The Hermit
Lore of Arcanum
The great hall of Caerith had always been a place of light.
Once, sun poured unhindered through the stained-glass windows, spilling onto the marble floor in shards of crimson and gold, warming the dais where the king sat in judgment. Now, the light seemed colder. The throne at the center stood empty, draped in silken banners that did nothing to hide its vacancy.
At its side stood Lord Maireth, brother to the king, the weight of his ceremonial circlet pressing heavily against his brow. He kept his hands folded before him, posture the very image of loyalty, but his eyes traced the faces gathered in the court. Merchants shifted uncomfortably under the watchful gaze of guards, farmers whispered to each other about lost land, and mothers clutched their children as though afraid they might be taken.
At the foot of the dais stood Advisor Calvric, speaking in the king’s name. His voice carried easily to the corners of the hall, clear and oily as he read the latest decrees from a scroll that seemed longer each day.
“By order of His Majesty,” Calvric intoned, “taxes on grain and livestock shall be increased by one-third, effective immediately. Merchants transporting goods beyond the city gates will require permits to be purchased from the crown at fair cost.”
Fair cost. Maireth’s jaw tightened. That “fair cost” would mean ruin for traders who barely earned enough to feed their families.
The merchants grumbled their protests, but the guards shifted their spears, and the noise died away. Calvric rolled up the scroll with a satisfied flick and turned his attention to the next.
Maireth’s gaze drifted to the double doors of the royal chambers beyond the dais. He had not been permitted to pass through them in weeks. Whenever he requested an audience with the king, the guards stationed there would bow stiffly and say the king was too unwell to receive visitors. He believed them at first. Now, he was no longer sure.
“Will His Majesty address the court today?” Maireth asked, keeping his tone mild.
Calvric did not look at him. “No, Lord Maireth,” he said smoothly, his voice threaded with false sympathy. “The king’s condition has worsened. He must rest.”
Maireth inclined his head in silent acknowledgment. The performance of deference was second nature to him by now.
The court adjourned at midday, the nobles scattering to their business, the commoners ushered out under the watch of armored men. As the hall emptied, Maireth remained for a moment beside the empty throne, gazing at it as though in thought.
In truth, he was thinking about nightfall.
The streets of Caerith belonged to Advisor Calvric by day. But by night, they belonged to Lord Maireth.
When the last bells of evening faded from the towers, Maireth shed his ceremonial robes and circlet, trading them for a plain cloak with a deep hood. In the lamplight of his chamber, the transformation was stark. The brother of the king vanished, and in his place stood a man the city barely knew.
He slipped through a servant’s passage and into the winding lanes beyond the palace walls. The air was sharp with the scent of woodsmoke and damp stone, and the streets were quieter than they should have been. The people of Caerith had learned that being abroad after dark invited questions from the wrong sort of men.
Maireth’s first stop was the eastern gate, where two guards stood beneath the flicker of torchlight, halberds crossed. A line of carts waited beyond, each heavy with grain sacks. The men in the lead wagon looked half-starved themselves, their faces drawn with worry.
“Late for market,” one guard barked.
“They’ve traveled three days,” Maireth said from the shadows, his hood hiding his features. He held out a small pouch of coins. “The toll’s already paid.”
The guards glanced at each other, then lowered their weapons just enough for the carts to pass through. None of the farmers looked back.
From the gate, Maireth wound his way toward the merchant quarter. There, a narrow alley led to a cellar door bound with heavy iron. The merchant who owned it was a loyal hound of Calvric’s, known for keeping debtors locked in his private cells until they “paid what they owed.”
Maireth crouched, working a stolen key into the lock. The door swung open with a soft groan, revealing three men and a woman huddled on the floor, their wrists raw from rope.
“You’ll leave by the side alley,” Maireth murmured. He pressed folded parchments into their hands. Forged pardons, each bearing the royal seal he had copied by hand. “Show these to anyone who stops you.”
They did not ask who he was. In Caerith, sometimes it was safer not to know the name of the one who helped you.
