Garnog sat on the wooden chair silently, his hands folded calmly on his lap. The high priest was very busy today, and Garnog wondered if he would get the charms he had come for. He had been waiting on the chair for several hours, watching people file in and out of the high priest Tartakus' ready room endlessly. Though he was becoming extremely agitated, there was nothing he could do - Tartakus was the only man in the Grieving Forest that distributed the precious charms that allowed men to make magic. Garnog, a mage with only an unimportant municipal title and very little money, could not simply march in and demand the charms. He had to wait. His brother had taught him that.

There were others like him, sitting, waiting. A man sitting across from his wearing a poorly kept tunic and a rusty mace had been there since Garnog arrived. Another man with a long gray beard had gotten up more than a few times to pester the clerk who determined the order that people were seen. From what his brother had told him, it was best to just wait, and look a little perturbed. If one even attempted communication with the clerk, it usually guaranteed them a spot at the end of the list. When one attained even the lowliest of titles, then one could speak to the clerk - and even bribe him to hasten the whole process.

"Garnog, you may now see Tartakus. Approach the desk, please." Garnog quickly rose and walked nonchalantly up to the clerk. "Enter," the clerk said, motioning to the door behind the desk. Garnog quickly but soberly, walking under the great arched doorway and into the ready room.

The ready room was vast, and it dwarfed everyone who walked in the room. A great podium sat in the center of the room, behind which the high priest sat. Even the greatest lords in the Grieving Forest must have felt small while standing in the room before the high priest. Garnog looked up at Tartakus, dressed in his rich robes and jewelry. A hood over his head left a shadow over his face; though magical lights made the room very bright, not a single feature of his face could be discerned. The two aids on either side of him wore similar hoods, and they too were faceless.

"What is it you wish, Garnog?" the high priest spoke to him in an old, scratchy voice.

Garnog cleared his throat, and began to recite the phrases that his brother made him memorize. "I wish to purchase twenty Aknhite charms and ten Viscose charms. I will use them only in the defense of my village, and swear they will be used in good faith." Ankhite was a charm that was commonly used to create relatively weak weapons, and the high priest would want to know what the charms would be used for. Other charms could be used to destroy entire towns, and lengthly justifications would have to be given in order to obtain them. The Viscose was used for healing the sick, and it required no justification.

"Your purpose is honorable, and I will grant you the charms you desire for three lengths." Though Tartakus had undoubtedly been saying basically the same sort of thing all day, it didn't detract at all from the nobility of his words. The aids came forth. The one to his right accepted the three lengths, and the one to the left presented him with a cloth satchel containing the charms he had bought.

Garnog bowed his head, as was customary, and waited for the aids to return to their posts. After that, Garnog left the room and left the high priest's audience building. Once again, he was on the streets of Vorn's Charm, the largest town in the entire forest.

Vorn's Charm was a great city built within a forest - buildings crawled up the trunks of enormous trees, and the countless bridges and ropes joining all of them branch-to-branch looked like the webbing of a giant spider. The audience building was bored out of one of the trees near the high lord's abode in the center of the city, where everyone could get to it easily. There was a small inn a few streets away, where Garnog had been staying. Waiting for his audience with Tartakus had exhausted the entire day, so he would have to sleep before he set off for his village - his home.

Garnog's room was located on a smaller branch. The room was a small wooden shack built upon one of the tree's limbs, with nothing but a leather tarp covering the doorway. Because it was on a smaller branch, it was closer to the trunk of the tree upon which the inn had been built - rooms closer to the trunk were less likely to fall prey to the night robbers who ran rampant through town after dark. Garnog ascended the wooden ladder built into the tree trunk, and found his room just as he had left it - dull and uninteresting.

