The Long Wait

The following short story is set on the world of Kemetrias.

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Many years ago, long before Emperor Anekhten had taken the throne of Hebrast and driven the Bezans to rebellion with his reforms, four knights were sent to hunt a monster.

Each were distinguished, trusted knights for their age— they had been given their armor only a few years before, but all had fought successfully and carefully. All had grown their armor to a size one might expect from a knight of a decade or more, adding new paper rune-ribbons for each successful mission and preventing battle damage that would shrink their armor as rune-ribbons sacrificed themselves to preserve the whole. Each of the four were dedicated enough that they would craft their own rune-ribbons to add to their armor, even though their additions were only a drop in the ocean of the number of rune-ribbons needed to build true battle armor.

All four knights had been born the same year, each in a different season, so entirely unsurprisingly, they’d been jokingly nicknamed after the seasons by their peers.

Winter, the eldest, marched in heavy, durable armor. The thick, pale blue paper of its rune ribbons were slow to respond, but could absorb and resist immense damage, while he battered away at his foes with his great runehammer, enchanted with powerful force runes. He was graceless and crude, but relentless in battle.

Spring, the next oldest, could run in his emerald-green armor at swifter speeds than any armor of comparable size. He never stood still, never went toe to toe against a foe, but rushed through the battlefield at terrifying speed, impaling foes on his lance before they’d even realized he was there, often killing enemy knights while hardly damaging their armor. Spring’s wit and tongue were as swift as his armor.

Summer, the second youngest, wore armor of brilliant yellow paper, each inscribed with red-glowing runes, so that he shimmered like fire itself. None of the others had families wealthy enough they could afford not only the same color of paper, but also runes all of a color. His weapon was accordingly well made also— a great war chain, engraved with countless cutting spines and runes of flame. Only he could safely wield it, for his armor was specially enchanted to resist its flames and spikes, adding yet more cost to his armor. The others joked it was worth as much as the rest of their armors combined. For all Summer’s wealth, though, he wielded his burning war-chain with consumate skill.

And then there was Autumn. Autumn, the youngest. Autumn, the plainest of feature, and the softest spoken. Autumn, whose armor was a patchwork of many colors, his family too poor to afford more beautiful armor, or any armor beyond the functional. Autumn, who only wielded the simplest of rune-swords, enchanted only for sharpness and durability. Autumn, whose armor held no special abilities nor special care.

Autumn, who was not so strong as Winter, but who struck with precisely as much force as was needed.

Autumn, who was not so swift as Spring, but who danced through the battlefield with unparalleled grace, always moving just out of the way of blows.

Autumn, who was far more skilled than Summer with any and every weapon they had trained with.

Autumn, who led them to hunt the monster that had escaped the underworld.

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Many decades after the Seasons were sent to hunt a monster, there was a little house surrounded by a rock garden, tucked into the edges of the great mulberry groves on the edge of the city of Phetris, which was itself tucked onto the shoulder of the three-peaked Mount Mulberry. In turn, Mount Mulberry rose up from the depths of the great grass sea which covered a fifth of the continent of Baishid, which was the greatest continent on the world of Kemetrias, itself wrapped in a great shimmering ring.

And in that little house tucked in a rock garden on the edge of Mulberry City— the very edge, in fact— there lived an old man by himself.

Everyone in the neighborhood knew the old man as Imtep the Quiet, but no one really knew him.

Every day, Imtep would quietly leave his house on the edge of Phetris, carefully walking through his rock garden, stepping only on narrow wooden posts protruding from the garden, frowning if he saw any of the carefully raked gravel out of place. The only time anyone had ever heard him raise his voice was at trespassers in his rock garden.

Imtep the Quiet would take a long, deep breath as he stepped out of his rock garden and onto the stone path he’d built along the stream.

There was some debate as to why he hadn’t continued the stone path all the way to his door, rather than relying on the narrow wooden posts, and his nearest neighbors debated endlessly whether this was because he didn’t want visitors, or because it would ruin the aesthetic of the rock garden.

Imtep would slowly follow his path along the stream to the street, enjoying the birds and fish of the stream, until his path reached Mulberry City’s last street. It wasn’t a long walk, his house was no more than a couple hundred feet past it, but it was clear the old man loved that quiet walk.

