he will embark on a great journey to right a wrong that has stood for almost as long as the Church has stood. It seems the prophecy has at last come true, my student.”

He smiled ironically at the man he had loved so dearly. He had never had children, for his wife had died many years ago and he had never loved another since, so he had been glad to teach Fenton and act as his mentor. He had spent all his years since that time declaring that the prophecy would never come true. He became an outcast for having lost his faith, but he eventually shut up and spoke of the prophecy’s illegitimacy only in private sessions with Fenton. Now it had indeed come true and Jorkam was proven the fool.

Fenton still remembered the murder of his father by another monk and the way the man had been sent out into the desert. He’d been only twelve when that had happened and it had taken three of the most dangerous monks on the Church of Divinity’s grounds to get rid of him. Jorkam had taken Fenton as his pupil then. The two became very close over the years and Fenton was a far better man than he could have been without Jorkam’s teachings. Jorkam had, after all, been long considered the wisest amongst the monks of the Church of Divinity – but now he was just an old fool. A well-loved and stubborn old fool, but an old fool nonetheless.

“I am tired of living. I am happy to die at last, though I wish it were a little less painful. But you are the last of the Church. It was also decreed that when the Church of Divinity bore one last member, old doctrines would die.”

Fenton was confused now. Old doctrines would die? What sort of doctrines would now fall from their perch atop the Church’s list of edicts? How would he know what to do now? How could he know? Where would he go?

“What must I do, Master?”

“I am your Master no longer, Fenton. You are a dangerous opponent and a well-rounded monk. You are more than capable of undergoing any kind of journey that the gods put before you. But no longer are the soles of your feet bound to the nakedness of the harsh earth beneath them. Still must your clothes be simple, but I have provided new clothes – better clothes – for you to wear. No longer are you bound to the simple clothes of a monk of the Church of Divinity. Still, you must not wield any but the weapons set before you – save for those specifically set aside for this day.”

With that, he struggled to rise. Fenton helped him and he went slowly to a chest over on the wall. Fenton knelt beside his former Master as he opened the chest. Jorkam took out a small satchel and closed the chest; then he set the satchel down and opened it up. He pulled from it an ornate cigar box and opened that up as well. Inside were a large number of shuriken, something he had never seen before.

“The shuriken,” Jorkam said, “are hurled at an opponent, hopefully with deadly accuracy, and are used for silent strikes against an opponent or a multitude of opponents. They are a deadly weapon used to take advantage of a situation quickly or to easily evade pursuers. They can also be used to cut things such as ropes if need be, but do not mistake their primary intent: to most efficiently eliminate an opponent. The best place to hit with them is the throat, since this will ensure there is no crying out as the victim falls. It is a dread thing to have to kill, but one that is often necessary. Now that you have left the sacred grounds of the Church of Divinity and are leaving behind one of the only two remaining survivors of that ancient religion, you must become the Church of Divinity. Where there is only anti-religious sentiment, and it is everywhere, you will be a shining example of devotion to those things that really matter: love, compassion, life, peace, and justice. You will be a beacon of hope to those with pure hearts and a symbol of death for those with wicked minds.”

With that, he handed the shuriken over to Fenton. Fenton took them reluctantly, fully understanding what his master was saying but not liking it one bit.

“You have been taught to hurl fight sticks with deadly consequences. Now you will hurl these as well. They require a much lighter touch, but they are far deadlier than a fighting stick when they are whistling through the air. The air will pass through them and around them and carry them with lethal efficiency to their targets. Use them well.”

Fenton nodded numbly. He didn’t like this one bit – but he understood and he agreed with his former Master to an extent. Jorkam was correct in that he was now the only one left and in that he would have to kill when necessary. That didn’t mean that Fenton had to like it, though. Jorkam seemed to be reading his thoughts as he spoke again, though Fenton knew that was impossible. Perhaps he was simply reading his face and his other body language. Fenton pocketed the shuriken without a word.

“Killing is not something that I like to do myself, nor should it be liked by anyone. It is a filthy business. Yet there are times when it is necessary. You will learn in time when it is necessary to talk and when it is necessary to fight, just as it will be learned by you in time that it is sometimes necessary to incapacitate an opponent and it is sometimes necessary to kill them. Help me back to bed, Fenton.”

Fenton did as he was asked. He helped Jorkam get back into bed and lie down comfortably. He then knelt beside the Master once more and listened intently to anything else the Master might have had to say.

“You have no doubt seen the soldiers here with the crests of a dragon and an egg.”

Fenton nodded to the Master, realizing he was about to learn of them. Jorkam nodded and turned his head toward the ceiling, closing his eyes tiredly.

“I came here with the aid of a High Priest of Lothlomendil. He went on to some battle and I hear he has been killed. It is a war, I believe – a war on the moon.”

“The moon?” Fenton asked, confused.

“Yes,” Jorkam replied, “the moon. Isiltelpe, I believe it is called. The Wizard was the Apprentice of a man here who’s far more powerful than he was. His soldiers are everywhere here, but they plan to leave soon. The Wizard has already left. They are planning something – something big – but I don’t know what it is. What I do know is that it cannot possibly come to any good. Go to the Salquedor Grasslands. I believe that is where they are headed. You might want to seek help from the elves in Yomeniampa, a forest city north of Salquedor. I don’t know what information or aid you can get from them, but it cannot hurt to try.”

