The paths Sammael led them down were dark and twisting, into the deepest parts of the forest to the east of Sjaligr. The demon pushed on without letting them stop to rest until they were under the boughs of dark pines, far from the huntsmen that answered to Mara's father. Aallotar relaxed slightly once they were away from the lands of mennskr, as tilled field quickly became wilderness, but her golden eyes followed the every movement of their rescuer with unmistakable caution. Sammael took the time when they stopped to pant for breath to rebind his hands with the bandages of a leper, the better to pass scrutiny if they met travelers on the ancient, all but forgotten track.

Mara felt no real relief being outside the dungeon. The anger still sat in the pit of her stomach like a red-hot stone, surrounded by crystallizing hurt. Her family's condemnation was far more bitter a memory than any she had held before, despite the glimpses of her mother's support and Viljami's guilt. The more she thought about it, though, the more the weight set in.

Aallotar turned back when she realized Mara was lagging. They were both exhausted after days on foot, never sleeping more than an hour at a time if even that. "Mara, are you—"

"I'm fine," Mara said, softening her glower slightly. Aallotar was the only one she wasn't angry with, and she didn't want to take it out on her friend.

The wildling glanced over her shoulder at Sammael, who had stopped to survey the path ahead. She approached Mara, placing a hand on her friend's shoulder. "Lying is not needed," Aallotar said, the words still clumsy. She didn't speak often even out of captivity, which sometimes left Mara worried by silence.

"Don't worry about me," Mara said, catching Aallotar's other hand and meshing their fingers together. "What about you?"

A look of sickening guilt crossed the wildling's expression for a second, at least before Aallotar looked away, back towards Sammael. "I wish it undone," she admitted.

Mara knew that Aallotar meant her slaughter of guards in Sjaligr in beast form, not Sammael's rescue. "You are not the beast. We'll do our best to make sure it never happens again," Mara said, giving the wildling's hand a soft squeeze. She sighed, sagging slightly. "Gods, what I wouldn't give for a bed and a meal. I don't know if I can keep going at Sammael's pace."

"OUR DESTINATION IS NEAR," Sammael said, gesturing to a large stone spire rising out of the forest like a broken pillar. Cracks had given it a craggy appearance, but the overall shape was still regular enough to look like a construction rather than a naturally occurring rock formation. "MY ABODE IS BENEATH."

"A cave?" Aallotar asked, keeping her hand in Mara's as they approached the demon. To the huntress, the wildling's touch felt protective as much as fond.

"A REPOSITORY OF KNOWLEDGE THAT I HAVE ACCUMULATED OVER MANY MORTAL LIFETIMES," Sammael said. Beneath his hood and heavy wrappings, he might have passed for a deformed human. His twisted, animalistic bearing and blunt muzzle of needle-teeth were disguised, but those inhuman obsidian eyes betrayed his true nature even when he sought to conceal himself. "IT EXISTS IN THE SHRINE OF THE EIGHTH."

"The Shrine of the Eighth?" Mara asked curiously.

"YES. THE EIGHTH OF THE SORCERERS WHO CREATED ME, SHE WHO DECEIVED THE DECEIVER," Sammael explained in his grating, mechanical voice. "THROUGH HER GRACES, I CAME TO BEING BEFORE THE GREATEST OF ALL MY KIND AND I WILL ENDURE THROUGH KNOWLEDGE AFTER HE IS NO MORE."

That tidbit stunned Mara. "You were created by a mortal?"

"HARDLY." Even Sammael's inflectionless tone was easily read as dismissive when joined by the wave of one clawed hand. "THE SORCERERS OF OLD WERE IMMUNE TO THE RAVAGES OF TIME AND REQUIRED NO INDULGENCE OF BASE PHYSICAL URGES THAT DEFINE MORTALS."

"But they are no more?" Aallotar said with a frown.

