Justyn Malar knew he was too late miles before he reached the walls of Hightower. He knew he wasn't going to have enough time when he began the journey two weeks previous, but even forearmed with that expectation, it was a tremendous blow to his heart when he saw the fireworks.

You missed it, said the voice in his head.

I know, Arathyl, he replied.

You knew you weren't going to make it before they left, the voice reminded him.

No, I know that. I just thought that, maybe, I'd be able to help.

The voice made a sound that didn't totally resemble, but wasn't completely unlike, a snort. Even if you had, you'd be dead, too. You know the kind of power they were wielding. If you had arrived in time, you'd have been taken by the explosion along with her, and all of the other self-sacrificing fools.

Do not speak ill of the dead, Justyn retorted. They willingly gave their lives for the safety of their friends and family. Nothing is to be respected more than that, even if they were working to kill her.

The next few minutes progressed in silence, Justyn grinning at his ability to shock the other in to speechlessness. As he approached the gates to the city, the sounds of celebration and merriment reaching him, he saw two guards standing at the entrance. It wasn't until he was standing directly in front of them that he noticed they leaning with their backs against the wall, both sound asleep and snoring. With each exhale, Justyn could smell strong drink on their breaths.

The tall sorcerer stepped through the gate, and was also unmolested by the guard standing — this time sitting — at the guardhouse door, head tipped back at an awkward angle, similarly passed out.

Behold, the guards of the great town Hightower! The town that stood in defiance of the sorceress Vividian for so many generations! came the voice.

Hush, Justyn replied. I just want to make it through here and onward without any difficulty. He wasn't in the mood for another verbal sparring session, nor was he looking forward to trying to explain himself to a curious villager.

You need to rest, Justyn, Arathyl returned, unabated. This time, however, the sarcasm was replaced with genuine concern. You've been pushing yourself too hard, even for one of your...impressive constitution. Please, at least stop for something to eat. Perhaps...there? Justyn felt a mental shrug towards an inn close to where he still stood at the town gate.

Very well, Justyn replied. It has been too long since I've eaten. With a look of disdain at the drunk, frolicking townspeople now surrounding him, he stepped toward the inn.

The sorcerer was able to reach the inn without any accident befalling him or the cat that lay draped across his shoulders. Remarkably, he had kept his long, blue robes completely clean of any mud being thrown around in the chaotic celebrations of the town, and neither had any wine or ale spilled on them. He considered it a victory that he only once had to redirect someone with his long staff. As he entered the inn, he instinctively swept the brown curls of his hair across his forehead. It wasn't to keep the hair out of his eyes — it fell back almost instantly — as much as it was a habit that he had developed over the years; he did it without even thinking about it.

Justyn knew that, standing in the doorway, illuminated by the streetlamps and fireworks, he cut an attractive figure. He noticed that several of the women in the common room of the inn in various levels of sobriety thought so, too. Unfortunately, so did Arathyl.

Ooh, I like the serving girl just coming out of the kitchen. You could woo her, bed her, and be on your way before she even realizes you have no feelings for her at all. Justyn didn't respond. He just reached up and patted the cat on his head. He hated physical affection like that.

Sitting down at the closest empty table, the tall man got the attention of the blond serving girlthe voice mentioned. As she approached, he lifted the cat from his shoulders, and set him on the table. He stretched his back, then reached his legs forward, stretching them towards the edge of the table. His claws left parallel scratches in the tabletop as he worked his paws.

"Hello, welcome to Hightower Inn," the girl said as she arrived at the table. "You here for the celebrations?"

Justyn smiled and shook his head. "No, I'm just traveling this evening and thought I'd stop in for supper. Could you tell me, what's being celebrated? I thought I was familiar with all the local holidays."

The girl who had been looking around the room, her attention easily diverted, immediately brought her focus back to Justyn, and stared. "You really don't know?"

Justyn waited for a moment, and when it became clear she was not going to continue without a response, shook his head again. "I'm sorry, I'm not from around here, and the last time I was in your fair town was..." Justyn paused a moment in thought. "Well, it was several years ago."

At that moment, a large man wearing an apron stretched across his massive girth stepped up to the table. His sleeves were rolled up passed his elbows, and he was sweating profusely.

"Alice!" he barked at the serving girl. "This man said he wanted supper. Why haven't you gone to fetch him a plate of stew, yet? Have your brains been addled, then, by all this?"

The girl stammered for a moment, then disappeared into the kitchens. "Don't forget his ale," he shouted after her. "The good stuff! All drink is on the house!" His last shout was meant for the other customers in the inn, who gave a shout of approval at his declaration. Justyn assumed it had been happening a lot that night.