Fenton nodded.

“I will go, Master Jorkam. What of you? Will you be comfortable here?”

“I will be fine, Fenton. Go and do what you must. Your future is uncertain save for that ancient prophecy. There are some things I’ve made for you sitting in the far corn of this room, across from the door. Go now. I must rest. May the gods be with you, my student.”

Jorkam fell asleep then. Fenton stared at him for a long while before he reluctantly went and got the things. He put on the new clothes. He took up the sandals there and put them on. He donned the strange new hat he had been provided. It was made of straw and shaped like a wheel, but the center was like a point. It resembled the roof of a hut in this manner. There was also a cord woven through it, made to fasten the hat to his head via the chin. He fastened it as needed. He then practiced a bit and quickly found that he could move as easily as he could before, but now his clothes – though simple they were still – were the true clothes of a monk. Now he was ready to go out into the world.

He stopped by his former Master’s bedside one last time as he took up his nanchakus and his shuriken. He looked upon the face of the man that he had known and loved so much as a second father. Finally, though, he had to leave. He took up his staff and went out of that place. He made sure that he was not watched as he left and he quickly mingled with the crowd within the tavern once more. Taking his key out from a pocket of the monk’s robes he now wore, he headed up to his room. The stairs creaked badly, though this could not be heard until he was on the second flight of them.

The upstairs hall was completely silent as he walked the length of it slowly, pondering all that had occurred in the last hour. He was not a man to be tangled with lightly, for his training in the martial arts had made him a deadly nemesis, but now he had been faced with the one thing he could not fight: death on a massive scale. Hundreds now lay dead and another would soon be dead; all of this was the result of a man’s greed and lust for power, most likely, though he still knew not the true purpose of the assault. Fenton decided as he made his slow sojourn to his room that he would most definitely have to investigate these matters further. He finally reached his room after a few minutes and put the key into the door. He opened it up, walked inside, and locked the door behind him. The key went into his robes.

The room was simple and small – perfect for one such as Fenton Reese. There was a single made-up bed with old, faded bedding and a near-rotten frame. There was a small bureau with only two drawers. There was a table with three spindly legs and one broken leg that was supported by a chair that no longer had any legs. One leg that probably belonged to the chair at one point rested in a bed of dust in one corner of the room, off to the far right toward the back, and the tattered curtains only barely covered the window – a thin, badly cracked piece of glass that was so dingy it was a wonder the whole place didn’t fill up with dirt just from that alone. It was impossible to see out of, unfortunately. The bathroom held only a single chamber pot and a wash pan. The water was clearly stale, but it was water nonetheless and there was a bar of soap next to it on a small, splintered crate probably once used for fruit or something. There was no tub.

Fenton found himself amused at the accommodations. True, they were meager at best and this wasn’t at all the best place to bed down for the night, but he didn’t have much choice. In fact, what truly amused him about it was how much it fit: simplicity had once again found simplicity.

His night was an uneventful one for the most part. It seemed that the city was as busy at night as it was during the day. It was only a little quieter once the sun had set. Mostly what he heard was the dripping of water from somewhere below him and the rush and howl of the wind outside his window. He heard the rattling of the window pane as it struggled to free itself from its cracked wood frame, but it did not come loose and Fenton wasn’t too worried about it. He slept long, for he was tired, but the morning found him rising early and bathing himself as best he could.

The soap was hard and the water was cold, but it made no difference. The luxuries weren’t luxuries at all, but it hardly mattered. When Fenton had finished, he dressed slowly and meticulously. He went through his usual morning exercises in order to properly prepare for the day ahead of him. When at last he had concluded his morning routine, he found that it was time to leave. He grabbed his key and made sure he had his other belongings (what few of them he possessed). Then he grabbed the staff and walked out, again locking the door behind him.

Fenton encountered little trouble as he headed downstairs. The place was again crowded. He paid for his meal and got up to leave. He made sure he had his staff and all of his belongings once more. Then he headed out to get his camel. Barras was waiting for him next to the building where he’d left him and he looked rather irritated, but Fenton could have cared less. He checked him over and saw that he was fine, so he paid the man tending the animals and led Barras away. He led him along the narrow path and out into the street. It, too, was already packed with people as the day slowly but surely began. Already shady business deals were conducted in the open and already the heat had begun to settle upon the shoulders and necks of those that filled the hidden desert stronghold. After only a moment’s examination of the scene unfolding before the monk, Fenton led the camel along as he made his way through the city once more.

The streets were even busier outside the square than inside it, or so it seemed to Fenton as he made his way toward the exit. He was soon outside and wandering once more through the desert, though this time he was headed east. He had business in Salquedor, it seemed. He got some supplies on the way out, but then he was on his way toward the more fertile lands of Arda. As he walked away from Angband, he noticed someone coming from the direction he was treading. He wondered who it might be, but they were of no concern to him for the most part. He was merely curious. He ignored them and went on his way, but he was followed.