By the time he returned to the palace, the sky was paling. Maireth entered the royal wing through the same hidden passage, his cloak tucked beneath his arm. To the guards at the corridor, he was simply the king’s brother, rising early for the day’s duties.
But as he passed them, he could still smell the night air clinging to him. Proof that for a few hours, at least, the kingdom had not belonged to Calvric alone.
Morning in Caerith began with the tolling of the palace bells. It wasn’t the cheerful chimes of old, but a slow, deliberate peal that seemed to echo the advisor’s rule. The throne room filled again, the king’s seat still empty.
Advisor Calvric stood at the center of the hall, a fresh scroll in his hands. His voice rang out, smooth as oil. “By order of His Majesty, all lands belonging to widows without living heirs shall be returned to the crown, to be redistributed as the crown sees fit.”
The murmur of discontent was immediate. A farmer cried out that his mother’s fields had fed their village for generations. A merchant demanded to know who would decide “redistribution.”
Maireth stepped forward a single pace, his expression carefully schooled into one of mild concern. “Advisor Calvric,” he said, his tone even, “such measures may cause unrest among the people. Perhaps we might consider—”
Calvric cut him off with a flick of his hand. “Lord Maireth, His Majesty’s will is not to be tempered by hesitation. The good of the realm demands swift action.”
Swift action. Maireth read the smugness in those words.
When the court dispersed, he felt the weight of eyes on him. Guards stood a little closer now. Not openly threatening, but positioned to hear every word he spoke. Calvric’s suspicion was taking root.
That night, Maireth moved more carefully. The record hall smelled of dust and old parchment, its shelves lined with the kingdom’s ledgers and decrees. He lit no lantern, working by the faint moonlight filtering through high windows.
He found the confiscation orders in a neat stack on Calvric’s desk. One by one, he slid them into the fireplace until they curled into ash, then replaced them with his own counter-orders. Pardons disguised as formal exemptions, each bearing the same seal the advisor used to claim the king’s authority.
The next morning, the market was buzzing. A butcher told a weaver that her land had been spared. A cobbler claimed the crown had rescinded its seizure notice. All of them whispered about the same thing. A “ghost of mercy” who undid the advisor’s cruelty in the night.
Maireth passed through the square in plain clothes, listening without speaking. He allowed himself a brief, quiet smile. Calvric’s shadow might fall over Caerith by day, but there were still places where the light reached, and Maireth would see that it did.
The next morning began like any other. Calvric’s voice droning through yet another decree in the great hall, Maireth standing beside the empty throne with the same mask he always wore. But beneath that mask, unease stirred.
It began with a moment so small he might have missed it.
As Maireth crossed the marble floor toward the doors, a shopkeeper from the market—one he had freed from a merchant’s cell only nights ago—stepped forward. The man’s voice was warm with gratitude.
“Bless you, Lord Maireth,” he said, bowing low. “The debt you forgave will keep my children fed through the winter.”
Maireth froze for half a breath before recovering with a polite nod. “You must be mistaken,” he said lightly, his tone carrying just enough detachment for the guards to hear.
But across the hall, Advisor Calvric’s head turned, and his eyes sharpened like a hawk catching sight of prey.
That night, Maireth moved through the city with more caution than usual. The winter air bit through his cloak as he made his way to a guardhouse in the western quarter, where several laborers had been jailed for failing to pay the grain tax.
The streets here were silent, the lamplight thin. When he reached the side door of the guardhouse, his stolen key slid easily into the lock.
The hinges gave no protest as the door swung open onto darkness. Maireth stepped inside, listening. No clank of chains, no low voices, only the muffled thud of the door closing behind him. Then the click of metal and the scrape of a boot.
The torches along the wall flared to life, revealing half a dozen guards with halberds leveled at his chest. At their center stood Captain Derric, Calvric’s most loyal enforcer, holding one of Maireth’s forged royal seals between two fingers.