Sitting on the cot in the corner of the small room, he began taking off his boots. Outside, the people of Vorn's Charm were beginning to light fires and drink cider in the vast gardens between the trees. Every night was a virtual festival, with incredibly large gatherings of all sorts of people. Garnog had been in the city for almost three days, but he had only heard the people shouting and singing from below. The first day he had gotten a room and immediately rested after his journey. The second day one of the dregs had taken his sheet purse, where he kept his money, and he'd spent the entire day chasing him through the streets and questioning people until he finally got it back just before darkness fell. The third day, of course, had been spent in the audience building of the high priest.

Untying his belt and taking off his undecorated sash, Garnog fell asleep to the increasingly loud sound of the parties and celebrations that echoed up through the interlaced network of trees and buildings.

"I will give you five spots if you permit me to ride atop your cart to Greenright. I am a mage, and I have charms - I could protect you if any dregs assailed you." Garnog found himself trying to convince a merchant to help him get back home a little faster. He had a cart and two horses, which would speed up Garnog's journey.

The shrieks and drunken wailings of the night before had been replaced by the clatter of hooves and the rumble of carts moving through Vorn's Charm. Garnog could scarcely hear what the merchant was saying. "I_________seven spots_____a deal." Garnog nodded his head absent-mindedly, and watched the river and people and carts and horses next to him.

After purchasing enough smoked meat to keep him content on the way back to Greenright, Garnog climbed atop the pile of crates on the back of the cart. The merchant whipped the horses, and they were off - the cart was swept into the flow of commerce, and whisked out of the city in a matter of minutes.

The road was bumpy, and Garnog found himself tossed around, sometimes nearly falling from the cart. He bit his tongue several times trying to take bits of smoked meat, but it was a lot better than when he had traveled from his village to Vorn's Charm. He would be back in just over a day, saving two days of sore legs and walking.

It was his first trip to Vorn's Charm - his brother Golag had made the trip several times. Golag had been mentored in the forest city, and taught about the charms and their magical properties. In turn, he had passed the knowledge off to Garnog before he left the village and passed the protectorship to his younger brother. Golag had sought further training, and had gone far to the south, all the way out of the Grieving Forest. No one from the village was sure they would see him again, but they all revelled in fantastic stories about Golag - his father spoke of the future, when Golag would return a powerful mage, and perhaps become the new high priest in Vorn's Charm.

Garnog had to buy the charms for his village. He was the only mage in the town, but his mother knew a few healing spells. Though lying to the high priest to get charms was a very common, Garnog had told the truth - the charms would be used to defend his village. Often times, raiders would attempt to sack the village, and take all the wealth. Greenright was not a particularly wealthy place, but it was wealthy enough to attract a fair amount of dregs and raiders. Uncle Rilago had defended the town long ago, and Golag had taken over after him. And now that duty fell on Garnog.

The day went very quickly, and night fell. The merchant, who was called Trium, eventually stopped the cart by the side of the road and began to make a fire under the tall trees of the Grieving Forest. Garnog sat by the fire, and pulled out his charms - he had never had so many before. Twenty Ankhites. Ankhites were blue disks with a small pebble-like protuberance in the center of them. Ten Viscose charms. Viscoses came in many colors, looked like flowers, had six petals, and were very fragile. All charms had a certain shine to them - a sparkly corona that could only be seen on certain magically inclined items.

It was said that there was a finite amount of magical energy in the world - the charms were focus points of this energy, focused by powerful wizards and priests like Tartakus. When the magic was released from the charm by one so trained, it was added to a mystical pool of energy to be focused again in another charm. Garnog could only release the energy from the Ankhite charms, but his brother, on the other hand, had been taught to release magic from a great many charms: Terome, Babsta, and Lerniak. When a person had mastered releasing magic from many, many charms, then that person could learn to produce charms himself. A lifetime had to be dedicated to the art, however, and very few people attained this level of expertise.

"So, my friend, you are a mage, are you not?" the merchant spoke to him from across the fire. He spoke like most merchants, a voice that seemed to carry promises and trust.

"I am," Garnog answered, putting the charm away and pulling out some smoked meat. "I am the fifty-second protectorate of Greenright. I came to Vorn's to purchase charms for the defense of my village. What is your business in Greenright?"

