I don't own the Death Gate Cycle. Maybe for Christmas? Please, Santa? I've been very good this year.

"I suppose there was training involved, years of study-"
"Of course. With that much power comes responsibility."
"The one thing I've never been very good at."

-Into the Labyrinth, 419

Alfred knew better than anyone that he and Haplo had closed Death's Gate through sheer dumb, desperate luck. That was his modus operandi, how he survived most situations- dumb, desperate luck peppered with just enough magical skill to defeat whatever was trying to kill him this time.

He also knew that it shouldn't be that way. He was (or so everyone kept telling him) the most powerful and talented Sartan who had ever lived. Dragon-snakes said it, the drakes of Pryan said it, Haplo said it, Vasu said it. Ramu didn't say it, but nobody had expected him to- he was Samah's son, after all, and would hardly admit that his proud powerful father had been bested by 'that clumsy buffoon from Arianus.' Or anyone at all, really, but especially not Alfred.

The point was, Alfred lacked the experience and skills he needed- and he knew it. He had a neat-sounding title, a few incredibly powerful spells, and a tendency to surprise himself, but he feared that one day, one day soon, that wouldn't be enough. But at the same time, he was afraid to ask for help, because that would mean acknowledging that he had abilities and therefore needs beyond those of the common Sartan.

He did not like to think about that little fact.

But he had to. He had to acknowledge that he wasn't just clumsy, foolish Alfred Montbank anymore- no, that he had never been just clumsy, foolish Alfred Montbank. He was Coren, shape-shifter, spell-weaver, a hero of Abri (and hadn't that surprised him when he first found it out!), the Serpent Mage, chosen to choose. Except that he wasn't, not entirely, not yet.

Not yet.

He feared that self-knowledge, but at the same time he was grateful for it. It was the kind of thing he needed to know.

He needed to be less Alfred, more Coren. He needed to accept his power, to set up blocks and take them down, to slough off his worst self. Serpent Mage, he was called. Snakes were symbols of (among other things) intelligence, renewal, rebirth, growth. He needed that.

But, Alfred wondered glumly, staring at the blank wall of his new room, how?

Samah and Xar, the only people anywhere near his level, were dead. Ramu might be a source of his father's knowledge—he was no weakling, and he'd known the other Sartan all his life—but Ramu hated him, the Nexus, the Patryns…. Ramu hated lots of things. Alfred doubted he would say around long—he'd probably go off to found his own city. But the point was, Ramu would never help him out, and he was surrounded by dragon-snakes.

So who else? Haplo didn't know, nor did Marit, nor Vasu. He didn't even think about asking Balthazar or one of the Abarrach Sartan, who needed teaching themselves (they had already approached him about mass lessons, which he gave gladly every two days). Other Sartan didn't like him. Neither did most Patryns, though for a different reason.

The drakes, then? Alfred turned the idea around in his mind, couldn't find anything horribly wrong with it. As the manifestations of all goodness in the universe, they wouldn't take advantage of him (unless it was for his own good). But what made him make up his mind was the knowledge that the creatures could read his thoughts, know his intentions. He wouldn't have to humiliate himself by asking one for help directly!

With that in mind, Alfred waited.

And waited. And waited. And then he waited some more.

The moon waned and waxed again. Haplo wrote his books, distributed them to the people. He and Marit formed decided to return to the Labyrinth for their daughter, began to plan their first Run. Balthazar and Vasu finished hammering out their peace treaty. Ramu, true to Alfred's predictions, flatly refused to abide by the terms and led his followers to the other side of the Nexus, vowing to one day reclaim those still loyal to the Patryns—if only, he promised darkly, as a red-eyed form in the background smiled, because it would be difficult to display loyalty to the Patryn race if that race was exterminated.

That was when Alfred realized that if he wanted to get the tutelage he required, he would have to take the first step himself. No more passively waiting for things to happen to him. Now he had to make things happen.

Alfred was not very good at making the first move. That meant calling attention to himself, which meant the risk of exposure, which was (in his mind) identical with the risk of exploitation. Oh, he knew that he was already exposed as a Sartan, and an absurdly powerful one too, but since when had his fears ever been rational? Exactly. And why should they learn reason now?

But fear or not, he would become the person he was meant to be, the person he'd glimpsed on Abarrach and Chelestra, flying above the walls of Abri, falling through Death's Gate as the universe convulsed.

He would.