"THE SEVEN DIED TO FUEL THE CREATION OF THE PRINCES OF IRON. EACH ONE PROVIDED ALL OF THEIR KNOWLEDGE AND POWER TO GRANT ANIMUS TO THE CHILDREN OF THE DECEIVER. THE EIGHTH DIED AT THE DECEIVER'S HAND," Sammael said almost patiently. Then the demon turned back towards the spire and shambled on. As he moved, the first few raindrops began to fall.

"I hunger," Aallotar admitted quietly after another quarter mile of walking, her hand still holding tightly to Mara's.

Mara's stomach growled at the reminder, aching furiously from having been ignored for days. "I don't think demons eat, but maybe there will be food nearby his home," she said thoughtfully. "We could make snares or maybe fish, but I don't have a weapon to hunt with. Gathering plants on the way would probably help."

"Perhaps," Aallotar murmured.

The problem was that winter was swiftly coming to the Red Mountains, which sharply limited their food supply, and they both knew it. "Sammael, we need to eat," Mara said, looking up at her apparent tutor. "Aallotar and I need food or we'll die. Neither of us are doing well."

The crunching of snow ahead stopped and then the demon turned to face them, cold eyes scrutinizing their condition. "I HAVE MADE ALLOWANCES FOR THIS IN MY ABODE," Sammael said. "WHILE I DO NOT REQUIRE THE CONSUMPTION OF FLESH OR PLANT MATTER, I FIND BOTH TYPES OF ORGANIC MATERIAL WORTHY OF STUDY AND CULTIVATION. THE LAKE AND WOODS BOTH CONTAIN AN ABUNDANCE OF LIFE IN THE ABSENCE OF HUMAN HUNTERS. IT WILL MORE THAN SUFFICE."

"That's something, at least," Mara said, trying to take some heart in the fact that Sammael didn't want them dead. "Are you the only one who dwells in your abode?"

"I HAVE A SERVANT, A HUMAN SUCH AS YOURSELVES," Sammael said as he continued on his march. "HIS NAME IS CALIBAN."

"Is he like me?" Mara asked curiously.

"NO." The demon's words were blunt, almost to the point of being punishing, as if the man's lack of quality was a personal affront. As a demon, Sammael could not experience anger as a human did, but the cold was palpable. "CALIBAN IS UTTERLY MORTAL, NO GLIMMER OF THE SUBLIME TO BE FOUND IN HIS CHURLISH COUNTENANCE. HE SNIVELS AND GROVELS FOR POWER, FOR BOONS. I HAVE DENIED HIM."

"Why?" Aallotar asked softly.

"HE IS UNWORTHY," the demon said with his customary dispassionate tone. "HE HAS HIS USES, HOWEVER. THERE IS MUCH TO BE SEEN TO, KEPT IN ORDER, AND HE WILL DIE BEFORE BETRAYNG ME."

Mara frowned at that. "Unless he meets a demon willing to give him power."

"YOU MISTAKE ME. HE MAY SOMEDAY POSSESS THE MOTIVE FOR BETRAYAL. HE WILL NOT HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY."

"Because you will kill him," Aallotar said quietly, a sort of understanding creeping into her tone.

"CORRECT," Sammael said coldly. The demon returned to his shambling stride. He could cover distance much faster than Mara realized as she pushed to catch up, legs aching. Aallotar seemed in better condition, but she was in peak physical shape after a lifetime in the wild as a beast that never knew true rest.

Soon they reached the base of the spire and a great crack that split between two statues, devoid of visage after the wearing hands of Time. Centuries of rain and wind had defaced all the carvings here, only a few lingering reminders just inside the crack that was about five feet wide. Mara saw no script, only hints of faces looking at them from the weathered rock that left the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end.

The feeling of age did not fade even as she slowly acclimatized to the passageway. It was not completely dark, lit behind them by the sun and ahead by firelight. It was slightly warmer than Aallotar's cave, probably because somewhere someone kept a hearth. Mara could smell woodsmoke ever so faintly.

