Aleric liked the rhythm of a slow-moving wagon.
He sat at the back of a grain cart, his legs dangling over the edge as it bumped along the dirt road. To the merchant driving the team, Aleric was just a polite traveler who had paid a few coppers for a lift and spent most of his time looking at the clouds. To Aleric, the journey was a massive data set.
Over the last few weeks, he had drifted through a dozen nameless villages. In one, he spent three days learning the exact tension required to weave a fishing net. In another, he sat with a village blacksmith to understand how the impurities in local coal changed the temper of iron. He was a Jack of All Trades, but his greatest skill was simply noticing.
"You're a strange one," the merchant called out, glancing back. "Most travelers heading for the Empire's Capital are in a hurry to get rich or get famous. You look like you're just enjoying the dust."
"The dust tells me about the soil," Aleric replied, his voice calm and melodic. "And the road tells me how many people have passed this way. It's quite a busy artery for such a poorly maintained province."
The conversation died as they approached a stone bridge crossing a dry ravine. A heavy wooden gate had been dropped across the path, guarded by six men wearing the mismatched plate armor of a local lord's private militia.
"Toll road!" the lead guard shouted. "Ten silver pieces for the wagon. Five for the passenger."
The merchant gasped. "Ten silver? Since when is the crossing so high?"
"Since the Lord decided his wine cellar was too empty," the guard sneered, drawing a short sword to emphasize his point.
Aleric hopped down from the grain sacks. He landed softly, his dark coat settling around his boots without a sound. He walked to the front of the wagon, his expression one of mild curiosity.
"The enchantment on your sword hilt is cracked," Aleric said, pointing at the guard's weapon. "The mana is pooling in the crossguard. If you try to swing it, the feedback will likely break your wrist."
The guard's face reddened. "I've had enough of your mouth, boy. I'll show you feedback!"
He raised the sword to strike. Aleric didn't move his hands. He didn't even flinch. He simply focused his gaze on the steel blade.
There was no flash of light, no shout of a spell name. There was only a sudden, violent distortion in the air—a ripple like heat haze that moved faster than the human eye could track.
CRACK.
An invisible blade of pressurized mana, launched directly from Aleric's vision, slammed into the guard's sword. The steel snapped like a dry twig, the top half of the blade spinning into the dirt. The guard stared at his empty hilt, his arm vibrating from a force he hadn't even seen.
"You... what did you do?" the guard stammered, backing away. To the other guards, it looked as if the air itself had bitten the sword in half.
"I removed the error," Aleric said simply.
The other guards drew their spears, but before they could step forward, the atmosphere changed.
The sun didn't disappear, but the light felt wrong—sterile and cold. A shadow began to bleed out from Aleric's feet, rising behind him like a mountain of ink. It took the form of a massive, jagged beast, four stories tall, with horns that seemed to pierce the sky.
And then, in the clouds above, two massive Red Eyes opened.
They didn't glow with fire; they glowed with a terrifying, calculated intelligence. The Gaze didn't break the bridge, but it made every man there feel as though their soul was being weighed on a scale. It was a pressure so heavy that the guards' knees hit the stones before they could even think of running.
"Move the gate," Aleric said quietly.
The guards scrambled, hands shaking as they pushed the timber aside. They didn't ask for silver. They didn't even dare to look him in the face.
The shadow receded. The Red Eyes in the sky closed. Aleric climbed back onto the grain wagon and nodded to the merchant. "The road is clear."
The merchant didn't say a word. He just whipped the reins and drove the wagon across the bridge as fast as the horses could gallop.
Aleric pulled a small piece of dried fruit from his pocket and took a bite, looking toward the horizon. The tall, white spires of the Empire's Capital were finally visible in the distance.
He was Aleric. He was a traveler. And he was very much looking forward to seeing how the Empire managed its libraries.