“Besides,” the mage continued. “In this case I am afraid it is the priestess that must die.”

Jordan’s mind was reeling as each new revelation assaulted his mind more than the last one had as he looked back and forth between the two other people in the room. Taz was leaning forward on his chair, looking far too amused for what he’d just said, while she gazed sightlessly back like a person resigned to her fate.

“Can one of you just calm down and explain what in the hell is going on to me?” Jordan asked, worried that this could turn violent at any moment. He stepped in between Annise and Taz, but if this mage was as powerful as he claimed, there was very little protection he could offer her.

“Well, you seem to know so much,” Taz said, gesturing very widely. “Why don’t you tell him.”

“I only know the what but not the why,” she said simply. “Siddrim has not shared that with me.”

“Siddrim is it?” the mage laughed. “You really do believe that, don’t you? Very well, we shall leave it at Siddrim for now.”

“We are here, all of us, because I won a game of chess a very long time ago. It was a game I should never have played, of course, but since I won, well… it all worked out.”

“And who was it you were playing?” Jordan asked, even though he was almost afraid to.

“Well, I’ll give you a hint,” Taz smiled. “Unlike Siddrim, she’s still hanging around.”

“You played a game of chess with the moon goddess herself?” Jordan asked, fairly sure he was right. He seemed to remember a legend along those lines, but he didn’t associate the vague memory with Tazuranth, but he couldn’t be sure. “And what were the stakes?”

“Oh, I wanted to be her successor when she finally became tired of her nightly march across the sky,” and if I won, she agreed that I might have what it took to hold her nightly vigil. If I lost, well - I would have had my soul ripped out for my insolence, but it was a small price to pay for the opportunity. It took over a year, but in the end, I managed to beat her at her own game.”

“That’s some chess game,” Jordan nodded, trying to decided if he was serious. He didn’t doubt the Goddess’s existence. He’d felt her touch, after all.

“It was,” Taz agreed, looking into space as he reminisced. “It was a giant thing with thousands of squares and hundreds of pieces. I’ve been tempted to build a copy of it off and on for all these centuries, but trying to find an opponent worth playing would be a pointless endeavor.”

“But how is it you managed to stay alive since then?” Jordan asked.

“Time doesn’t function here,” Sister Annise volunteered. “Not the way you think of it, at least.”

“She’s right,” Taz agreed, staring at her a little closer. “I don’t know who it is that’s been talking to your friend out of turn, but our patron Goddess long ago struck a deal for me with the god of time so that I would have a place to wait until our margin was concluded, and that is this place.”

“So, in all these centuries, you’ve never left?” Jordan asked, boggling at the idea.

“Why would I?” Taz said flippantly. “If I leave the light of my tower and travel beyond the vale, four centuries of aging would catch up with me in an instant. It’s rather hard to become the God of magic and the true defender of the world if you suddenly turn to dust.”

“Siddrim is the true defender of the world,” Sister Annise insisted.

“Siddrim’s job was to keep the darkness that mankind generates at bay, and he failed at it,” Taz said, laughing again. “Lunaris has a much larger and much more thankless task, she must hold off all the darkness beyond the world, and that, I assure you, is nearly infinite. Siddrim might have ruled the day, but he would have buckled under the weight of a single night.”

Sister Annise looked unconvinced but said nothing. Instead, she sat there impassively, clutching her book to her chest like it was some sort of shield.

“Besides, you don’t even serve Siddrim anymore,” Taz continued, pointing an accusing finger at her. “There’s only one God of death, and he’s missing in action too. No, someone else is pulling your puppet strings.”

“So you’re going to kill her because she’s serving another god?” Jordan asked, more than a little horrified. “Does that mean you’ll come for the children next? This place was supposed to be a refugee.”

“A refuge according to who?” the mage asked. “You shouldn’t have even been able to find me here.”

Jordan didn’t answer. Instead, all he did was look at Sister Annise’s book, but that was enough. With a gesture, Taz pulled it from her grasp and glided slowly across the room to his. Once he had it in hand, he opened it, leafed through a few pages, and then set it on top of a messy stack of books to his right. Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

Jordan could see the pages he looked through, but didn’t recognize them. Rather than the scrawled, crazed messages he was used to seeing in there, it had somehow returned to a perfectly normal devotional tome. If it was placed on the shelf next to any other Book of Days, he wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference.

“I led the Shepard here for the sake of his flock,” Sister Annise repeated. “Siddrim showed me the way. My sight has left me, but his remains.”

“It’s an interesting delusion, I’ll grant you that,” Taz said, “but think about it. If it's Siddrim’s ghost that talks to you, then how do you know that—”

“The light cannot die!” she insisted. “This is my destiny. I have come as bidden and—”

She probably never even felt the bolt that struck her. With a complicated gesture, a single shard of obsidian buried itself in her chest, and her body began to crumble like it was made of sand. The frightening shockwave traveled through her body, and her final act was to look Jordan in his eyes before she crumbled into a pile of dust on her chair.

