Introduction

This collection of stories was inspired by the following message players would receive in the video game The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind for killing an NPC (non-playable character) whose presence is essential to completing the main quest:

With this character's death, the thread of prophecy is severed. Restore a saved game to restore the weave of fate, or persist in the doomed world you have created.

Though the player had failed the quest, they were allowed to remain in the world they had damned alongside the countless little digital people they had damned with it.

Thanks for reading,
Javy Gwaltney

1
Lyon Hanghill, Barfly

The man with the warty elbow sat at a square table near the back of the village tavern. The sweltering day was filled with foreboding. Sweat drenched his hair and dripped off his earlobe in tiny drops. The beer was warm and did nothing to relieve his thirst. His heart was pounding and his throat had gone dry, but it had nothing to do with the heat.

He saw Todd Welch, the other farmhand at McGover’s estate, walk in.

Lyon called to him. “Todd, Todd, come here. Get over here.”

Todd waved him away, approaching the bar. “The devil take you Lyon, lower your voice. Let me get my ale.”

“Did you hear?” he called.

“I said let me get my drink,” Todd shouted, mouth flinging spit onto the floor. A few of the tavern’s patrons glared at him.

Someone in the corner of the place, a woman, was weeping into her arms.  Lyon wished he could be that woman, to cry and weep about the horrors engulfing society every which way but he’d never been able to. It wasn’t about being a man or anything like that, no, he’d just never been a crier. He felt as though life would have been easier to bear if he knew how to. Instead, he sat with chaos nestled in his gut. The stress would kill him, just as it had his father. Ah well, what could one do?

Lyon waited in silence until Todd sat down. His drinking partner took a gulp of his beer and when he pulled the stein away from his mouth, a huge mustache of foam hung over his red lips. Lyon tried to stifle a chuckle.

“What’s so damn funny?” Todd asked.

He didn’t elaborate. Todd had never possessed what one would call a jolly sense of humor.

“What did you want to yap about?”

“Did you hear?”

“That’s the third time you’ve said that to me. How am I supposed to know what you’re talking about? Did I hear Sister Tibish blow her ass trumpet when I passed the church outhouse this morning? You bet I did, but I don’t suppose that’s what you’re itching to ramble about.”

Lyon shook his head. “Did you hear about what happened out at Lynchfield Crossing?”

Todd shrugged, took a sip of his beer.

“The player showed up.”

At that moment, Lyon had to close his eyes as Todd spewed his drink across the table and Lyon’s own face. Todd’s blue eyes bulged big out of his head.

“The player? Eric’s here?”

“Aye, that’s what I said,” Lyon answered, wiping the ale spittle from his face.

“Horseshit.”

Lyon shook his head. “Isn’t.”

“You’re telling me that Eric the Righteous passed not two miles away from our little village.”

“I swear it to be true, on my mother’s grave.”

“Someone’s putting you on.”

“No. I know it happened. For a fact,” he said, drumming the table with his fingertips for emphasis. “The wise beggar Sidil was there. He had been sitting beneath the signpost for over a week, panhandling and reading fortunes.”

Todd went quiet. “Mistress McGover did say that he had been in the market, selling fish he had caught by the river. I just thought she was putting us poor folk on.”

Lyon shook his head. “No. He was there. Trust that, lad. And Eric found him.”

Todd fell eerily quiet. When he spoke at long last, his voice was soft. “To begin his quest, no doubt. To put everything on the line – body, mind, soul – to save the kingdom from the demon Flarel himself. To redeem the land to its former glor–”

“He chopped his head off,” Lyon interrupted.

Todd sputtered. “Say again.”

“Right, well Sidil reached up to take Eric’s hands and tell him the prophecy, y’know, the one about how he’s going to save the world.”

“Of course I know the blast-danged prophecy. Everyone knows the prophecy.”

“Anyway, Sidil starts talking about the palms of Eric’s hands and how he can feel the shape of the stars in the calluses and this and that–"

“And he just cut his head off?” Todd drew his finger across his own neck. “Like that?”

“Right.”

“The man who’s supposed to save us all?”

“Yes. That’s the one. He killed the quest giver.”

“How do you know, Lyon? How can you know?” Todd’s eyes were crazed now. He was running his hand across his leg, fingernails digging into the fabric and flesh beneath. “How do you know, Lyon?” he said again.

“I went out there to see for myself and the Portis lads, you know them – Montgomery and Julia’s boys – they were…they were kicking the head around. Like a ball.”

“I don’t believe you. No. Absolutely not. That’s not the kind of world we live in. The gods would not allow this.”

Lyon sighed deeply.” I wish you was right.” He reached down and gently brought the head up from beside his chair. He plopped it on the table, and the man’s dome landed with a sticky thud, the blind beggar’s blank eyes staring through greasy grey hair directly at Todd.

Todd blinked at the head, which was beginning to smell ever so slightly, and then put his own face in his hands and took a breath. “So, the main quest giver is dead. Not only is he dead, our hero’s killed him before he even accepted the quest. Where is Eric then?”

“Maurice on the town watch says a traveling merchant spotted Eric on the way to the capital. The merchant told him Eric, covered from head to toe in blood, purchased a wheel of cheese and then began to hop down the road repeatedly in the direction of Leanesburg.”

Todd downed the rest of his stein and wiped away the sweat that had been gathering on his forehead. He looked at Lyon with imploring eyes. “Are we in a dream?” he asked earnestly. “What does it all mean?”

“Hey, hey,” said the bartender, pointing at the stinking head. “Put that away. You’ll drive off customers.”

Lyon gently lifted the head and stowed it under the table once more. He shot Todd a look of compassion. “Well, I think it means we’re fucked, doesn’t it?”

2
Minnie Waters, Postal Worker

Minnie Waters lived in a wagon. A lot of people in Azra had opinions about that. Some thought she was a pitiable vagabond who’d never amount to anything despite the noble blood in her veins. Others said she was a witch and told their children to stay away when the postwoman came, lest she lured them to the pits of hell with sweets.

Minnie didn’t give a tuk about what people said. She lived by the rules of the road, as few as there were. She wore trousers instead of dresses and hunted for game in the woods, eating venison by firelight and bathing in the rivers. Sometimes the washerwomen of various villages would stand and gawk at her, unnerved and even angered by her brazenness. Let them look, thought Minnie. She had nothing to be ashamed of.

She counted only the postmasters among her friends. She worked a large area of real estate in Northern Azra – nearly 40 miles of territory, servicing several villages on the outskirt of Pilath, the continent’s crown jewel – and was the only worker worth their salt if you put such a question to the post offices in the area. The clerks often entreated her with croissants, coffee, and, in the case of one Pretty Pete Pendleton, buttered biscuits with freshly cooked bacon.

Minnie loved her life. She did not know how many people could say that, especially in such a wretched place like Azra. It seemed that most of its denizens were miserable about nothing or, not having enough of something: about lacking money, about being with the wrong lover, about not having a spacious house, and so on. Her parents had been quite miserable about their daughter. They had expected her to marry a bordering-on-handsome, reputable noble that would sharply yank their family’s reputation several rungs up the social ladder. Imagine their surprise when they found out their little girl would rather roll around with other girls in the mud than attend balls and play society games with dimwitted heartthrobs. Bye-bye inheritance, farewell home, hello road.

Most people would carry such imposed exile like a boulder. Instead, Minnie was grateful. Her parents had given her the freedom she needed to be the person she wanted to be. She wished she could have made them happy, but their failure to love her on her terms was their fault.

Minnie, she had decided long ago, could only be herself. There was no point pretending otherwise.

Such a mindset was responsible for her joy when she picked up a bundle of the weekly Pilath Chronicle and saw the front-page story screaming at her in all-caps: WOULD-BE SAVIOR SLAUGHTERS SEER AND DOOMS WORLD. You see, somewhere in the back of her mind, Minnie knew she was waiting, that she had spent her whole life waiting for the so-called chosen one to come along and convince her to join in his adventures.

It was supposed to happen like this: One day – this day actually – Minnie’s wheel would hit a rock jutting out of the ground (“Shit and hellfire!” Minnie would say), causing her trusty horse-drawn wagon to become stranded in the road. As she would begin repairs, at least a dozen bandits would emerge from the woods to overtake her and ransack the wagon for any coin.

The Creator-penned script had it so that Minnie would hold her own against these brigands, bashing in their skulls and throwing their bodies into the trunks of trees with ease, but that she’d eventually be overwhelmed by the sheer number of bastards – until he, that is to say, Eric the Righteous, arrived to save the day.

After the bandits were slain, she’d say something along the lines of “Thanks for the help, but I didn’t need it,” and he’d reply with something witty. And then, after repairing the wheel, Minnie would show him the way to the next town as begrudging thanks for his assistance. An hour later into this quest, she’d join Eric on his journey to save the land from the fiery clutches of the demonic Dread Lord King himself, Flarel.

She also knew how that story ended. It was burned into her brain, embedded in her bones. Near the quest’s conclusion, Flarel would capture her and, in front of Eric and the rest of the party he’d recruit along in his adventure, slit her throat in the name of cruelty and cliché.

But none of that now, no. The story had been cut to ribbons. Anything and everything was possible. The rest of the world looked at Eric’s rejection of his destiny and saw damnation. She saw the great expanse of possibility before her, the life unwritten and an opportunity to take up the pen herself.  She imagined herself wooing a local village girl to come live with her in the woods and build a home on fertile land. She saw a farm with cows and chickens, her own hands digging into the soil to rip forth the produce she had grown herself. Coffee on a tabletop. Her elderly fingers interlaced with another as the sun shone through the windowpane. The life well lived – her life. Minnie was amused to think that in abandoning his quest and condemning Azra to fire, the great betrayer Eric had set her free.

She would have to earn it, of course. The bandits would be many. They could overwhelm her, certainly it was a possibility, but she wasn’t too worried. The Creators had made her to be a weapon, after all, and one that could take a beating before shattering. Yes. They would cut at the trunks of her legs and arms with their sword, yes, let them. She would break their feeble bodies with the swing of her fist. She would stomp on their necks.

They wanted money; she wanted the rest of her life. The poor fools didn’t stand a chance.

She saw the road ahead as the wagon came around a bend. The rock was there, pointing its sharp head out of the dirt, waiting to fulfill its one purpose – to destroy the wheel. Her muscles tensed. Her eyes looked out across the trees, no doubt concealing many bodies armed with daggers and clubs and arrows ready to do her harm.  

Minnie smiled.

She was ready.

3
Darluth Ridges, Plummeting Man Whose Only Hope Is a Resplendent Hero Catching Him Mid-Fall

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhcrack.

4
Needly Ned, Editor of Pilath Chronicle

Hey Jerry,

Thanks for the quick draft given the urgency of the news. You appear to be out at a (rather early, I must say) lunch, so I just thought I’d leave some notes here for you to peruse and make edits upon your return. As long as we have the piece in a solid spot by end of day, we should be good.

• I’m not quite sure how I feel about the headline. WOULD-BE SAVIOR DOOMS WORLD reads well and captures the intense despair of the situation, but it doesn’t really explain how he doomed us all, does it? I know the story obviously goes into that, but I do think we should give just a tad more clarity here, yeah? How about WOULD-BE SAVIOR SLAUGHTERS SEER AND DOOMS WORLD? Still leaves us room to explain the gory details in the story proper but informs the reader a bit more from the start.

• The prophecy actually says the world will be consumed in fire and darkness in 32 years from today, not 42. Kind of an oddly specific doomsday rollout if you ask me, but the facts are the facts.

• The word is spelled bulbous, not boulbous. I know our spellchecker was trampled by a fleet of donkeys last month (rest in peace, Damian), but really, everyone here’s given a dictionary for the explicit purpose of preventing these sorts of grievous spelling errors. Please be sure to use yours.

• Your sentences are too long, filled with too many details. You’re not writing an epic. Get rid of the purple. An example: “Witnesses described the seer Sidil lifting his hands aloft to read the knight’s palms, speak his fortune, and set him down the journey to save us all – only to be beheaded by the slash of the man’s blade.” No one writes like this in papers. Stop letting yourself get carried away. Stick to the facts: Witnesses claim Sidil was struck down by Eric when he tried to tell his fortune, closing off the main quest before it could begin properly. According to [insert expert], this murder likely means that Flarel’s apocalyptic prophecy will come to pass.

• As far as ‘experts’ go, just run yourself over to the Academy and ask one of those robed idiots for their opinion on the matter so we can attribute it to them. They so love the sound of their own voices. I’m sure it won’t be hard to get a quote.

A general note, Jerry: I appreciate you turning this article in so quickly, but it’s also the latest in a series of sloppy drafts. Please slow down a little. Consider the words on the page and what you’re conveying. We’re performing a service for our readers, after all, not for ourselves. It's the end of the world, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do our jobs. We are professionals after all.

With respect,
Ned

5
Lisha Talley, Servant

The child had been a mistake. She knew that now.

Lisha sat in the kitchen of the cottage she and her husband, Roger, called home. From the window, she watched her daughter pelt scraggly crows with beans in the yard. The wretched creatures cawed in appreciation, pecking the specks of food from the soil while the girl named Portia clapped with her small, fat hands.

It isn’t my fault, Lisha thought. We lived in a different world then. That much was true. Three years ago, she and Roger were in different circumstances. He had been hired on as a groundskeeper for lord Alexias Potter. The Potters were a noble family and were quite decent to boot. They lived in a large manor and often invited her and Roger to dinners. After she and Roger had been married, Mrs. Potter made certain to hire Lisha as a servant, though the estate hardly needed another one of those.

“It’ll be good to have another young face like mine around,” Mrs. Potter cried with laughter when Lisha protested the offer of employment. And that was that.

She had borne her pregnancy well, outside of a few scares, and continued to serve the family well until the last two months. The Potters were more than understanding, demanding that she take to her bed for rest and making sure to send Lisha and Roger baskets of meats, fruits, and sweets every week. The Potters celebrated Portia’s birth as though she was one of their own and continued to spoil the child into her toddler years.