Especially now that Marit and Haplo were almost ready to leave. They had made most of the necessary preparations for their Run, were planning to leave in two days. Alfred would go with them—he could, in his dragon form, move more quickly than any wingless creatures—and he knew that he'd need every advantage he could get. So, as he walked through the streets of the Nexus, discussing the possibility of another dog, he kept an eye out for dragons.

There. There it was, an immense blue-green form lifting a slab of stone into place. The city was almost finished, but there were still a few houses that needed to be built. They wouldn't be used, not right away (especially since Ramu's exodus, not to mention the dozens of Patryns who had refused to remain so close to their ancestral enemies, had left a great deal of dwellings empty), but were meant for the next wave of escapees from the Labyrinth.

Alfred slowed to a stop, his gaze fixed upon the dragon. It was busy, he told himself. Very busy. He really shouldn't interrupt. He should wait a minute, an hour, a day, forever, before asking this one for help. Or he could find another.

"You all right?" Haplo asked.

Alfred started. He'd almost forgotten the Patryn's presence. "I'm fine," he lied automatically, not turning his gaze from the dragon's sleek form.

Haplo didn't buy it. "Really."

Alfred sighed. The only bad thing about having friends was that it was rather difficult to pull the wool over their eyes. Well, he supposed that it was worth it, all things considered, even if it did make him uncomfortable sometimes. "Not really." He took a step towards the dragon, paused. It would be terribly rude to just leave Haplo there….

No, no, he was being stupid. "Perhaps you should go talk with Marit now," he suggested. "Go over the last few details of your orphanage."

"We've been over those details so many times that I'm starting to recite them in my sleep," Haplo grumbled. He cocked his head at the dragon, not quite understanding what Alfred saw. The drakes were their friends, their allies, nothing like their 'cousins' the dragon-snakes. "What's wrong?"

"I'm just being a coward again," Alfred sighed. "I need to talk with the dragon." He swallowed once, strode forward.

By now, the drake had finished erecting its stone block. Magic shimmered, welding the stone to the rest of the building. It was almost done. Nothing remained unfinished except the roof.

Manners warred with sense. If he went forward now, he'd be breeching etiquette and common courtesy by interrupting the creature's task. If he delayed, though, he might lose courage. Alfred weighed the options, almost turned back, then gritted his teeth and resumed walking until he was right next to the drake.

Blue-green eyes gazed into blue. Alfred flushed, ducked his head. "Er…."

"Yes, Master Montbank?" The creature's voice was cool, level, with just a hint of amusement.

Just do it already. "I need help," he blurted.

"I see." The drake waited for more details.

Beside him, Haplo murmured, "Ah." He understood now. A rune-covered hand placed itself across Alfred's shoulder, a silent sign of support.

Alfred looked up. "I know that I'm—that I'm quite powerful, magically speaking. I also know that my training-" and his background, and his cowardice, and pretty much everything else about him "-is inadequate. Is there… is there any way for you to help me?"

The dragon's head snaked out, drew close to the tense, rigid man. Its breath made Alfred's shirt and coat flutter. "Define help."

Alfred wanted to step away, but Haplo's hand steadied him, kept him in his place. "What am I supposed to do with this?" he whispered. The images he conjured were fabulous, wonderful, and (to him) terrifying: a green and golden dragon, shining like the sun; Sartan runes and Patryn merging to shut Death's Gate; a single sigil on Hugh the Hand's chest; a monstrous corpse, its body decaying around it, trailed by a pitifully ineffective phantasm, collapsing to the ground. Images of power, of the possibilities he had invoked half-unknowingly. Things he had done even without training, things he had the potential to surpass. "I know I should do something. There's so much that needs to be done! But I can't. I'm the worst person for this job, just look at what I've already done-"

"Coren," the dragon growled, banishing the picture of Hugh's furious, desperate face. Other images flickered, but too quickly for either man to see.

"Yes?" asked Alfred, hoping for an answer.

The dragon was perfectly still. Not even its tail twitched. "That is your name, is it not, Master Montbank?"

"Yes."

"I assure you, Coren, that your name is a great deal more accurate than Haplo's."

"Oh." Alfred shuffled his feet, cheeks red. "Both meanings, I assume?"

"Of course. Now, what were you so concerned about?"

The red drained from Alfred's face, leaving him pale and sweaty. "Everything," he burst out. "I don't know what to do. I've made so many mistakes, but don't—I just don't know. I need to know. How should I use my magic?"

"How do you want to use your magic?"

