The paladin waited for me outside his cottage. He sat on a stool by the door, dressed monkishly in a brown robe tied with rope, a walking stick clutched in his burn-scarred fingers. He held a hunched posture, as though just the effort of getting himself outside and into that seat had wearied him. His gray beard hung almost to the snow.

"You should be resting," I told him as I drew close.

Maxim grunted. "I've rested long enough. You're leaving again soon?"

The old Alder Knight spoke with an odd dialect of the common speech. He was more than a century old, and retained a cadence no longer in common use, his words oddly inflected.

He didn't sound much different from Urawn, actually.

"I am," I agreed as I moved to stand at his side, folding my arms under my cloak. "Trouble with the elves."

"Oraeka filled me in." Maxim started to stand. I moved to help him, but he flashed me a hard look and I stopped.

This man was a Knight of Urn. I dared not dishonor him. So I stepped back, and let him struggle to his feet alone. When he managed to gain his balance, he took a moment leaning on his staff to catch his breath before speaking again.

"I dreamed of you, Hewer." His golden eyes drifted to my face. Unlike the rest of him, those were not faded. They reflected the same subtle gleam in mine. "You were at the Table."

His features were hard, uncompromising. He knew.

"…Yes," I admitted.

Would he condemn me for that blasphemy? Strike me down? I'd despoiled the thing he'd dedicated his mortal soul to.

"I can see it," Maxim muttered. There wasn't the righteous wrath I expected. His gaze went out of focus, as though he looked through me. "I heard the Archon's voice in my dreams. He told me the time of the Alder Table is done… But the torch is still carried. The flame has not gone out, not yet. It lives in you."

I couldn't meet his eyes. "I didn't ask for this responsibility."

"I know, lad. And I'm sorry. You did a terrible thing, necessary as it might have been. Even the mightiest of us may have not been able to bear this curse long as you have."

He walked past me, moving stiffly with his staff as support toward the edge of the hill. I watched him go a ways before starting to follow.

"I've been dreaming a lot of late," Maxim continued without turning around. "I saw the Saint of Blood fall to the Gatebreaker. I witnessed you battling that cymrinorean in the north beneath a storm."

He even saw the tournament in Garihelm. I knew some of the Table knights had power of prescience, but this still took me aback.

At the edge of the hill, Maxim stopped and turned his head to the side. "You battle mighty enemies."

I shrugged. "Nothing new. I'm still alive."

"You are wounded. I can see it."

How much did the paladin's gilded eyes see? I didn't know what to say.

"She's back," Maxim added. "That demon."

A mass of pulsing flesh. Crimson heat washing over my face. Tortured sinew stretching as the mound unfolds, a gore flower blooming, and inside it…

"Alken."

I let out a frosted breath and blinked out of the memory. "I saw your carvings. You dreamed that too, Ser?"

Maxim nodded, looking troubled. "The succubus is dangerous. She may not be a mighty foe blade to claw, but she has power over you. With your ring gone, you will need to find another way to protect yourself."

"I know."

"That, I cannot help you with." Maxim sighed. "I'm not long for this state, Alken. I want nothing more than to don my armor and go into battle again, die like a knight. But outside this place, I'm not myself."

I thought of all the things I'd wanted to say to this man. In my journey to the Fane, I imagined telling him of everything I'd experienced in the last year, the enemies I fought, the decisions I made.

So I could ask him — did I do the right things? Make the right choices?

It seemed hollow now. Vain. Maxim was just as haunted by his own failures, his own regrets.

"I imagine your powers have changed," Maxim said. "I can see your aura. It's covered in necrosis."

"My own aura was too worn down," I explained. "I gave the shades who follow me some of the flame, used them as fuel to kindle it. I think a lot of them are in me now."

"Hm. Yes." He rubbed at his beard. "I imagine that's changed the shape of your soul… How many Arts can you still use?"

"Not many," I admitted, shuffling in discomfort at this topic. "The Eardeking's Lance, Seraph's Halo, Relic Breaker, and Rebuke. I can still make wards and wield flame. I can still compel people with my voice, and sense the presence of undead and fiends. No healing, though I recover from injury quickly, just as always."

"The basics, then. I imagine those spells have become second nature to you, part of your own makeup, so the disorder in your spirit didn't destroy them. No High Arts?"