How things have changed, Lisha thought bitterly, wondering what she had done to earn the spite of the gods or their Creators. No one ever paid much attention to the Dread Lord’s prophecy. Azra had seen more than its fair share of prophecies for generations, and every time a hero stepped up to bring back the world from the brink of destruction. Flarel himself had been thwarted and killed at least twice over the past century. Her father, a priest, told her all the old stories of horror and heroism when she was a girl and they had lived in the capital.

She sat in her kitchen, recalling her favorites. Porlar of Shaveltown, who swallowed a cursed talisman crafted by demons to keep it from devouring the world – burning his own body to cinders in the process. Monqiue Xanderfill, who single-handedly vanquished the unending horde of infested golems and slew the Druid Queen beneath a golden moon. Lisha herself was named after a hero, Lisha the Leviathan, who fought Flarel’s half-human son in the Sea of Blight with a trident of pure silver, vanquishing her foe by kicking him into the open maw of a snapper whale.

Everyone had assumed that a great hero would come once again and fulfill the prophecy. They never had any reason to believe otherwise – until a week ago. She and Roger had not talked about it. They had not talked about anything, though she could tell the mood had changed, not just in their house, but everywhere. The servants of the Potters continued their chores but did so with limp energy, their eyes always looking away from one another (perhaps to hide the tears).

The Potters themselves were supposedly ill, though talk was that Alexias had locked himself away in the master bedroom to take up the bottle again after a decade of sobriety while Mrs. Potter wept, wept for them all. The land, the servants, the towns, the world at large. Enough tears to spawn an ocean and still not enough to account for the profound sorrow of this present age.

The image in her mind of the old woman crying moved her – literally. I cannot sit here all day, Lisha decided. I will not spend the rest of my life mourning.

And yet, as she cleaned her own kitchen – sweeping the floor and scrubbing pans – her thoughts turned once more to her daughter. 32 years. She will be 35 when it happens. Enough time to fall in love. Enough time to find a craft. Enough time to start living in earnest. Just time for a taste of all things. Not enough time at all.

Putting away the broom, she found herself weeping suddenly. She leaned against the wall and continued to cry. Portia, unless she took her own life or was killed, would almost certainly live to see the end of existence. What have I done to my daughter? What monster would bring a child into such a world? Who would ever call such a life a gift?

She wept until a tug on her dress interrupted her. Portia, of course. “Mama,” she said, staring up at her mother with large, uncomprehending emerald eyes – her father’s eyes. Those eyes set her heart at ease. She felt calm descend upon her as she herself descended and wrapped her arms tight around her daughter.

We will make of the world what we can, she resolved. There’s nothing else to be done. She felt the child’s hair on her chin and then fully in her face. The girl smelled of dirt and grass, and Lisha could feel the summer heat faintly lifting off the little dress.

“Da,” the girl was saying, patting Lisha on her shoulder. “Da.”

“Yes,” Lisha said gently, standing up and holding the child – her blood, her continuance, her love love love – in her arms. “Let’s go find daddy.”

They stepped out into the sunlight. The crows were still tapping their feet on the grass, cawing and demanding beans, more beans. The dog, a small terrier with a nose that was always runny no matter the weather, was sleeping on his side in the shade of a walnut tree. Somewhere, in the field, her husband toiled with hands nicked and callused.

It was an extraordinary day.

6
Greg, Glitched Man

At a quarter past one o’clock in the afternoon every day, the children gathered in front of a boulder on the outskirts of the village known as Mozarth. Now this was a very special boulder though it looked like any other boulder at first glance. The rock was the size of a giant’s torso and was dark and smooth except for the places it was chipped. What made this boulder special was that a man lived inside of it. His name was Greg.

Greg had been created for the sole purpose of giving the player directions to towns near and far whenever they wandered by. Greg had a winning combination of beautiful blue eyes, chestnut brown hair, and stainless, straight teeth. No one could tell anything else about Greg because his face, jutting forth from the rock, was the only thing anyone could see.

The problem, if one were to call it a problem, was that some Creator somewhere in The Time Before Time was breathing life into the world, adding trees, rivers, flowers, so on – to make the scenery more lively, and in a haphazard moment of carelessness placed a boulder in the exact same spot that Greg inhabited.

Oops.

Greg took the ghastly mistake in stride. Truth be told, Greg took all things in stride. Sure, he became unbearably cold when the rain beat down on his road and, yes, there was a serious itch on his ankle he could not bend down to scratch since he was permanently fixed in place. However, Greg had been created to deliver information. It was his sole purpose. He did not have a routine. He didn’t go home to a wife or husband. He didn’t have a favorite food. He did not have to go to the bathroom. He did not engage in battles. He was immortal and could not be slain by any man or beast (though many tried throughout the years, by fist or fang).

He stood outside all day, wide awake, blinking out at the world and delivering his grin to any passerby. He was just happy to be here, Greg. He had been made that way. 

The children took to bringing him apples as gifts (which he never ate) and asking him questions.

“How old are you?” one would say.

“Have you always been a rock?” another would ask.

Greg would not answer these questions. He couldn’t, as they had nothing to do with his primary purpose. It wasn’t until one of the children asked if he had come from the nearby town of Johansburg that he spoke.

“Johansburg,” he answered, beaming at the children. “A river town in Northeast Azra and a lovely vacation destination for those who adore all things aquatic thanks to its lively water habitat, featuring salmon and otters and amphibians of all varieties. Roaring fireplaces in the winter. Cherry blossoms in the spring. Johansburg. Quaint. Sweet. The perfect place to get away.”

The crowd of children gawked at him for a moment before erupting in piercing screams and running away in fright. Greg did not mind. He was pleased that he was able to do his job. It felt nice.

Sometime later, a few weeks after the seer had been slain by the dastardly Doombringer Eric, two travelers stopped by the rock to adjust their heavy packs, which had shifted over the days of purposeless wandering. They were married. Unrelenting rain added to their misery.

“Where oh where in this world can we go?” wept the man.

“What’s the point of it,” said the woman, her cloak drenched. “The day of fire will find us no matter where we are.”

“I hear Plangletown is nice,” interjected Greg.

The couple screamed, for they had not seen Greg’s face at first. Greg did not mind.

The wife calmed her husband. “Look at him! He’s clearly a divine spirit. A servant of the rock god.”

“There’s a rock god?” her husband asked in awe.

“Yes. Of course. Probably. There are gods for everything. Shut up.” She turned to Greg. “Wise creature of the divine. Are you saying that Plangletown is a holy place? That it will be saved once the Dread Lord returns?”

“Plangletown,” Greg said. “A hamlet nestled among the slopes of Azra’s northern mountain range. Local favorite dish: bear stew. Awe-inspiring sunrises. Snow all year around. Practically non-existent crime rate.”

The wife shook her husband. “Plangletown! Our salvation!” They both laughed in joy. Greg, quite pleased to have fulfilled his purpose, gave them accurate directions for the long journey north. The couple took nearly a year to reach their destination, and as they traveled, they stopped in all manner of taverns, inns, and campgrounds. They told others about the fateful night they came across the servant of the rock god, who spoke to them about Plangetown, the one place in this wretched world that would be saved from destruction when Flarel rose from the pits of his hell and drowned all of existence in unfathomable darkness and flame.

Word spread. Across the next two decades, the quaint town of Plangetown grew exponentially, with the cavernous belly of the mountains transforming into a thriving city of the deep. Lanterns guided dwellers across cobblestoned paths on their way to the market to barter for goods or to work the hammer at one of the smithies.

Meanwhile, miles and miles away, travelers would come to Greg from across the land and leave him flowers, baskets of money, and even jars of rocks for him to offer up to the stone god he supposedly served. They would ask him where they could find work or plentiful harvest, and he would answer them to the best of his ability – throwing out the names of towns in the hinterlands and on every coast where they might find their happiness.

Some of the travelers asked Greg to heal their sickness or rain down bread from the heavens. Some of them beseeched him to smite Flarel’s demonic soul to dust so that he might never rise and obliterate the land. He would say nothing to these requests. Often these travelers, dejected, would walk back down the path they had come from, crying softly to themselves. Others would kick his boulder or spit in his face.

Greg did not begrudge them. He literally lacked the ability to do so.

He was free in that way.

7
Jordai, Doctor

Jordai delicately held up the limp, flesh-shriveled wrist and examined the welts that had broken out along the forearm. They oozed red and yellow. The woman the arm belonged to breathed heavy inside the musky tent.

“It will be alright,” he said, though he was almost certain she could not hear him. Perhaps he had said such a thing to make himself feel better. The worlds hung hollow in the air, and he felt embarrassed for saying them.

How many had died these past two days under his care? 40? 50? He had lost count the first night. This disease did its dark work quickly – chewing through gut lining and then the lungs, leaving ballooning ulcers and boils on the inside and out. The most he had been able to do was put his patients to sleep by holding a sponge dripping with anesthetic solution to their noses and then hoped they would not awaken when those final convulsions seized them, sending their souls skyward to Hethica, the realm of the gods.

He looked down at the old woman. She was at the end, he could tell. She had not begun to cough up blood, but he could hear it churning in her chest: the tell-tale sign of someone not long for this world. He stepped away from the table and washed his hands in one of the buckets lining the table at the back of the medical tent.

He thought of his years as an apprentice to the great surgeon Amari Willow, a stern but impeccable caretaker. He had taught Jordai everything there was to know about how the human body could break or fall apart. As a result, Jordai knew almost more than any other doctor this side of Azra how to fix humanity’s frail, fleshy vessels. He knew which wounds required sutures and which required resetting bones, could recount by heart all the plants throughout the world containing miraculous healing properties. He had cured entire villages of plague and had even once rescued a noble lord from his demise by deftly stuffing his entrails back into his gashed stomach and closing up the wound – all without a hint of magik.

And here I am outmatched, he thought bitterly. Turning from the bucket, a flash of sunlight entered the tent as one of his nurses, Harold, stepped inside.

“She’s here, my lord,” the young man said, blood smeared over his white tunic.

Jordai nodded. “Look after this one until I get back. After that, go and get some rest. You’ve been up longer than I have, Harold.”

“Yes, sir.”

Jordai stepped outside to see the morning sun hanging high above the green field and all the countless white medical tents blowing in the breeze. All his medical tents, where all his doctors were vainly trying to save his dying patients. He tried not to think of the pit on the other side of the green hill, where they burned the bodies day after day.

Looking to the south, he saw a tall woman approaching, wearing the black robes customary of a high-ranking Academy mage. Her hair was dark, and she had a stern face with a pointed nose. Her hazel-eyed gaze gave the impression she was cutting away at you to reach the core of your being and see what little secrets were entombed within. He would not be surprised if she could, in fact, read his mind. Mages were a scary bunch.

“Doctor Jordai,” she said, reaching him. Her gaze met his. He really hoped she couldn’t read his mind.

He bowed. “Director Tellus.”

“Please, doctor: ‘Margo’ will do just fine.”

He smiled weakly, surprised by the discarding of formalities and titles. Odd for one from the Academy. “As you wish, but I insist on ‘Jordai’ if that is to be the case.”

The harshness in her eyes fell away. “How long have you been out here?”

“A week or so.”

“Have you slept at all?”

“Bits and pieces of reprieve. Mostly when one of the nurses or other doctors forces me to.”

“I know it’s bad, but no one has shared just how bad it is.”

He held up the tent flap. “Well, I can give you a lesson, but it’s likely to turn your stomach.”

She followed him inside. He found himself within the familiar swirl of unpleasant smells he had steeled himself against these past few weeks: the metallic smell of blood, the lingering stench of dried excrement.

Harold was covering the woman on the table with a plain sheet. There was blood on her lips.

Jordai sighed heavily. “She gave up the ghost then?”

“Yes sir,” Harold answered faintly, looking away.

“Leave her uncovered. Go on, Harold. Thank you.”

Harold left them to the body. Margo approached quietly, looking down at the corpse.

The Senior Director of the Academy examined the body for a few moments in silence. “What was her name?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” the doctor confessed. “There have been so many of them. They just come here, or the guards bring them here and they’re all coughing and bleeding. We’re so busy trying to put a tourniquet on whatever the hell this thing is that we don’t ask their names. Her death might be a mercy, though. Her family passed last night. Two sons.”

“What horror,” Margo said, not lifting her eyes from the corpse, her flat tone unchanging but sounding sincere all the same. “What does it do, this disease? Does it have a name?”

Jordai approached he body. “The locals have taken to calling it The Wilt of the World on the account of how it spreads. We figured out early on that the infection comes through ingestion.”

“Not airborne?”

He shook his head. “It gets in the grass or the water, pollutes them both. The animals eat or drink, and they get sick.”

She nodded. “The humans eat the animals or drink the water, they get sick.”

“Don’t forget the crops as well,” he added.

“Where did it come from? Do you have any idea how it was formed?”

He waved her over to a map on a table in the center of the tent. The map was of Azra itself, with the territories of the rhombus-shaped continent all lavishly detailed with beautiful snowcapped mountains and green plains. He pointed to the center of the continent and tapped his finger on a little white dot with the name KYLOO written next to it in fine script. “All we know is that it appeared a few weeks ago in this village here. It’s already spread over one hundred miles this way. From what I hear, it’s down south too. It moves fast.”

Margo leaned in and examined the name. “This is near where the Doombringer slew Sidil.”

“Right. That’s why I requested the Academy’s presence. Whatever we’re dealing with, I don’t think it’s biological. Or at least, I don’t believe it’s something naturally formed in the environment.”

“The pain these people go through…it’s terrible, yes?”

“Indeed. Most of them suffer for days before they finally die, their insides eaten away until they drown in their own blood.”

Margo looked up at the woman’s body and then back down at the map. She was quiet for a time. Jordai could feel himself becoming annoyed. He chalked it up to his own exhaustion more than anything else.

“It’s a curse,” Margo said at last. “From the gods for Sidil’s death. They’ve cursed the land.”

“You’ve seen this before?”

“No, never,” she said. “But I’ve heard of it happening. Holy men are often adored and protected by the ones they worship. Sidil was a worshiper of the natural world. A servant of Namu. This is her grief – and her wrath.”