Alfred stared at it, completely nonplussed. "What?"

"How do you want to use your magic?" the drake repeated, a portrait of patience.

"Want…?" the Sartan repeated in the tone of one memorizing a strange and exotic new word.

"Yes. The desires of your heart, the things you would do if there were no consequences other than the ones you desired."

"Um…." Alfred glanced at Haplo, who shook his head. This was for the older man to ponder, not for him. "I… suppose it would be nice to enchant the walls of the city to keep the dragon-snakes out."

The drake chuckled. "One day, you should ask a citizen of Abri about their city walls. The results will interest you, I think."

"You could tell me now," Alfred suggested.

"I don't think so. You want to protect the city. Is that all you want to do?"

Alfred's head tilted back.

When he went out into Arianus, he had been so worried about what others would use his magic for that he'd forgotten all about his own wants. He hadn't even considered his own desires when approaching the drake; he'd wanted help knowing when to say no and when to acquiesce. The thought that maybe he didn't have to rely on others to tell him what to do with his magic was a novel one.

But not necessarily a good one, he reminded himself. What happened to poor Sir Hugh wasn't anyone else's fault.

What did he want? What did he dream about in the secret parts of his being? What would he do if he only dared?

Alfred's eyes narrowed, his eyebrows crowding together. In a soft, hesitant voice, as though confessing to a shameful crime, he admitted, "It would be nice to make other exits to the Labyrinth."

"What?" Haplo's head snapped around so quickly that his neck cracked. He ignored the momentary flash of pain, ignored his resolution to act as silent moral support, in favor of gawking at his Sartan friend.

"Well," the other man muttered, wringing his hands, "you mentioned that there are places where the path brushes up against the wall. If the path is already there, why not make another gate? It would be possible if we could work around the warding runes. Although," he added, suddenly scowling, "that probably can never happen as long as the Labyrinth is sentient and in control of itself."

Another thought struck him then, a whim so daring and insane that it took his breath away. As long as the Labyrinth is sentient and in control of itself….

"You can pursue that later," the drake promised him, its voice dragging him out of his whirling mind. "Is there anything else?"

"Let me think." Alfred leaned against the wall. If he could remake the world (and he could. He could. The thought, the knowledge, made him break out in goose bumps that were slightly excited, mostly frightened), what would he do? Hm… he couldn't do anything to the dragon-snakes as a race because that would generate a reaction among their Pryanese cousins. Anything resembling necromancy was out, as was reopening Death's Gate (though he didn't want to do either of those things in the first place, so the point wasn't entirely valid). Something to take care of the Labyrinth and probably the majority of its monsters (the sheer audacity made him shiver a bit, made anticipation surge through his body). Nothing about Ramu or the Patryn exiles. Magic could not change their minds, and even if it could, he wouldn't use a spell so invasive and foul. "Just a few things to help those still trapped in the Labyrinth, I think, and whatever I need to do for Runs."

"So selfless," the drake murmured (and was Alfred imagining things, or was it bigger than before?). "Is there anything you wanted to do for yourself?"

Haplo snorted, rolled his eyes.

"I liked flying," Alfred shyly volunteered after a few moments' thought. "I haven't done it much, but it would be nice to take dragon form once in a while and just fly. And it would be interesting to see if I could create a time well like the one in Abri with Sartan magic instead of Patryn."

The drake shrugged, blue-green scales glittering in the pale light of the Nexus. "So go do it," the creature advised, and returned its attention to the half-completed building.

"That's it?" Alfred demanded.

"Yes."

The Sartan cast a helpless glance at Haplo. "Makes sense to me," the Patryn said.

"But I can't."

"Why not?" Haplo and the drake chorused.

Alfred opened and closed his mouth several times but could not find a reply.

"Fear again?" the drake asked gently. Alfred nodded, face red. "No, no, don't shrivel up. I understand. It is very difficult to change, even for the better. Many people do not even try."

The Sartan rediscovered his voice. "I need help becoming more comfortable with this," he said. "Because I need to be able to react at a moment's notice, and I can't now, not really. I need to learn my limits, both the ones my magic naturally possesses and the ones I need to impose upon it."

"You have more than enough of those already," the drake chided. "What you need to learn, Coren, is to trust yourself. Remember that you were indeed chosen."

Alfred shivered. "I'm trying," he whispered. "But it frightens me. I'm afraid to my very bones."

"What frightens you?"

"Everything."

