The conversation went on for several minutes after that before the door was unlocked and Simon was dismissed. He got the feeling that the Masters were hardly done interrogating Casandra, but he didn’t see what they would get from her. She was not an oracle. She couldn’t see the future; all she could do was see through a person in the present.

More than I ever could, probably, he told himself as he was escorted back to his room.

He didn’t need her sight to see that they’d gone through his things when they arrived, including his prosthetic arm, which he’d left behind. He’d expected that, though, and there was no way they’d find something incriminating without taking it apart since he kept all his notes in his small framed mirror.

He frowned in annoyance, but truthfully, he expected it. Obedience was their highest value, followed closely by paranoia. That latter one explained why they kept Cassandra around in the first place.

Theoretically, every Whitecloak had the sight, but for most it was a hazy thing. Hers was powerful, though the fact that she wasn’t entirely honest about what she saw hampered its utility. This was twice she’d lied on his behalf, and all because of the Whisperers. Simon spent that evening wondering what she’d done to undermine the Unspoken to date about that issue. They clearly trusted Casandra enough to use her, but not enough to free her.

Still, Simon wanted to believe that she’d been truthful when she pronounced him free of demonic influence, and apparently so did the other masters, because a few days later, he was finally given leave to enter the wider world once more. Unfortunately, it wasn’t to quest and root out evil, but to play errand boy.

He was assigned to go and visit some of the nobles in Liepzen, the city he’d just left. When Simon protested that he’d rather kill monsters, Master Harrin said, “And perhaps at some point you can, but there are a few men of importance with questions about the man you killed, and you are the best person to answer them.”

Simon was about to ask if he’d be free to wander Brin, righting wrongs as he usually did, but in a way that was almost psychic, the master continued, as he handed Simon a sealed missive. “I also have a short list of names you’ll need to visit to deal with whatever concerns they might have. The Grandmaster said that you seemed insufficiently convinced of our place in the more public spheres of power, and that you should spend some time contemplating that lack of faith while you complete whatever tasks are set before you.”

Simon fumed silently at that, but didn’t protest. It was still better than waiting. Plus, I’ll get to spend time with Varten again, he thought hopefully. That would make testing the wands hidden in his hand more difficult, but he’d figure something out. It had surprised him that he missed the boy, and there was no doubt it would do him good to see him again.

Only, he wouldn’t. When Simon brought that up, Master Harrin answered, “He’s out in the field, so he won’t be joining you.”

“What about my armor?” Simon asked with a tight voice.

“For a mission like this, you’re more of an emissary than a warrior,” he answered with a shrug. “If you insist on your platemail for appearances' sake, well, that’s your right. I can send along a servant or perhaps a whisperer with you. They can—”

“It’s fine,” Simon managed. “I’ll manage myself, and Varten can join me next time.”

The Master said nothing one way or another, leaving Simon to make preparations for his trip. If he took one of the Whisperers with him, he’d be too tempted to set her free, and if he took anyone else, he was certain he’d be a spy. He decided that he’d do just as Master Harrin suggested, actually, and leave his platemail here.

Simon spent two days preparing for his trip. He packed his leather armor just in case, along with his shield, and all the typical things he thought he might need. He almost packed his shortbow with him as he always did before he remembered he could no longer fire it, which gave him a good laugh.

“Next life,” he told himself. “I can practice my archery in the next life.”

When he left, it was to indifference. No one treated him like he might be the chosen one or a cripple. He was just one more knight off on Unspoken business, who just happened to have a left arm made of wood and leather. That wasn’t what stuck with Simon, though; it was that he was traveling unarmored for the first time in many lives. More than anything, that made him think of the time he’d spent in Ionar as an artist and teacher.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Ionar was a bit safer than Brin, though, he reminded himself. It was a wealthier nation, with a single main road going north and south along the coast, which made it easier to patrol. He wouldn’t be defenseless, of course, but with no one to wake him in the night, Simon did stick to a slower, more roundabout route that kept him in inns and village common rooms as he took a long, slow arc through Brin.