“This looks familiar,” Derric said, his voice rough with satisfaction. “Our good advisor will be pleased to have his suspicions confirmed.”
The guards closed in, seizing Maireth’s arms. He didn’t resist. His eyes settled on the seal in Derric’s hand.
They marched him through the frozen streets, chains biting into his wrists, the torches casting long shadows ahead of them. At the palace gates, Derric cast a final, smug glance before delivering his prisoner to the great hall.
Advisor Calvric was waiting.
The great hall was lit for judgment, every torch along the walls burning bright as if to banish shadow. But the throne remained empty.
Maireth was dragged to the center of the marble floor in chains. His boots scraped against the stone, the sound swallowed by the murmur of courtiers gathered to watch. Advisor Calvric stood at the foot of the dais, a scroll in hand, his posture radiating triumph.
“Lord Maireth,” Calvric began, his voice carrying to every corner of the room, “you stand accused of treason against the crown. You have falsified royal decrees, undermined the king’s authority, and conspired to weaken the realm through unlawful acts.”
The courtiers whispered to each other, some with genuine shock, others with the satisfaction of seeing a rival fall.
Maireth lifted his chin. “I have undone your harm where I could. You speak of the king’s authority while the king lies locked away in his own chambers, a prisoner of his own advisor.”
A sharp intake of breath rippled through the hall. The guards’ grips on his arms tightened.
Calvric’s lips curved in a cold smile. “You overestimate your worth, Lord Maireth. His Majesty’s orders have been carried out faithfully. You mistake your meddling for righteousness.”
“I mistake nothing,” Maireth said, his voice ringing clear. “The people suffer, the kingdom bleeds, and you stand here fat on their ruin. If the king knew the truth, you would already be in chains.”
The advisor’s expression did not waver, but his eyes glittered with malice. He raised the scroll and read, “By authority vested in me by His Majesty, the sentence for these crimes is death by beheading.”
The words fell into the silence like stones into still water.
Guards forced Maireth to his knees, the chains clinking against the cold floor. The executioner stepped forward, his axe gleaming in the torchlight.
Calvric descended a single step from the dais, his shadow falling long across the floor. “Take him to the dungeons. At dawn, let the people witness the end of this treachery.”
But before the guards could move him, the hall seemed to exhale all at once. The light from the torches bent strangely, the air thickening until it felt like the moment before a storm breaks.
Then the world stopped.
The torches froze mid-flicker, each flame a sculpture of gold and orange. Dust hung unmoving in the air. The faint rustle of the courtiers’ robes went silent. Even the breath of the guards holding Maireth’s arms stilled.
Only Maireth could move, though his own breath came slow and deliberate, as if the air had grown thick.
From the farthest shadows of the hall, a light began to bloom. Not warm like the sun, but pale and endless, tinged with the silver of starlight. A figure emerged, tall and robed in shifting darkness, his eyes aglow like twin moons.
The man regarded Maireth and stepped forward, each step echoing in the silence.
“Even bound, you do not cease,” he said, his voice both near and impossibly far. “Even when all seems futile, you act. You have walked the harder road, knowing it would earn you no glory, and still you did not turn back.”
Maireth straightened as much as the chains would allow. “If I could walk it twice, I would.”
A faint curve of a smile touched the god’s lips. “Then you shall. I grant you a second self until you are gone from this world. And when your thread is cut, it will live on in your bloodline until the time comes that she will need it.”
He reached out, touching Maireth’s brow with two fingers and the world flared white.
Maireth gasped. He was kneeling in chains before the court, and standing free at the edge of the room, watching himself. Two bodies. Two heartbeats. One mind.
“Your paths are your own to choose,” the god said, his voice fading into the starlight. “Walk them well.”
The light dimmed, the shadows swallowed their master, and sound returned to the world.
The executioner blinked, shifting his grip on the axe. No one seemed to notice that a second Maireth now moved silently toward the chamber doors.
The second Maireth moved like a shadow that had slipped free of its body. No one turned to watch him leave the throne room.
