Simo Liepzen the day after a little shopping to replenish his supplies and buy some good saddlebags to carry them in. By the time he left town and was riding toward Sny, he was almost two full weeks ahead of schedule pared to his st trip.

  That was good, but it was overshadowed by the bad hat he had no idea whether his little amateur theater produ had been successful. There was simply no way to say what that spoiled brat would do. Simon could only brood about it as he sat in the saddle and tried to imagihe sequences. He’d know in a month or two. He always did, but until then, there was no way to know if he’d made things worse or better.

  When he reached the seat of Lord Corwin’s barony, he stayed at the inn as he usually did and spent the couple of days buying men drinks and boasting about his exploits until he caught the attention of the Baron just as he’d dohe first time. It was funny to Simon because the st time he’d been in this situation, he’d been trying to avoid gaining too much attention, and this time, he’d been actively seeking it out, but it hadn’t seemed to move the needle much. It was enough to make him wonder just how much causality really mattered and how mue things were up to fate.

  He told some of the same stories as st time, though he toned out the ohat they’d found unbelievable before and focused on his merary wainst the goblins and the taurs. That was enough to get him io the Baron’s study, where the iion of the silver mines was expined while he patiently pretended not to know any of that, and he was ie them.

  Somehow, this moment had seemed more iing the first time Simon had lived it, but then, in his mind, it had been one of the first times that a total stranger had sidered him a hero. Now, he’d had so many of these versations that it was just another job.

  Well, not just any other job. It was one of the most important escort quests the Pit had to offer as far as he was ed, and he wasn’t going to fuck that up.

  In fact, this time, he was harder or than before. As ungainly as Simon was at his curre, at least he could still move in his leather armor, but he made his young appreruggle and squirm in his pte mail until even he agreed that it wasn’t suitable for the mines.

  “Fihe young Vist told him as Simon helped the young man switch his armor out for the leathers of one of the guards. “But if I’m not wearing my pte mail, I don’t see why I should wear anything at all.”

  Simon smiled at that. He uood that mi far too fell at this point. But he didn’t lecture the boy. Instead, he simply said, “The mouth of a goblin is a dirty pce. What wounds they leave usually get ied. Better they get a mouth of cow leather instead, just in case.”

  Not that they’d be going into there, of course. That was just asking for trouble, and Simon smoked them out the same way he did before. They spent the better part of an hour stag dry and green wood in the mouth of the cave, and then they lit it.

  “So, do we just wait for the goblins to e out then?” Gregor asked, stepping back away from the fmes as they grew smokier.

  “We’d be waiting a long time, I think,” Simon said, looking at the bze they’d created. “You see how the smoke goes into the mihat means there’s airflow from the vent shafts.”

  “Well, of course, there is,” the boy shrugged. “How else would the miners breathe.”

  “Breathing is good,” Simon answered, “But do you think anything might be able to climb down those shafts and make a nie?”

  Slowly, Gregor ected the dots, and Simon took his time, letting him guide them from vent hole to vent hole with nothing but his sense of smell and a little prodding.

  When they reached the st one, Gregor asked, “Well, still no goblins. What now?”

  “Well, we keep looking for smoke until we find them, I expect,” Simon shrugged. “I think I smell more from this way.”

  He didn’t, of course. He just knew where the real was, and a few mier, they were fighting them by the river. Only this time, Simon didn’t charge i Gregor do that, pying more of a role in the fight than he did the first time.

  Last time, Simon had been worried about how to keep the young man safe, but this time, he had both a much better uanding of the d’s talent with a sword and a lot more experieh a bow. With a few arrows, pig off a runner or killing one of the mohat was sneaking up or was the easiest thing in the world.

  By the end of it, they’d killed eight, and ohe two of them had finished filling a sack with goblin heads, Simon showed him the warren that they’d e out of. He hadn’t known about this the first time until days ter, but he thought it would suitably impress the kid to point out the dozens of corpses that y just inside where they’d suffocated.

  “Wow…” Gregor excimed, not sure what else to see.

  At dinner with his father that night, that was the point that young Gregor repeated the most. “If we’d just charged in, then we would have been outnumbered twenty to one, but thanks to Sir Jackoby’s experience, we only had to fight a few.”