“So that’s it then?” Jordai said, unable to keep the anger out of his voice. “Some petulant plant deity is angry because a sociopath killed an old fool she’s fond of, and now countless innocent people have to die?”

Margo turned her gaze upon him; the icy look shot a shiver up his spine. “I would watch that tongue of yours, doctor. You may be a master of medicine, but we’re at the mercy of things far beyond our understanding. It would be unfortunate if your blasphemy brought even more suffering down upon not just yourself, but all those around you.”

Jordai hung his head. “I’m sorry. You’re right…it’s just. I thought the gods were supposed to look after us. It seems so unfair that this world should be punished instead of the man who damned it.”

“The Doombringer will receive what he’s due in time, mark my words,” she told him. “Do you have any samples of this Wilt?”

He walked over to the table with the woman’s body and reached beneath the table, grabbing a small pouch from the storage area near the floor. Taking it from him, she opened the pack to see several vials containing light purple liquids bubbling within.

“It’s contaminated water, so they’re not pure samples, but it’s as close as I could get. Purer than anything we could extract from a corpse or plant at least.”

She stowed the pouch away within her robes. “I should be on my way. The longer I stay, the more time we lose on forming a solution.”

She made her way outside. Joradi followed. “Do you think the Academy will be able to do anything?” He could hear the quivering desperation in his voice.

“I don’t know,” she told him, the sun beating down on them. “I honestly don’t, doctor. But I do know if there is a solution for this, it is beyond medical means.”

“We’re running out of resources,” he said. “Bandages are going fast. In two days, we’ll be out of fresh food, uncontaminated water a week after that.”

“Have you sent messengers to Pilath?”

“Yes. The guards at the capital refuse to let them in. They say they won’t risk the health of the city.”

“I’ll see what I can do at the Academy. It will be a tough push,” she said. “Everyone is so focused on either trying to destroy Eric or pretending that he’s not a problem that…I’m sorry. I know that’s not what you need to hear.”

Jordai’s voice trembled with equal parts anger and sorrow. “Until someone somewhere does something, this Wilt is going to keep spreading and it’s going to kill everyone in its path. I understand the world is fired up about stopping the Doombringer, but I am talking about death on a colossal scale and in the immediate future. This has got to be a priority.”

“I hear you,” Margo said, twirling her finger in the air in the circle. A second later, accompanied by a loud wail, a blue portal appeared next to her and hummed as it spun slowly next to them. “I will do all that I can, doctor. You have my oath.”

“Thank you,” he muttered, wondering what the value of that oath was, as Margo stepped into the portal and disappeared. A second later the blue circle vanished behind her, and the humming ceased.

Peeking down the slope of the hill he stood upon, he could see his nurses below leading yet another group of coughing, bleeding people into the quarantine camp.

Today’s crowd of the doomed and the dying, he thought. Why pretend I’m useful? It’s all a joke. These people are going to die in our arms and on our tables with that glazed look in their eyes, writhing and weeping blood and calling out for their mothers and fathers as the life seeps out of them and there’s not a thing I can do.

He rubbed his hand across his face and felt warm tears slide down his cheeks and palm. He wiped them away and composed himself. “No,” he said quietly. He would not let the nurses and doctors under his supervision see him broken. If they could keep pushing on through this, then he had no excuse not to do his part as well.

And besides, he thought, perhaps – through some miracle or stroke of luck – they could keep at least one of these poor souls alive. Even the possibility of saving a single life, against all odds, meant all of this was worthwhile.

The morning sun growing ever hotter, he stepped inside the tent to prepare for his next patient.

8
Barbey, Quest Giver

Raise curtain.

Summer, four weeks after Sidil’s slaying.

Marketplace in Keyro, a city in Southern Azra’s desert.

Lunch time.

[Linx sits at a café table looking out across the marketplace, where the sellers sell and the thieves thieve. Unpurchased fruit spoils in the afternoon sun on wooden tables. Someone is playing the lute. Poorly.]

[Barbey joins Linx at the table. He has a mug of tea in his hands.]

LINX: I don’t understand how you can drink something like that in this weather.

BARBEY [shaking head]: I pity you and the rest of your frail boys from the North. Surprised you haven’t melted into a puddle in the sand.

LINX: That damn Eric. If he’d just come here and do my que-

BARBEY: Not this again. With the bellyaching.

LINX: Don’t give me that. You’re just as put out as I am.

BARBEY: Certainly, certainly, but you don’t hear me complaining about it. I’ve accepted my lot. My wife will forever be the eternal prisoners of bandits in the cave. She should be so lucky. At least she isn’t stuck here with you.

LINX: Oh, that’s just mean. You didn’t have to say that.

BARBEY: It’s been said. It cannot be unsaid.

[Puddy, a quest giver new to the city, approaches.]

LINX: You can’t really tell me you’ve given up hope. He might still come.

BARBEY: Why would he come?

PUDDY: For the experience, maybe?

[Barbey and Linx look up at Puddy.]

BARBEY: “For the experience?”

PUDDY: Right. [Puddy takes a seat at the table.] Even if he’s not interested in the main quest, he still has to level up, yeah? It makes sense that there’s a good chance he’ll find his way here and do our quests. Decent possibility, I think.

[Barbey is about to say something rude, but Linx puts his hand up to calm him. Linx smiles at Puddy.]

LINX: You’re new here, right?

PUDDY [smiling uncertainly]: Right.

LINX: I take it you’re aware of the situation.

PUDDY [not smiling anymore]: Yes, I’ve heard. It’s bad.

BARBEY [laughing, unable to help himself]: Do you hear this one, Linxy? “It’s bad.” Whole world damned to irreversible decay and combustion. Aye, lad, I think “it’s bad” is certainly a way to summarize things.

LINX: That’s no way to carry on. He’s fresh. Be kind.

PUDDY: I’m not stupid. I know things are dire. I just think, well, if there’s a small chance that he’s coming, why not cling to it?

BARBEY: Have you heard about what “Eric the Righteous” has done since he murdered that beggar – a holy man, mind you – in cold blood?

PUDDY: …No.

BARBEY: Oh, great great great things. Last week, I hear he came upon a camp filled with laborers being attacked by bandits. Lumberjacks in the wood, just trying to make a living. Those vultures descended upon the poor fools and killed them while they slept, slit the throats of their families, set fires to the tents and what have you. It’s said they could hear the men and women wailing for miles around. And what did our great hero do when he arrived at the horrid scene? [He pauses to take a sip of his tea.] Why he threw in with the bandits, of course. They slew nearly every man, woman, child, and beast out there – some sixty souls, give or take. The best part? He killed the bandits right after!

PUDDY: He what?

BARBEY: Boggles the mind, doesn’t it? Because it’d make sense if it were for greed, yes? Side yourself with the thieves to make a little more money. Unspeakably awful, sure, but it’s a motive. It’s something that can be understood. But no: he killed them too – to the last. Butchered them. Didn’t even loot the bodies. When the sheriff’s party came from the village the next morning, they found more torn flesh and butchered limbs than soil, and countless coin just strewn about. Whatever had been robbed never made it out of the camp. Eric didn’t have interest in that. Avarice doesn’t enter into it. He just likes the killing.

[The three are silent for a moment. Barbey seems amused. He wags his head and looks at Puddy.]

BARBEY: So, if you two want to sit here and hope against hope that a mass-murdering sociopath will come and do our little quests for some coin or “experience,” and we’ll get to move on wherever we’re supposed to go, well, you have at it. I think I’ll just content myself to sipping my little drinks and then going home in the evening to stare at the walls. [He laughs bitterly.] My whole life, dedicated to giving a quest to a man who will never come.

LINX: Is it so wrong to dream, Barbey? I miss home. I miss Plangletown. I miss my family. I yearn to touch my little dog again.

BARBEY: What if none of it is real?

LINX: What are you saying?

BARBEY: What if it’s all nonsense planted in your head? By the gods or the ones that created the gods, hmm? Maybe there’s no family waiting for you. Maybe there’s no home. Can you even remember anything before you came to this forsaken shithole?

LINX: No that…that can’t be. No. I am real. I have…memories.

BARBEY: Very convincing.

LINX: I would like to find out at least, to make the journey.

BARBEY: You poor fool, craving the impossible. It would be better if that madman showed up and put us all to the sword. End our suffering.

PUDDY: Perhaps he will change.

BARBEY: Who?

PUDDY: Eric. Maybe he can become a good man. Maybe it’s not too late.

[Barbey looks from Puddy to Linx, who sighs and commences staring at his own feet. Barbey laughs, softly at first, a titter that rises into a crescendo of mad, hysterical howling. It goes on and on, the laughter. The man playing the lute stops. The people in the marketplace turn to look at him go. The lights above the stage turn off one by one, but the laughter, powerful in its gleeful despair, continues in the darkness and well after the curtains close.]

9
Felicity, Mage’s Apprentice

With the might of a thousand giants, Felicity desperately scrubbed the waist of her robe in the sink. This attempt to rid her uniform of its freshly acquired coffee stain, she surmised, was doomed and would cost her a reprimand once she returned to the Academy the next day. She could see her master now, the wise but stone-faced Desmond the Dozen (don’t ask), chiding her for disrespecting the uniform. I give you permission to conduct your work from the comfort of your home for a day and you sully your uniform like a child? I don’t suppose your ‘research’ netted out to anything either, hmm?

It hadn’t.

To be fair to Felicity, no one at the Academy (be they apprentice, mage, or otherwise) had found a solution to the whole doomsday-prophecy-problem the world was staring down. Grand Sorcerer Oolow and the council of mages had done their best to reassure the people of Azra near and far that the Academy, with all its brilliant minds housed under one spirally roof, would find a method to circumvent the end of the world. And yet, nearly three months later, no one had any answers.

Felicity gave up on scrubbing the robe and, with a deep sigh, read the prophecy’s passage in her copy of What Will Come to Pass: A Survival Guide to Curses, Damnations, and the End of the World. This was the student edition of the book, which meant that all nude drawings of men and women and their fleshy embarrassments had been removed, though images of people being sacrificed, beheaded, impaled, and set aflame were still there in all their gory glory.

For what must have truly been the millionth time, her eyes dragged themselves across each sentence of the three paragraphs that spelled out what may be the very end of all things:

Whoever can listen, let them hear what I, Galarth, disciple of the gods and their glorious houses, have to say.

When the sun dawns on the new century, the Dread Lord Flarel will rise with it. First, he will blanket the land in ash that will choke the trees and animals. Then he will breathe a flame that will rend flesh and reduce bone to dust and turn the seas to desert. He will stomp the world asunder, and such will be the end of Azra and all its people. The sun will weep and then become frozen from its despair. The stars will twinkle out of existence one by one. No man, no woman, or child will survive the devastation.

Unless a hero, born in the lands of Maloria, shall take up arms and embrace their destiny from the blind seer Sidil, all will be lost to the tides of the Dread Lord’s fury.

The unfortunate thing was, that as far as end of the world prophecies goes, this one was airtight. Felicity knew there had been a couple of instances in ages past, when all hope seemed lost, that the mages were able to hoodwink fate. The most famous one involved a hero who was killed before his final confrontation with Ezyir, a dragon hellbent on devouring the entire world, city by city. The poor fool slipped on the stone floor outside of the dragon’s lair and broke his neck. That should have been curtains for civilization.

Fortunately, the Grand Sorcerer at the time was a crafty, daring fellow. The combined armies of the world stormed the dragon’s home and managed to hold him down with miles of ropes. As he struggled to break free, the mages broke several sacred bylaws, sacrificing the lives of four of their own for the sake of necromancy. The hero, his eyes gaunt and his neck bent, returned long enough to plunge his sword into the cursed dragon’s breast before expiring.

It was a dirty play, but Azra lived on.

This Flarel prophecy…it was a real problem. Sidil’s name had been spoken as part of it. Therefore, even if they could somehow capture Eric and make him agreeable to starting the quest properly, they couldn’t grab any geezer off the side of the road. It had to be Sidil. The actual Sidil. The dead Sidil.

The mages had considered the same necromancy gambit to bring the seer back from the grave, but some fool had stolen his head, and it had not been found. By this time, the tongue was probably too rotted to even form words.

There were no loopholes to exploit. The Academy was now looking into other prophecies throughout recorded history to see if their salvation might lie in one of them. Felicity had little faith this search would pan out. If you want to know why, well, the leading proposed solution from the Academy body was to rig another doomsday prophecy featuring an entity capable of orchestrating Armageddon – in this instance, a massive gorilla with the lower body of a furry spider named Beeloh – to go off the same moment that Flarel rose from the grave.

The collision of these prophecies, certain academics argued, would force the two entities to grapple with one another to death for the right to bring about the destruction of the world. If the two creatures could not cancel one another out, it was proposed that the collective and unified army of every nation in Azra might stand a chance of bringing down the exhausted and hopefully wounded winner of the duel before they could wreak havoc.

Felicity had never, once in her whole life, heard of a dumber idea. But she didn’t have a better alternative. A glimpse at the parchment on her table revealed as much:

• Perhaps we could trap Flarel in a djinn’s bottle…could we even make a bottle that big?

• Time travel to the moment before Eric slew Sidil and convince him to start the quest? The full extent of the consequences of messing with time not understood. Very risky, could fracture existence itself – turn us all inside out. Unlikely that Eric would listen to reason anyway. Not worth the risk.

• Demons are not known for being reasonable creatures but perhaps we could coordinate a world-wide search through hidden tombs to try and understand Flarel’s history, his mind, a bit more. We have the years, after all. Maybe we could uncover some sort of bargaining chip. But what can quench the thirst of a monster that yearns to turn the world to ash?

• Maybe it’s all a hoax. How do we even know any of this will come to pass? Just because some old guy said it ages ago doesn’t make it so.

She was looking over her notes when a knock came at the door. Welcoming the distraction, she opened the door to find herself face-to-face with the postwoman. She wore a nice blue hat that sat softly on a stack of curly hair and her full lips parted to reveal a charming, gapped-tooth smile.