"I heard you asked Alice about the celebrations then? Well, allow me to let you in on what's behind our little party. My name is Harold Watson, and I run this inn." Justyn began to stand to introduce himself, but Harold gestured for him to stay seated.

"My name is Justyn. Justyn Malar. This is my cat, Arathyl." He nodded towards the cat now sleeping on the table, and the innkeeper patted him on his head, surprisingly lightly for such a large hand. "I'm a wandering sorcerer," he explained, extending his hand. Instead of shaking, Harold raised an eyebrow in consideration before taking Justyn's hand in his own.

"Sorcerer, eh? No offense meant, but I never had much use for your type, even before that...bitch-demon decided to use us and our town as her own personal playground."

Heh, "Bitch-Demon", the voice said to Justyn. That's definitely your girl. The sorcerer raised an eyebrow at the cat, but Harold thought it was in response to his curse. He coughed, then straightened up.

"Forgive me, Sorcerer. I meant no disrespect, but many generations ago, a sorceress known as Vividian decided to take up residence in a tower near here. No one cared at first, but then she started taking villagers — children, mostly — to her tower, and we never saw any of them again. Anyone who protested disappeared, and sometimes, people disappeared who had never raised a single word of complaint. For hundreds of years, nobody moved to this village, and no one moved out."

"Why did no one leave?" Justyn asked.

Harold shook his head in disgust. "She told us, you know. She said that she wouldn't allow anyone ever to leave the village. She wouldn't interfere with the governing of the village, but she couldn't let her 'raw materials' out of her sight. Anyone who ever tried to leave were returned eventually, but they were...changed. They were different."

Justyn nodded in understanding. He had known what Vividian was doing, of course. Part of it had been his idea. But still, hearing this man talk about what had happened to his ancestors made Justyn feel somewhat sorry for them. But only for a moment.

"Why the celebrations, then? Did she decide to leave?" Justyn knew, even while asking, the answer. There was no was she would ever leave by choice, and the power that he had heard they were going to use to fight her...well, Arathyl was right when he said that everyone involved in the fight would die.

Harold grinned. "Ring the bells, and cry from the rooftops." He tipped his head back and shouted at the top of his lungs. "The bitch is dead!"

"The bitch is dead!" the crowd cheered after him, and Justyn could hear the shout picked up by people just outside the inn, and he assumed it began to travel through the town, again. This hadn't been the first time that particular cry had gone through the town like a gust of wind, and he knew it wouldn't be the last, either.

"Sounds like it would have been quite a battle. Did anyone survive?"

Harold instantly subdued his reaction. Even the people closest to their table seemed to take a moment to themselves, but Justyn decided it could have been just his imagination.

"They were some of the bravest folks a man could ask to be his friend. Some of them were born and raised here, some of them were just passing through, and one or two of them seemed to have a personal vendetta against the bitch. But they had with them an artifact that they said was stronger than any power the sorceress could throw at them." He smiled. "Their names and figures will be erected in a statue in the center of town, and every man, woman, and child who ever walks these streets again will know that they safety is due to their sacrifice." Tears begin to gather at the corners of the innkeeper's eyes, and he wiped them, unashamedly. "They will not be forgotten, not as long as the town of Hightower still stands."

Justyn was affected by the emotion pouring so strongly from Harold that he almost missed Alice's return with a plate of stew, a mug of steaming ale, and a small saucer of milk for Arathyl. As she set the milk in front of the cat, she patted his head and scratched behind his ears. Arathyl...purred.

I'm sorry, did you just-- Justyn started to ask the cat. What interrupted in response was the mental equivalent of a blood-curdling scream.

Smiling, Justyn ate a bite of his stew, and took a small sip of the ale. "Harold, your kitchens are commendable. The meat is neither cooked too much nor too little, and the ale is...liquid ecstasy. My compliments to your chef and your brewer."

Harold blushed. "Well, I thank you on both counts, sir Sorcerer. I head the kitchen here at the Hightower Inn, and I brew all the ale myself. I've been saving this batch for a special occasion, though I never though actually to open it up!" The innkeeper exploded in laughter, and Justyn joined him.

"I have one more question for you, Master Brewer," Justyn said when their laughter died down. "This power that was able to counter Vividian's magic so completely. Did they say what it was?"

Harold stopped laughing and looked at Justyn with what could have been guarded suspicion. The look passed, though, and he shrugged, muttering something about "old habits" under his breath.

"Yeah, they said what it was. I didn't understand it, though. They said that it was a power even older than the dark energies she wielded. It was something that even she didn't understand, and couldn't comprehend." Justyn nodded, and the innkeeper clasped a hand to his shoulder before stepping to another table.