His shoulders would tense subtly as he stepped into the city, and he’d pick up his pace.

His path never deviated in the mornings. He stopped only once each morning, to buy steamed buns from the family Kysis, who had operated their little steamed bun stand for generations.

Imtep did vary what sorts of bun he got each morning, so he wasn’t a creature of pure habit. He might have been less interesting to the neighbors if he had been said creature of pure habit, but bun preferences were still hardly enough to sustain gossip. 

Each day, Imtep walked the rest of the way to work, finishing his bun shortly before walking into the runecrafting shop he worked at.

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There were no great serpent-barges sailing the grass sea yet when the Seasons went to hunt the monster, and even the grass-ships were a rare sight, so the Seasons departed the great city of Hebrast on foot, striding through the towering grass in their hulking paper armor. They might have ridden with a clan of behemoth herdsmen, but the four young knights were far too impatient, and set off on their own.

Navigating the grass was a tricky affair, but they had no fear of getting lost. Between the sun and the shimmering ring overhead, the four could always keep their bearing, as Autumn led them confidently through the sea.

Four days and four nights they traveled, towards the village that had called for help. 

The first day, they were attacked by a hulking trapjaw, a furred lizard that leapt from hiding to close its immense teeth around its prey. Unfortunately for it, it chose Winter to bite into, and his hulking blue armor tore the creature’s jaw clean off.

The second day, they were attacked by a pack of hunting lizards, who launched themselves from grass-stem to grass-stem as swiftly as they sprinted along the ground. Unfortunately for them, Spring was far swifter, and ran them down one by one.

The third day they were challenged by a nesting bladebeak, who tolerated no intrusions near its nest. Before it could charge them, Summer had already wrapped its neck in his war-chain, bringing it low. They ate well of the great bird’s meat that night, already cooked by the burning chain.

And on the fourth day of travel, they were attacked by the largest snake they’d ever seen, nearly thirty feet in length, with fur like braided rope. It struck before any of them had seen it— any but Autumn, that is. In a single, graceful move, like something out of a dance manual, he stepped to one side of the snake’s strike, drew his sword, and used the beast’s own momentum to cut it in two.

All in all, it proved quite the peaceful trip, far more-so than most expeditions into the depths of the grass sea.

They arrived at the remote village that had sent for their help early on the morning of the fifth day. It lay on a low, rocky rise, one far from the common trade routes, and perilously close to the Green Abyss, which even the Seasons feared.

They had, alas, arrived too late. The villagers and their livestock all lay dead and scattered into pieces, and the underworld beast hunkered in the center of the village. 

The Seasons had seen countless underworld beasts in their time guarding underworld gates, but none ever came so obviously from beyond death as this one. It was a skinless, dripping tripod, topped with innumerable scythed limbs, the whole seemingly cobbled together from the corpses of the villagers and their livestock, and even brave-hearted Autumn fought to keep control of his stomach.

The Seasons fought the underworld beast for hours, but every time they sliced off one limb, or rent asunder its cylindrical torso, the beast called more flesh to it from the ruined village, rebuilding its hideous bulk before their very eyes.

Finally, at the edge of dusk, they slew it. Winter tore off a limb with his great hammer, Spring impaled it against a house with his lance, Summer lashed open its torso with his chain, and Autumn planted his sword in the human body sleeping where the beast’s heart should be.

The underworld beast’s heart spoke words in some garbled underworld tongue as it died, and the whole creature dissolved around it.

Before the Seasons could even lower their weapons to rest, the light from the ring above the world seemed to focus, to spin about the village square. And then, with only the Seasons as witnesses, a brand new rune was born into the world.

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Imtep worked each shift uncomplainingly and quietly, never speaking more than necessary to his coworkers. He just slowly and carefully drew each rune onto the paper slips that passed over his workstation, then pushed his magic into each rune as he did. 

The shop was far from one of the nicer ones— its owners were strict opponents of worker’s clubs, firing anyone for even a hint of pro-club sentiment. 

Accordingly, without a worker’s club to organize the workers and seek higher pay, the runeshop paid one of the lowest wages in the city, and attracted only the worst workers.