“Mornin’ Fissy,” the woman said, handing Felicity a single scroll wrapped with a thin bit of twine. “Still trying to figure out a way to snatch the world from the fires of destruction?”

Felicity opened her mouth to deliver a witty rejoinder when she noticed her acquaintance’s other arm and gasped. “Minnie, what the tuk happened?”

“Oh, this?” she said, raising her left hand, sloppily entombed in multiple layers of bandages. “A couple of idiots tried to rob my wagon. They took my pinky.”

“Oh dear gods!”

“It’s okay, more than worth what I traded away for it. And Pete’s helping me out with the steering for the time being,” she said, pointing over her shoulder at a somewhat plump man sitting atop Minnie’s wagon in the shade of an oak tree. He smiled broadly and waved at the pair of them. He seemed very nice.

Felicity didn’t understand but figured it wasn’t her place to ask. “Well, I’m glad to see you’re alright in any case. Would you and your friend care for some coffee? I can brew you a batch in a few minutes. I’ve been learning some heating spells that make the process go much faster.”

“No, it’s okay. Pete’s doing his best at driving the horses, but we’re running behind, so I should be going.”

Felicity nodded. “Well thanks for the mail. Rest that flapper of yours.”

“Thanks hero,” Minnie said, stepping off the porch and heading back to her wagon. Felicity closed the door and ambled across her hut back to the table. Given the ratty quality of the twine, she knew exactly where the letter had come from.

She took a sip of her coffee, gently unscrolled the parchment, and read.

Felicity,

Salutations from the east, sister! May this letter find you in high spirits as you continue your important work at the Academy.

The cherries are coming in at Mr.Palarthy’s farm. I thought I’d try and send you some, but I’ve been told they don’t keep well in transit. You’ll have to settle for us buying you several basketsful when you come home next year.

I must admit mother was distraught when she learned that you’d be staying at the Academy this year to work through summer break. I had to make her understand you were staying of your own volition to help the world figure a way out of this mess. She’s coming around now. You know how she is. Always assumes the worst, that she’s done something to offend or repulse everyone around her. Poor mother. That anxiety will chase her to the grave if she’s not careful.

As for other updates at home: Tim’s learned how to swim and is demanding I take him to the river every day so he can show me all the ways he can paddle now. He asks about you and is curious to know “what sick spells” you can cast now. Father is much the same as ever. Quiet and sullen. We still don’t say your name around him as he winces.

I do hope that you two can put the harsh words you had last time you were home behind you at some point. It causes both Tim and I considerable nerves – not to mention poor mother—but that’s enough out of me on that point. I know you’ve got better things to do than be chided by your younger sister.

Please write back soon and tell us all about your goings on in the north. What does the dawn look like creeping over those icy mountains? Has a pretty girl (or handsome boy) caught your eye? What do you miss most about home – besides your darling sister, of course? We all know that’s a given.

With ever-abiding love,
Samantha

Felicity laid the letter down and smiled faintly. Picking up the quill and turning her eyes back to her notes, she supposed there were still things left in the world worth the struggle.

10
Rado, Murderer

The problem was that the old woman had put up a fight.

Rado had spent a month memorizing the woman’s routine. Her name was Caroline. She went to the market every other day to purchase fruits and meat.

Outside of her travels to the marketplace, she did not leave her home that often. She lived alone and seemed quite fine with that. Peering through her window, he watched her knit in the evening and sometimes she’d read by candlelight. She did not seem to have a job or a spouse, though she clearly had enough money to support herself. He did not know her story, and that was fine.

In the end, she was just a mark.

He struck on the first Tuesday of the summer, in the early morning. It was a mile to town from Caroline’s house. He waited near a riverbank, beneath a bridge she had to pass over. The bridge didn’t see much traffic outside of the occasional merchant wagon and little old Caroline herself. When he saw her approach, he climbed the small hill and came around to the front of the bridge. She tensed up upon seeing him.

“Help you, sir?” she asked.

He took a few steps toward her. “We’re going to need to go back to your house,” he said, trying to sound confident, though he could hear the shakes in his voice.

“Oh, and why’s that?”

He was close to her now and flashed the sword from his sheathe. “Please don’t fight. I don’t want to hur-“

She hadn’t waited for him to finish. He felt her knife in his leg before he saw it. Crying in pain, he unsheathed the old, chipped sword he had won in a game of cards and struck her down. A tide of crimson washed over him as he slashed again and again until she had been cleaved nearly in half and the ground was awash in red.

He came to his senses slowly. The world shifted into view. The mangled corpse at his feet. His blade covered in blood. Both him and the body out in the open.

The sun began to crest over the treetops, so Rado worked quickly. First, he dug into the old woman’s bag and took her keyring, containing two keys, and a small pouch of coins. Then he dragged the corpse off the road and down into the bank, beneath the bridge.

In the shade of the bridge’s belly, the body stared up at him with wide eyes, a mouth agape in horror.

“I’m sorry,” Rado told the body that had been named Caroline. He lifted his sword once more. “I’m so sorry.”

When the chopping was done, he gently placed each bloody piece in the river and watched it all go down with the current. He had figured his best hope was that the crabs downriver would devour her.

He washed his hands and clothing as best he could in the water and left with the keys, heading in the direction of her house. There, he found a chest in her bedroom he opened with the second key on the keyring. Inside were several coin pouches. He grabbed all of them and placed them in his bag. He left, making sure to lock the chest and door once more, and tossed the keyring a mile down the road.

He journeyed to the next town over, Dorisville, and purchased a new tunic and pair of trousers as well as a nearby room at a monthly rate. It was here he had stewed for over several weeks, waiting for judgment to arrive, as he knew it inevitability would.

Eric would find Caroline’s brother weeping outside her house and he would tell him all about how his poor sister had disappeared without a word. Eric would start the quest and go down the river, finding blood and bones along the way. With a little more searching, he’d then find the keyring in some tall grass on the way to Dorisville, deducing that the murderer might still be there. He’d go into town and ask various shopkeepers if someone strange had been in town recently.

“Well, y’know, now that you mention it…” the tailor would say.

“I hear he’s over at the inn now. Hasn’t left his room in weeks,” the baker would tell him.

And that’d be it. Eric would arrive, kicking down the door. Rado’s heart gorged with guilt, he would confess and beg for mercy. And then he’d either be slain on the spot or dragged to the sheriff’s office, depending on Eric’s choice.

At this point, he didn’t care which. Whatever coinlust had fueled the robbery had left him. He felt nothing but loathing for his actions and himself. In his sleep, Rado saw the ruined, bloodied head of Caroline staring at him from the bedside table. Sometimes he’d see the outline of her decapitated body standing in the corner of the darkened room and he’d wake shrieking. It wasn’t my fault, he told himself. The Creators had made him greedy, reduced him to a shabby actor playing the grotesque role of a pathetic murderer.

He couldn’t go anywhere without feeling others’ eyes upon him. He suspected perhaps that the innkeeper and the tavern master had some notion of what he’d done. When people spoke to him, he felt hot malice on their breath, even when they were simply asking him for directions or remarking on the weather. His heart was always beating in his fragile chest like a drum. He felt unworthy to be counted among those who call themselves men. Yes, he was but a beast, waiting for the trap to close.

But when, when, his mind screamed. When will I be free of this hell?

A month passed before Rado decided to take the matter into his own hands: he would go to the sheriff and confess. So what if they kill me? he thought as he made his way to the sheriff’s office in the neighboring town. I don’t even feel alive.

When he arrived, he took a deep breath and stepped inside. There, a stout clerk sat behind a desk. He was writing on parchment. He looked up at Rado with beady eyes.

“Well?” he said. “Come to report a robbery? Have you filled out the appropriate form?”

“I’m here to confess a murder,” he said, feeling his lips rise to form a smile. Here it was. He had said the words. He would be redeemed now, yes. He would serve his sentence and his soul would be free. He looked deeply into the clerk’s small eyes and said, once again, “I’ve come to confess the murder of -”

“No,” said the clerk, returning to his paperwork.

Rado nearly choked in surprise. “I’m sorry?” he said.

“No,” the clerk answered, looking up at him again. “Fuck no. Keep your confession. We’re swamped as is.”

“I don’t understand. This isn’t the way things are supposed to work!” Rado shouted, his cheeks flushing with anger.

The clerk sighed deeply. “Lad, I don’t know if you’ve taken a look around lately, but things have been topsy-turvy ever since that madman took a sword to the seer. Robberies, murders, necromancy, and moonings in this county are all up by forty percent. The sheriff and the peace officers have their hands full and there’s no end in sight.”

“But we’re talking about murder!”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” the clerk said, patting a nearby stack of papers on his desk. “Is your murder more important than other murders I have here. Is your murder a special murder? Did you kill a viceroy? How about a priest? Did you kill a priest? We might be able to fit you in if you killed a priest.”

“No,” Rado said.

“Then I can’t help you. Get out. And don’t bring me any more confessions. Do us all a favor and keep your murders to yourself.”

Dazed, Rado wandered outside and looked around. The world and its brightness came into view. He looked out across the plaza and saw men chatting idly in the café, laughing loudly. A woman was reprimanding a child for screaming. A prostitute was trying to catch the eye of a nobleman. A beggar raised his arms and mumbled pleas as people walked by.

More than anything, more than disgust and anger, Rado felt alone. Truly, unfathomably alone. How could he ever be amongst these people again? He was not even worthy of prosecution. The law had said so. Suddenly, the world seemed smaller than ever. He felt the icy chill of exile flowing through his blood.

He went over to the beggar. He took the pouches of money that he was going to surrender to the sheriff alongside his confession and placed all four pouches in front of the man. The beggar looked at them, let out a gasp that shook his frail body, and gathered the pouches to his chest. The starved, shocked man was saying something, but Rado wasn’t paying attention.

He walked across the plaza and took a seat on the edge of a fountain. He thought briefly about ending himself with a knife or plummeting off a cliff, but knew he lacked the nerve to do. He would go on living in this anemic world. Such was his fate.

Rado had killed an old woman and gotten away with it. He sat in silence, life whirling all around him, vainly trying to comprehend his shrouded future.

He understood nothing.

11
Quilco, Canine Companion

Quilco, in the enchanted wood,
fur wet with grime,
scraped his paws against tree bark,
to pass the time.

Weeks then months,
quickly came to pass.
Quilco sniffing, truffling,
sleeping in tall grass.

The hound,
with a scarred snout and brindled coat
liked the small, tickling sensation,
of green leaves on his throat.

Waiting,
Quilco was in no hurry.
Thinking of his owner’s arrival,
his little heart gave a flurry.

He would wait the years,
the centuries, the ages,
until the stars fell out of the sky,
until there were no more mages.

O noble Quilco,
ignorant of thy master’s cruelty,
let us hope you do not pay the steep price
of misplaced loyalty.

12
Rupert Finley, Bounty Hunter

I suppose, Grand Sorcerer, you’ll want my full account. So be it. You shall know my deepest shame: I have lived at the expense of better lives. I only hope my tale may somehow help you and the rest of the Academy discover the key to our salvation.

My story begins in the far west, off the continent, in those isles where glaciers and snowdrifts exist year-round. The news of the kingdom’s bounty of four million gold had spread throughout Azra like an untamable flame. I had just brought the poor wretch Blubber Bill to justice by piercing his throat with my broadsword. I would have liked circumstances to go in the other direction, for it would have left my heart cleaner and my purse fuller, but Bill would not be taken while breath still lingered in his breast.

I was paid 50 gold coin for his corpse and took to the tavern in one of the many small villages of tents and lodges they dare to call a town out on the isles. Inside, I found destiny calling.

The townsfolk were gathered, singing loud bawdy songs of joy and drinking themselves to a stupor. Some of them danced around a thin, muscular woman sitting at the bar. She had a massive, crisscrossed scar on her left cheek and a chunk from her nose was missing, leaving what should have been a pointed tip ending in a nub. It wasn’t until I saw the fine wooden crossbow resting on the bar against her elbow that I knew who I was looking at. Her name was Fiona Birchwood or, as many know her, Fiona Fang.

I sidestepped the party, preferring to spend my evening in the quiet grace of a job fulfilled with a drink in one hand and my quill in the other. I asked the bartender for an ale and went to grab the coins from my pouch. He raised a stout hand.

“Everyone’s drinkin’ free tonight,” he said.

“Who bought the round?”

“I did. We have much to celebrate.” He filled a stein and handed it to me. “That woman sittins’ over there? She killed a wharlbeast that’s been decimatin’ our fishing spots. Saved the whole village, she did.”

“Praise be to Philoe, the god of the hunt.”

He raised an eyebrow. “What’s that, then?”

“Nothing,” I said, forgetting the people of the west knew no gods, only ice and the labors that kept them alive in such a cold world. “Just a custom in my land. Have a nice night.”

“You as well, sir.”

I retreated to the only dark and unoccupied place in the tavern. There, I opened my sketchbook and began to draw the visage of Blubber Bill. Please do not think me strange. I don’t make it a habit to draw my bounties. I was just struck by how sad Bill’s fate was. He had gone on the run after having killed his best friend in a drunken argument over a woman they both fancied. He was not a bandit but one of those unfortunate souls who find themselves, under strange and furious circumstances, transformed into accidental murderers. Reviled by his community, most certainly doomed to be thrown to the waters instead of buried among his kin, I thought it fitting that there should be at least one memorial in the world dedicated to him – even if it sat in the knapsack of his killer.

“Well, he’s a looker, isn’t he?” a woman’s voice said. It occurred to me suddenly that I was sitting in the shadow of Fiona Fang herself, who towered above me, sipping her ale and watching me draw. “I’ve bagged sand lions more handsome than him, and they’ve got a whole second face in their chin.”

I turned back to my work, sketching the slopes of his long ears. “His name was Bill. He was a blacksmith once. Then he was a murderer. And now he’s dead.”

“By your hand, I take it?” She sat across the way from me. I heard her gently lay her crossbow against the wall.

“Aye.”

“You an artist who kills people in their free time or are you a bounty hunter?”