He even allowed himself to visit Slany this time since he was now a one-armed Whitecloak that definitely couldn’t be mistaken for Simon. He didn’t stay the night there, or talk to anyone, but it was nostalgic to see Baron Corwin’s Manor, and it lifted his spirits, not that they were particularly down.

He missed Varten, of course, but riding alone, without the weight of his armor, let him appreciate the subtle colors of the world around him, and he studied the way that it glowed and shifted. That was as true for the merchant caravans that he passed as it was for the groves and wildlife he passed.

Plants didn’t have an aura of good or evil, of course, but he could see the difference between sick and healthy. He could even see the difference between wild and domesticated in the subtle shades of green. No matter how hard he looked, though, he didn’t find any signs of fae, even though he probably wouldn’t have picked a fight at the moment.

One thing he did do was wait until he was well clear of the Broken Tower before he experimented with his hidden wands. They were simple things, and carved with only minor words because of their fragile nature. Still, he wanted to know if they worked before he needed them, and he wanted to know how badly the use of a wand would blur his vision and how long it would last.

Those were all questions he was able to answer after a few tests, but his satisfaction with those answers varied. The first thing he proved was that they worked. As the wand itself was the hand, all he had to do was snap one of the fingers into place, and then hold the right spot on the wrist with his good hand, and spin a disk a hundred and eighty degrees. This action severed the trickle of life force stored in a crystal that was feeding his layered protective circuit, and let him feed the wands directly.

While Simon would have loved to power those by crystal too, he lacked gemstones of a size and purity that were appropriate to such a task. Fortunately, he’d designed the mechanism as a whole to be as unobtrusive as possible, and there was no visible indicator, but he could feel the difference in the grain of the wood. The first wand he tried was the index finger. Its core was inscribed with the word of lesser fire, and produced a wave of flame that was brief, and not particularly far reaching, but about what he expected. After that, he tested the word of lesser ruin, with a bolt of lightning that struck a tree trunk a dozen feet away.

Both of those worked so successfully that he opted not to test the third and fourth, which were lesser nullification and lesser healing, respectively. If the attacks worked, the defenses would too. He was pretty sure, at least.

Still, even those two powers blurred his sight noticeably, and in the four days it took him to reach Leipzen, it did not completely recover. His vision wasn’t so badly damaged that he couldn’t see details in the souls of other men on the street. Flickers of strong emotion even peeked out, but all the nuance he’d come to appreciate was gone. This is probably how the other Unspoken see, Simon told himself. Well, except the Grandmaster. I doubt he can see anything at all.

His hunt for the Grandmaster’s angle in all of this would have to wait until later. Simon promised himself that on the way back, he’d devote a night or two with a pendulum to trying to suss that out. For now, he needed to focus on the names on his list. Some of them were people he’d talked to the last time he was in Leipzen investigating the grain merchant, and a couple were names he was familiar with. One name stood out above all the others, though, and that was Duke Brin, the King’s brother, and soon to be usurper of the realm.

The king wasn’t ailing yet, or at least if he was, it wasn’t public knowledge. He will, though, Simon told himself as he rode slowly toward the inn he planned on staying at, and when his age catches up with him, his son and brother will likely tear the kingdom apart all over again.

While he didn’t like to think that all his hard work would go in vain, he was actually looking forward to meeting the man. He hadn’t actually laid eyes on the duke since he’d assassinated him with a bolt of distant lighting so many lives ago; it would be good to understand more about who he was dealing with, if he ever had to try again.

He saved the duke for last, though, both because he was the most important person he’d been sent to hobnob with, and because he wasn’t quite sure what it was he’d been sent to do. “The lords of the realm are both patron and parishioner,” Master Harrin had practically scolded him, “And you are not to return until the moral and legal concerns of every man on this list have been appropriately addressed. Do you understand?”

Simon didn’t like being an errand boy, and he certainly wasn’t going to kill merchants for rich men just because they didn’t like the deals they were getting. Still, even if he didn’t help the pricks, he was always open to learning more secrets that might help him in future runs, and if they wanted to talk to him about the latest warlock activity and spread rumors about who might be implicated, he’d happily take notes.