Xan the Warder stared at the newcomer with a skeptical eye. The man was a sorcerer of some kind, to judge by his robes. Xan knew little of magic, but enough to know that its users were not to be trusted. They were fiends, as likely to summon some demon from the depths of the many earths as to cast a curing spell and mend a broken leg. She had heard tell of a man, desperate in his affections for a woman, who had begged a wizard for a love potion, only to find himself short six coins of the realm and madly in love with a toad.

“What brings you this way, stranger?” Xan said. She swept the cloak back from her shoulders and let her hand rest upon her sword. A message of sorts.

The newcomers gaze followed the movement of her hand and a small grin touched his lips. “I’ve heard the air in these parts is restorative.”

“If you can restore something that’s been froze solid with your magic, then perhaps it might be,” Xan said, looking out over the frigid wastes that extended in all directions before her.

The newcomer laughed, his breath clouding the air. “My name is Ves. You are?”

“The Warder,” Xan said, refusing to be enticed by his friendliness. The wind swirled around them and the sorcerer shivered.

“Where’s the prison?” Ves said.

“Do you think I’m a fool?”

Ves laughed again. “I suppose not. It is a rather remote clime for a prison, wouldn’t you agree?”

Xan did not reply, staring hard at the sorcerer.

Ves shrugged, as if he could not understand her reluctance to talk. “Come now, Warder. Surely you must get bored being here, all alone in the cold? I’m only asking for a moment of your time.”

Xan rolled her eyes. “No one comes here to pass the time. I’m not much for conversation. Get to the point.” She moved her hand to the pommel of her sword.

“Easy now,” Ves said, holding up his hands. “Don’t you think you should be careful? You don’t know what kind of sorcerer I am.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Xan said, her voice sounding of death.

Ves smiled. “If you say so. You needn’t worry about me anyway, Warder. I’m just here to meet someone.”

Xan had to resist a laugh. “I doubt there is someone else in the realm foolish enough to wander out onto this wasteland for a chat.”

“But there is,” Ves said, gesturing with his hand as if to point out the person.

Xan followed the movement of his hand and the world went black.

She blinked, worried for a moment that the sorcerer had put a sleeping spell upon her. But it was just that the light had gone from the sky, which, now that she thought about it, was considerably more concerning than a mere sleep spell. The light returned a moment later, the vast wasteland of ice, snow and rock, appearing again before her.

The sorcerer, however, was gone.

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Although many exhaustive and learned volumes have been published on the subject of amorous instruction, I feel much remains to be said on the matter, especially as it pertains to the copulatory habits of warlocks and other masters of dark magic. As one well-practiced in both infernal arts, I feel well suited to speak on the matter with the clarity required, lest another poor apprentice or sorcerer be led astray into more dismal and dreary acts, for lack of knowledge on how to properly engage with an enchantress, siren or familiar.

Firstly, one must attach the suitable appendage. On acquiring the requisite appendage, I will say little now, though it perhaps warrants its own appendix, for it is a matter worthy of careful consideration. Many is the dark master who endeavors to perform the salacious act, only to find his chosen member shriveled and smelling of putrescence. No amount of ointment or potion will see you to satisfying either party in that situation.

The subject puts me in mind of a story, which if the reader will allow me the indulgence of a small digression, I will detail here. I was in a cemetery practicing a poor bit of necromancy—never one of my finer talents, I am sorry to admit—when I came across a sorcerer collecting mandrake root. I was cold and damp from my evening’s toil, and glad for the company, so I shared some of my tobacco and we each drew on our pipes.

After explaining that I had been engaged to summon the recalcitrant spirit of a distant father by a spurned son, cast out of inheritance, I inquired as to what had brought him to this place. “I am collecting the female of the mandrake root,” he said, with a gesture to his satchel.

“To what end?” I said, for I was curious as to what spell he was conducting. As anyone familiar with the arts will be aware, there are many uses for the mandrake root, both male and female.

“I am effecting a spell of transformation,” the sorcerer said, somewhat guardedly.

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I sit in the chill alone, another mile further down the road, staring up at the sky and watching my breath as it forms puffs of vanishing clouds. The air is the way only winter can make it, sharp and crisp, cutting at my lungs as it goes down my throat. Clouds are gathering, distant on the horizon, foreshadowing the storm I know is coming. Wind, snow, and tumult; the storm of our humanity will not even register.

I hope he feels as tired as I do, as hopeless and alone. Is he worn out and ready to quit, the strength to keep fighting drained by these endless hardships? No, not him. For him, the privations and difficulties are merely proof of his righteousness. The blood on his hands only demonstrates the justness of his cause and the lengths he will go to stand by it.

For me, I do not enjoy the apocalypse that he and his kind have wrought. That it is him, of all people, that I am forced to reckon with only makes it all the worse. If it were someone else, someone I did not have such a history with, it would be another matter. It would not cut so deep.

As these thoughts flit through my mind, I finger the sepulchre tome that I carry with me. It has only the dead in it now. The incantations here that my kind once worried over are now only the words of a dead tongue. He and his kind have seen to that.

He has the silver and the gold, and our lives, so many I cannot even bear to count. And now he will take this last thing too, to bring an end to this all.

There is no sense waiting further, and so I get to my weary feet and make my way to him.

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