By lunchtime Cal had done everything he felt he needed to do in order to prepare. He’d brought Melt back to the stables and got her and Root - who Meliana had just dumped in her stall - squared away. He’d gone shopping and gathered all the things that they might need in an ancient tomb.

  All the things he’d usually bring, plus all of the things he’d wished he’d brought along to the last one.

  He tried not to think too hard about that, but he still got the taste of adrenalin in his mouth just recognising that he’d ever been in a tomb before.

  Returning back to the house he took in a breath of relief. Having to act in front of all the villagers was exhausting, even though they were few in number. Or perhaps it was because they were few in number that it was all the more stressful. In a city, nobody gave you a second look. Even if you were flailing swords around they might actively avoid looking at you so as to not incur your attention, but in a village everyone was in everyone’s business and nobody could walk down the street without extreme scrutiny.

  The quiet sounds of preparation and subtle sounds of nervous anticipation and anxiety permeated the house as Cal came inside. They still had a few hours left, but that time just left them with space to stress and freak themselves out.

  As he closed the door Teth’s heavy footsteps sounded coming down the stairs. The big man stopped and leaned against the staircase’s banister. A mercenary with a thousand jobs under his belt, the man looked perfectly calm, like this was just another day.

  Cal looked over and nodded to him. “Afternoon.” He said. “How’s everyone doing?” He asked.

  “Like you’d expect. Captain Roe is in her room going over plans and thinking up possible ways it could all go wrong.” He looked back up the stairs, frowning. “Think she might be contacting an associate or ally. Keep hearing another voice.”

  “Probably her boss.” Cal suggested. “Giving an update or seeing if there’s anything else to know.”

  Teth nodded. “Makes sense. The fox- Veil. Went out for a hunt, promised to be back with plenty of time but needed some air. Said he- it’s a he, right?” Cal nodded in response. “Yeah, he said he’d been cooped up too long. ‘Spose he is an animal, even if he talks like a person.”

  “Yeah, he has all the animal instincts but also has people level common sense and reasoning.” Cal explained.

  “Right, well he’s out.” Teth clarified. “The Necromancer’s down in the basement.”

  “I know she makes you uncomfortable, but could you call her Kaila? We’re on the same team and having Necromancer shouted at her sets her off. It’ll be easier for everyone.”

  He sighed and rolled his eyes. “Sure, fine. Kaila is in the basement. You probably want to go talk to her. She’s freaking out a little. Don’t think she’s done a job like this before.”

  Cal nodded looking over at the basement and then back to Teth. “Why tell me? shouldn’t you report it to Liana?”

  Teth shrugged then looked slightly embarrassed. “She’s your responsibility, ain’t she?”

  “I suppose.” Cal agreed, “But you just gave me a report on everyone in the group. You could have just said they were all fine.”

  “You asked, I answered.” He shrugged. “Ain’t got nothin’ against you. We settled my worries back in Canyonvue. We’ve trained together every night we camped. Trust you now, as much as I trust anyone on one of these jobs. Don’t mean I wont speak up when what you do don’t sit right with me. Don’t trust necromancers and you’re getting close to one.” He sighed, shaking his head. “Besides: It might be Roe that’s paying us and brought us together but as far as I can see you’re the one keeping us that way. She may be in charge but you seem like the leader.”

  “Whoa, I’m no-”

  “You’re old friends with Roe.” Teth said, ploughing over Cal’s objection. “You brought in our scout, who is also an old friend of yours. You got me to accept you, despite me being an ass hole. And you’ve wooed a freaking Necromancer.” He shook his head almost in disbelief. “The fox and the mage follow Roe because you do, Roe does what you say more often than not and I… well I go where the gold is, but you get my drift.”

  Cal nodded, feeling somewhat chastised. He wasn’t supposed to be leading this group, this was Roe’s score. Had he been subconsciously pushing her out? Maybe this was the real reason she’d asked him if he wanted out.

  “Now don’t give me that expression. It’s a good thing.” Teth sighed, stepping over and patting Cal on the shoulder with one big granite hand. “I’ve no doubt it’s one of the reasons Roe brought you on. I’ve been in this game a long time, lad. There are people who are in charge and people who lead. You’re the latter.”

  Cal nodded and looked up at Teth. “Thanks.” He said. “You ain’t half bad yourself, you big gruff boulder.” They both grinned and after a moment the tone mellowed again. “You okay?” Cal asked. “No nervousness or anything you want to talk about?”

  Teth smiled and shook his head. “I’ve been doing stuff like this for… thirty-something years. I’m going to go sleep until its time to get ready. If I’m not up an hour before we go come wake me, and I’ll do my best not to kill you for it.”

  Cal chuckled. “I appreciate that.” Teth turned to walk back up the stairs and Cal called out again. “Teth; you and Kaila, what can I expect?”

  He raised a brow, then nodded. “She creeps me out. Don’t like that death manipulation crap, but… she does her job I’ll do mine. No funny business.”