"I hope to sell or trade the tools in my cart. They are items not commonly found outside the city, and I believe they could be useful in your village. Does your village have a smith?"

"We did long ago, but the family died out. We have been without one for quite some time. Guilded goods would sell well where I come from. Where else are you going with your cart?"

Trium pulled out a small leather bag, and dumped a small pile of dried leaves into his hand-fashioned wooden pipe. He was a lucid smoker. "I want to go further through the Grieving Forest until I reach the End. There are some people there who wish some of my items."

Garnog waved his hand in front of his face as the smoke crossed over the fire - no one in his village smoked and he was not used to smelling it. "There's nothing but dregs at the End," Garnog said to the man as he put the pipe to his lips.

Smoke billowed from his mouth and whirled around his head until a small gust of wind blew it in Garnog's face again. "It is much better coming from the pipe, I promise you. My uncle's clan lives near the end, and I intend to trade with him. The dregs will give me no trouble. Here," Trium said, offering the small pipe to Garnog.

Garnog took the pipe, and looked at it. It was carved in the shape of a slug, the head holding the burning leaves and the body tapering into a stem upon which one sucked the smoke through. He'd never held a pipe before, being only seventeen on his first journey out of the village. "Why not?" Garnog said softly, mostly to himself. He put the pipe to his lips, and sucked in lightly. The sweet smoke entered his mouth, and went down inside him.

"Yomag's feces!" he choked, coughing violently and almost dropping the small pipe. White smoke shot out of him with each gasp. Garnog calmed himself, and lifted the pipe to his lips again. The second inhalation was not nearly as traumatic - it was almost pleasurable. He blew out the white cloud, and handed the pipe back to its owner.

He fell back on the ground, with his legs still crossed. Looking up into the sky, Garnog felt pretty dizzy. The small merchant began droning on about something, but Garnog found it impossible to pay any attention to him. He just looked at the sky, at the stars. They seemed to swirl around in circles - Garnog was feeling very dizzy. He couldn't stop thinking about the stars. His mind was racing with a dizzy, drunken rhythm, but the stars were always there in his thoughts. And then he started thinking about the End.

It was known that the End was where the great Surveyor had completed his journey across the land. The Surveyor had started at the Beginning, which was in the opposite direction of the End. He began his journey as a young child, and walked the entire length of existence until he reached the End. He left a text for people to read and study, which described his journey in great detail. The Log was a text which most of humanity was familiar with - one particular line in the text - the last line - was on Garnog's mind: "And to the End came I, and the end it was. The end of my journey, the end of my life."

His brother Golag had repeated that line all the time - it was his little mantra. Golag had always complained about living next to the End, the vast gray emptiness that looked over the Grieving Forest like a tidal wave, impending doom. He fantasized about trekking back to the Beginning, to the village of Ir where the Surveyor had been born. But most of all, Golag had wanted to make a difference in the world and leave a piece of himself - he didn't want to simply be known as the fifty-first protectorate of the village of Greenright. At night, in their room, Golag said these things to his brother Garnog as he tried to sleep. "The end of my life won't come before the end of my journey. I've got to get out of here..."

There were no new protectorates who were aptly trained. His younger brother had drowned in a stream several years ago, and there were no other acceptable candidates. It was assumed among the people of Greenright that he would become one of the great, tenured protectorates. Garnog lacked his brother's flightiness, and was quite grounded. Garnog was the perfect man for the job, and he could not persuade himself otherwise. But he suddenly found himself thinking of those damned words his brother would chirp in his ear... "And to the End came I, and the end it was." Laying on the earth, the same earth he had layed upon his entire life, Garnog felt that he was already at the end of his journey.

The dizziness was starting to fade, and Garnog opened his eyes. "Knocks you right out the first time. Just as well, I hope to get an early start tomorrow. Goodnight, lad, I'll wake you when it's time to go." The merchant started filling a sack full of the spongy grass that grew at the base of the tall trees, and eventually layed down on it and went to sleep. Garnog didn't have enough energy to do more than roll over and grunt.