Each day, Imtep came right in the middle of the pack— not enough that the foreman would dock his pay, but far from enough to get one of the bonuses for the best workers.

Not that the bonuses were more than a pittance, even compared to the pathetic pay.

The color of Imptep’s runes was the only thing noteworthy about his work— they glowed a shimmering purple, so dark it was almost black. Every few heartbeats, though, a pale silvery shimmer would flash through his runes.

Unique rune colors were hardly rare, though. There were three other workers in the shop with unique rune shades as well, including one woman whose runes were orange in the center, and green around the edges. 

Imtep’s employers really should have paid more attention to him— because without fail, every day, his rune count was precisely in the middle, regardless of what that middle was.

They never did, though, the greedy fools.

Imtep got off work in the early afternoon, then trudged home, stopping only at a noodle shop on the way.

And when Imtep reached his home, he would, each day, rummage about in the swift stream for river rocks carried down from the peaks above. The mountain might be only limestone, but stones of every type could be found in the stream, carried down from one of the underworld gates atop the mountain.

From the City of Madness, really, but the inhabitants of Phetris tried not to talk about that horrid place unless they had to.

Imtep would carry those stones down his little stone path, then across his little rock garden, stepping only on the narrow wooden posts rising from the garden.

Imtep would set the still wet stone on a little table on his porch, then unlock his runelocked door with the appropriate rune combination. He’d go inside, just for a few minutes, then return to his porch with a set of stonecarving tools, and sit in the chair by the little table.

Then Imtep would carve runes into the first stone, as small as he possibly could, which was small indeed. Gone was the slow, methodical work he did at his runeshop— Imtep would inscribe a half-dozen fingernail-sized or smaller runes onto a single piece of gravel. More onto the rare smaller stones he chose. 

And when he finished that stone, he threw it out into his garden, and start on the next.

A few of his neighbors had investigated the stones, finding different combinations of runes on each, but they seemed an incoherent jumble, for the most part. The neighbors all figured he was just adding them for the light, not caring what runes he was particularly using.

Imtep would repeat that process again and again throughout the afternoon, returning to the stream whenever he ran out of stones.

He’d stop three hours before sunset, put away his stonecarving tools, then pull one of his rakes out from his little hut.

He’d contemplate the rake for a few moments, then step out onto the wooden posts, and begin to dance.

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The battle between the Seasons and the underworld beast had been fierce enough to call a rune to their world from the underworld, and the instant it appeared, it burned itself into the minds of the four.

Like all Kemetrian youth, the Seasons had been raised on tales of brave heroes and avaricious villains discovering new runes, and using them for great feats, but they had never truly expected to discover one themselves, to have it written into their very souls.

They swore an oath of secrecy, that they would tell no one of the new rune until they had figured out its use, thinking that they would solve the problem before they even returned to Hebrast.

For all their efforts, though, they were no scholars of runecrafting. They knew no more runes than were necessary for a knight’s work. For all they bore rune tattoos on their flesh to control their rune-ribbon paper armor, that made them no more skilled at rune-decipherment than anyone else.

Their spirits were undimmed by their failure to puzzle out the new rune by the time they returned to Hebrast to report the monster’s defeat— though the heartbreak on the village messenger’s face on hearing he was the last survivor was a blow to the stoutest heart.

When days turned into weeks, then into months, though, the four began to argue and despair over the rune, until finally Autumn declared they needed help with the work.

And so they sought out a rune scholar to aid their task— a decision they would rue to the end of their days.

Not, to be sure, that the end of the days of the Seasons was far off.

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There were plenty of rock gardens throughout the city of Phestis, but every other rock gardener tended theirs slowly, meditatively. Imtep seemed to fly along the wooden posts, his rake descending in smooth arcs, again and again, into the rocks. He was shockingly spry for a man of his advanced age, not that anyone knew precisely what that age was.

For an hour and a half each night, he’d dance atop the posts, raking his little rock garden to perfection. And then, at the same time each night, he’d stop, return his rake to his hut, and then fetch a bucket of water from the stream and carry it back to his hut to wash.