They stepped from their rough stone passage into an echoing hall with tall, vaulted ceilings and statues lining the walls. These were undamaged by the weather, but the faces of every carved person had been defaced by brutal claw marks. The acoustics as they walked and the somber air of this place reminded Mara of the old stone temple in Sjaligr. "What was this place?" Mara asked as they approached the undesecrated statue of a woman on her knees, its face turned towards the sky with tears flowing from both eyes. One hand that the statue held over its heart looked like a demon's claw, the other limb decidedly more human as the statue its hand wound in its hair as if tearing at it in grief.

"YOU SEE THE BEGINNING, THE FIRST TO CHANNEL VOID, AND THE END, THE LIFE DESTROYED BY THE UNLIVING THAT IT BEGAT." The demon ran a clawed hand almost reverently over the base of the statue, claws tracing the carvings in an almost infinitely complicated script covering it. "STRANGE, THE NATURE OF GODS TO FORGET THE ONE THEY FEARED AND REVILED MORE THAN THE DECEIVER HIMSELF. AFTER ALL, WITHOUT HER BRILLIANCE, THERE WOULD BE NONE OF MY KIND." The demon pressed his short muzzle to the base of the statue as if leaving a kiss. "THANK YOU, MOTHER."

"She looks..." Aallotar said, struggling for a word. Describing emotions was not her strong suit and 'sad' didn't seem like enough.

"Anguished," Mara finished for her friend, captivated by the woman's expression.

"SHE WEEPS THE TEARS OF ONE WHO SAW THE ENDING OF WORLDS BEYOND COUNTING." Sammael turned to them, studying both young women with his sharp, obsidian eyes. "LITTLE REMAINS OF THE OLD WORLD IN ITS TRUE FORM. THAT WHICH DOES MUST BE PRESERVED. IS THIS UNDERSTOOD?"

Both of them nodded, though the wildling's hand tightened around Mara's. "Where is this Caliban?" Aallotar asked as she inhaled deeply to catch a trace of his scent. She made a face of disgust at something, though Mara didn't catch a trace of it. Even with the curse's power suppressed, her friend's senses were still keener.

"CALIBAN." The command boomed through the hall, echoing down side passages. Almost immediately, Mara heard the scurrying of feet.

A man emerged from the tunnel to their right, unshaven and unwashed. He looked to be in his late twenties or early thirties, but the sourness of his expression made him seem haggard and older. Dark hair hung in matted locks around his face, a stark contrast to sharp green eyes. The moment he saw Mara and Aallotar, his expression shifted into a mix of confusion and suspicion. "Master, who do you bring? I hadn't prepared for guests..."

"THEY WILL REQUIRE INTRODUCTION TO THIS PLACE," Sammael intoned. "I HAVE EXPERIMENTS TO ATTEND TO, I HAVE BEEN AWAY TOO LONG ALREADY. YOU WILL SHOW THEM EVERY CHAMBER AND DOOR, CALIBAN. THE SPELL-BREAKER AND HER COMPANION ARE HERE TO STAY." With that said, the demon stepped away, off towards his work.

Caliban's jaw dropped and he stared at the two women in front of him. Mara wasn't certain if it was shock, awe, or indignation. He pulled himself together when he saw the slow turn of Sammael's head towards him, however. "Of course, Master," he said fawningly. "Anything you wish." He gave Mara and Aallotar a deep, sweeping bow. "Do follow me. The Master is no doubt too busy for introductions. I am Caliban." He held out a hand, dark crescents under each nail, for them to shake. "You are?"

"Mara Spell-Breaker," the huntress said, shaking his hand. He smelled like something terribly foul. "My friend is named Aallotar."

Aallotar looked at the man with narrowed eyes and made no move to touch his hand, tightening her grip on Mara. "You smell of death."

"I'm flattered," Caliban said sarcastically. He looked to Mara, immediately flashing her a smile. "Is your friend always so dour, Spell-Breaker?"

"We've only just met," Mara said as reasonably as she could to hide her own mistrust. A life of abuse had taught her that people were not to be trusted.