Is it what she thought it was? Arathyl asked while Justyn continued eating.

I believe so, Justyn replied. He was only half right, though, when he said she couldn't understand what it was. She knew exactly what it was, probably even better than the "heroes" who used it on her. What she wanted to understand was how to manipulate its energy. If she could have claimed that power as her own, she might have finally found immortality.

Arathyl snorted into his milk. Immortality. You humans are always so concerned with prolonging your inevitable ends. It's pathetic how you hold on to your existences. Just like the fat man said about those "brave heroes," that they'll never be forgotten. Who cares? They're dead, just like they knew they were going to be.

You couldn't understand the fear some people have of dead. Your kind has no death to speak of. Until you crossed over, none of you even had a corporeal form. It was the same argument they had been having with each other for decades. Imagine what it would be like if you stepped back to your realm, but you just vanished. You left no trace, you have no consciousness, you simply cease to exist. How much regret would you carry with you about what you hadn't accomplished, or mistakes you made that you never set right?

Arathyl gave a mental shrug. Why would I care? I ceased to be, so any regret I carried would be gone with me.

Justyn sighed. You just cannot understand, so don't pass judgement on those of us who can't not understand.

The rest of his supper was spent in mental silence, and as he finished he placed several silver coins on the table. It was many time over what the inn would have charged for his supper, but considering the quality of his meal, he felt it was appropriate. As he was gathering his belongings, Harold approached him.

"Are you leaving? Can I interest you in spending the night at our inn?" he asked.

"No, Master Innkeeper. Arathyl and I have many leagues left to travel before we can rest." As if to emphasize Justyn's words, Arathyl jumped up his arm to lay across his shoulders. Harold chuckled at the sight.

"Well, in years past I would have counseled you against using the road that leads passed the bitch's tower, but..." He grinned, and held his arms out wide.

"The bitch is dead," Justyn said with a grin.

"The bitch is dead!" the celebrators in the inn shouted in agreement.

"The bitch is dead," Harold continued, "so I know I'll be seeing you again. I'll save a bottle of ale for your return journey, Sorcerer Justyn." He held out his hand for Justyn to take.

Justyn grasped it tightly. "I look forward to it, Harold Watson," he said, and meant it.

He stepped out of the inn, and began negotiating his way through the drunk throngs of people towards to gate on the opposite side of the village. Off in the distance, he could feel his destination far better than he could see it. He was headed towards a newly-raised barrow, a monument and a grave. He was nearly there, and wasn't going to let the fact that he was two days too late to help discourage him.

~ ~ ~

When Justyn finally reached Vividian's tower, it was well after midnight. The large doors had been blown off their hinges by some sort of magic, and the dark entryway loomed in front of him. Arathyl jumped down from his shoulders and stood just at the threshold.

"This is particularly ominous," the cat said, aloud. "I would have been apprehensive to go in even if the doors didn't look like the mouth of some behemoth..."

Justyn silently agreed with him, and for a few moments, neither one of them entered. Unlike Arathyl, Justyn didn't find the entrance to the tower very imposing, nor was he afraid of what he might find. He knew exactly what was inside the tower. Several years had been spent training and studying within its walls, and he had discovered every surprise Vividian's home had to offer. There was no way any weapon or power her killers had brought with them could compare to the traps she, herself, had lain. Justyn's fear, rather, came from how he would respond. For the first time in his life, he was afraid of his own reaction.

Holding his staff out in front of him, Justyn took a tentative step forward. Then another. Then a third and a fourth, and knelt on the ground next to one of the fallen doors. Reaching out with his hand, he placed his palm on the door and probed the magical auras that still surrounded it. Curiosity had gotten the better of him, and he wanted to see what magic the attackers had used to circumvent the wards and locks that Vividian had set around her entrance.

After a few moments, Justyn confirmed that they hadn't used the unknown power Harold had mentioned. What they had done was fairly creative. He discovered that the small band had a magic user among them that either held tremendous power, and incredibly fine control of it. He or she had reached several fine threads of power around and even through Vividian's wards without tripping them, then with sheer brute force knocked the doors inward. One door fell where it stood, but the other had flown through the room and embedded itself horizontally in the far wall. The wards all still held on the door on the ground, and he assumed the same was true of the door in the wall.

"They were able to open the doors without touching Vividian's locks. One of the mages was of unbelievable power," he said to Arathyl. The cat had no response to that; it was a feat that would have required more power and control than either one of them would have been able to manifest alone. Working together, they could probably have found a way to duplicate the accomplishment, but not quickly.