Greenright came into view a few hours after the merchant had hitched up the cart. Built in a small clearing within the forest, you could tell you were approaching it because the sky came into view. Only in a vast clearing could the tops of the trees be seen; and, consequently, only in a vast clearing could the sky be seen clearly. It was one of the few villages in the entire Grieving Forest that was built in a clearing - there were very few clearings. The trees were far too large to fell, and there really was no need to fell them anyway - the smallest branches could provide enough wood for burning and building.

The road continued on toward the End, and became rather perilous. Only armed traders and politicals traveled it past Greenright, and they were rather rare. Dregs of all sorts inhabited the forests near the End, and they didn't present much of a problem to most people if they didn't travel the road past Greenright. A small path just wide enough for Trium's cart led off to the right, towards the clearing where the small village was settled. As they slowly came to the edge of the clearing, where there was a small wooden booth built againt the trunk of the last tree. The booth was closed up, and red letters were painted on it.

"Young man, I fear something terrible has happened," Trium said to Garnog, who was half-asleep in the back of the cart. Garnog rose up and turned to face the front. He read the small make-shift sign written on the booth.

"Gamoy's wisdom," Garnog said sullenly to himself. The message explained that the village should be avoided, because it was stricken with a plague.

A plague had not visited the village of Greenright in quite some time - Garnog's uncle's grandfather had dealt with the last one. Three children and two elders had died before a charm was purchased from the high priest to send the plague away. Garnog instantly knew that he was needed - the village was depending upon him to rid them of the plague. He would have to venture back to Vorn's Charm and appeal to the high priest. But first he had to soothe those already infected. Purpose surged through Garnog, and the nonsensical futility he had felt a night before was gone.

"You should leave," Garnog warned the merchant as he gathered his things and climbed off the cart. Trium simply nodded, and began the arduous process of turning his cart around in the middle of the narrow path. "Thank you," Garnog said, pulling seven spots out of his satchel and handing them to Trium.

Garnog strode past the booth, and into the clearing. The town was empty of people. Even the center of town, and the well where everyone got their water was vacant. Walking carefully around the tower where the magistrate lived, Garnog wondered if he had arrived too late. Perhaps the plague was much worse than the one his village had suffered so many years ago - it had taken almost a week to kill those infected.

"Garnog!" a voice whispered loudly to him. Looking around, he saw no one. "Garnog!" the voice said again. It sounded familiar. Garnog spun around and examined the town. Finally he saw it - a face, peering meekly out of a doorway. It was the Toryo house, and the voice was that of Terris, a white-haired elder.

"Terris?" he said out loud, wondering about the discretion. "Where is the magistrate? Is my family all right? Is everyone dead already!?"

"You fool, you must be quiet! Come in here, quickly!" Terris said, holding the doorway to his small home open. Garnog obeyed, and slipped through the door. Terris shut it, and peered out through a small crack. "There is no plague, Garnog."

"What are you talking about?" It was dark inside the Toryo residence. Terris led him through another door and into a bedroom, sitting Garnog on a bed. He sat beside the protectorate.

"While you were away, a strange man came into the village. He spoke with a strange voice, and wore armor that glistened with magic. He said that he was the Surveyor, and he was returning to the Beginning. He said that he needed us to return there with him. The Log cleric questioned him, and found him to be quite ignorant of the text. A few of the older men tried to send him out of the village, but he would not go."

"Where is my father?" Garnog interrupted intently.

Terris pretended not to hear the question. "The false Surveyor could not be hurt and he possessed great magic. The older men were all killed. Griztet was among them, Garnog."

Garnog's face sank into his hands, and the pain gripped him tightly. But the pain was soon replaced by his purpose. He thought of the protectorate ceremony, when he received the sash he now wore. The entire village had filled the chamber in the magistrate's tower to see the ceremony. Golag passed the sash to his right, to Garnog. Garnog sewed his personal seal onto the sash, joining the fifty-one other seals. And then he slung it over his shoulder. The village people erupted in applause, pride in their new protector. Remembering that applause quickly dissipated the selfish pain over his father's death.