"I can't find their shape anymore," I confirmed. "I've tried to use both Godsven's Dawn and the Phalanx, but I don't think they're still in me. My spirit is… It's hard to explain, Ser. It feels like my soul is constantly in flux. Even the techniques I can still use, their shapes keep changing."

"Tell me, Alken, do you know the Table's purpose? You've touched its inner mechanism now."

"It was a vault." I wasn't sure where he was going with this. "A repository for souls."

"It is an armory," Maxim said. "Stand back."

I did, putting another ten paces of distance between us. A strange focus had come over the old paladin. He stared off into the sanctuary, his brow furrowed, his veiny hand tight on the head of his walking stick.

The sun was nearly set. A bloody tinge touched the sky, most of the clouds scattered since my arrival at the Fane to reveal that red dome in full. The air was still, but as Maxim lifted his staff a light breeze tussled my cloak.

He reshaped his soul. I felt it, felt the quality of the air change and the forest seem to bend inward as though inhaling an unfamiliar but not unpleasant scent. The hill almost seemed to alter its orientation, so rather than being at the edge, for just a moment, Maxim was the center.

When one casts an Auratic Art, a technique of the soul, the whole world bends on their axis for just a moment. The gears of reality slam into a new position, the very weave of Creation reknits. Time loses meaning, even if for but an instant of an instant, and abstraction becomes cold, hard reality.

The gust of wind that kissed the hilltop condensed around the knight. At first I thought he shaped it, but soon realized that was merely a side effect of his concentration. Maxim closed his eyes, then opened them again, and they were a molten shade of gold.

Something lashed out from him. It was fast, too much so for human eyes to follow. Even mine, not quite human, missed the full shape of it. It whipped across the snow, leaving a deep furrow in a wide arc around Maxim and kicking up a cloud of misting frost. I flinched from that eruption.

Perhaps twenty paces away, a tree splintered near its middle with a resounding crack! A moment later, it groaned and toppled, landing on the hillside and rolling a distance before coming to a stop. It took seconds longer for the echoes to roll over the surrounding woods before fading.

The glow in Maxim's eyes dimmed and he sagged. He studied his work, and his demeanor didn't seem satisfied. He leaned on his staff and looked… resigned. His worn features were set in grim lines.

"Did you see it?" He asked me. The croak in his voice was more distinct.

"…Barely." There'd been something in the air a moment. All Art creates a phantasm, a construct of aura that delivers the physical consequence of a sorcerer's magic. "It looked like… a flail?"

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

I immediately thought of Maxim's son. Vander had a technique that allowed him to create a silver flail out of tiny stars, which could deliver a blow mighty as any paladin's smite.

"Rhymes, at least." Maxim chuckled humorously. "It was a tail. My own Art, or part of it at least. You know how the Table got its weapons?"

"They came from the knights who bonded to it," I said.

"Exactly. Not every warrior who swears their oath to the Alder Table had their own magic. But if they do, then it's added to the arsenal that all of us can draw from. And if one of us develops an Art during our tenure, then that too is added to the whole. This is where we draw our strength."

He turned to face me and planted his staff in the snow, leaning on it as he spoke. "A mortal soul can't hold many Arts, you know this. It's extremely rare to conceive an original one, and most people just have existing sorceries imprinted into their aura. In this way, they evolve from wielder to wielder, each host iterating on the original construct."

I nodded. That was how Lisette's magic worked — she'd been taught her sutures from an order of physician nuns — and Emma's Shrike Forest was implanted into her very blood by her ancestors.

"Even then," Maxim continued, "someone can only hold so many phantasms inside. You do more than two or three, and your aura gets unstable. You risk unraveling. We Alder Knights might be altered to hold more Arts, but even to us, there are limits. The Table held dozens of techniques. You only carried some of them all this time, Alken, but had you been with us longer, we'd eventually have taught you how to store the ones you didn't need inside the Table and attune others. This was common for us — taking the tools necessary to do particular tasks, fight specific enemies, choose our preferences."

I took all of this in. I knew the Alder Table was designed to essentially be a repository for Auratic Arts. We bonded to it, and through that connection were given access to more abilities without risk of damaging ourselves.

