“Fifty goats, thirty sheep, twenty-four bears, twelve dogs, ten owls, six rats, and three human prisoners died for this achievement.” 

“It’s ready?” The King of Basaland asks his senior strategist and premier mentalist, First Practitioner.

“I am ready.”

“When do we deploy?” The King asks.

“That’s exactly it. You won’t need to deploy soldiers ever again.”

“Show me one more time, so I can fully understand.” The King stares down at his vassal, over a large, tidy mustache.

Stepping up to the war table between the King and himself, First Practitioner empties the contents of a velvet pouch onto the treated wood. Three marble-size, rough crystals tumble out; yellow-green and shimmering unnaturally against the orange torchlight of the command tent.

“Orem?” questions the King in a quieter voice.

 A nod, then First Practitioner’s chant begins. His eyes close. A gust of wind carrying a wave of warmth enters the tent, blowing past the stoic knights at each entrance, ruffling the King's dusk blue raiment and Practitioner’s shaggy, gray robes. For a time, they are like a pair of stubborn trees holding defiant against the sudden gale. The wind fades as a dagger materializes from unoccupied air; short, sharp, and ornate, into the once empty palm of First Practitioner.

With his hand raised above the war table, within easy view of the King, he explains. 

“I summoned this dagger from a locked chest fixed in a small nook under my chamber rug--miles away.”

“Did you? How would I know? A sleight-of-hand technique might achieve the same illusion.”

“The proof I offer is in the next steps,” the mentalist says as he places the dagger on the table beside the three orem crystals. “Step back m’lord.” 

Clapping his hands together, First Practitioner turns them sideways, then apart. Between his palms a cloudy window of waxy air forms. The Blest Order’s troops gather inside the window to face their Basalandian enemies.

“The Order’s knight army is only a half day's march from our encampment.” First Practitioner begins. With a pinch of his index fingers and thumbs, the image within the cloud responds. The perspective shifts to colorful contrails then settle on the image of a commander.

“Wait, stop! I know that man. Do these scenes happen as we speak?

“From my Orem lens or window, if you prefer, we see the enemy line as if we were a hawk flying above. You’re familiar with magics of this kind?”

“Of course. But I have never known a mentalist as gifted as you. You asked me to call you First Practitioner--I didn't think much of it. You Orem fanatics are known for eccentricity.”

“I promised to make myself useful. My debt to you is not one I take lightly. That man is Sir Haress Berger Ronne. Hero-general of the Blest Order. He has never lost a battle. If he is allowed to advance--” First Practitioner looks away from his window to the King’s face. A foxtail-mustached beard and a pair of prodding eyes stare back. “--If he reaches this encampment, the Basalands fall.”

“I must tell them to deploy!” The King moves to turn away. First Practitioner places his arm at the King's elbow and returns both their attention to the Orem lens, hovering in thin air yet fixed in place.

“M’lord, there’s no time. Look, Sir Ronne mounts his warhorse.” Practitioner retrieves the dagger and orem crystals without breaking his gaze on the window.  

The orem lens adjusts focus showing its subjects closer and larger. 

As Sir Ronne’s arm falls, signaling his bannermen to advance, The Basalandian mentalist begins the chant. 

His incantation is a sinister compliment to the sounds that brought the dagger to the tent. The wind and warmth from before, joined by glowing light, condense into a vortex around the dagger and First Practitioner’s hands.

A fantastic assault on the senses, in one moment, a brutal silence in the next. The contortion and agony on First Practitioner's face jumps to Sir Ronne’s. The hero knight looks about in confused terror. Bloodshot eyes search the sky for some meaning to the sudden pain. 

“What is wrong with him?” The King wonders aloud. Besides the oblivious King, First Practitioner struggles to keep conscious. Unable to answer or stand, he collapses into a stool at the war table.

“Your hands! Answer me–what's going on? What happened to your hands?”

Struggling to prop himself up, First Practitioner wipes sweat from his brow with a steaming nub.