Terris waited for Garnog to hold his head high once again before he continued. "The false Surveyor then went to the magistrate's tower, and the Log cleric attempted to ward him away. The magistrate and the cleric were then killed," Terris explained. Tears dripped off his face into the darkness, but he proceeded. "All the villagers were taken into the tower. I was instructed to paint the sign and return to the tower. I hid here, because I knew the protector would return."

"I must rid the village of this false Surveyor. Tell me more about him, Terris, please..."

Garnog walked up to the tower. The wooden doors were closed. Gripping the doorknob, he turned it and found that it was unlocked. Slowly he opened it, and with each tiny noise it made, his heart beat a little faster. There was only darkness within - Terris had said that the villagers were in the cellar of the building and the sacriligious false Surveyor was on the top floor of the tower, in the magistrate's office.

It was pitch dark inside, but he knew the building well enough. Stepping stealthily through the chamber in which he had inherited his protectorate title, he reached the narrow staircase. Quietly, he ascended the stone steps, gripping the charms in both his hands tightly and reciting his activation phrases to himself. The staircase was just as dark as the main chamber, and all the windows had been covered with the leather shades. He rounded the first flight, and took a deep breath.

Pride swelled in him - Garnog truly did not care if he lived or died. The pressure was there, but it was not necessarily a pressure to succeed. He simply had to perform his duty - attempt to defend the town from this foreign invader. To protect the town. As he marched up the last few steps, he knew his brother would be proud. Golag had made his decision - he left the town. Garnog made his as he opened up the door to the magistrate's office.

The windows in the office were opened, and there was light in the room. A very tall man sat behind the desk, and there was a magical device shaped like a knotty branch on it that he was fiddling with. There was also a copy of the Log. He was wearing a dark helmet and dark armor on him, and his face could narrowly be seen. The metal must have been crafted my a master smith - it shined brilliantly and there were no imperfections on it. Even his hands were covered with the superior armor. As soon as the door opened, the false Surveyor stood up and grabbed something off a belt he wore. The stick he held was pointed right at Garnog.

"You have enslaved my village, and I have come here to liberate it." Garnog raised up his hands, still clutching his charms.

"Your people are heathens and refuse to accept me as the Surveyor. You too, clearly do not accept me for who I am. This is not acceptable. My return to the Beginning will not be thwarted by mere villagers." The voice of the armored man was like that of no man Garnog had ever heard - it as if he were speaking through a horn.

"The Surveyor would not take over a village of people who worshipped him. You are not the Surveyor!" Garnog spoke the last words loudly, with all the honor he could muster. "Free my people."

The man lowered the hand that held the stick, and Garnog thought he could make out a mildly sadistic grin from inside the helmet. "I will free them when I see fit to do so. They reject me as the Surveyor, and I will not let them impede my journey. Lower your hands and you will join them."

Suddenly, the room was silent. A moment passed, and Garnog decided to break the silence. "I am the protectorate! Qeuznzyde-plan-ituda-te-greznill-traphyda!" There was a brief burst of light, and small iron bolts flew from his hands as he activated all the charms at once. Two hit the armored man in his chest, and they fell to the floor feebly. Another hit him in the center of his helmet, and also deflected uselessly. Three more his just under his chin, but they also met with the impressive armor he wore.

"You cannot hurt the Surveyor."

His hand rose once again, and light came from the stick he held. It shone on his shoulder, and he could immediately feel it. It felt like a small pinprick. An instant later, he tried to recite another activation cant, but he could not speak. The light had cut like the sharpest of blades, knicking his shoulder, and then severing his head completely. It happened so fast, he didn't even feel it. The words his brother had whispered to him long ago echoed through his mind as he realized he was defeated: "And to the end came I, and the end it was."