But I hadn't known that there were more spells locked inside the Alder. It made sense, when I thought about it. There were plenty of Arts I'd never used, but witnessed other members of the order using.

An armory. I'd used that comparison before, but it made more sense now. It was more literal than I'd assumed.

"And I didn't know this already, because…"

"It wasn't necessary to tell you," Maxim said bluntly. "You were the newest recruit, and it can take years, sometimes decades for a new Alder Knight to gain the balance required to alter themselves like this. You have to understand, Arts are part of your very essence. It's like doing self-surgery on your own soul, and it requires time and experience to pull off without causing yourself harm."

"When…" I hesitated, not sure how he'd react. "When I took the power from the Table, or what was left of it, I didn't find any Arts inside."

Maxim grunted, not looking surprised. "I believe Alicia and the others took them. That was probably half their goal. They pilfered the vault and vanished."

"We also still don't know how they did that without going mad," I muttered.

Maxim shrugged. "Who's to say they didn't? If you want to know what I think, it's that they burned alive just like I almost did, and their souls are wandering aimlessly through the Wend. And good riddance."

That brought another question, one I didn't voice out loud. Why didn't I go mad? It was years before I swore my new oath to the Choir, but even after the traitors killed Tuvon and Ser Grendowe broke the Table, I was able to keep my mind.

I hadn't thought about it back then. I'd been too busy fighting and grieving. But now the question came, and it disturbed me. The magic turned on me, true, but not so dramatically as the rest. Was it because I was the youngest, as Maxim said, the "least attuned?"

I put it from my thoughts for the time being, instead searching inward and considering Maxim's display of power. The miasma in my aura frustrated me. "Was the technique you just showed me one of those I never took from the Table?"

Maxim grunted and shook his head. "No. Rysanthe and the elves purged the ones I carried, to keep them from tearing me apart from the inside. This is my magic. I never added it to the armory."

I frowned. "Why not?"

"It wasn't by choice." Maxim tucked his staff under his arm and started rolling up his robe's left sleeve. "There are risks. Arts come from our souls, and with each new addition that individual will is added to the collective. If there is something wrong with the soul… a taint… then that risks corrupting the whole."

He lifted his bared left forearm. Like my own skin, burn scars covered his, but also something else. Something that made my breath catch.

Crawling across Maxim's arm like a cancer were small green scales. They were not well formed, not symmetrical and neatly placed like those on a serpent. They looked sharp, serrated, grown in crawling patches from bruised flesh. I could just make out the shape of the bones beneath stretched outer skin, and they looked… wrong.

I knew immediately what it was, and felt suddenly tense.

"Wyrmblight," I said.

Maxim started rolling his sleeve back down. "I got it while fighting the Lindenwurm. The curse is dormant with the dragon dead, but there is no cure. It's a spiritual blight as much as a physical one. It changed the shape of my aura, corrupted my Art."

He'd called it a tail. What I'd just watched destroy that tree had been a piece of a dragon. Or at least, the memory of one.

Maxim sighed. I watched him take a moment to fight against a bad memory, bury the pain. I knew the look. He clutched the wrist of his dragon-tainted arm and his jaw clenched.

"Tuvon would not graft my technique to the Table. It would risk tainting all the other knights. I made peace with the fact that I would not pass my strength to my brothers and sisters a long time ago."

He lifted his face to look at me. "But the Table is gone, and this land is infested with evil. I will die soon, Ser Alken, and I will do so having been a ghost for a long time. Legends are nice to hear about, but I didn't become what I am just to make a story. I want to protect my homeland. I sacrificed everything for it. I became half a monster for it."

He paused, suddenly hesitant. "I think… You understand what that is like?"

I nodded. "I do."

"What remains of the Alder is in you now, Headsman. You've taken its pain, endured its anger. You are the last of us. If the others are still alive, then they are traitors and damn them."

Maxim lifted his left arm. "If you wish it… If you can endure it… Then I will perform this last duty as a Knight of Seydis. Allow me to reaffirm my oath to what remains of the Alder within you, and my power will become yours."

I regarded the other knight from the space that separated us on the edge of that hill. He stood firm, his left arm uplifted and the hand forming a fist.

"You can do that?" I asked.