Then he’d return to the last street to eat dinner at one of the noodle shops. He’d eat quietly by himself. If one of his neighbors spoke to him, he’d respond politely, but they’d learned over the years that it was pointless to try to engage him in longer conversations.

Then he’d return home, sit on his porch, and wait for the sun to set.

As it descended, his neighbors would gather as well to watch, because the instant Imtep judged that the daylight had descended enough, he’d ignite the runes on the stones. There were several ways he could have achieved that effect, but the neighborhood children had never, to their displeasure, been able to figure out the means. 

The whole rock garden would be lit a deep purple, so dark it would be almost black, and every few heartbeats, silvery flashes would ripple through all the runes— but every day, those flashes would create a new pattern.

Some days the ripples would wash through the garden like waves on the sea. Other days, they would be staggered so carefully that the ripples seemed like the flow of water through a stream, or a whirlpool drawing closer and closer into the house. 

There were far more spectacular rock gardens in the city, but Imtep’s neighbors all swore there were no subtler nor more carefully planned rock gardens in all of Phestis.

Imtep would not merely watch the lightshow from his porch, but roam around his garden, striding from wooden post to wooden post in the faint purple light of the rock garden.

Then, after an hour or two, Imtep would quench the runes of the rock garden as abruptly as he’d ignited them, and enter his hut to sleep.

He’d kept up the routine for decades, ever since he’d fixed up the dilapidated old shack on the edge of town. Rain or snow, wind or heat, Imtep would dance in his garden every afternoon.

Everyone in his neighborhood expected him to keep dancing for decades to come.

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The Seasons used Summer’s family connections to find the most capable researcher they could— a brilliant young man, born only two years before the Seasons. Despite his young age, he’d worked on no less than three successful rune deciphering projects, including a centuries-old rune, one that had been passed down but never understood. The first two he had worked with huge teams on, but the third, the old rune, he had, miraculously, solved himself. 

It hadn’t been a particularly important rune, admittedly, just one that marginally smoothed the flow of magic through certain runewords and runescripts that drew magic from the underworld at uneven rates, but it was the act of deciphering that was impressive, moreso than the use of the rune itself.

The researcher was skeptical at first, when Summer approached him— he saw many claims of new runes— but it didn’t take him long to be convinced of the truth of this newest rune. He formed a partnership with the Seasons then, equal shares to each of the five young men. 

Autumn was canny, though— he ensured that the Seasons freely inscribed the rune for the researcher to test, but never inscribed the rune into the researcher’s soul. They were, after all, dependent on him— they needed to make sure he remained dependent on them in turn.

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It was a day like any other when the hunters arrived in the city of Phetris, seeking the runecrafter who created the deep purple runes with the silvery flashes.

In the end, it had been pure chance that alerted Imtep’s foes to his location. His old foe, still hunting him after all these years, came across a rune he’d crafted by accident on a market. Of all things, it was a rune placed on a pottery crate, to help protect the delicate cargo from jostling.

Imtep’s old foe had spent months chasing down that paltry clue, until his minions found more of those runes in the city atop Mulberry Mountain.

Said foe had looked far afield, stretched his agents even into the lands of the marauding Karai herdsmen, but never had he expected his prey to lie so close to hand.

Phetris might be small compared to Hebrast, but it was still a city of many thousands, and the hunters spent weeks searching before they came to the quiet little neighborhood on the edge of the city. They spent weeks longer still watching to confirm they had found their prey, and for their master to arrive in Phetris to join them.

Once their master had joined them, though, they didn’t wait long to descend on their prey.

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Rune decipherment is one of the most challenging and dangerous of the scholarly and magical arts. 

Anyone fool has had a rune written into their soul can write that rune themselves, with a little practice. Any halfway literate runecrafter can follow instructions to assemble a runeword or runescript. With a year or two of training, a runesmith can design their own runescripts using known uses and rune patterns. A few years more of training, and a true rune scholar may risk finding new uses, new combinations for runes, pushing the boundary of runewriting itself.

Rune decipherment, though? Rune decipherment is walking blindfolded into the underworld. 

