This time his first order of business, even before he built a pce to stay was to establish an alias. Though the Oracle had mentio casually, there were indeed a lot of Simons in the world tely, and all of them were him, at some point in time. Right now, there was an herbalist in Ionar named Simon, and the st thing he wanted someoo do was make that association.

  So, he went around the vilge, introdug himself as Ennis instead. It was only ohat was dohat he started the hard work of getting a roof over his head and a bed underh him. That took a few days and started out as a lean-too. Once he’d made it clear he was setting up shop, he went into the city to the lower market, which the past version of himself used, and he bought the mule he’d been craving, along with a few tools he was missing and a stout axe.

  The axe was for timbers, which he would need if he wao build something that resembled an actual shop again instead of just a fe. He made two trips into the mountains for two-inch thick pihat were the right size. Simon chose the straightest ones he could find. Then, he delimbed and debarked them before he brought them back to tinue his progress.

  After that, his trips into the mountains were for somethiirely different: coal. He’d discovered several small seams of the stuff on his previous explorations in the area, and it wasn’t hard to find one of them again.

  The people of Ionia rgely seemed to frown ouff for reasons that were as much reted to the smell and to superstitions about how rocks shouldn’t burn, but Simon didn’t care about that. He just khat hauling a ton of coal would get him a lot more bang for his buck than a ton of waterlogged driftwood, and he was all in favor of that.

  It took months to set things up to a level where he was happy with them. Even then, it still wasn't as nice as his long-lost , but that was fine. He was in no hurry, and the ers in this out-of-the-ce were few and far between. Sometimes, he might mend a or shoe a horse, but mostly, his days were his own to do whatever he wanted with, and he spent much of that time sketg, though occasionally, after everyoo bed, he would do some magical experimentation.

  Most of his art projects involved charcoal and a whitewashed wall that he would scrub after each attempt as he erased the face he had worked so hard to create. Paper was expensive, after all. The experience hemeral, but then, that was the point. He wasn’t trying to paint something that would hang in a gallery. He was trying to replicate the tiures and imperfes that made someone seem like a real person rather than a pstic surgery victim or a cartoon character.

  That was the only way he’d ever be able to use magic to disguise himself, and that was an ability he badly wanted. As much as part of him liked the idea of every city he saved having a different statue of him, he was fairly sure that people like the Unspoken would put that together eventually, plig future levels.

  “I’ll also if I want to go for a seamless transitioween old me and new me,” he said aloud as he sketched. “Though, I’m not sure that’s the best approach.”

  Up until now, he’d beey ho with Elthena, and he wasn’t sure he could bring himself to lie to her like that, pretending that the old Simon had just slipped through her grip and e right back to the pace. He didn’t even have teleportation magic yet. He was w on it, though.

  He’d tried two experiments with words of distance. In one case, he’d used Dnarth Celdura, and iher, he’d used Dnarth Zyvon. But her had gone as intended. In the former case, the rock he’d tried to teleport from one spot on the beach to another a few feet away had seehing disappear, o return, and iher, the thing had simply exploded, pierg his arm with shrapnel in several pces.

  He po do more experiments on the subject, but those would have to wait for inspiration to strike. There were always other projects he could work on.

  Ohat he had given a lot of thought to but not actually do was to try using his least favorite word in a slightly more positive way. Zyvon was dangerous, but more than that, it was addictive. Simon was hopeful that if he eled a lesser word of trahrough something else, though, like a bde, it might mute those effects. If he wao live a long life that involved any magic at all, then he was going to have to find a way to baween the amount of energy he harvested and the amount of energy he burned.

  Still, something stopped him there, and the only move he made toward it was to get better at making bdes sihat was never a strong point of his. Even after years in the dark fes of the unspoken, he was always better at getting the runiscriptions on the finished ons than he was at making them.

  Still, as his reputation grew, he started to get more ers, and people visited him rather than making the trip all the way down the coast to the city. It was about that time that the volo finally erupted.

  Simon had hoped to learn to teleport before that happened so that he could go watch himself battle the va beast, but that was not to be. Instead, he stood on the sand with everyone else while they wondered what was going to happen. Some argued that they should flee immediately. That they should take their fishing boats a as far aossible.

