Jubril stepped onto the wooden floor of the inn the next morning, his armor already in place and his shield and spear in place. A soft voice murmured something from behind him and the sounds of shifting bed sheets had to be stifled by the heavy door. The hero smiled with genuine pleasure and made for the staircase, his footfalls heavy but steady; he was neither quiet nor overly loud, but he was accustomed to living in castles of stone, where a hard footfall may be but a whisper of sound a few feet away.

The metal of his armor made little noise as he descended, taking in the room easily from his higher standpoint. His ally was nowhere to be seen, but that could be easily ignored. The man had known nothing the day before ... at least, nothing about what was important. A puppet is only as strong as the puppet master, and the puppet master for this ‘Wishmaster' was not likely to give his secrets out to the enemies of his toy.

Honestly, the hero had found himself wondering what connection this Atlantean had to such a man as the one he had been sent to examine. It was definite that this was a man. In the meager amount of time he had been able to spend in the company of the spell-throwing, wish-granting slug had revealed to him that much. Either he was human or he had been human sometime in the past. He resembled mortals in his manner and his appearance, to be sure, but it was the way he used magic that was the most obviously mortal—a god or a genie would have killed Lucien in a moment, as a passing thought, and given no care to any possible fallout.

Cold air brushed his tanned face as he stepped out into the morning air. It was pleasant to be in such high mountains. They reminded him, dimly, of the more lovely areas he had visited in his tours of the otherworldly realms. He had trained rigorously to become what he was, to enjoy what he did, and it was no coincidence that he was a great warrior. His eyes narrowed on the high places of the mountain.

Magicians could die just as easily as anyone else.

That was something he had learned from one of the senior instructors at his gladiator school, and he found that it applied more in the service to his mistress than it ever had in the sand and dirt of the desert arenas. Blood from a dozen or more wizards had been spilled by his sword and spear, and he had experienced no greater hardship in parting their heads than he had in killing to please a crowd. They were only flesh and bone, after all, and both were relatively weak. The spear in his hand trembled as the adrenaline began to flow into his veins. This would be an interesting fight.

If his ally ever showed up.

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[Graphics by Me.]

[The signature links to Aleksandr Sokoll.]
["I believe in sleeping." ~ Bruce Lee]