Chapter 235: The Eight Stars

By the third week, Encrid could walk the length of the garden and back without stopping.

He did it every morning, moving slowly with one hand against the wall for support. Twelve steps from the door to the plum tree. Thirty more to the far corner. Then twenty-two steps back along the hedge.

He counted every step.

The Sage usually sat on a stone bench nearby, sorting herbs into piles on a cloth spread across his knees.

On the nineteenth day, Encrid completed his third round and sat down at the other end of the bench.

Without looking up, the old man spoke.

"You favor your left leg."

"My right one hurts."

"I know it hurts. I’m the one who stitched it." He picked up a leaf, smelled it, and placed it in the smallest pile. "If you keep putting more weight on your left leg, your right leg won’t heal properly. Walk evenly. It’ll hurt more at first, but the pain will eventually stop."

"Yes."

The Sage glanced at him, looking slightly surprised that he hadn’t argued.

"Can I ask you something?" Encrid said.

"You’re going to ask anyway."

"You don’t like being called the Divine Sage."

"No."

"Why?"

The old man sighed and put down the leaf. Then he looked across the garden.

"Do you know where the title comes from? The Eight Stars of Astralis?"

"Not really."

"It started as an imperial title. An early emperor wanted to identify the eight most dangerous people in his Empire. He wanted to know whom he should reward and whom he should keep an eye on."

The Sage snorted.

"Then people started using the title as an honor. Eventually, the rest of the continent adopted it because inventing their own titles was apparently too much work."

"And now?"

"Now, it’s eight names that people argue about in taverns. Foreign kings resent the title, and half the people on the list never wanted it in the first place."

He picked up another leaf.

"I worked as a healer for forty years before anyone put my name on that list. I was the same healer afterward. The only difference was that people stopped arguing with me about my fees."

Encrid almost laughed, but the movement hurt his ribs.

"Who else is on the list?" he asked. "I mean, who are the other Seven Stars now?"

The Sage gave him a long, sideways look.

"Why do you want to know?"

"Because I nearly died fighting things I didn’t even know existed," Encrid replied. "I’d prefer not to let that happen again."

It was an honest answer, though not the complete truth.

The old man seemed to realize that, but he didn’t press the matter.

"Very well."

He raised one stained finger.

"First, me. You’ve already met me, unfortunately."

He raised a second.

"Then there’s the old fool who dropped a hill on your bridge. He’s been on the list longer than I have, and he never misses an opportunity to remind me of it."

A third finger followed.

"The Sword Saint. He is the empire’s hound, or should we call him a Lion? He goes wherever something threatens the empire. He is one absurdly strong monster. Fortunately for us, there hasn’t been much to interest him lately."

Then came the fourth.

"The elves have a child living in the Great Green who isn’t really a child anymore. They call him the Yggdrisal’s son."

The Sage paused before raising his fifth finger.

"And in the east, the Varkhal keep a beastman imprisoned in chains. A tiger-kin. They call him the Chained King, and they’re very proud of having him."

His expression hardened.

"They put a collar on one of the strongest beings on the continent and send him into battle like a dog."

He lowered his hand.

"As for the remaining three, you’ll hear about them when they want you to. Some people prefer not to be counted among the Eight Stars."

The sage did not say the three names, but Encrid knew who they were.

The Grand Puppeteer, The Necromancer King, and the Apostle of Amboss.

Those were the current eight stars of the Astralis, those who would eventually be replaced by the young talents that would one day surpass them.

But he wasn’t really thinking about the five names the Sage had given him.

He already knew those names.

Instead, he was thinking about the people who would eventually join their ranks.

He had read The Last Age of Radiance from the beginning. He knew who would become important over the next ten years.

There was a boy at the Gannon estate who carried a sword far too large for him. His name was Arthur, and he would one day become the next Sword Saint.

There was a mercenary with a burned hand who had gripped Encrid’s hand at the end of the Span and told him to come back alive.

Rael.

The novel called him the Mercenary King.

Then there was a red-haired girl working in the kitchens of the Western Tower. She could read the ancient spoken language of magic, a language even her teachers had forgotten how to pronounce.

She was the Grand Magus’s future heir, or at least that is what he intended to make her.

And deep within the Great Green, near the roots of the World Tree, there was an elf who would one day be known as Yggdrasil’s Shadow.

Some of these people were already connected to Encrid’s life. Others were still strangers.

But every one of them would become more important than he was.

That was how the story worked.

For two years, he had struggled to reach ten percent by staying close to the original story. He had believed that following the plot would help him grow stronger.

Now, he understood something else.

The story would gather around these people like water collecting in the lowest ground. If he could make them his friends, his allies, and his people, then the story would eventually have to gather around him, too.

It was a cold way to think.

He knew that.

But he thought about it anyway.

? ? ?

"You’re making a list," the Sage said.

Encrid looked up.

The old man hadn’t stopped sorting his herbs, but his sharp, pale eyes were fixed on Encrid.

"You have the look of someone counting things," he continued. "I’ve seen it on quartermasters, gamblers, and generals. What are you counting?"

Encrid considered lying.

Then he remembered that this man had spent weeks treating his wounds, working with his hands inside Encrid’s injured body.

There was little point in hiding the truth.

"People," he answered. "People I’m going to need."

"What for?"

"I don’t know yet. Something bad is coming. I’d rather have the right people beside me before it happens than try to find them afterward."

The Sage nodded slowly, showing no particular surprise.

"And am I on your list?"

Encrid didn’t answer immediately.

He remembered what the novel had said about the Divine Sage.

The old man would die in the later half of the novel, in a city in the south, while trying to stop a plague. He would remain inside the infected district for eleven days, treating people with his own hands.

He would save thousands of lives.

But he would not save himself.

"Yes," Encrid planned to change that.

"Hm."

The Sage tied the smallest pile of herbs together with a piece of string.

"Then let me give you my answer now, so you can stop wasting your time thinking about it. I’m a healer. I treat whoever comes before me. I don’t belong on anyone’s list, and I don’t belong to anyone’s war."

He stood up.

"And I’m far too old for any of this."

"I understand."

"No, you don’t."

The Sage brushed the dust from his knees and tucked the bundle of herbs into his coat.

"But you will. Ask me again once you’ve stopped bleeding. I’ll give you the same answer then."

He turned and walked back toward the house without looking behind him.

Encrid watched him leave.

He didn’t argue.

He had already decided that he would ask again. And again after that, for as long as it took.

The novel had given the old man until its later half..

Encrid had until then to change his mind.

? ? ?