Entering the tower completely, Justyn raised a hand and his staff above his head. A white bolt of energy short from his right hand towards the top of his staff, setting the top half of the rod aglow. At the same time, Arathyl began to emit a green nimbus of light. The two sources of light coupled with Arathyl's tendency to jump around, following his own paths, created strange shadow patterns, constantly dancing.

Even so, Justyn had no problems identifying the features of the room. It looked the same as it always had, for the most part. Vividian had no love of change, and had spent so little time in this room, anyway, that Justyn assumed it had looked this way since the day she had decided to take up residence in this tower. Other than the broken doors, there were two dead bodies at the base of the stairs leading to the next level. Justyn didn't have to touch them to determine that their deaths had been caused by Vividian's traps.

One of them was impaled on a group of spears that raised up from the ground when a pressure plate was depressed. Justyn smiled as he remembered the argument he and Vividian had had when she decided to install it.

"I can't believe anyone actually got caught by that primitive trap," Arathyl said, voicing Justyn's opinion.

The other body was caught by one of Vividian's magical traps. It had been his own suggestion, but she must have decided to implement it after he left, because he had never seen it in use. The victim stepped onto a rune drawn invisibly onto the ground, much like the other stepped onto a specific stone, and a spell was completed that changed any living material within the radius of the rune to stone. Some of the man hadn't been directly above the rune, so his entire body hadn't transmuted, but his entire head had been, so Justyn knew that the man had died instantly. There was a part of him that regretted the man didn't feel more pain, but it wasn't a large part.

Justyn and Arathyl followed tracks in the dust and in the blood of the man killed by the spears leading up the stairs, and twice before they reached the next floor they had to avoid traps that hadn't been set off by the attackers. Whether they knew of the locations or they were just lucky, Justyn could only guess.

Upon their arrival at the second floor of Vividian's tower, the room Vividian used for introducing and entertaining her occasional guests, they saw seven more bodies. Three of them were caused by traps Justyn knew, but the other four were killed by traditional weaponry.

"Vividian's guards, and their kills," Justyn determined. Vividian had always kept around herself warriors of incredible skill, for appearances more than any fear she had of attack. At any given time, she never had any more than two, though.

"They must have had amazing swordsmen with them, as well," Arathyl said. He knew of Vividian's tendency to hire the best soldiers she could find as her guards.

Justyn agreed with Arathyl, and cast his eyes around the room for more traps. "They must have either tripped the other defenses and avoided their reactions, or they had been deactivated," he said when he didn't see any. Immediately proceeding to the next flight of stairs, Justyn and Arathyl climbed to the third story.

Many more bodies greeted them upon their ascension to the library in Vividian's tower. Nearly a dozen bodies littered the ground, many of them charred and still smoking, others ripped nearly in half, and still others cut to pieces with sword and spear, Vividian's weapons of choice.

"She must have been here, and deactivated the traps here and in the floor below when she heard them kill her guards," Justyn surmised.

"Why would she do that?" Arathyl asked. "They were clearly having an effect on her assailants, so why would she make it easier for them?"

"She wanted to face them herself," Justyn replied. "That's just the way she was."

Stepping over the bodies, Justyn mused over the state of the books in Vividian's collection. "She had collected some of the rarest books and pieces of art in the world. 'Musings On a Summer Night from a Winter Morning' was her favorite, she always said. She knew it well enough to quote the entire piece from memory." Justyn smiled slightly as he remembered. "She wouldn't just repeat the words, either. When she recited it, it was a part of her, like she had been the author."

Arathyl cocked his head to the side. "She was a performer, then?"

Justyn chuckled. "No, not really. She just really loved that poem."

They looked around briefly, but Justyn knew they weren't going to find Vividian's body in the library — even while fighting for her life, she never would have let her collection come under any danger — so they followed the signs of battle towards the stairs, and continued up to the fourth floor, towards the dining room.

If Vividian's library was where she kept her most precious treasures, the dining room was where she displayed her most ostentatious decorations. Not a single fixture or piece of furniture wasn't gilded with gold or silver, or encrusted with jewels. Justyn had told her many times that her dining room was too gaudy, and tended to put off her guests. She always responded that she wanted her guests always slightly uncomfortable. People who were always watching themselves and expecting surprises to be dropped on them were easier to predict and control, she said.

The dining room was also the scene of the most intense fighting. At least two dozen bodies were scattered across the ground, some of them even on her long table. One body had even been thrown in the air and gotten caught by the chandelier. He hung suspended above the rest of the room, his head twisted to an odd angle, with a long fork jutting out from his chest.