The dragon's blue-green body melted. Scales darkened or lightened depending on their location. Bones rearranged themselves. Soon a Sartan man about Haplo's age was standing before them, head tilted slightly, teal eyes soft with pity. "Then all you need to learn is to let go of the fear."

A rueful, almost bitter smile. "Would you be surprised if I told you that I'm afraid to give up the fear? It might cripple me, yes, but it gives me boundaries. I'm afraid of what I might do without fear."

"Do not be," the creature ordered. "I know, I know—it is easier said than done."

"What will you never do?" Haplo interjected. Alfred frowned, so the Patryn continued, "Name some of those blocks of yours, Coren."

Sadly, he was much quicker to respond this time. "I'll never kill a Patryn, Sartan, or mensch, just dragon-snakes and Labyrinth monsters. No necromancy. Nothing to cause pain, nothing to make others fear me. Nothing to impose my will upon the unwilling. Nothing to make me stick—no, I'll have to do things that will make me stick out. Never mind that block, then."

"The others are good guidelines," the drake observed. "Follow those and dispose of the last."

"I will try," Alfred sighed.

"You will succeed," the drake corrected him. "No, Master Montbank, don't look at me like that. You will."

"If you say so." But the Sartan's tone was doubtful.

The false Sartan's face hardened. "You will," he vowed. "You have already improved so much."

"Not enough." Alfred began to sink into depression. He felt so very inadequate with this awful, daunting task before him.

"Coren." Haplo turned his friend, met his gaze. "Do you really think I'll let anyone take advantage of you?"

A smile, small but glad. "Not really."

"And do you really think I'll let you do anything stupid?"

Alfred's head tilted. The smile grew. "Define 'stupid.'"

"Something that will break any of those other guidelines," Haplo replied promptly.

The Sartan's smile warped into a grin before fading. "But the point remains," he said, returning his attention to the drake. "It's one thing to know all this intellectually. It's quite another to actually become comfortable with…." He forced himself to say it, pushed the words out of his mouth. "…with the fact that I'm more powerful than Samah." He couldn't help but flinch. Ancestors, that sounded arrogant. Not to mention uncomfortably true. He didn't like it, wished he had found another way to phrase it.

The drake chuckled. "Very well then. My brethren and I can help you learn to say that without wincing."

"Good luck with that," Haplo grumbled.

"All right. Without as much of a wince. Does that sound more plausible?"

"Just a bit."

The dragon stepped back. Its form rippled once more, grew large and scaly. The neck elongated, teeth sharpened. Wings (not part of its natural form) and a tail (which was) sprouted from its body. "Would you like to fly with me?" it asked, no longer bothering to keep its voice down.

Alfred blinked. "What?" The change of direction left him lost and confused.

"You said that you liked to fly in your dragon form," the drake explained. "Would you like to do so now?"

Alfred looked over his shoulder. They weren't in a busy part of the city, but a small cluster of young Patryns was loitering on the street corner, watching their interactions with cold suspicion. The older man imagined their reaction to a Sartan changing himself into a dragon and winced again. "Perhaps later."

The drake frowned.

Oh. He was supposed to say yes. He was supposed to transform in front of people, to do something impossible where strangers could see him. In other words, to become a bit more comfortable with his strength. Fear, instinctive, irrational, so very strong, spiked. He swallowed, told it to go away.

It didn't.

The drake was waiting for him to change his answer. Well, Alfred reflected, that's what this is about, isn't it? I need to accept.

"Would you like to come with us, Haplo?"

The Patryn didn't hesitate. "Sure." It looked like his friend could use a hand. Besides, he and Marit would be riding dragon back tomorrow, so it was wise to get a bit more experience in.

The Sartan beamed at him, relief stealing years from his face. "All right. Can you grab the shoulder of my coat?" That was what Marit had done on Abarrach. She'd been clinging to him, fighting the lazar's poison, when the magic had transformed him.

Feeling a bit stupid, Haplo grabbed the shoulder of his coat.

Alfred nodded, pointedly not thinking about the blatantly staring bystanders. Honestly, couldn't they at least pretend to look away? Perhaps not—he was a Sartan and therefore not to be trusted, after all. But still.

The drake moved away, giving him enough space to transform. Alfred smiled his thanks, sang the spell.

Magic flickered within him, filled his blood with bubbles of happiness. His body shifted, becoming big and strong and safe. His senses expanded, filling his mind with dazzling new information. Smells were so much more powerful, the world brighter, sounds louder.