  Cal nodded and the two of them went their separate ways. Teth back up to his bed and Cal down the stairs to the basement where he found Kaila sat in the middle of the floor, all furniture pushed back against the wall and all of her things spread out around her. He hadn’t even known she’d had most of it. There were pieces of bone, bags, sacks of herbs, talismans, chalk and other things that Cal was fairly certain were spell components.

  Most shocking though was that she wasn’t wearing her cloak. She sat cross legged in her black and green trousers with bare feet. Her boots were set aside with her cloak. She also wore a flowy, baggy red shirt. It didn’t exactly have sleeves, it was more like a big point down triangle that had holes in the points and the hypotenuse for her to put her body, head and hands through.

  For the first time, Cal could see the scar on her neck. It had faded a lot, so much so that one would be forgiven for thinking that it was a shadow or a simple fold of her skin or muscle, but there it was.

  The scar of a noose.

  Cal cleared his throat and she jumped practically out of her skin. She looked over at Cal and seemed to relax a little. “You’re back.” She said. A note of accusation in her voice.

  “Yeah, I told you I was going for a ride and then I went to get supplies for tonight.” Cal told her walking over to the edge of the room where she’d pushed a table. He hopped up onto it and sat there with his legs dangling off.

  She nodded and looked back down at her things. “I’m just trying to decide what I need tonight.”

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  “You don’t want to just bring it all? I assume you’ve been carrying it this whole time.” Cal noted.

  “Wont it weigh me down?” She asked. “If we have to run I mean.”

  “Is this the first job like this you’ve done?” Cal asked.

  She looked up at him and nodded, letting out a nervous laugh. “That obvious?”

  “No, but Teth said you were freaking out a little and he guessed this was your first tomb job.” Cal explained. She pulled a face and Cal grinned. “He’s a long time adventurer, whether your… stuff meshes well or not he’s professional enough to understand that we all need to be at our best tonight. He asked me to check in on you.”

  She looked over her shoulder, up at the stairs and then back to Cal.

  “I… It’s not just my first tomb job, it’s my first… anything like this. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.” She replied. “The waiting is killing me.”

  Cal grinned. “Yeah that’s the worst part. Usually I just prepare or talk to the people I’m with.”

  “I’ve not done this before.” She repeated. “I don’t know how to prepare and…” She sighed. “I’ve mostly worked alone these past ten years.” She admitted. “A couple of jobs working with people in the university guild for study of necromancy, but otherwise I’ve been alone.”

  “That’s no way to live.” Cal chided her, “You need people around you to…” he paused, almost laughing at the irony, but managing to keep himself under control to avoid irritating her or making her think that he wasn’t taking her seriously. “You need people around you to make the trouble worthwhile.” He sighed the words as if talking to himself.

  “People hate… Necromancers.” She said and waved at herself. “They don’t want them in their groups. They don’t want us around.” She waved at the stairs. “Their feelings towards me are nothing new. But I didn’t choose this.” She sighed. “In Zeroden there’s no distinction between magical attributes. If you have magic you join Z.I.M. and they’ll make use of you. I wasn’t old enough to know when I left but Necromancers are probably high quality goods over there. One mage and you get a small army? One that doesn’t need to be fed, and can replenish it’s forces by killing the enemy? That’s economical warfare if nothing else.”

  She sighed, and Cal remained where he was. “Sorry, I know that’s not what you were asking, and not what I meant to say. You just… throw me. You and Veil.” Kaila pointed at Cal. “If anything, you two are the weird ones.” She practically glared at him and added, “He’s a fox, so that’s valid, but you? You were brought up here, you should hate necromancers as well.”

  Cal considered what she said and bobbed his head slowly from side to side, almost like nodding but less certain. “You know, up until I met one I pretty much did.” He told her. “I’d always heard the stories and the legends and I, like most people of the alliance conformed to the belief that death mages were bad news.”

  “Then you met one?” Kaila replied, raising a brow. “He must have been one special necromancer.”

  “She.” Cal corrected. “She was fine, I honestly don’t have much reference for what special is when it comes to death mages. But she was quiet, insecure and kept to herself. Total loner.”

  Kaila raised a brow at him, then narrowed her gaze. “You’re talking about me, aren’t you?” she asked, but he ignored her question.

  “Honestly I think if she’d been confident and well put together it would have made me keep my guard up around her. Would have confirmed my thoughts about death mages.”

  “All right look-”

  “But then despite the world beating her down, she worried about people.” Cal said. “She cared about people when they were hurt.” He rubbed his side where she’d healed Teth’s claw wound. “And without being asked, helped rescue them when they were in trouble.”

  “Cal…” Kaila whispered, looking at him with tears at the corners of her eyes.

  “The way I see it - now at least - all power can corrupt. Death magic no more than fire magic. And if we have a million uncorrupted fire mages in the world then that means that there’s the potential for just as many uncorrupted death mages.” He said. “I guess all I’m saying is this, we’ve been travelling together for a week now. We’ve saved each others lives, protected each other when we sleep. I trust you, I hope you can come to trust me, and until then… well I consider you a friend, Kaila. If you need anything, if you want to talk about tonight, if you want to talk about how to deal with the anxiety, I’m here.”