  Simohe young man boast on his behalf and simply ehe moment. If getting assighis escort quest had felt more mediocre than before, then seeing it end so well felt amazing. Of course, his father, Gregor Corwin the Sed, was thrilled by all of this and offered Simon a far purse of silver and promises of keeping him oainer.

  Unlike his time spent with Lord Raithewait, Simon already khat this time would be spent mostly just making himself avaible to spar with his sons and tell stories every week or so sses of wine, so it was easy to agree to. Mostly, though, Simon worried about when the news of the King’s death would arrive in Sny.

  By now, it was something that had happened. It always happened, of course. The only question was how long it would take the o travel and what sequehere would be as the world learned of it.

  It wasn’t until the following week when a traveling tinker let the tavern know that the King was dead. “I’ll tell ya true, from a man that heard it in the capital for hisself. Our old King, Gods rest his soul, has passed, and his son has bent the ko his father’s brother, the Duke of the North, Lord Brin himself will stand as regent until the time es for the young Prio asd to the throne.”

  Despite the fact that it was teically sad news, the people still celebrated that night. The day, the Baron held a somber ceremony and theo the capital with his son, leaving Simon behind to guard the rest of his family while he paid his respects and swore allegiao the Prind his Regeant.

  That worried Simon, of course, but he wasn’t about to demand to go. It robably fihe way it was, after all. To him, the news finally allowed him to exhale a breath that he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding until now, and he rexed, splitting his time between teag Gregor’s younger brother how to better use a shield and doting some of his theories on magical symbols in a bnk journal he’d purchased in the capital.

  He didn’t have any particur insights beyond some of the symbols that sometimes haunted his dreams, but he was hopeful that when he left this level a deeper, he could get another look at the Golem master’s grimoire and try to draw some more iing clusions.

  Still, he remembered the sigils he’d used to inscribe his fming sword well enough, audied those. The only part he didn’t draw was the symbol he’d used to bind the circuit to himself with blood, turning himself into a spiritual battery. That symbol felt a little dangerous, given how quickly it had reduced him to an old man st time.

  Simon also po draw the symbols in the church this time, too. That level seemed easily solvable if he just put in a little work. It was just dangerous as hell. “It’s like one of those movies where you don’t know if you should cut the red wire or the blue wire,” he told himself as he sketched. “A chalk mark here and you opees of hell wide, but a chalk mark there, and you sm them shut, or is it the other way around?”

  Everyourned from the capital a few weeks ter, safe and sound, which was cause for yet another party. Simon had been pnning on leaving shortly after that, but the longer he stayed, the harder that became. He was happy here. Happier than he’d been in… well, since her, and it was hard to let that go.

  So he stuck around as spring turned into summer and summer turned into fall. He tio sketch his runes and try to uand the linkages and the retionships. Ohing he learned in time was that even though he didn’t remember all of the runes from the book, pying with them enough would make the symbols e to him sometimes. It was like just uanding the sound was glimpsing ser reality or meaning.

  Usually, that required a mixture of intense focus and at least a little drinking like he was some kind of two-bit cirvoyant, and the longer he spent in the service to the Corwins, the less ied he was in doing anything but just living.

  He helped bring the harvest in that year and even started to learn the basics of brewing from the innkeeper because he’d expressed an i one day over dihat was a different and altogether more iing alchemy. Haranah, the barmaid, had even dropped a few hints. She retty strawberry blonde, but of course, he wasn’t ready for that sort of thing. Simon just focused on iing himself into the unity, learnihings, and helping those around him for months.

  In time, they stopped bringing up Simon’s strange name or his fn at. Truthfully, he was about the happiest he’d ever been the day the rider from the Earl came through towing them know that the Prince had died under mysterious circumstances and the regent as g the throne for himself. Simon’s heart sank like a sto the crowded table, even as those around him began to whip themselves up into a frenzy.

  Not only did this mean that the war he’d worked so hard to avert was almost certainly ba now. It meant that Simon had sent that spoiled kid to his death with his stupid prophecy. The King was definitely going to have to die on fug principle now.