Across the street, the watching Patryns gasped. Alfred had never really transformed in public before. He had been alone at Abri, almost alone on Abarrach (Haplo, Marit, and the dog didn't count as 'public.' They were friends and therefore not intimidating). Yes, hundreds had seen him fight at Abri, and some of Balthazar's people had glimpsed him escaping Lord Xar, but he'd never made a spectacle of the transformation. It simply wasn't part of his nature. His friend's assurance had briefly helped him forget the others' presence, but now he was uncomfortably aware of them. They had seen him perform magic which no normal person could do, seen the proof of his power. He wished he'd transformed elsewhere. Perhaps he could have gone around the house, used it to block him.

Haplo shifted his position, settled himself in among the dragon's spikes. "Ignore them," he ordered. A hand touched the nearest green scale.

"Okay." Not easy to do, not with his heightened senses or his natural modesty, but he could try. He had to try. "Where should we go, Haplo?"

"Where do you want to go?" the Patryn retorted, a smile in his voice.

The dragon huffed softly. His long, tapering tail flicked. "I don't know the landscape as well as you, but didn't you mention that there's a lake over there?" He almost pointed, remembered his new form at the last second. Instead of righting himself and pointing with a claw, which Haplo might not see anyways from his position on the other's back, he stretched his neck in the correct direction.

"There is. It would be good practice to find it from the air."

"Perfecting our navigation techniques?"

"Exactly." Haplo realized that he was patting the dragon's scale—patting Alfred's scale. That, he decided, was weird. He brought his hand up, settled it on his leg. "Shall we go, then?"

"Let's." There was a bit too much relief in Alfred's mental voice—he was plainly still aware of the awed, gawking onlookers—but Haplo let it slide. "Brace yourself, my friend. Three, two, one…."

Muscles bunched, pushed. Alfred launched himself into the air, wings snapping open in a sunburst of gold. He felt Haplo adjust himself, holding onto one of his brilliant spikes. "We really ought to do something about that," the Sartan commented, half to his friend, half to himself. "I think I could reconstruct one of the saddles the Arianus humans used for war dragons-"

"No," Haplo interrupted.

"But I suspect that we'll have to do a great deal of difficult maneuvering-"

"I'm not putting a saddle on my best friend."

"Are you sure? As I said, we probably will end up rolling around in midair."

"As I said, I'm not putting a saddle on my best friend."

By this time, they had finished ascending. The dragon winged his way to the east, towards the pond he'd heard about. Beneath them, the drake called, "Did you want to find Marit before leaving?"

"Did you, Haplo?"

"All right."

One golden wing folded. Alfred veered to his left, careful not to send Haplo flying off his back. The Nexus, fresh and beautiful, spread out below him like a painting. The Nexus, fresh and beautiful and filled with people who must, even now, must be looking up at the large, brightly colored, extremely conspicuous dragon above them.

Oh.

Maybe he shouldn't have volunteered to go pick up Marit. Their home was on the other side of the city. To get there, he'd have to fly over all those buildings, all those people who must recognize him from the descriptions in Haplo's new books.

He gulped.

But he'd said he would bring Haplo to Marit, so he kept flying towards their new home, a large and simply built domicile with a bit of space around it. Eventually, that space would be shaped into an edible garden with perhaps a tree or two, but right now it was clear, wide enough for a dragon to touch down on either side of the—wait. Where was the drake? Alfred craned his neck but couldn't see any flashes of blue-green. It seemed he had been abandoned.

He began a gentle dive, once again being careful about Haplo. He turned slightly, changing his momentum, before flaring slightly upwards. He landed on all fours, his back level lest he drop his Patryn friend.

Haplo dismounted. "I'll be right back," he promised, darting into the house.

"Okay." Alfred shifted his weight, stepped forward to look into the second and third story windows. Nothing. He stretched, looked into the fourth floor. Once again, nothing. "Marit? Are you in there?"

No answer.

"Haplo," he called, "I don't think she's here."

The Patryn man walked out of the house. "You're right. She's not. Do you know where Marit is?"

Alfred's heart skipped a beat—Haplo hadn't been asking him. His head snapped around, eyes widening as he saw a quartet of Patryns standing on the street.

Oh, no.

"Haplo," he whispered, despite using a mind-voice that he was only projecting to his friend, "these people are looking at me."

The other man patted his side as he approached the onlookers. So what if the action was weird? Alfred plainly needed it. "Have you seen her?" he queried.