“Why not both?”

I looked up and saw her face up close for the first time. Her scars told the story of a hardened woman who had survived much. In her hazel eyes, intelligence and amusement. She was enjoying this.

“I wish I could draw like you,” she said suddenly. “When I was young, I wanted to be a portrait artist. Own a little studio, paint the lords and ladies. Maybe have some patrons. Fate had something different for me, I guess.”

I softly closed my book. I had begun to feel seen in ways that I did not want to be. I smiled politely at my visitor.

“Doesn’t it always go in the direction opposite of what we desire?”

Her smile widened. “Except when I’m on the hunt. I always get what I want then.”

“That I have no doubt.”

“I need an extra pair of hands on a hunt right now, one that might interest you, Mister Finley.”

I winced. It was the first time in my self-imposed exile to the west that I had been recognized. I suppose my drifting eye gave it away. I’d never met another bounty hunter with my condition, and my reputation was well known enough that I should not have been surprised that someone from elsewhere in Azra recognized me in these lands.

“I don’t hunt game, Miss Fang. Not because it is a weaker sport than man, mind you, but I lack the skill and education.”

“And that’s precisely why I need you. What I track is a beast unlike any I have pursued before.”

I knew where this was going.

“Eric,” I said.

She nodded. “The bastard Doombringer himself.”

I shook my head. “Flattered but uninterested, Miss Fang.”

Her smile shrank but did not disappear completely. “From what I heard about the legendary Rupert Finley, I can’t say I expected that answer.”

“The days of glory are behind me.”

She let out a belly laugh. “You’re at least a decade younger than me, lad. That thin line of fur you call a beard isn’t even grey!”

“I have a sickness, one inflicted by my younger days of fame-seeking.”

“The miller’s daughter? I had heard about that.”

I took a breath and held back a tide of angry words.

“Is that why you’ve taken to these gods-forsaken lands, boy? In penance? Are you a monk now?”

“I just don’t want any other innocents to be hurt on my account, Miss Fang.”

Her lips twitched. “Call me ‘Miss Fang’ again and I’ll feed you that stein, I will.”

“My apologies, Fiona.”

“Better. Much.” She took a sip of her ale and wiped the foam from her mouth. “Will you allow me to make a proposition, Rupert? And if it is still of no interest to you, then I shall disappear from this table and never bother you again.”

I nodded my head.

“If you truly wish to make amends for what happened to that farm girl, then you should help me find and put an end to this blight on the world once and for all. There is no penance or redemption for those who sit in silence and do nothing while their neighbors are consumed by evil. To my eyes, you have two choices,” Fiona said, her smile fading to a thin line, her eyes staring dead into mine like some sort of wraith come to haunt me. “You can stay here and spend the rest of your life bellyaching in the shame and guilt of it all, or you can come with me and we can plant this bastard in the bowels of the world. Save a lot of lives. Thousands to make up for the one you snuffed out.”

“It won’t save what’s been lost,” I said quietly. “We can’t stop what’s coming.”

“No,” she conceded. “We cannot. But we can avenge, and we can stop the pain he’s causing our world.”

“And if we should fail?”

“Then we will have lived and died nobly, servants of Philoe and recipients of his grace in Hethica.”

I sat with the weight of her statements. I tasted them in my mouth, felt the anger and shame they spurred in my heart.

“I will leave you to your sketches,” she said, rising with her stein in hand. “My party leaves at first light. We’re staying in the tent at the edge of town, near the fishing waters. We make for the east, where we hear Eric is slaughtering lives for his own personal amusement. If you truly wish to have the peace of mind you seek, I think you should seriously consider taking up arms with me as my brother in the hunt.”

Without another word, she left me to my drink. I sipped it slowly, thinking my dark thoughts, running her words over and over in my mind. When I left, it was close to midnight. I took a room at the nearby inn but did not sleep. I stared up at the ceiling. I thought of the farm all those years ago, of chasing my quarry. The memories flashed through my mind, scalding hot as always: my misplaced arrow, the bloody gurgle of the miller’s daughter as she plummeted to the floor – the light leaving her eyes.

The kingdom cleared my name. “Collateral damage in pursuit of a public menace,” the sheriff said. That did not stop me from seeing her every night in my mind’s eye regardless of whether I slept or thinking of her father, who slit his own throat in grief.

Lying in the inn that evening, tasting the chill in the air, I sighed.

I knew what had to be done.

***

I rose as soon as the orange hue of morning infiltrated the night sky. Fiona, wearing her large fur coat and her crossbow strapped across her back, was already standing outside the tent. Behind her, an enormous man in a coat was packing two knapsacks – her entourage, I assumed. He had cropped hair the color of wheat and hearty mutton chops that hid a weak chin. His head was oddly shaped and forever tilted, giving him an appearance I was certain brought him much derision. And yet, there was a gentleness about him. Even early on and from a distance, I could tell that much.

“Ah, lad,” Fiona called. “Excellent! I wasn’t sure my pitch had worked.”

“Your words bit me in the ass.”

“Not the first time they’ve done that to someone. I hope in time you’ll find it in yourself to forgive me,” she said, slapping my back mightily.

“Let’s see if we live through this, then we can talk about forgiveness.”

“Love a man with wit. You’ll be fun to travel with I imagine. All I’ve had for company for the past few years is old Rollo here. Say hello, Rollo.”

“Ello,” said Rollo, not looking up from his task.

Fiona chuckled. “Not much of a conversationalist, Rollo, but he has his charms, his uses, so on,” she told me fondly.

I looked up at the sky, which was becoming more orange and yellow with every passing second. The wind was picking up.

“Where do we travel to?”

“There’s a port about ten miles to the east that will get us off this island into the mainland. A day’s worth of travel on sea. I hope you’ve got sea legs.”

“Water’s never given me trouble.”

“Good. It’s bad enough with Rollo. Chap can’t keep anything down when we’re riding the tides.”

“Man weren’t meant to be on the water,” Rollo grumbled. “We just weren’t. We got feet, not fins.”

“From the coast,” Fiona continued, “it’s a four-day journey to the Brush.”

“He’s in the jungles?”

“Indeed. Last correspondence from the Academy said that he was carving up the wildlife and slaughtering any fool who stepped in his path.”

I knew the Brush to be a dangerous place, a labyrinth of mountains, valleys, kapoks, and all manner of beast, including venomous insects the size of boulders.

“Lots of places to hide,” I offered optimistically. “We could lay a trap.”

Fiona smiled. “I knew you’d measure up.”

“We’re good to go, Fiona,” Rollo said gruffly, standing and brushing the snow from his pants.

For a moment, I felt a keen curiosity about their relationship enter my brain, but I let it pass by. Hunting, bounty or otherwise, was a dangerous occupation. On the few occasions I have taken up with partners on jobs, it has been my personal philosophy not to become attached to such companions. This was a lesson I had learned over several jobs in my youth, standing over several graves.

“Well, the killing isn’t waiting on us,” Rollo said, walking to the east.

Fiona followed Rollo, and I, her.

***

It was as Fiona said. We reached the harbor after a full day’s travel, only stopping to feast on seal meat and figs. Our party boarded the ship at dusk.

The ship was a sturdy vessel of oak, a cog named Lithusa that transported supplies from the mainland to the western isles of ice and vice versa. It also carried passengers. That particular evening, our trio were the only passengers aboard. The crew of four that manned the ship were a quiet bunch, content to leave us to our own devices for this voyage.

The stars were out that night. I lied on the deck, beneath the masts, and looked up, tracing the constellations with my finger as I had done most nights since I had been a boy, living off the land with my father in the north. That night, I saw Porly, the night crab, and Zahlo, the bear of fire. I was just tracing my finger across the stars that comprised Griff, the three-legged hare when I felt Fiona come sit next to me, resting her back against the base of the mast.

“Countin’ the stars, are we?”

“Old habit. Helps me remember them all.”

“Quite fond of it myself,” she said, taking out a wooden pipe. It was a beautiful, ornate piece of work. I saw not a chip in it. Around the bowl of the pipe was a carving of a woman with a massive hound. She had a crossbow in her hand. “Do you mind,” she asked?

“Not at all.”

“I have a spare if you’d like,” she said, stuffing tobacco into the bowl of her pipe. “It’s not as nice as mine but it’ll do in a pinch,” she told me with a smile.

I shook my head. “I’ve never had the stomach for it. My father always used to smoke it though. I liked the smell.”

She lit her pipe with a match and began to smoke. She looked up at the sky.

“What’s your favorite?” she asked.

I thought on it. “I’m partial to Iageus.”

She blew some smoke. “The octopus?”

“I always liked the story behind him. Never sought a fight but the fight always sought him.”

“And he always emerged victorious,” she said, knowing the old tales as well, I suppose. “Those who hunted him could never get their hands around him. Too slippery. Iageus, the wily octopus, dodging dangers galore. That how you see yourself, Rupert?” I watched the smoke drift from her pipe. I thought of my father, the campfire illuminating his face as he took his evening toke. I missed him.

“No,” I said. “I’m more of a wild hog, rampaging and making a mess wherever I go.” I nodded at her pipe, desperate to change the subject. “Is that you in the carving?”

“Aye,” she said. “Me and my old trusty hound, Buford. He passed last winter. I was quite broken up about it. Rollo over there actually made this pipe for me to help me remember him,” she said, nodding at our mysterious companion. He was sleeping on a roll a little farther down the deck. “He’s not a bad chap, all things considered.”

I could not help myself. “What’s his trade?”

“He was a carpenter once. I suppose he still is.”

“Is he your…” I dared in amusement, raising an eyebrow.

She chuckled. “No. We don’t know each other that way. That part of my life is well behind me now. He’s just a man who made a choice that landed him in some trouble, and I was there to help in a way. But it is not my story to tell.”

“Understood.”

We sat there in the quiet muffle of the sea wind blowing past. I heard a sailor hock some spit overboard and start scrubbing the deck.

“Do you think we stand a chance?” I asked Fiona at last.

“If it is our last hunt, it will be one for the ages,” she answered.

No more words passed between us. After a time, she packed away her pipe, and, closing her eyes, quickly fell into snoreless slumber. I was not far behind.

***

We disembarked in Morluth, a snowy port on the western edge of Azra. There, we purchased three horses and replenished our supply of fruits and water before setting out east. Within a couple of hours, we had left the snow and ice behind us and were in the green heart of the hinterlands. Before us were plains leading into trees, and, in the far distance, mountains.

The horses were adequate creatures. They quietly carried us across the land without complaint. After a few hours, the chill of the wind was all but gone, and the sun’s heat felt more intimate to me than it had in months.

We stopped at dusk and made camp, changing into outfits that would benefit us for the journey ahead. We discarded our fur coats. I cut off the sleeves of my tunic and threw away most of my steel armor. Some might have considered the move foolish as, yes, it would leave me exposed to the blades of my enemies. However, if all went well, we’d soon be in the jungle, where wearing that armor would slow me down and make me easy prey – if I didn’t die from heat exhaustion first.

Fiona saw me cast the steel away and nodded in approval. “Wise, lad.” She wore only her grey tunic, leggings, and a blue cloak tied around her neck. “Better to be light on your feet in that territory.”

Rollo sat next to the fire, watching us out of the corner of his eye, but mostly focused on the small lump of wood in his left hand. He was using a chisel to coax some sort of shape out of the lump, leaving light brown curls on the ground.

Fiona grinned. “What is it today, Rollo? A bishop?”

“Castle,” Rollo replied gruffly.

For the first time since we had joined arms, I approached him to look at the object. He had carved several small squares jutting out of the top of the wood lump. I realized then what he was making.

“Chess pieces?”

He nodded. “For a girl.

“It’s already lovely,” I said. “I think it will be beautiful.”

He briefly looked at me, seemingly taken back by the comment, then returned to his work. “Thank you,” he replied.

“He’s carving a whole set, aren’t you?” Fiona said.

“Yes,” he answered simply.

I decided ‘twas best not to inquire further. I had clearly embarrassed him in some fashion, which had not been my intent. We took to our tents and slept without incident.

For two days we traveled and made camp both nights, subsisting only on water, figs, and oranges. On the fourth morning of our journey, Fiona woke us both before sunrise.

“Biforn,” she said. “A herd of them nearby.”

I nodded. “Breakfast.”

We left Rollo in charge of the camp, Fiona asking him to have coffee made by the time we came back. He grunted in affirmation and took to carving his castle as daylight peeked in on our camp.

I followed her as we made our way down the hill we had camped on and crept onto the plains proper. Out in the distance, I could see the Biforn. There must have been at least a hundred of them, gathered and grazing.

We crept, falling to our bellies and slowly crawling closer. The work was dull, taking at least half an hour in that dreaded heat, but we dared not move faster in fear of spooking the herd. We were some 50 yards away when Fiona raised her hand for me to stop. Slowly, ever so slowly, she unhooked the crossbow from her back and gently shifted into a sitting position.

She raised the crossbow and aimed carefully.

“Philoe, lord of the hunt,” she whispered. “We ask you to steel our hands and let this bolt fly true so that we may nourish our bodies. We ask that our quarry’s suffering be swift. Glory to you, Philoe.”

She fired. The bolt flew. From the herd came a cry. The mass of bodies moved, slowly at first, and then began to pick up speed as it rushed to the north, leaving in its wake a single and still corpse.

I rose from the ground. We approached the Biforn. The bolt had caught it in the eye. Fiona looked down at the beast with a resigned expression. I could see no pride in her eyes. It was clear that to her the killing of a defenseless, graceful animal was necessary but regrettable.

“Quite a shot,” I offered.

She removed the bolt from the eye with a sickening twist and pull motion. “Your turn to do some work.”

I nodded and unsheathed my sword. When I was done, we had packed away more than enough meat to last us a week. Coffee was waiting for us when we returned. We stuck several slabs of meat through a stick and cooked them over the fire, turning them while Rollo finished carving his castle.

When we finally bit into the steaks, they were juicy and tender. I was finishing off my meal when I heard Rollo grunt. He pointed at the crossbow at Fiona’s feet.