"Of course," Caliban said, brushing off their mistrust. "There's some stew on the fire, though I'm not much of a cook. There's a spare nook up near the north end of the library, though you'll have to share and there's not much space."

"We'll be fine," Mara said. The idea of having Aallotar close was immensely comforting. "Food and sleep would be wonderful. We've been on the move for days."

"Follow me," Caliban said with a sort of cheer that seemed alien to his normal expression.

His accent was foreign enough that Mara couldn't place it, piquing her curiosity as they walked down a side passage. "Where are you from, Caliban?" she asked. "You don't speak like any in the Red Mountains that I have heard."

The unkempt man chuckled at that. "I come from across the sea to the east. My home is a glittering jewel called Zaeylael. It dwarfs Sjaligr a dozen times."

"How did you come to be here?" Aallotar asked, tension still lingering in her voice. Mara looked over and saw a deep distrust in her friend's face. Whatever her reasons, the wildling did not like their guide.

"My ship wrecked upon the shoals on the eastern coast of this continent. The Master found me among the rocks and brought me here," Caliban explained. He gave Mara a crooked smile. "Have you ever sailed?"

"No," Mara said.

"Ah, more's the pity. It is a wonderful thing," Caliban said. "So, first I'll show you where you will be sleeping, then we'll get you fed."

All words of questions died on Mara's lips as they stepped into the next room, grander even than the entrance hall with its statue. The ceiling had to be thirty feet high, lined up to the brim by shelves. The room was filled with them, each one bearing a load of books and scrolls so heavy that Mara was amazed the shelving wasn't creaking with protest under the weight. Her eyes lit up at the sight and she squeezed Aallotar's hand tightly. "I've never seen so many books! Gaius would—"

As soon as she'd said her mentor's name, the bitterness overwhelmed her. Gaius, who had allowed them to drag Aallotar from her side. Gaius, who had left her to rot in the dungeons.

Aallotar sensed something was awry, leaning into Mara's side. "I am here," she said softly.

Mara gave her a half-smile, pulled partially out of her horrible thoughts by that reminder. "Thank you," she said with sincere gratitude. She tried to study the faded book bindings as they passed. Most were in Gaius's language, a combination of histories, treatises on different subjects, alchemical tomes, and metallurgic manuals. One or two looked like poetry, though she would have to open it to be certain, and a great many of the others either dealt with Void itself or its twin, Creation. One or two even looked like they might be about the First World and Godfall if she were to guess by the title.

The nook Caliban took them to was certainly cramped quarters. There was a mattress on the floor just big enough for the two of them, a small dresser made of wood scraps, and a low table without chairs that could be used as a desk if seated on the ground. It looked dingy at the moment, but Mara was confident she could clean it and turn it into something more comfortable. After all, for at least a little while, this was home.

"I wondered who the Master had me make this for. Now I know," Caliban said, gesturing to the space.

"Thank you, Caliban," Mara said, taking the lead since Aallotar still glared at the man.

The smile he gave her in turn was difficult to read. It seemed almost pained, but with traces of hunger to it. "My pleasure, Spell-Breaker," he said. "Now, let us away to the stew."

Mara let him walk ahead just enough that she could whisper to Aallotar without being overheard. "What's wrong?" she asked her friend softly.

"I do not like the way he looks at you," Aallotar muttered. "He wants..." She let out a frustrated huff at her own inability to articulate her thoughts. "He is not good."

"I'll be careful," Mara promised before catching up to Caliban with her friend on her heels, their hands still linked. It was nice to have an anchor in such a terrifying new world. "Caliban, when will Sammael return?"

The man twitched slightly when she used the demon's name. "The Master will return when it pleases him," he said stiffly. "You would do well to show him respect."

Mara's lips pressed into a stubborn line for a moment as she studied the unkempt keeper of Sammael's home. "I am his apprentice, not his servant."

Caliban bared his teeth in a smile without warmth. "Of course, Spell-Breaker," he said calmly. 

Mara knew trouble when she heard it.