"No," gulped one of the Patryns, not taking her gaze off the wondrous green and golden dragon. And was she crying? She was. Tears shone in the corners of her eyes. Her voice was thick, choked.

Compassion overwhelmed Alfred's discomfort. He stepped forward, tail trailing across the grass. "Are you all right, my dear?"

"I'm fine," she assured him. Her hand twitched upward, toward the dragon's nose. She hesitated a moment, then patted him gently on the snout, assuring herself that this shining creature was indeed real. "It's just that—nothing." She drew back, head shaking, hair falling before her eyes. "Nothing." One of her companions swallowed hard.

"Oh. Well, if there is anything I can do to help, please let me know." His tail twitched, his crests flicked. He was really quite uncomfortable.

"Thank you," the woman murmured. She reached out again, resumed patting his face. "You…. You saved my life at Abri."

"Oh. Did I?" This was quite, quite uncomfortable….

"Thank you." She scratched him behind the crest once, a surprisingly nice sensation that made his eyes flutter shut, then nodded and walked away. Her companions followed.

"Haplo. Help me remember to never show this face in public again." His crests flicked, his tail twitched.

Haplo laughed. "Then how do you intend to save people on tomorrow's Run?"

The Sartan-turned-dragon groaned. "At least not in the Nexus, then. Now come on. Let's go find that lake." He lowered himself into a crouch, allowed the Patryn to climb once more onto his back. "You're settled?"

"I'm good."

"Excellent." He considered, thought better of walking to the water. He was really trying to get more comfortable. Really. Which meant that he would probably have to show his dragon-self in the Nexus once again. The dragon sighed softly but launched himself once more into the air, wings thudding like thunder.

He stayed low, just above the tree line, partly for speed and partly because it was only his first day of trying to get more comfortable in his own skin and he was still embarrassed by the Patryn woman's tears. "I learned a bit about dragon navigation on Arianus, but that doesn't apply here because you're not controlling me magically. We need to think of a steering system. Perhaps you could tap my shoulder to make me turn?"

Haplo tapped his left shoulder. His mount began a gentle turn. "That seems to work quite well, don't you think?"

"It did."

Flying was just as fun as Alfred remembered it—better, even, because this time he wasn't fighting monsters or fleeing a terrifying Patryn lord. Invisible currents of warm and cold air, his powerful golden wings, kept him upright, moving forward. His graceful, slender tail helped him navigate; just a swish could cause a change in direction. And the rider on his back was there to guide him. Their impromptu system of navigation was modified twice more on that ride: one tap would result in a slow turn, two taps in a more rapid change of direction, and rapping him on the spike meant he should descend. Sure enough, Haplo soon tapped the spike. They were at the lake. Alfred obediently swooped down.

"How long are we going to stay here?" Haplo wondered.

"How long did you want to stay?" Alfred craned his head, neck bent almost in a circle.

The Patryn chuckled, slid off his friend's back. "Let's see if we can get some fish for dinner."

"Okay," Alfred said, a Sartan once again. "I've never really done this before."

"I suppose you wouldn't have." And so a magic lesson turned into a fishing lesson.

About two hours later, Alfred transported them (and their catch) home. The two men were soaking wet and grinning like idiots, laughing and teasing each other.

Marit raised an eyebrow as they entered the house. "I thought you two were going flying?"

"We did," Alfred explained, not bothering to ask how she knew. "We flew to a lake Haplo found a while back. He taught me how to fish." The Sartan displayed two large trout.

"You don't know how to—right, you're from Arianus. Of course." It was sometimes hard to remember that Alfred's native land was different from the Labyrinth in more way than one. "I take it that the lesson didn't go well?" she added, gesturing at their wet clothes.

The men blushed. For Alfred, that was no big deal. He blushed all the time. Haplo, though, did not.

Marit raised an eyebrow.

"There was a slippery patch of ground," her significant other explained. "And a very, very big fish." He showed her his own catch, which was almost as big as he was.

"But other than that, it was quite an enjoyable experience," Alfred hastened to add. "And even that was quite funny."

"For you, maybe."

The Sartan chuckled. "It's not often that I get to laugh at someone else's stumbling."

"True," Haplo acknowledged, lips twitching. "Though I maintain that you're the one who knocked me in."

"I was trying to help you," he mock-grumbled.

"You can tell me the rest of the story while we're working," Marit informed them.

"Of course."