“My hands? The dagger–I sent it to Sir Ronne … placed it inside of his heart. I–I underestimated the area of effect and sent my hands along with it.”

“Call them back. Use your magic to retrieve your hands. My surgeons might–.”

“I cannot. To attempt the spell again, will deliver me death as certain as Sir Ronne’. My hand and dagger will remain inside his chest cavity. No more worrying about me. Keep watching.”

Through the orem window, the king and practitioner observe Sir Haress Berger Ronne’s final moments. Dismounting his horse, tearing plate mail from his chest like paper, the knight general claws at the lumpy mass in his chest. Fitting his fingers between two ribs, Sir Haress rips himself open.

The King of Basalandia looks away from the window as the hero knight digs inside himself for the source of his sudden and unknowable death.

"He's a demon." the King says. "A normal man would be dead already"

"You see why we need these extreme and modern measures. The Blest Order has grown too powerful. Their Priests send orem behemoths into battle and call them sirs. It's repugnant."

"Not even our enemies deserve such shameful deaths."

"My lord? If, if I had done nothing--"

"I might have dueled the greatest warrior to yet live. Look at him now. Fishing inside a pond of his viscera. He deserved better than this."

Sir Ronne's eyes grow wide in triumph. From the hole in his chest, he produces a bloody pair of severed hands gripping a finely crafted dagger. Discarding the foreign objects in a pile at his feet, Haress Berger Ronne drops to his knees and dies.

"The deed is done," First Practitioner whispers

"Indeed it is," the King responds, looking to the knights at both exits.

"It’s not too late. If surgeons are summoned something can be done about my hands."

Ignoring the First Practitioner’s request, the King clasps his palms together.

"How long will your window last?"

"A few more short minutes."

"Understood … I need you to do something for me.” The eyes above the mustache narrow on the mentalist in front of them.

"I just killed the enemy general!" First Practitioner points out with raised stubs.

"Lower your voice. Don't let your power influence your station," the King says, tilting his hands forward so his signet ring reflects the torchlight.

"What should I do?" First Practitioner asks with the humility of a vassal.

Removing the signet ring, the King reaches toward the war table. Knocking over the figurine representing Sir Ronne he replaces it with the ring.

"Send it. So they see it. They should know who was responsible."

Above the ring, two wrists, missing hands, and seared to the bone come together in a gesture that resembles a clap. Wind, warmth, whoosh. The ring is gone. Sent to the palm of the Blest Army's second-in-command.

Satisfied, the King of Basalandia does not watch the rest. 

The orem lens fades along with the life force of its creator. First Practitioner offers no further plea. He understands, more than all others present, that magic exhaustion, unlike its physical cousin, is always fatal. There exists no nap, or sleep, nor potion or salve to return what orem magic takes. As well it should be, First Practitioner thinks. The only fair death that exists. All others are too soon, too late, tragic, unjust, ironic, or dull. Orem exhaustion is the final price to pay for the violation of the immutable laws of nature. A payment First Practitioner delivers with acceptance. First Practitioner collapses onto the war table. A final, painful yawn takes him away from the living world, back to the primordial realm where things that once existed are inseparable from things that are yet to exist.

Lingering in the exit, the King cuts an eye to the dead mentalist at the tent’s interior.

“What happened here was an abomination. Burn his corpse. Burn the whole thing down!”

When the King of Basalandia achieves a distance deemed safe by the knights they enter and remove the torches from the tent. Knocking down the support beams they throw the torches on top.

The industrial-grade wood, prime quality fibers, and Dirth’s First Practitioner melt to smoldering soot as the knights watch in reverent silence.

Across the country, the Blest Army gathers for a full retreat. The second-in-command, Sir Ronne’s long-time friend and vassal rolls a signet ring between his fingers. The platinum ring holds one gold engraving. Any member of the Order would recognize the insignia. A black rectangle hovers above a brown, downward-pointing triangle. Inside the rectangle sits a backward, uppercase letter B. The symbol represents Edgeworld City and the surrounding Basalands, but to the Second-in-Command it shows the location of his country’s next campaign.