He was certain that she’d been trying to communicate with him, but he was unsure of what it was she was trying to communicate. Was it that she’d expected this? Was this all going according to her deranged plan?

Jordan spread his arms and was about to cry out, but the other mage said, “You should stay calm and have a seat. I don’t want to hurt you. Those children will need someone, and Lunaris knows it won’t be me. I’m much too busy.”

He ignored the fact that Taz had pointed to the chair where the dust of his companion remained and instead slumped down into the one beside it. “I can’t believe you murdered her—”

“Murder is a strong word,” he said with a shrug. “Technically, I annihilated her, but really, what I did was prevent her patron from manipulating my domain.”

“How does that justify anything,” Jordan said, trying and failing to stay calm. “you don’t even know who it was that was behind her gift of prophecy.”

“I know it wasn’t Lunaris, and that’s all that matters to me,” Taz said, growing suddenly serious as he studied Jordan. “You are in my house and will respect my rules. That is the price for safety against the malignant spirit currently devouring the world, and I cheap one at that, I should think.”

Jordan wasn’t about to argue whether Sister Annise’s life was worth a temporary refuge, so instead, he pivoted, asking, “What of the children? Will you annihilate them as well because they have been touched by Siddrim?”

“Why would I?” Taz asked, genuinely confused. “That God is no more. He cannot meddle in my affairs at all. As such, the children are worthy of study, not butchery.”

“And me?” Jordan said finally,

“What about you?” Taz asked. “You can be my apprentice if you like once you get tired of babysitting. Perhaps we might even teach you something about—”

“No,” Jordan said. “Not that. Why are you letting me live? Why not simply murder me, like Sister Annise said you did to all the other mages.”

“I didn’t murder them either,” he said, with a shake of his head. “All the ones before you came here on purpose. They each challenged me to a dual, and I accepted. Each of them lost and died for it. That is the nature of magical duels, is it not?”

Jordan nodded slowly. That point he was at least forced to concede to. Magical duels were as deadly as they were rare, and it was far more likely that both mages died than that both of them survived when they unleashed such powerful forces to kill their opponent.

Jordan spent the next few minutes being lectured on the nature of Taz’s position, and when it was over, he stood and said, “Thank you for clarifying things.” That wasn’t what he wanted to say at all. He wanted to call the man an unhinged monster, but he didn’t dare do that. There was nothing that Jordan could do to stop a four-century-old mage from doing whatever he wanted, so for the sake of the children in his care, he did his best to play the grateful supplicant.

“Of course,” Taz agreed. “I just have one more question. How do you think that woman knew so much, both about this place and about me.”

The question was asked casually, but the gaze behind it was an intense one, and Jordan wouldn’t have been the least bit surprised if the man was using some sort of truth-sensing magic at this very moment, so he didn’t dare try to lie.

Instead, he told the truth. “I honestly have no idea. She said different things at various times, but I believe she got visions. Part of me had doubts that they came from Siddrim, as you’ve made very clear, but… Well, I don’t think you understand how dark it is out there now, Tazuranth. The world is ending. I was happy for any sort of divine intervention, I think, no matter the source.”

The other mage nodded and said. “I understand, and someday, if you are here long enough, you will understand that this has happened before and will happen again. It is the way of things.”

“May I have her book back at least?” Jordan asked, trying to sound nonchalant. “For the children, you understand. They will miss her, but Siddrim’s words will be a balm for that.”

Taz looked at Jordan for a long moment, then studied the book briefly. He cast the basic version of detect magic then, and Jordan saw half the things in the room begin to glow with their own colorful aura that hinted at what they did. The book stayed strangely dull.

Jordan didn’t understand that result, but he wasn’t surprised by it either. He’d found the same thing when he studied it all those months ago.

“Very well,” Taz said, handing him the book. “You may leave. I am busy most evenings, but if you would like to come by for a friendly game of chess or just to discuss topics your masters might have neglected up until now, you are welcome to come by for lunch.”

Jordan nodded and thanked the man. Then he departed.

He left with the book in hand, unsure what he should do next. Was it really safe to stay here with such an unhinged lunatic? Was it really safe to leave? He didn’t know what the right decision was. Right now, it wasn’t like he had a choice.

He sighed as he walked back to the barn. What was he going to tell the kids about where Sister Annise had gone? He thought about that for several minutes, but ultimately he looked down at the book. It would probably have the answer to that, too. Should he look, or should he go with his gut and see if he got it right after everyone else went to sleep?

It didn’t matter. They’d come here to escape the madness, but now it had only intensified.