As they gutted, roasted, and dried their catch, Haplo and Alfred explained the afternoon's events to their friend. Her only response was that it was about time Alfred started living up to his title (not that she blamed him for being afraid, she added, seeing him wince. But still). And the navigational system would aid them enormously on tomorrow's Run.

At the mention of the Run, all three companions fell silent. Ah, yes. The Run. Their return, their voluntary return, to the Labyrinth.

Naturally, all three people were terrified. The Labyrinth despised Alfred especially—it had tried to drop a mountain on him, for heaven's sake! It didn't loathe Haplo and Marit quite so much, but they had a whole smorgasbord of bad experiences associated with it. The memories were awful, almost enough to make them physically sick, always enough to give them nightmares. Each night, at least one of the house's residents woke up in a cold sweat, staring wildly around his or her room for a red dragon, for a snog, for a roc or tiger-man or some other abomination.

"We will come back." Alfred was the first to speak. "And we'll bring your daughter with us." His voice wavered a bit on the last part.

"Yeah." Haplo nodded, eyes unseeing. His hand gripped Marit's tightly enough to cut off circulation.

"We will," Alfred repeated, his voice a bit stronger. He drew both his friends into a hug, warm arms encircling them. Neither protested.

Someone knocked on their door. The three friends jumped, separated, embarrassed by their temporary display of weakness. Haplo and Marit slipped on their masks of strength. They hadn't let any of the general public see how much returning frightened them, didn't want to start now.

But it wasn't the general public who had come to see them. It was Vasu, headman of Abri and de facto leader of all the Patryns in the Nexus. Haplo and Marit quickly signed their people's rune for respect and friendship in the air; Alfred followed suit with the Sartan equivalent. "Please, Headman, come in."

Vasu entered, accepted a place at their table. If he noticed that their meat was a bit burnt (they'd lost track of time while thinking about the next day), he didn't mention it. "Do you need help with any last-minute preparations?"

"No, thank you," Marit replied. "We've been preparing almost since we arrived back in the Nexus."

"I know," Vasu acknowledged, "but experience has taught me that there's always something that rears its ugly head at the last second."

"We're ready," Haplo guaranteed. "We have a plan, a communication system, supplies, enough weapons for the two of us-" He cast a brief glare at Alfred, who had stubbornly refused to learn swordplay. The Sartan blushed, mouthed something that looked like 'fangs and claws.' "-everything we need."

"Then you are better planners than I am," Vasu muttered. "Good for you. Do you have any idea how long your trip will take?"

"Hopefully just two or three days." They wanted to get out again as soon as possible. "Perhaps, in later Runs-" And there would be later Runs. There would be. "-we'll be gone longer, but not now. If it turns out that we haven't thought of everything, I want to be as close to the Final Gate as possible."

"A good plan," Vasu agreed. "If you do think of anything I can do to assist you, please let me know."

"Healers near the Final Gate," Marit declared, eyes dark. "Just in case."

"It will be done. Can you think of anything else?"

Alfred remembered something the drake had mentioned. Seeing that neither of his friends had anything else to add, he said, "This has nothing to do with tomorrow, Headman, but I was told to ask someone about the builder of Abri's walls. If you have the time, could you perhaps tell me a bit about him or her?"

To his surprise, Vasu grinned. "It's about time you asked about Constin." He jerked forward, eyes going wide. "Alfred, are you all right?"

The Sartan nodded, face very pale. Constin. It was not exactly the same, neither 'to choose' nor 'chosen,' but the meaning was close enough. 'Constin' meant 'choice.' "He was… like me, wasn't he." It was not a question.

"Yes." Vasu settled back, speculation shining in his remarkable brown eyes. "Constin was indeed the only other serpent mage in recorded history. He was also the greatest citizen Abri ever produced."

"…Oh." Alfred stared into his cup, fascinated by the patterns the water made.

"At least in my opinion," Vasu admitted. "But everyone agrees that he was one of our best. He was born in the Squatter settlement that predated Abri approximately nine hundred fifty Gates ago-"

Alfred shuddered.

"Are you quite certain you're all right?" the headman demanded, eyeing him with suspicion.

"That's when I was born," he whispered. His knuckles were white, a stark contrast to the brown of his cup. "Let me guess. He died or disappeared fairly young, in his early twenties?"

"…Indeed. That is when you went into the stasis sleep?"

The Sartan flinched. "I didn't know," he whispered. "I had no idea that my going to sleep would-"

Vasu shrugged. "You had no way of knowing," he pointed out. "And he would be dead now anyways. So none of us can possibly blame you."