  Normally, Simon would have agreed with such sensible advice, but this time, he stayed where he was and told everyone, “It’s likely just a small eruption. It will be no more than that. You’ll see.”

  From where they were, that was all it looked like, but Simon’s memories helped him remember more than anyone else could make out. He saw the va spill over the near side of the rim to save the town, and after that, he saw a slow tendril of it rise up that he knew must have been that awful va titan, even if it didn’t look like anything from here.

  Still, he knew. Even while everyone else talked and pointed excitedly, he remembered what it was like to make that long fall to the ground. It was worse thahought it would be, and truthfully, it was more than a little traumatic to relive all that. He kept thinking about the evil version of himself he’d entered, and the fight that had left him basically crippled. Both of them were impossible images to get out of his mind. After the eruption fizzled out half an hour ter, he went and got drunk for the first time in a long time on the cheap white wihat was so on in the region.

  The following day, after he’d used a lesser word of cure to eliminate his hangover, he finally annouhat he would take on an apprehis was something that he’d been asked about more than once during the st few months, but it was always something that he pushed away because he had no need for ara set of hands.

  Now, though, he had a need. He was on a timer. A few years from now, he would leave this vilge, and he decided that it would be wrong to leave them empty-handed. Fortunately, there was no she of applits. Almost every boy in Olven’s Narrows wao do something besides be a fisherman.

  He gave each of them a brief interview, both to find out what they knew and why they wao do this work. Most answered with some version of “I want to learn a skill so that I leave this tiny nowhere pd go somewhere important like Ionar.”

  All of those boys ruled themselves out immediately, without knowing it, but even after that, there were still a few tenders. Simoually went with a boy named Niko, who was a good choice both because of his powerful build and because he wao learn a skill so that he could provide for his widowed mother. Both of those were excellent reasons to take the time to teach him how hot the fires o be and the skills he’d o be successful. Truthfully, he probably didn’t have enough time to teach the kid everything he o know. In three to five years, he po move to the city to be ready for his eventual exile, but that would still be enough to give the kid the basibsp;

  He also added swordpy to the kid’s curriculum, just because, it was always a good skill to have. This close to Ionar, there was never likely to be any trouble, but even so, the strong o protect the weak, and he had no doubt that a few years swinging a hammer would turn Niko into the stro young man for miles around.

  Most of the time, he helped Simon with other smaller things, like going into the upper hills of the Raiden Mountains to fetch more coal. Other times, when Simon didn’t have a job for the boy to watch or help with, he would send him off to fish for their supper while he sketched or pnned.

  The most wele part of this life so far was that he’d entirely gotten over his aversion to seafood. It had been so long since he’d had it that he’d actually missed it, and once he got his hands on salt and citrus fruits, he was able to make some amazing things in his tiny, barely funal kit.

  It was at diime that Niko would ask him the most questions. Those started off with questions about Bcksmithing but usually ended up with some story about one of Simon's adventures or some physical principle that was rgely unknown to even the educated of this world. He taught the boy bits about herbalism, aually, he even taught him to read, though Niko showed zero i in it.

  “Why should I read a book when I just ask you?” he ughed. “You know everything, and I don’t even know how you do it!”

  “There’s lots of things I have yet to learn and some things I have already fotten,” Simon admitted. “No one know everything. I don’t know how to mend a or fish with one. I don’t know how to build with stone or even how to paint.”

  “Your drawings are very good,” the boy insisted. “You could paint if you wao. I think you just like drawing in the soot too much.”

  That at least made Simon smile. He’d grown to love the ease of his medium. Though he would have preferred to use paper, the way he could blend charcoal together really had bee a form of painting to him. That was what allowed him to get past the lines he’d been hung up on for so long and into the shapes and values of images.

  He hadn’t yet tried to remake his fa disguise, but he po when he left the city, though he hoped to find a leaper or a cripple to practi first. It would be a fair trade. He’d find someoo fix, and in the process, he would be sure he wasn’t about to turn himself into a hideous freak. Everyone would win.