“Foregrip’s busted,” he said simply.

Fiona lifted the crossbow up and turned it over. Sure enough, a web of cracks was spun through the bottom of the weapon.

“Tuk,” she muttered.

“Give it here,” he grumbled.

She passed it to him. Taking out his hammer with a sigh, Rollo disappeared into his tent. He returned shortly with the crossbow. The foregrip had been replaced but had been done so with such skill and dexterity that it looked like it had never been damaged in the first place.

“You can’t swing her around like she’s steel,” he told Fiona, gingerly handing the weapon back to her. “You have to be gentle.”

“Thank you, Rollo,” she said.

He grunted and sat back down. Pulling out a lump of wood, he took to carving another chess piece. An hour later, camp was packed, and we rode east once more.

We were midway through our last day’s journey in the hinterlands when two travelers approached us on a dirt path cutting through the trees. The sun was setting, and cloaks hid their bodies, but I could see in their eyes that they were starved and mad. I had my hand on the hilt of my sword already when one of them threw their cloak aside and revealed a blade in his hand. His partner awkwardly did the same.

They were a pathetic sight. Their bodies were measly, covered by tattered tunics. What little hair that clung to their skulls made them look more like diseased dogs than men. The braver one spoke first, revealing a mouth with few jagged teeth, spitting his words. “Give us your foodstuffs. We don’t want to hurt you.”

Fiona chuckled. “And you won’t.” She dug into her knapsack and brought out two small apples and a couple of meat slabs. “Put your sword away, Rupert. These men can’t even lift their blades.” I could see their ribs jutting through their skin. Their shoes had holes the size of large coins, with red flesh-ripped toes poking through. I sheathed my sword.

The braver one limped toward Fiona, who extended the fruits first, passing them gently to the man, and then the meats.

“You’ll need to cook the meat tonight. It’s set to go bad soon.”

The man looked up at her in confusion and opened his mouth, perhaps to express gratitude, but then looked away. He mumbled something and then threw his cloak over himself. The two of them retreated into the trees, the quieter one helping the other with his limp.

“That was the last of our food,” Rollo said flatly.

“There’s always game in this part of the world,” Fiona said, watching the two men wade into the forest. “Not everyone is as capable as us, Rollo.”

“There’s a more pressing matter anyway,” I said, tasting blood that had not yet been spilt. “Those were not beggars. They were scouts.”

***

We were standing in the middle of our new camp deep in the woods. We had set our horses free in the hinterlands before crossing into the pines, fearful for their safety and knowing they would not grant us much utility in the jungles once we reached the Brush.

“You sure you’re good with this, lad?” Fiona asked.

“It is not the first time we have done this,” answered Rollo.

“Does not make it easier,” she said.

“I will not die here,” he told her. “I will not allow it.”

She chuckled. “That’s the spirit.”

Turning to me, Fiona pointed north in an exaggerated gesture. “I saw several nests of yokal birds over there,” she said loudly. “Enough to feed a whole family for several days.”

We stepped into the trees. We had made our way for about a quarter of a mile when I stopped her. “That’s enough time,” I said.

We turned.

“Can Rollo hold his own in a fight?” I asked.

“I’m not concerned,” she said, though her trembling lip suggested otherwise. “How many do you think there will be?”

“Bandit parties typically keep to six or seven at the most. You get any bigger, you open the door for mutinies and backstabbers to take over your operation.”

“That’s a lot of men for us to handle in a fight.”

“I’ve killed more in a battle,” I told her. I wasn’t bragging. It was simply the truth.

As we approached our camp, we could hear voices talking loudly. I unsheathed my sword. Fiona loaded a bolt into her crossbow.

We found a tree about 20 yards from our campsite and lowered ourselves onto the ground next to it. Looking beyond the bark, it was just as we expected. Five men stood at the campsite. Nearly all their swords were unsheathed, though one of the men had a bow with a drawn arrow pointed directly at Rollo. He stood next to the flame with his hands at his side and did not seem afraid.

“Once again, freak,” one of the bandits, the leader, yelled. “I ask: When will your companions be back with their quarry?”

“I know not,” Rollo said. “Hunting is an art.”

“To hell with this,” the bandit said. “We’re not strangers to the meat of our own. Giero, put one in his skull and let’s cook this bastard.”

The bandit named Giero pulled the drawstring back.

“Hear me!” Rollo yelled, his voice booming like thunder as he turned to Giero. “I beseech you, Xani, god of war and cruelty. If this man should let loose his arrow, let me catch it with my own hands and live this night through, and I shall make him eat it as a tribute to you.”

There was a moment of silence and then the five bandits began to laugh.

“Do not make me do this to you, boy,” Rollo said gently to Giero.

Giero let go of the drawstring. The arrow flew but never met its mark. Rollo’s hand rose faster than a winged horse’s gallop and caught the arrow’s shaft just as the tip was mere inches away from his eye.

The bandits stood silent and stunned, and that was our cue. Fiona had already put one of her bolts through the throat of the bandit leader when the rest of the party saw my blade lifted high. The next to perish was scrambling to raise his sword when I rent his head from his shoulders. The dead man fell to the ground like a sack of flour.

The two other swordsmen were upon me, and they were both of considerable skill. I could only raise my blade to deflect their swings, their offensive leaving me no room to strike out at them myself. I looked away to see that Rollo was wrestling with the bowman and could offer me no help.

My strength started to slipped away beneath the bashing of their blades against mine. One of them slammed into me, pinning my body against the bark of a tree so that it scraped the back of my neck. Looking up, I could see his partner preparing to run me through with his sword. He didn’t get the chance.

There was a whistle in the air, and he fell back to the ground, howling in pain – a bolt in his belly. In his shock, the man pinning me against the tree loosened his grip and I slammed my face into his, the blood from our burst noses mingling and flying like spit.

He fell crying into the campfire and screamed as though he were a banshee while flames devoured his scalp. He kicked and rolled on the dirt next to the fire, trying to extinguish the flame to no avail. I stuck my sword into the burning body to end his misery. The man went limp, a quiet whimper punctuating the final moments of his life.

Looking over, I saw Rollo beating Giero about the head with his fists and forcing him to the ground once again. The fight was going out of the bowman. I considered stepping in to help finish the deed when I heard a cry.

“You stupid bastard,” cried Fiona. “I was trying to help you.” I turned to see Fiona holding her arm as blood poured down it. She was backing away from the man with the bolt in his belly. He had a dagger out, pointed toward Fiona, his hand trembling as red dripped from his mouth. On the ground next to him, Fiona’s crossbow, bandages, and a pair of clamps, no doubt used for extraction.

I stepped over to the man. He was turning to face me when my blade went through his temple. The head jerked for a couple of moments and then went still. I pulled my sword from his skull and picked up the bandages.

“Let me see your arm.”

“I can take care of it,” Fiona said, taking them from me. She was trying not to look at the man who had stabbed her. He remained quiet and still, with his face covered in sticky red. “I’m fine. See to Rollo.”

As you probably surmised, Sorcerer, Rollo needed none of my assistance. I stepped over to him to find a gruesome sight. He was situated above Giero, forcing an arrow down into the bowman’s mouth of broken teeth. Giero, his face purple and red from strain, pushed against Rollo’s arms weakly and tried to cry out but could only sputter and choke.

“You made me do this,” Rollo fumed. “This is your fault, accursed fool.”

I turned my head. One could not escape their pledges to the gods, but it did not mean I had to witness such a cursed sight. A sickening wet sound, like a fistful of grapes being crushed, filled the air and that was that.

“Fiona,” Rollo said, standing and making his way over to the hunter, his arms dripping sticky red.

“I’m fine,” she said. “I’m fine.”

“You’re doing a piss job, give it to me.” She passed the bandages over to him. He skillfully wrapped the bandage around her wounded arm while I picked through the pockets of dead men – a loathsome task I had become numb to during this profession.

Fiona laughed and playfully punched Rollo in the shoulder. “You make good bait.”

“Rupert,” Rollo called to me. “Find anything?”

I counted all my pluckings. “Pound of jerky or so between us that will keep us through the night and then some,” I called back. “A half-drunken bottle of brandy. A few coins that won’t do us any good once we cross the border. This one who lost his head has some gold teeth in there, but I don’t think it’s worth the trouble.”

She nodded, exhausted. “Leave it. Let’s pack up and camp somewhere else. I don’t want to be around all these bodies once they start to stink in the morning sun.”

Rollo and I packed the camp, so Fiona could rest, and then we moved half a mile to the east. We unrolled our cots and started a fire. Fiona fell fast asleep, so it was just me, Rollo, the night sky, and the brandy.

We passed the bottle back and forth for a bit in silence. After a while, I was befuddled enough with liquor that politeness could not hold back my curiosity. He saw me examining him.

He looked across the dancing flames at me. “You have something you want to ask, bounty hunter?”

“Yes,” I conceded. “I suppose so. I was merely curious about how you and Miss Fang came to travel together.”

“It is a dark tale,” he warned.

“I’m accustomed to such stories. They do not frighten me.”

The stars were out, and the fire was crackling. The creatures in the wood around us were chirping. Rollo sighed and, with reluctance, set to telling me his story.

***

“In another life, some years ago, I was a carpenter in a small village called Loral, working my craft. I lived a life of solitude. People saw me and my…deformity…and left me be except when they needed furniture or a small trinket to give to a loved one. I supplied all the beds and tables and what have you in the village, but people never had a word, cruel or kind, to stay to me – at least to my face. They looked at me, how big I was and how my head was shaped, and they assumed I wasn’t right in my brain. They’d make fun of me amongst one another. Call me Rollo the Ogre, that sort of thing.

I could not blame them. I would find the comedy of my own appearance amusing if I was not the one cursed with it. You, with that eye of yours, no doubt understanding my meaning.”

“Aye, my eye,” I said.

“One day, a woman came to our village. She lived in a manor nearby with her husband, a diplomat who was rarely ever home. This was not a marriage of love. It had been arranged. She cared not for him. He loved only politics. There were no children between them. She was lonely. Her name was Beatrice. She let me call her Bea. No one had ever told me to call them by a nickname before.”

“What does she look like?”

“Radiant. She shines like a star. She came into my shop and looked at all the little wooden trinkets I had on display. Soldiers, farmers, mages from the Academy. She found one that she adored: a winged tiger bursting free of a cage. It was the most beautiful piece I’d ever made. I’d spent weeks crafting it. Must have thrown away a dozen like it before I got it right.”

I could see she saw how special the figurine was, that she saw the long hours of my craft, my diligence embedded in its wooden contours. She cried looking at it. She held my heart in her hands and she wept. She told me it was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen in her life. She had to have it, she said.”

“Did you give it to her?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“How much did she pay?”

“Nothing. You cannot sell someone your heart. It must be given freely, wholly.”

“She came back, I take it.”

“Yes. Often. She’d come to look at the figurines. Then she came to watch me make them. Then she spent days with me in the store. She’d stay from opening to close. Weeks went by. Just us talking about woodwork. And then we talked about other things.”

I took a swig of the brandy. “Like what?”

“Wanting to see the world, live in the mountains. Eating exotic dishes. She lent me her favorite books to read and then we’d talk about them after I finished them. She taught me how to play chess. It’s her favorite game.”

“And then?”

“And then one day she didn’t go home. She came up to me as I was closing shop and planted her lips against mine. She told me I was hers. I could not deny it. I’d never been with a woman before. I was embarrassed, but she was kind to me. She taught me how to give her what she wanted, and I liked it. I liked being desired. I did not ever expect to know that sensation.”

“It feels good,” I said. “To be wanted in such a way.”

“I thought it’d just be a curiosity. That she’d have her fill and then go back to her castle. You hear stories about how nobles are. Bored. They have their flings with the peasants and then return to their lives.”

“I do know that story,” I confessed. “I know it well.”

“But she wanted to be with me in a real way. So, we carried on. Everyone knew. They thought it was strange but none of them hounded us. All was well. A year went by. It was the happiest year of my life…and then.”

He swallowed. I passed him the brandy. He took a chug and passed it back to me. He stared off in the distance for a time.

“The lord came back?” I asked.

He nodded. “It didn’t take him long to figure out what the mice had been up to. He found her in my shop and dragged her to the village square. He started beating her and kicking her to show everyone that he was a man to be taken seriously – one of those men.”

My heart sank. I knew what he was going to say next.

“I went into my workshop. There was this mallet I had, mostly to lend to the village when they needed to build something. Massive thing. I grabbed it. I marched into the street. I told him to stop, or I would hurt him. He drew his sword. I could tell he had never used it in his life, the way he was holding it. He had spent his whole life behind a desk. He could not hurt me if he tried.

‘I will slaughter this whore,’ he said to me. ‘And then I’ll gut you, pig.’

He turned away from me to hurt Bea. I brought the mallet down on his head. Everyone in the square screamed, even Bea. I approached the lord. He was scrambling on the ground, trying to cover the wound in his dented head, screaming how he was going to kill us both. And then I brought the mallet down again and he never said another word.”

We were quiet for a time and then he spoke again. “There was a trial. It did not take them long to convict me. Beatrice wept. She visited me every day while I was waiting for them to hang me, a mourner in practice.”

“‘If they kill you, I’ll throw myself from the cliffs,’ she said. I told her not to be so foolish, to go somewhere and live the life we had always dreamed for ourselves, to live for both of us. And then a week before I was set to dance from the rope, a hunter came calling. The great Fiona Fang.”

“Fiona saves the day,” I chuckled.

“She has a habit of doing that, yes. She had come to town looking for me. Her crossbow had recently broken – probably because she dropped it like the oaf she is,” he said. Fiona continued to snore next to us.

“She found out about my predicament and paid a visit to me in the jail. I remember it clear as day, her leaning against the bars and looking in on me. “

“‘So, you’re the one who stuck it to the nobleman’s wife and then killed him,’” she said. ‘I admire a man who goes after what he wants with that kind of conviction.’ She showed me the crossbow, which was a broken smattering of wood and string at that point and asked if it could be repaired. I told her I could fix it.