  Cal hopped off of the table as he finished speaking. “For now though, take everything, if we know we’re going to need to run you can put anything heavy in my void bag, if we don’t know; untie your cloak and drop it all. Anything you can’t afford to drop put in a smaller bag under the cloak or in your other pockets.”

  She raised her brows in surprise at how easy a solution it was. “Right.” She said, looking back to her things.

  Cal smiled at her as she looked away and then turned to the stairs. He had one more thing he needed to do before the end of the day. He took a few steps and then Kaila looked over at him. “Cal… thank you.” She said. There was more emotion in her voice than the words suggested so Cal simply nodded to her with a smile and left.

  #

  Cal stood in the chapel. His eyes poured over the stained glass, taking it in. He’d worshipped the Dawn for a long time, but he’d never felt compelled to pray to him. His worship was more subtle a thing. He supposed he was usually more of a Dawnian in name only. Today however he felt the need to… he didn’t even know what. Put his thoughts and feelings out into the world? Up to his god.

  His eyes drifted away to the front of the chapel. There were images behind the dais as well. Depictions of a man with the sun for his head carrying a great sword made of flame standing before a mass of writhing black and chains.

  “What are you doing?” Veil asked, popping his head into the room and seeing Cal.

  Cal turned around to look at the fox and then looked back up at the image. “I don’t know.” He admitted. “This is… there’s a lot going to happen tonight, I guess I thought I’d offer a prayer for our safety.”

  Veil padded in and walked over to Cal, leaping up onto one of the seats. “Does that help?” the fox asked.

  Cal shrugged tipping his head to the side with an expression of ‘who knows’. “The gods are real, I believe that much. Whether they can hear us or even care? No idea.”

  “Then why do it?” Veil asked.

  “Why not?” Cal replied.

  Veil cocked his head to the side then nodded. “Fair. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know, the side entrance to the tomb, it’s down to only one guy. We should go in that way.”

  Cal nodded. “Thanks.” He said. “How’re you feeling about it? The job I mean.”

  Veil had climbed to his feet to leave, but stopped when Cal asked the question. He considered for a moment and then sat back down. “Honestly, Cal? Something seems up with this whole thing.”

  Cal sat down on the opposite pew. “How so?”

  “I dunno, it’s a feeling, like… like I’m missing something, or don’t know something.” Veil admitted.

  “Well,” Cal said, “It’s very possible Liana hasn’t told us everything. Just what we need to know.”

  “Doesn’t that bother you?”

  Cal shrugged and turned to lean back in the set. “Jobs like these you never know everything. People who hire you sometimes do it because they’re trying to hide something. But we do the job and move on.”

  “Maybe you do when you’re hired to do a job,” Veil said. “But I’m doing you a favour. I’m just here watching your back.”

  Cal nodded, looking back at his friend. “And I appreciate that. If you think something’s not right then I’ll keep my eyes out, you do the same. You watch my back, I’ll watch yours.”

  Veil eyed Cal for a long moment before nodding. “Done.” He said and jumped off the bench. “What are you praying for?”

  “The safety of our group and a successful mission.” Cal said.

  Veil considered that for a moment before continuing to the door. As he left he added, “If I was a god, and this is just me, I’d probably be inclined to help someone looking to help people, but I might ignore someone who’s looking to help themselves.” And he was gone.

  Cal looked back up at the front of the chapel and stood up. He walked up to the front, to the dais and stopped just in front of it. His eyes poured over the religious iconography and then he pulled his pendant - the one with the sun as it’s backdrop - out from his shirt.

  He sighed and knelt down, clutching the pendant in his right hand.

  For a few moments he was silent, his eyes open staring at the dais. He didn’t know what to say. He’d rarely done this, and usually only when he was being frivolous like when he was betting, or in mortal danger that he couldn’t avoid alone.

  He thought about what Veil had said and then closed his eyes, squeezing the little sun in his hand tight. “God of the Dawn, who’s rays keep people safe, tonight I go into danger with the intent of keeping more danger from others.” He said. “The last five months I’ve been… the worst version of myself, but I can do better. Please, protect my friends, the group who goes into danger with me. I cannot face the idea of losing people again, but do not protect them for my sake. Protect them because they deserve to be protected.” Cal thought about each of them for a long moment and then shook his head. “I don’t think I have anything that you need, but if you protect them then I will give you anything I have that you want.”

  As he said the last words he felt heat in his hand. Not so hot that it burned him, but there was something there, coming from his pendant. Some kind of recognition, some kind of… acceptance?

  “Watch her. Do not trust her. She has not been honest with you.”

  Cal’s eyes shot open. The voice was a man’s, one he didn’t recognise. He spun around, reaching out and summonning his sword.

  He stood there silently, his blade in hand and ready to strike. His eyes groped over every inch of the chapel.

  He was alone.

  Cal’s heart was racing. He was panting, his sword out in front of him ready to strike, but… there was nothing.

  However, the words still rung in his head, he recited them again from memory. “Watch her. Do not trust her. She has not been honest with you.”