There are hundreds of known runes, but the vast majority are almost useless. Runes that work only during particular planetary alignments, runes that affect only the most esoteric and useless of materials, runes that drive their writers slowly mad. Only a few dozen runes saw regular use in day to day life.

Even the most useless runes could be dangerous or even deadly when misused, though, and when one had no idea of the proper use? Caution was the watchword.

There are countless methods used for rune decipherment, but most can be sorted into three categories.

The first was origin studies— essentially, making educated guesses as to the rune’s function based upon the circumstances that gave it birth. It almost always occurred around underworld monsters or spirits, usually after a battle or some great work of magic, and the rune’s function was often related to the underworld magics used.

It was a reasonable assumption that the new rune had something to do with flesh, considering it had been born from battle against the horrid fleshbeast, but reasonable was not the same as safe, so the researcher turned to the other methods.

The second method was structural studies— attempting to decipher the function of the rune based off the specific shapes of other, already known runes.

This was, in many ways, the least reliable method— while some trends in rune structure were understood, none of the principles behind their structure were understood. There were many debates as to why— some researchers claimed that it was the heavens that designed each rune, and that their designs were beyond human comprehension. Others, however, including the young researcher, believed that runes weren’t designed at all. Rather, they believed they were produced by the world, reacting against underworld magics, much like a human body reacts to pollen with sneezing.

It seemed likely this rune was a targeting rune, based off the similarity to other, past runes, but likely was not surely, so the researcher turned to the third category of methods.

Namely, script-testing.

Script-testing is the staple grain of rune-decipherment, where the bulk of the work occurs. New runes are carefully inserted into deliberately weakened test-scripts, themselves contained in rune-shielded lockrooms, to contain the inevitable explosions, reality-shearing fields, caustic colors, and the like. 

And it was here that the young researcher spent the bulk of his time.

Odds are, the rune the Seasons had found would be one of the esoteric, useless runes, and they’d see no profit from it.

Few runes are ever truly abandoned— there are entire monasteries and runesmith orders dedicated towards the preservation of obscure runes, passing them down from one generation to the next. 

But the Seasons beat the odds. The young researcher proved his worth during script-testing, confirming that it was, as they had suspected, a flesh targeting rune of remarkable versatility, one that worked at remarkable distance. Their rune was immediately, obviously useful— for healing, for war, even for more esoteric uses like meat preservation.

They were all going to be fabulously wealthy.

Or, at least, they should have been, had two not betrayed the other three.

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None could say how Imtep knew the hunters were coming for him— his neighbors could not have warned him, for none of them realized the hunters were coming. They came late at night, when surely Imtep was already asleep in bed, and they were nothing if not stealthy.

Perhaps Imtep had awoken from a bad dream, spotting the hunters by pure coincidence. Perhaps he had hidden elaborate detection scripts near his hut.

Or, perhaps, he had merely been awake already. Old men, after all, were hardly renowned for sleeping through the night.

But it was in his rock garden, shortly before midnight, that Imtep strode out to meet the hunters in battle.

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The betrayal likely began long before the first true test of the new rune, but at the time, it seemed merely a tragic accident. Rune decipherment was an imprecise, deadly art, after all, and seldom was a new rune developed without injury or death.

This death, though, struck deeper than any other, for when they first tested the flesh targeting rune, it was Autumn, the bravest of them, that volunteered. Autumn, that was willing to test the script— a heart compass, one that pointed towards the nearest beating heart other than the one belonging to the compass’ wielder.

It should have been safe. After all, the only effector rune in the runescript was a weak rotary rune, one that would spin the heart-compass needle to face the nearest heart.

The researcher had been wrong about the new rune, though. It was not merely a targeting rune, but a compound rune that contained effector functions as well.

The rune was no flesh-finder, but a flesh-magnet, and on activating the script, the needle of the compass flew from its casing and buried itself in Autumn’s heart.

And Autumn, the the greatest of them, died in moments to a bit of iron too small even for sewing.

The researcher wept and wailed as much as any of the others, for he had grown close to the Seasons over their months deciphering the rune, and they thought him more a friend than a partner. Winter was forced to wrestle a dagger away from the researcher, lest he harm himself, in his own blame.