He crossed the silent corridors at a swift, steady pace, the layout of the palace etched into his mind from years of service. Every step was calculated, every corner approached with care. He had walked these halls before, but never with such urgency.
The king’s chambers were deep within the royal wing, guarded day and night by men loyal to Calvric. Two of them stood before the carved double doors, their spears crossed.
Maireth stepped from the shadows and struck before either man could draw breath to shout. A quick blow to the side of the knee dropped one; the other reeled back from a sharp elbow to the temple. Both crumpled to the floor, groaning but alive.
He pushed the doors inward and the air inside was close and heavy. Curtains were drawn, snuffing out most of the light, and the scent of stale wine and unwashed linens clung to the chamber.
The king was bound to a chair in the center of the room, wrists tied, a gag cutting into the corners of his mouth. His once-bright eyes widened as Maireth knelt to cut the ropes.
“Maireth,” the king croaked once the gag was gone. His voice was hoarse, each word dragging. “How…?”
“There’s no time,” Maireth said, helping him to his feet. “Calvric holds the court. He’s declared me a traitor.”
The king’s expression hardened, the weight of his captivity settling into fury. “Then we will end him.”
Maireth draped the king’s arm over his shoulder, guiding him toward the door. The fallen guards stirred, but neither dared lift a weapon against their true sovereign.
As they moved down the corridor, the king’s steps grew surer. By the time they reached the long gallery leading to the great hall, there was fire in his stride again. And ahead, in that hall, the other Maireth still knelt in chains, waiting for their return.
The great hall was just as Maireth had left it. Torches flaring, courtiers watching, the executioner’s axe poised for its grim work. The air still held the tension of the moment before a blow is struck.
From the high gallery doors, the king entered at Maireth’s side, his voice cutting through the hall like the first crack of thunder before a storm.
“Stop.”
Every head turned. A ripple of disbelief passed through the gathered court. The king, pale from confinement but walking tall, descended the steps toward the dais. His gaze locked on Calvric, whose composure faltered for the first time.
“Your Majesty,” Calvric began, recovering enough to bow. “You should not be here—”
“You will speak only to answer for your crimes,” the king said, his tone as cold as the marble underfoot.
On the floor below, the Maireth in chains lifted his head. Across the room, the second Maireth, still at the king’s side, met his own gaze. For a breath, the two regarded each other, mirror and reflection, bound and free.
The king mounted the dais. “Release my brother,” he commanded.
The guards hesitated only a moment before obeying, the chains falling away. As Maireth rose, the second self moved. Striding straight toward him, each step perfectly matched.
When they met, the air between them rippled, and with a sound like a sudden intake of breath, the second body snapped back into the first.
The king turned to the assembly. “Advisor Calvric is hereby stripped of his station and titles. He is to be imprisoned until a full trial of treason can be held.”
Gasps echoed through the hall as guards closed in on the stunned advisor. Maireth stood at the king’s side, whole once more, his expression calm, but his heart still beat with the memory of walking two paths at once.
In the weeks that followed, the halls of Caerith felt different.
The silken banners over the throne hung straight again, no longer shrouding an empty seat. The king presided over the court in person, his voice steady, his gaze clear. Advisor Calvric languished in the dungeons below, awaiting a trial whose verdict was already written in the hearts of the people. At the king’s side, as he had been before the false sickness and the silence, stood Lord Maireth.
In the streets, whispers began.
A merchant swore she had seen the king’s brother inspecting the city gates at the same time another claimed he had passed her in the market. A farmer told of Maireth tending to floodbanks while also attending a council meeting miles away. These tales were dismissed by most as exaggerations, but among the grateful, the “ghost of mercy” had taken on a new name: The Hermit.
Years later, when Maireth’s own life began to wane, he remembered the god’s words.
The gift would remain his until he was gone from the world, and then it would pass quietly into his bloodline, unseen and unspoken of until the time came that she needed it.
And so it did. Through the slow turning of generations, the essence slept, waiting.