"That means you're not allowed to blame yourself either," Haplo announced.

"Right. It's not my fault."

"He'd be dead anyways," Marit reiterated. "Unless he created some Patryn version of the sleep?"

Vasu shook his head. "No, the stories make it clear that he was quite dead."

Alfred raised the cup to his mouth, used it as an excuse not to look at anybody else. "If Constin designed Abri's protective rune-structure, then he was quite talented." Talent was safe, or at least safer. "How much of the design has stayed the same?"

"All of it. Those runes have stood unchanged for almost a millennium. Every few years, someone goes to check them for cracks, but we've never found any. At least not until the dragon-snakes."

"Wait." Marit couldn't believe it. "Did you just say that those runes—not the general structure, but the runes themselves—have stayed the same for nine hundred Gates?"

"I did."

Alfred dropped his cup. It hit his foot and shattered, clay and water flying everywhere. "N-nine hundred…?" Nine centuries of monsters, of Labyrinth dragons and boggleboes and the prison maze itself, tearing away at the walls. Nine hundred years of wear and tear, and it still took the combined efforts of the Labyrinth's worst demons and the dragon-snakes to break them—nine hundred years later.

"They were his life's work," Vasu explained. "Each day, he would enchant perhaps fifty feet of wall. The stories say he was famished, exhausted afterwards, that he nearly died several times when the Labyrinth took advantage of his weakness. But because he used so much of his considerable power for the protection of others, as opposed to saving himself, Constin's work has kept my people safe for generations."

No wonder, then, that Vasu considered him one of Abri's greatest citizens.

Alfred leaned over, began picking up pieces of broken pottery. "How impressive," he mumbled, feeling more inadequate than ever. Constin's face, preserved through the magic of the Patryn language, floated through his mind. A tall man, just as tall as Alfred himself but without the stoop, his muscled body covered in tattoos the color of his eyes—the color (though Alfred did not realize this) of his own eyes as well. Not quite handsome, but strong-featured and confident, a small smile on his face as he carved his magic onto stone.

"Oh, but you don't know the best part," Vasu chuckled. "He somehow used the Labyrinth's own magic to power his creation."

"He did?" Alfred looked up, his cup and wet foot forgotten. "You mean he siphoned bits of latent magical energy from the Labyrinth itself? That's brilliant!" The Sartan stood, remembered his connection with the man in question. His shoulders slumped.

"Yes, and he knew it. Unlike you, Constin was a rather arrogant man. He had known of his power since childhood, and it went to his head. The constant attempts on his life kept him from becoming too unbearable, but he was still a bit of a snob. The stories say that after he'd finished the wall, Constin boasted to his wife that his next project would be the death of the Labyrinth itself. At that, the Labyrinth finally had enough. It sent ten dragons to kill him."

Alfred blanched, as did Marit and Haplo. "If you ever decide to kill the Labyrinth, Sartan, don't brag about it when you're still inside."

"I wasn't planning on it," Alfred replied, not saying which action he didn't plan on taking. "But how did Constin plan to-"

"No one knows. He never recorded it in his journals."

"…Journals?"

"Yes, journals." Vasu's mouth quirked up in a smile. "Would you like to read them, Alfred?"

Read books penned by another with his power, his burden? A man more arrogant than he—Constin probably hadn't seen this power as a burden—but still someone who might begin to understand. "I would like that very much, Headman, but I should wait until we get back from our Run. Otherwise I'd stay up all night and be absolutely useless in the morning."

"It will be arranged. When you three return, it will be arranged."

This is the infamous one-shot I've been working on for months, except it's no longer a one-shot. It'll probably have 5ish chapters of 6k words each. I think. This story kind of surprised me... It takes place right after the books but before "Embodied." It overlaps with "Vigil" (which has a couple references to Constin and the lessons) and makes reference to some of my other stories (especially post-chapter 6, which is when my second foray into the fandom started) in "Tales from the Nexus."

The reasoning behind Constin: Why, if the Sartan mage-naming system was so complex, did Vasu know the exact ranking of Serpent offhand? He could have looked it up, I guess, but this explanation is much more entertaining and ties in with the idea of balance. Though no, there aren't any other Patryns that powerful running around now that Alfred's awake again. Such a creature would probably devolve into a Sue or Stu, and we don't want those. But Constin is dead and I don't have to worry about him getting Stuified, and with Alfred, that's not even an issue.

Merry Christmas!

-Antares