Maxim nodded. "Yes. You are the armory now, Ser Alken. You say you can't find the shape of the magic in you, but that's because a form hasn't been stamped into it. You've started fresh, wiped the board clean… Given yourself the means to acquire new power."

The Table was gone now, just dead and burnt wood in the middle of Elfgrave. I'd taken most of what remained of its magic into myself, and gave the rest to the dark spirits who shadowed me. A feedback loop of sorts, a way to mimic the strength of the original system, even if imperfectly.

I'd wondered why the power was so inconsistent. This was why. I carried the memory of my oft-used abilities in me like muscle memory, but otherwise the magic had no form.

Probably just like when Tuvon made it originally. It needed those first knights to give it shape. A crucible, waiting for the right mixture.

If Maxim added his own wyrmblighted spirit to the mix… I imagined it would have consequences. The power I carried was already malformed. What would the memory of a dragon do to it?

I recalled Ser Jocelyn. He'd been wyrmblighted, and that change took him during the tournament in Garihelm. He became a nightmare, killed hundreds. Dragons were the greatest of all evils, worse even than the Abgrüdai. They were like living plagues, closer to natural disasters than mere beasts.

"I understand your hesitation," Maxim told me. "I'm asking a lot, I know."

I couldn't deny it. "What will this do to me?"

"It will give you strength. But the dragon is an insidious mind, Hewer. It took me many years to subdue its influence, even with Tuvon's help. It still whispers to me sometimes."

He lowered his arm. "I don't want to ask this of you. I wouldn't, only…"

Only, the stakes were high, and this was all he could give. This cursed strength, this corrupted legacy.

I was able to endure the influence of the dead. Could I withstand the echo of the Lindenwurm?

Not just the Wurm, though. This is Maxim too, his soul, his will. I'll get that as well.

More than that, I could tell he wanted this. To not fade into nothingness as the failure he believed himself to be. How could I tell him he wasn't a failure? He'd slain dragons and saved kingdoms. Legends did have their worth. They weren't just air.

Tuvon cut him off. Can I gainsay that?

Maxim seemed to believe I could. But should I? If he was right and I'd made myself into a surrogate Alder Table, then that came with enormous responsibility. I could collect powers, but there was risk, and a cost to more than just my own soul.

That thought, that knowledge, held me back. "Maxim… Ever since I learned that the Table collects souls, it's driven me half mad. It seems evil. Like you were all enslaved."

Maxim smiled sadly. "If so, then we choose it."

"Did you?" I shook my head. "I don't think most of the knights understood what they were signing up for. I didn't. The power messes with our heads, Maxim, tampers with our will. Tuvon himself believes that Alicia and the others betrayed him because of this, because—"

"Stop!" Maxim said sharply. "Stop. I don't want to hear this."

I paused with my mouth half open. The knight's expression was pained. He'd dedicated everything to the Alder and its keeper. He was the last person to want to hear any of this.

"Will you do it?" Maxim demanded. "Will you let me reaffirm my vows and take this power? Give my death some meaning?"

I almost said yes. Only… I could feel the shadows creeping closer around us as the sun set. The darkness that clung to me felt eager. I could almost imagine it whispering, encouraging me to agree.

It felt hungry.

"…I'm not sure it's a good idea, Maxim. I know this is important to you, but this isn't the Alder Table you're swearing yourself to. If I take you, it'll be like a purgatory. I don't want you to be eaten by this."

Maxim's demeanor became angry. His hand tightened on the head of his walking stick, and he glared at me.

"That is not your decision," he snapped. "You're a vessel for the power, boy, not its fucking keeper."

I glanced down at my hand and flexed the fingers. Maybe he was right. Only, I did have a choice. To pretend like I didn't would just be self-delusion. Urawn, Umareon, my ghosts, Maxim… They all seemed to want to insist on fate and inevitability. But it all felt hollow to me.

"I'm sorry, Ser. The answer is no."

He bared his teeth. "Ungrateful brat. You think you're special? That this belongs to you?"

I felt no anger at his harsh words. Only sadness. When I remained unmoved, Maxim cursed and started walking back to the cottage. His face was twisted with fury.

"I'm sorry," I tried to tell him.

"Don't come back." Maxim didn't slow and didn't turn to look at me. "You're not welcome here anymore."

That stung, but I said nothing as the old man stormed back into his home and slammed the door behind him.

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