They mourned, but they continued the project, for Autumn would never wish them to lose heart and abandon their work.

None even gave voice to the thought that the incident had been planned, that the researcher had handily disposed of the Season who had kept the researcher’s hand off the ability to copy the rune.

But it was surely soon after that the researcher began to drip poison words into Summer’s ear. 

The researcher was patient, and it was a full year before he’d contrived to form an argument between Summer and the others. Later, not even Summer suspected that the argument had been planned by the researcher, for he was the one who settled it between the remaining Seasons. Spring and Winter quickly forgave and forgot the whole incident.

Summer, though, the quickest to anger and the longest to nurture a grudge, never quite forgot the words spoken in anger and haste. They proved a spark that the researcher patiently fanned.

It took another two years for the researcher to fan those flames into a congratulation, but in truth, the researcher could easily have moved more swiftly. There are none easier to incite to betrayal than the wealthy, for the wealthy struggle to consider it betrayal when targeted at those they see as their inferiors.

It helped that investors and prospective customers had already begun to circle, offering praise and flattery.

And, to be sure, Summer saw the others as his inferiors. They were far from poor, but they came nowhere close to his family’s immense wealth. 

If Autumn yet lived, he might have been able to douse the flames, but the bonds of the group had slowly frayed, without him keeping them together.

They were in the depths of the grass sea on a mission when Summer struck, convinced by the researcher that the rune should be owned by a partnership of two, not four. It should have been easy— knights often fell in battle, and none would suspect foul play from Summer if he claimed the two remaining seasons had been slain by beasts or underworld monsters, for his love of the other two was well-known.

It didn’t go as he’d planned, though. Summer struck out with his chain at Winter from behind, while Spring was out scouting. Winter’s blue-white armor, though immensely durable, could not survive being wrapped in Summer’s burning war-chain for long, with its arms pinned to its side.

Autumn must have whispered a warning up from the underworld, though, because Spring, for no reason the others would ever know, had returned to the campsite before he should have. And Spring, moving faster than he ever had before, threw himself in the path of Summer’s chain.

And though Spring’s armor was swift, it had only a fraction of Winter’s durability, and when Summer pulled on his burning war chain, the green armor and the knight inside it were torn to shreds.

Summer turned to Winter, then, a taunt echoing out of his helmet, only to find that Winter was not staring in shock, was not hesitating in the slightest— that his hammer was already coming for Summer.

The battle raged across their former campsite, and into the depths of the grass sea, and Summer learned the last and most important lesson of his life.

He had always been the least of the Seasons, and his wealth was no match for Winter’s rage.

The last Season wept when he slew Summer, but did not delay over-long. For though he had not responded to Summer’s taunts, he had listened, and he at last understood that the researcher had been behind the fall of the Seasons.

Winter did not stop to report what had occurred to his commanders, nor to eat, nor even to sleep. He made only one stop as he strode towards the researcher’s home— at his own apartments, to retrieve Autumn’s sword.

The researcher tried to save himself with words, but Winter did not hesitate, merely plunged Autumn’s sword into the researcher’s chest as he lay in his bed.

Then he turned and walked away, leaving the sword there.

He should have stayed, for the researcher survived somehow. Out of sheer spite, perhaps, with a sword longer and wider than his leg plunged through his lung? It should not have been possible, but survive the researcher did. He should have lived out the rest of his life an invalid, should have struggled to even walk.

But in later years, the researcher forced his body to walk, forced himself to rebuild his ruined muscles, to ignore the constant pain with his awful, hideous will.

But the first thing he did? His first action when he was found, and the healers stabilized him?

Was to accuse Winter of all his sins. Of murdering Summer and Spring, and attempting to murder the researcher, all to seize their growing business for himself.

When a team of knights surrounded Winter’s apartments, burst in to seize him, they found the apartments empty, Winter’s armor and hammer abandoned within. Someone had alerted Winter, and he had fled ahead of the hunters.

No one ever saw Winter in Hebrast again. 

Perhaps Winter could have prevailed in a trial, perhaps he could have proved the researcher the true villain, but this time, Winter lived up to his name.

He chose a cold vengeance.