"The servants are going to need help cleaning this up," Arathyl said, wryly. "I'll go see if they're in the kitchens getting ready for breakfast." The cat bounded over the bodies towards the doors in the back of the room, and disappeared into the kitchen. Justyn wasn't entire sure why he left, but he didn't follow. After checking all of the bodies and equipment left — some of the dead were sorcerers, but none of great skill — he determined that none of them were Vividian, nor were they the mage that had destroyed the front doors.

He continued to the next floor, following bloody footprints on the wood floor, and was surprised to see that there were very few bodies. It seemed logical, after he considered it. The less-skilled combatants would have been dispatched by the guards and early traps, then by Vividian herself. The attackers who would have followed Vividian to the fifth floor would have been of the highest caliber. Four bodies were stacked one on top of the other right next to the stairs leading up to Vividian's personal chambers. Inspecting them, Justyn found three of them held swords of exquisite quality. The fourth one, lying on his back on top of the pile, wore the robes of a sorcerer, but unlike Justyn, he wore red.

I found the sorcerer that tore down the doors, Justyn said to Arathyl.

Does he wear the red? Arathyl asked from wherever he was, doing whatever he was doing.

He does, Justyn replied.

Bastard, Arathyl added, sharing Justyn's disgust of those who use magic simply for war and destruction. Justyn used his power to kill as well, but he was more devoted to research and discovery through intellectual conversation and experimentation. The same things could be accomplished and more through study rather than simple force and battle.

Prying the sorcerer's fingers open, Justyn saw a small white stone that looked like it was made of glass drop from his grasp. It landed on the carpet with a light tap, and Justyn reached down to pick it up. Being as careful as he could, he probed the jewel with the thinnest, lightest thread of magic that he could. When it touched the stone, he let out the breath he had been holding.

I found it, Justyn said. Arathyl didn't respond, and Justyn could imagine him frozen in mid-step, waiting for Justyn to speak again. Don't worry, he added. It's completely used up. The man had incredible power, but it seems like the feat he performed on the doors limited his control.

Arathyl still didn't respond, but Justyn pictured him let out a sigh of relief as well, then continued his exploration. He also tried to picture the final moments of the battle. Vividian had been pressed back to this corner of the room, dispatched the three warriors and was about to finish off the sorcerer when he raised his fist and gathered the energy from the stone. As brave and as powerful as Vividian was, she would have looked for an escape. She would have fled up the stairs towards her chambers. If she had any sort of counter to the kind of power stored in that stone, she would have kept it in her most private places.

Stepping up the stairs, Justyn was surprised to find a small girl lying crumpled in a heap near the bottom of the flight. She looked to be no older than eighteen or nineteen which made her one of the youngest attackers in the group, and one of only three women. To have made it this far, only to die at the end, Justyn thought, was a waste. The back of her head had been crushed, and Justyn saw a mark of blood on the wall above her. Looking further up the stairs, Justyn saw another body.

Justyn stepped up to the last body knowing who it was. The last one, the final body had to have been hers. Vividian lay face down in the act of crawling towards her chamber door, her fingers stretched out towards it. Justyn brushed the hair out of her face, then noticed the dagger protruding from her chest.

Another image formed in his mind. While Vividian turned and ran up the stairs to avoid the magic the sorcerer was about to release, the girl somehow attacked her and succeeded in plunging the dagger into Vividian's chest. The sorceress threw the girl into the wall, killing her, but it had taken too much time to deal with her. While the dagger may or may not have been enough to kill Vividian, the magic unleashed by the sorcerer definitely finished her. If she hadn't been harried by the warriors and mages up until that point, then been stabbed in the chest by the girl, she may have been powerful enough to survive the sorcerer's final attack. But the assailants had been too well equipped. Justyn heard soft footsteps behind him.

"Is that..." Arathyl started to ask. As Justyn looked at him, tears in his eyes, Arathyl turned back the way he came, and left. He knew when the time was to swallow any sarcastic or cynical comment.

Justyn pulled the dagger out of Vividian's chest, then picked her up and carried her the rest of the way to her chambers. He opened the door, and entered her bedroom for only the second time in his life, carrying her to her bed. Laying her down with her head on the silk-covered pillow, he crossed her hands over her chest, covering the dagger wound. There had been so little blood from the weapon that, with her eyes closed, it looked like she was sleeping. Justyn knew that nothing could wake her, though.

With the realization finally setting in, that this woman who he had admired, this woman who knew more about sorcery than he would ever learn, the woman he had loved, was dead, he fell to his knees and wept. For an hour he knelt in front of Vividian's bed and still figure and cried. Soon, the exhaustion from his journey finally overcame him and he fell asleep, still kneeling, still weeping.