She worked out a deal with the local council. Apparently, no one liked the lord I’d killed, so they were willing to lessen my sentence for a tidy sum of money and the promise that Fiona would only release me once she felt I had properly redeemed myself. I still don’t understand why she stuck her neck out for me. It would have been easy enough for her to find another craftsman in this wide world to accompany her.”

I understood. The irony of the hunter: though they stalk and kill every manner of beast with ruthless efficiency, there’s nothing they pity in this world more than a caged thing.

“How long ago was this?” I asked.

“Three years. This is to be our last hunt. Then I will go home to my Beatrice. I promised I’d make a chess set just for her. That it’d be my masterpiece.”

“I do not know if we will survive this,” I found myself saying. I did not know then why I was telling this stranger such thoughts. Perhaps it was because I thought we were all going to perish soon anyway, I decided the next morning, or maybe it was the brandy.

I know differently now.

“I am afraid,” he confessed. “But I have promised Beatrice. There is nothing more sacred in this world than a person’s oath, yes? It is all we truly have as humans: love and oath, which are the same thing in the end.”

I did not answer him. We finished the bottle and then bid each other good night before taking to our sleeping rolls. I lied there for a time, tracing the constellations with a trembling finger, relieved and heartbroken that I did not have someone home waiting for my return.

In truth, Grand Sorcerer, I knew I did not deserve what Rollo had. I had killed a young, innocent woman with all of her life before her. And for what? Glory and a few measly, bloody gold coins. How could I ever allow myself the kind of future that I had robbed from her? A man who could do such a thing and somehow find the way to go on living was unfit for love.

And yet, the wanting remains, inescapable as the passing of time.

***

We crossed into the Brush at midday. The sun was beating down on us, making the heat of the jungle floor unbearable. We threw away our cloaks and ripped more of our sleeves. The sweat poured off our faces regardless, but we were fortunate there was no shortage of springs.

We camped at dusk near such a spring and took turns bathing in the water while the two others stood guard. Fiona went out hunting by moonlight, the shafts of light cutting through the holes in the canopy, and she returned an hour later with all manner bird stuffed in her bag. She was not alone.

She held a trail of rope that led to a massive wildcat behind her. The creature was glorious, with a fierce red mane and black stripes across its back. It limped in the dirt and made low growls, but they seemed to be complaints rather than threats. Still, my hand hovered over the hilt of my sword.

“There will be no need for that,” Fiona said, letting the makeshift leash drop. “This is Charlie.”

The cat walked over to the spring and lapped up water with his massive tongue.

“Always collecting strays,” grumbled Rollo.

Fiona ignored the remark and sat by the fire. She took to plucking the birds she had caught. “Eric is somewhere to the north,” she said.

“How do you know?” I inquired. “You didn’t see him, did you?”

“No,” she said grimly. “I found Charlie over there surrounded by twenty of his kin, all slaughtered and skinned. Eric’s collecting their furs. Probably to craft some sort of coat or to sell to merchants in the west.”

The cat lied by the fire on his belly, watching the flames dance. His breath was heavy.

“With the exception of our friend over here, he’s cleaned out the area of wildcats. He’ll have to go north to the tip of the jungle, where they make their homes on the cliffs, to find more.”

Rollo got up and came over to the cat, taking a seat next to him. “May I touch you?” he asked Charlie, reaching out his hand.

Charlie’s eyes hovered over Rollo. His mouth flinched, briefly showing his massive fangs, but he lifted his head and leaned into Rollo’s large hands, allowing himself to be stroked.

“I’m sorry,” Rollo said, “for what you have lost.” He ran his fingers through the cat’s fur while Fiona prepared dinner, and then we feasted on bird. Charlie had two birds all to himself.

We all took to sleep, with the exception of Charlie, who silently (perhaps given his nature) stayed awake, keeping watch over the camp. During the dead of night, I awoke to find his hot breath in my face. He was lying on the ground once more, his massive face just inches from me. He was looking at me with these large, luminous eyes, regarding me with something like curiosity. I said nothing. I simply watched his watching for some time and then he stood up and walked elsewhere in the camp.

For two days, we proceeded north. We’d make camp and Fiona would hunt, pluck, and cook birds. She’d pet Charlie while Rollo took to crafting a figurine of him. When he was finished, he showed the wildcat, who sniffed the wooden figure and then turned away.

“We have a critic in our midst,” Fiona chuckled.

On the third day, we found a village – what was left of it. We spied the smoke from afar. As we neared, the stench of death hung heavy in the air. The carnage we found at the village itself was more than I could do justice with words. Homes burnt. Bodies cleaved, laid about the street. Men, women, children. The houses were ransacked. Not a soul lived.

We spent an hour looking for survivors.

“No swords or spears among them,” I told my fellow travelers. “This town had no warriors.”

“Butchered,” Rollo said bitterly.

“Tracks!” Fiona yelled. We ran over to find her kneeling in the dirt, looking at deep footprints in the soil. Charlie was next to her, sniffing them. He growled.

“Something heavy made these,” I said. “Someone wearing steel armor.”

“It’s him,” she said, barely above a whisper. “It has to be. He’s not far. Hours, maybe.”

She stood up, brushed off her pants. “It’s time.” She walked over to Rollo and put her hand on his shoulder. “Rollo, I release you from my service. You are a free man once more – your debt cleared. Go be with your woman.”

I watched as surprise and then joy and then strangely anger flashed across his face. “No,” he answered. “I will not let you do this alone.”

“When you pledged your service to me, it was not to die at the hands of a monster,” she said. “I will not in good conscience allow you to partake in this battle. I cannot promise you that we will live through this fight.”

“Go,” I found myself urging him as well. “She and I, we chose this. You did not.”

Rollo looked at me and then her. “I choose it now,” he said. “I will not leave you alone in such a dire hour. We go together. We come back together.”

Fiona sighed. There would be no changing his mind. “Well, at least we’ll die bravely. Fools, but brave fools. And you, little one,” she said, turning to Charlie. “You should run along now. Bad times are ahead.”

But Charlie refused. He followed us into the Brush once more as we made our way toward the jagged edge of fate.

The sun fell fast after that, and we found ourselves at camp one final time. We chewed bird flesh and basked in the silence of our company. No one had to say anything. We had passed the need to share words with one another. We took turns petting Charlie while watching the stars above us.

Fiona went to sleep first, bidding us good night, and crawling into her sleeping roll.

“Rupert,” Rollo said, after a time, shaking my attention from tracing the constellations. I looked over. He had, before him on a quilt, 32 small wooden figurines. In the firelight, I could make out their shapes.

“The full set?” I asked.

He nodded. “Finished two days ago. I cannot wait to play with Beatrice upon our return. I hope, after everything is said and done, you’d do the honor of dropping in on our quaint little home – wherever we may end up. Beatrice has always wanted to see the mountains. Maybe we’ll have a cabin in the north.”

I nodded, unsure of what to say. He reached out and touched my arm. His palm was warm against me. “You must live,” he said, a quiet, simple declaration.

“I do not think I deserve to,” I answered. It was a thought I had many times but had never said aloud until this moment. “I think it would be better if I were dead.”

“For whom?”

“Everyone.”

Rollo shook his head. “I would miss you terribly. It would be a shame to rob the world of someone like yourself.”

I looked away, but he tugged on my arm and suddenly I felt something being thrust in my hand. Looking down, I saw it was a wooden carving of the four of us – Fiona, myself, Rollo, even Charlie. It was beautiful.

“Swear to me that you will live.”

I looked into his eyes, struck by the fierceness within and the tenor of his words. “I swear,” my mouth said for me.

His face relaxed, eyes softening, lips forming into a smile. “Then it’s settled. Good night, Rupert.”

He packed up his figurines into his bag and then climbed into his sleeping roll. I waited a time by the fire, rubbing my hands over the carving he made me, and then crawled into my own roll. I turned over, away from the fire, and found myself weeping.

Someone wanted me to live. It was an incredibly painful revelation.

***

Our group left at dawn. It did not take us long to find him. We simply followed the cries of dying wildcats. We came upon a clearing and lo and behold, he was there, skinning three cats he had slain. Behind him, a cliff situated high above the rushing rivers of the Brush.

He was a massive, hulking man encased in a suit of steel armor. A horned helm covered his face, with a visor slit for his eyes, though looking within I could see no eye or flesh – only darkness. He seemed more fortress than a man. On his back, two sheathes held blades: one longsword, the other a claymore.

Charlie growled as Eric continued to loosen the skins from the dead cats. Fiona motioned him into silence with a gentle hand raise, but it was too late. Eric stood slowly and looked at us as we emerged from the tree line.

“Gentlemen,” she said, pulling out her crossbow and taking aim. “Whatever is in store for us, it has been an honor.”

I unsheathed my blade and stepped into the clearing. Charlie walked at my side, uttering a low growl.

That monster looked at me, tilting his helm, as though I were a curious amusement. He dropped his skinning knife and unsheathed his longsword. He raised the blade at me but said nothing.

I wasted no time, barreling toward him with my sword gripped tightly. I swung, and our blades connected, showering the air with sparks. I could sense immediately that I was outmatched. I was the better swordsman by technique, but his strength was immense. I beat on, slashing at him as best as I could, but every blow was met with deflection.

Luckily, I was not alone. Charlie roared and dove into the action, slamming into our foe with the full force of his body. The cat bit into Eric’s hand and proceeded to maul it, shaking his head fiercely.

Eric bashed my face with the hilt of his sword and lifted it above the wildcat’s head. I cried in terror, choking, for Charlie to move. The blade started to come down, but a loud twang filled the air and a second later the sword was on the ground.

“Don’t let up, lads!” Fiona screamed, loading another bolt.

I swallowed the blood on my lips and leapt back into the fight, swinging my blade at the armor, hoping to find a dent anywhere while Eric vainly fought to pull the wildcat off his arm. The sword bounced back with sharp tings and gongs. I could not penetrate his suit.

“The neck!” Rollo cried, joining me at my side with his own sword, a pathetic and chipped blade. “Go for the neck.”

Eric towered over both of us. Looking up, I could see a small outline revealing a sliver of flesh between the helm and the cuirass. I swung with as much precision as I could at the monster’s neck. Two slashes bounced off but the third found its mark. Red splashed the armor, and an unholy screeching filled the air. The sound was coming from within Eric’s helm.

I couldn’t help but smile at Rollo. We had made the bastard bleed.

Our joy did not last long.

In his pain, the Doombringer rallied. He batted Charlie away with his other hand. The cat fell away, bringing Eric’s gauntlet with him as he tumbled to the ground. And then Eric turned, grabbing Rollo by the throat.

My heart seized in panic. I made to slash once more at the neckline, but the brute brushed me away like an insect. I fell to the ground, my sword clattering. Scrambling to my feet, I could only watch in horror as The Doombringer ripped Rollo’s blade from his own hand and thrust it into his chest.

He tossed the carpenter aside like a ragdoll and then turned to me. Rage clouded my mind. I saw only red. My blood burned and my heart screamed. I rushed him with the sword and slashed once more, beating the blade again and again clumsily at the villain’s neckline.

I managed to get two more cuts into the flesh before he caught my hand and pounded his fist into my arm. I felt several bones shatter and I fell to the ground, gritting through the pain.

Eric loomed over me, lifting his foot to bring it down on my skull. I braced myself for the end but suddenly – an object I later realized was Fiona’s crossbow – collided with the helm, knocking him off center. Eric groaned and was turning when the great hunter herself leapt onto his back and wrapped one arm around his helm. She stabbed at the neckline with her skinning dagger.

I took advantage of the monster’s surprise. Though my left hand lacked all the dexterity and swordsman’s skill of my right, I still knew how to swing. I took aim at the fleshy hand that Charlie had uncovered when he pulled away glove and swung with all my might.

Another hellish howl issued from the helm as the Doombringer’s index finger flew into the dirt, a bloody swirl trailing behind it. Eric slammed his fist into Fiona’s face, but she refused to loosen her grip.

“I’ve been slashed and mauled and bitten by every predator that’s walked this world,” she spat at him, stabbing again and again. “You’re nothing but a cub. A godsdamn whelp is what you are.”

I rose to charge at him once more, but his flailing body rammed me with the force of a galloping bull and sent me sprawling. My ribs cracked, something in the muscles of my leg gave way.

“Come on!” Fiona cried at Eric, blood streaming down her nose. “Is that the best you’ve got!?”

I struggled to rise and then saw, miraculously, Rollo getting to his feet – his own sword still jutting out of his chest. Its weak quality must have been what kept it from killing him outright.

I tried to wave to him, to get him to flee, to save himself, but I could only manage a hoarse whisper. Rollo watched Fiona slowly losing her grip with each punch. He looked over his shoulder at me and then back at the pair of them fighting.

I called for him to stop, but he was already hobbling toward the pair of them. With astonishing speed for a man grievously injured, he leapt and wrapped his arms around Eric’s helm as well, pulling back. Fiona soon caught on and, dropping her dagger, yanked back on the helm with both her hands. Closer and closer to the cliff’s edge, the three of them stumbled, until they were at the precipice. The Doombringer screeched in protest.

“Glory to the end of the hunt!” Fiona laughed.

I opened my mouth to yell something, anything, but the words would not come out. I watched helplessly as the three of them fell back over the cliffs and out of sight.

***

I spent hours getting to the bottom of the cliffs. Charlie limped behind me, wounded but alive, and we had bird leftovers to share when we stopped to replenish our strength.

When I finally reached the river, I found no sight of them. No mashed-up bone and flesh on the rocks. No torn clothing. Nothing. It was though they had disappeared completely before touching earth. My best guess was that they hit the stream and their bodies floated far away from where I could reach them. My friends were dead, of that I had little doubt. I knew not what had become of the Doombringer – not yet at least.

I did the only thing I could do. I left the Brush, with both Fiona and Rollo’s bags in tow. Charlie followed me all the way to the edge of the jungle. I entreated him to come with me, but he simply rubbed his face against my leg as a sorrowful farewell, and then disappeared back into the jungle.

I hope he remains well.