He was the last living keeper of the flesh magnet rune, the rune that would have made the seasons and the researchers fabulously wealthy, that would surely have remade war itself on Kemetrias. 

He fled, and denied the researcher his avaricious dreams.

Oh, the researcher still grew wealthy and powerful off his many later discoveries, but he never became a prince among men, as he might have with the flesh-magnet. He spent his life bitter and angry, growing old and unfulfilled, always hunting for Winter.

Until, by sheer accident, found one of Imtep’s runes.

Found one of Winter’s runes.

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Winter had, for all his brutal fighting style, never been a burly or large man. His gracelessness and brutality was one of temperament, not of physicality, and after he fled Hebrast, he chose to abandon it, to seek communion with Spring and Autumn by emulating their speed and grace. He danced in his rock garden to honor them each afternoon. He took on Autumn’s true name, Imtep, in honor of his friend.

And he lived a simple, austere life in a rejection of Summer.

When the hunters stepped foot on his rock garden, he responded by igniting its runes in a deep purple, almost black, with silvery flashes that rippled gently about in no particular pattern.

It would have been more poetic if it had been one of Winter’s more inspired rock-garden patterns. If the silvery flashes had dashed like flames or cascaded like waterfalls, but no— it was just a pleasing, abstract sort of pattern.

Winter did not carry a sword or hammer into battle this time.

No, he simply carried the rake he had used for so many years.

And one last time, Imtep began to dance.

He launched himself from wooden post to wooden post, nimbly dashing between hired toughs a quarter of his age, while his old foe the researcher laughed from the sidelines.

If the hunters had used swords and spears, they surely would have slain Winter swiftly, but they sought to capture him alive, a far trickier proposition.

The old man fought silently, a smile on his face, landing on each wooden post by long muscle memory. He battered hunters about the head, jabbed them in the gut, and tripped them with his trusty old rake, and waited for his moment.

Waited for his old foe, the researcher, to step foot on the rock garden.

And, the instant the old man did, Winter ignited one last set of runes.

The flesh magnet runes.

They weren’t carved into the river stones, no— that would have been too risky. The researcher was far from the only one who wanted the flesh magnet rune— every prince and king and emperor alive would have done monstrous things to get their hands on it.

The Bezans, especially, might have tried to burn down the entire city of Phetris for it.

Winter was not overly wise, even with the benefit of countless years, but nor was he that much of a fool.

No, Winter had carved the flesh-magnet runes somewhere much more subtle, yet right in plain sight.

Every night, as he danced and raked his rock garden, he had carved the flesh magnet rune into the pattern of the rock garden itself. The lines and junctions of the flesh-magnet rune were formed by graceful furrows in the rock garden, only to be wiped away each day as he reshaped the garden and carved them anew.

And when Winter activated the flesh-magnet runes raked into the rock garden, the incoherent, jumbled runes on the river rocks? They were suddenly rendered complete, turned to complete rune scripts.

And the hunters began to sink into the rock garden, as each and every rock began to cling to them, to crawl up their bodies.

It took several minutes for the hunters to die, as they were slowly crushed to death by the churning, swarming gravel, each piece striving to get as close as possible to the hunters. But one by one, they were all sucked down below the gravel, to vanish entirely.

It would be poetic to say that the researcher was the last to go, but it wouldn’t be true. For all his vicious will, he was an old, frail man who had never fully recovered from his hideous wound. He was, in truth, among the first to die.

And then it was just Winter, just Imtep, standing alone atop a wooden post with his rake.

Imtep gazed at the flesh-magnet runes, somehow maintaining their shape even among the churning gravel. Gazed at that paltry collection of lines that had led to the deaths of his friends, to the loss of his former life.

Imtep smiled once more, but this was a sad smile, not a vindictive one.

He let his rake fall to the gravel at his side, and said one last prayer of remembrance for the other three seasons. Even for Summer.

And then Imtep, in a graceful, deliberate move, let himself fall backwards into the churning gravel.

Soon after, the flesh-magnet runes collapsed and vanished as the gravel came to a stop, never again to be known or written by any Kemetrian.

The gravel, though, kept shining a deep purple, almost black, with silvery flashes running through it.

And the last day of Winter drew to a close.