I found a small village in the hinterlands and purchased a room for the night with coin that was in Fiona’s knapsack. I hoped wherever she was in the cosmos, she would not begrudge me using her money to survive.

There, in the candlelight of my room, I referred to a journal I found in Rollo’s knapsack. I searched through the entries briskly, trying my best to give the dead man’s words the privacy they were due, until I finally came upon the name of the village he shared with his beloved Beatrice: Loral. It was some 200 miles west of where I was. In the morning, I rose, purchased water, fruit, and a horse. Then I rode west.

The journey to Loral lasted a week. Once I was in the village, it did not take long to find Beatrice. After she had been exiled from her manor, she took up in Rollo’s workshop, to await his return. I could tell she was a kind-spirited woman when I met her. She greeted me at the door with a smile that fell away when I told her I was an acquaintance of Rollo. I imagine she knew the nature of the news I had come to share.

We made our way into the home. From the bag, I took out the pieces, one by one, and laid them out on the table in their proper position. She chuckled sadly when she saw them.

“All for me?”

I nodded. “He completed it, right before the fight that claimed his life.”

She sighed to keep back tears. “And you came all this way to bring this to me?”

“Your husband was a good man. Fiona freed him of his servitude before our battle, free to come home. He refused to desert us.”

“Of course he did. His heart isn’t made for that kind of selfishness, no matter how well-earned.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, fighting to keep from turning into a blubbering mess of a man. “I wish it had been me in his place, truly.”

She smiled faintly. “I cannot say that I wish any different, but I do not hold your fortune against you. It is good to know the man I loved died being the man I love, despite living in such a cruel world.”

“Indeed.”

“What a beautiful chess set,” she said after a time, looking at the pieces on the table before her. And, at long last, she wept.

I stayed with her for a few hours and then left her to her grief. Which brings us, at present, to you, Grand Sorcerer. I penned this account for the Academy as soon as word made it back to me Eric remained among the living, massacring his way through the Golden Plains. I find it impossible to convey the depth of my despair, knowing my two companions died while that monster continues to wreak carnage wherever he goes.

I have decided I shan’t pursue him further. Rollo made me swear an oath to live, after all, even in such moments I would wish otherwise. I will bury my sword and find another life for myself, one with less blood and madness. Perhaps I shall be a farmer. I would like to grow things. That would be nice.

In the meantime, I hope that all this blabbering, as well as the finger I entrusted to you, shall help you find the secret to saving us all. I wish you the best, Oolow. For all my sorrow, you bear a heavier weight than I ever could.

13
Zitwit, Cult Leader

Beak-nosed and built like a ferret, Percy Plaidwater sighed, stepping down into the gravel and muck of the cavern with great reluctance, muddying the beautiful leather boots his wife’s brother had stitched him for his birthday. Melinda would give him an earful, no doubt, but it couldn’t be helped. Percy was on the precipice of a huge promotion at work, he could feel it.  And with a new baby boy on the way and Melinda constantly prodding him about moving into something a little cozier than the hut they called home, he had to be willing to do any and everything to bring home more coin.

As he waded into the dark cave with a torch in hand, he imagined the smell of sizzling bacon filling the air of a new kitchen and considered a cliffside cottage he and his wife had been eyeing the past month as his promotion became more of a certainty. I bet it’s lovely in the morning, when the sun strikes the lawn – like feeling the grace of the gods on your own skin, he thought. Yes. All this drudgework would be worth it in the end, he decided.

After a few minutes, he came to the door at the backwall of the cave. He opened his leather notebook deftly with one hand and flipped to the page he had written down the sequence on his last visit, reading it in the light of his torch. Closing the book and raising his hand to form a fist, he knocked on the door once with his knuckles, waited a second, rapidly knocked three times, and then turning his hand, beat at the door with the bottom of his fist twice.

A moment passed. He wondered if he had gotten the sequence right. He knocked on the door once again with his knuckles but was interrupted by a loud yet squeaky voice from within, “I’m coming! I’m coming! There’s like twenty locks on this door, give me a second.”

“My mistake,” Percy called back meekly. He could hear the locks now clicking. There were a lot of them. A full minute passed before the door was finally thrown open, the torchlight within shining light into the cave.

Percy smiled at the familiar figure standing in the threshold. He was a small man with a belly that peered over his trousers, small brown eyes, and an auburn-colored handlebar mustache. The trim of his black cloak was lined with fake jewels of every color, and perhaps his most distinguished feature was the velvet hexagon-shaped hat that sat atop his balding head. All the followers of Flarel’s Legion International™ wore such a hat.

Percy had opinions about the hat – and the man who wore it – but he kept them to himself. He had learned to conduct himself with a smile and silence that others mistook as genuine warmth. Percy’s face was his greatest feature: It seemed so naturally feeble and helpless that no one thought him capable of loathing. In the years to come, his ability to be strategically misunderstood would take him far in the firm.

“Well, Mister Pungentpond, are you coming in?” said the man named Zitwit. “I have a very busy schedule, as you know. I don’t have much time to dawdle.”

“Of course,” Percy answered, not bothering to correct him.

Percy followed Zitwit inside, taking care to gently close the door behind him. He trailed his host through the halls of Flarel’s Legion International™. This multi-level lair had once been headquarters to the third most popular doomsday cult (“I like to think of us more as an apocalypse-aligned advocacy group,” Zitwit had repeatedly stressed in interviews with the Pilath Chronicle over the years to no avail) in all of Azra.

Different times. The slaying of the seer had emptied the organization of most of its members and their accompanying dues in the months since. After all, what use was a doomsday cult in the middle of an apocalypse?

Percy peered into one of the lair’s many kitchens as they passed and saw two buff, shirtless men lifting a table. A bored mage stood next to them and waved a hand, opening a blue portal that crackled with power. The two men backed into the portal with the bench.

“They’ve already started the process,” Percy said, surprised.

“Showed up yesterday morning,” Zitwit sighed. “They’ve already moved out all of levels five and six. I imagine they’ll have this place cleared out before the week’s done. The last members of Flarel’s Legion International will be vacating tomorrow evening.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Percy said, injecting the line with the sort of heartfelt emotion he had practiced during his decade as a financial advisor. They had classes for that at the firm, but even so, Percy had always been exceptionally talented at pretending to care about his clients.

They stepped into Zitwit’s office. In the pantheon of cult leader offices, it was on the smaller end of what Percy had seen: a writing desk with a chair in front of it for visitors, a green carpet, and a massive wall-hanging portrait of a man who looked exactly like Zitwit but with more pronounced jowls.

Zitwit sat down and opened the notebook on his desk, flipping to a fresh page. He took up a quill as Percy sat down. The cult leader seemed in a sullen mood, so Percy decided to speak first to speed things along and make this afternoon less painful than it needed to be.

“I heard the sale was closed to your financial satisfaction.”

“As much as it could be, I suppose,” said Zitwit, “though I’m sure father is mooning me all the way up there from Hethica.” He nodded at the portrait looming behind him.

“These feelings are normal when one sells off a family business,” said Percy, pulling from his arsenal of practiced statements.

Zitwit smiled bitterly. “You my therapist now?”

Percy flashed a humble grin. “Apologies. I’ve handled a lot these cases. I’m just happy the settlement was substantial.”

“I’m sure you are. With the commission your firm is taking from these ‘counseling sessions,’” he said, making air quotes with his fingers. “My wife’s pleased,” Zitwit added. “She’s already writing to real estate agents in the eastern isles, looking for beachfront manor houses. I’m sure that wretched son of mine is excited that he’ll get even more money when I keel over. It’s all about the money to everyone – except me.”

Zitwit turned back to look up at the portrait above him once more. “Four generations and it all comes to a whimpering halt here. I really thought I’d be the one to kick-start the end. I so badly wanted to be the culmination, the glorious shining star of my family. Hell of a thing, I guess, how it all turned out. Gods damn Doombringer.”

Percy felt himself growing aggravated. He thought of all the money Zitwit had – enough to last his family several lifetimes – and all he had to do was cash out on the loony bin business. “Surely, it can’t matter that much,” Percy said before he could stop himself. “It’s still Flarel drowning Azra in flame and darkness, isn’t it? That’s what your organization has said would happen now for over a hundred years. It’s the same result. Your ancestors were right.”

“It’s not how the world ends,” Zitwit said harshly before softening his voice. “It’s about who ends the world. The core of our organization, what our thousands of card-carrying members have believed, is that the end times would begin with a ritual – our ritual – with the Crestfallen Dagger of Azul piercing the chosen sacrifice’s heart. That we would raise the King of the Dread Lords himself in the very bowels of this mountain, down in the sacred chamber. We had an auditorium built in there fifty years ago just so everyone could watch! And now–”

Zitwit put his face in his hands. “It’s all sold to those idiots, The Guardians of Beeloh’s Gates.”

“It does seem strange that another doomsday cu-” Zitwit flashed him a look. “….that another apocalypse-aligned advocacy group would buy a competitor’s lair when it’s clear how the end of the world is going to happen.”

Zitwit through his hands up in exasperation. “Bill Kloom has it in his head that Flarel’s revival is somehow the first step to bringing back Beeloh and that the two of them will fight, with Beelooh winning and initiating the true end of the world.”

Percy laughed. He couldn’t help himself. “I’m sorry,” he told Zitwit. “Just the image of a giant gorilla with spider legs and Flarel beating each other senseless is –"

“Stupid, right?” interrupted Zitwit. “Absolutely insane. But apparently, it’s caused a thirty-percent bump in membership over there, and they need more living space to house those people – no doubt many of them our former members, the very people who used to fill these halls with laughter.” Zitwit looked around as he said this, as though he were vainly trying to will the past into the present.

“I guess people just want to belong somewhere,” Percy suggested.

“Yes,” Zitwit said sadly. “I just wish they still felt like they could belong here, with me. We were family.”

Something deep inside Percy’s chest tugged. He tried to think of something to say, some earnest bit of comfort or advice that would make Zitwit smile. He couldn’t understand why exactly, but the sight of this small, pathetic man – sitting in the ruins of a ludicrous legacy that deserved to die – moved him. But he didn’t have the words for it, whatever it was, so he said the first thing that came to mind instead. He said it with his practiced, trademark smile.

“Why don’t we talk about how to minimize your tax burden?”

14
Pretty Pete Pendleton, Baker

The eight party guests sat amidst a dazzling array of pastries; stretched out across every inch of the table was a mountainous assemblage of croissants, danishes, strudels, tarts, puffs, piononos, tortells, makmurs, and bundevaras so tall that it nearly scraped the ceiling of Pretty Pete Pendleton’s quaint little cottage.

“Where to even begin?” said Marcel, an elderly gentleman who was only here because his wife, Geraldine, made him go wherever she went. However, unlike most of their adventures, he was not in the least bit sorry to have joined her on this outing.

“Try that one,” said Lucie, the shoemaker, pointing at one of the pastries at the center of the bread pile.

Wrenching one of the bundevaras free, Marcel took a bit and chewed. He swallowed and exhaled softly. “Pumpkin,” he said. “Pure heaven.”

The rest of the guests followed suit, grabbing whatever pastries struck their fancy, and then – as they munched in the absence of their host – they talked amongst themselves.

“These are truly the most delicious morsels of food I’ve ever put in my mouth,” said Benson, who ran the local tavern. “His talent is wasted in the post office. Gods help me if he ever opens a restaurant!”

“So much about him is wasted,” Geraldine replied. “Fawning over that ridiculous mailwoman when there are plenty of bachelorettes around. My niece would die to have a man who spends his free time in the kitchen.”

“Geraldine,” Marcel said crossly. “The man is our host.”

“Bah, I’m just saying what everyone else here is thinking anyway.”

“Time and place, dear. Time and place.” Marcel bit into a chouquette and failed to hold back a moan. “Where did he learn to make all of this?”

“The library is a wonderful place!” said Pretty Pete himself, stepping into the dining room, holding a tray of freshly baked flakies. He softly picked them up, one by one, with gloved hands and added them to the base of the mountain. “You’d be surprised how much one can learn as a mail clerk if they devote their time to reading when they’re not filling out forms or sorting letters. I have so many cookbooks stored up in the old noggin.”

“When are you going to open a bakery?” Lucie asked. “People would come from miles around for little joys such as this.”

“Not in the cards, I’m afraid,” Pete said pleasantly. “This is more of a hobby. I’m pretty content at the office. Besides, I don’t have the capital to open a business.”

“Surely we could get one of those useless nobles in Luxburg to inves—”

“He said he’s not interested,” Benson interrupted, his voice high-pitched, beads of sweat dripping down his temple. “He’s right. Running an eatery establishment is not for the faint of heart, I say. It’ll break your mind, cost you your hair – just like it did mine!” Benson pointed at his prominent bald spot to illustrate his point.

“Nevertheless, as I said, I’m quite content,” Pete answered with a smile. “I should get you all some refreshments. Water and wine coming right up.”

“Wine too!?” Geraldine cried. “Now that’s what I call a man!”

Marcel rolled his eyes and gorged on a fistful of puffs.

Stepping into the kitchen, Pete laid down the tray and then opened the oven to check on the ham jambons. The steam blew past his face as it escaped the oven’s maw. Looking inside, he saw the bread was rising but had not tinged brown yet.

“Fifteen minutes,” he said to himself, closing the oven. “Mustn’t forget.”

He took the cups from the cupboard and poured the wine the Acton family had given him as a thank you for catering their recent wedding. He thought of many things as he did this. He thought of how he’d need to go replenish the wheat after this party, so he’d have enough to host the Greenwoods for dinner next week. He thought of the letter his mother had sent him. You never write to me anymore, it had said. Tell me about your life. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to write back. He just didn’t know what to say.

And of course, most of all, he was thinking about Minnie. He hoped she would come. He’d made the knishes just for her after all, but Minnie, he knew, was a woman of whimsy. He had told himself over the years it was best not to expect much from her, and yet … well, he had treated the knishes with a more delicate, considered touch than any of the other pastries today and that said it all, really. I will never learn, he thought, placing all the cups on the tray.

The guests let out a cheer when he stepped into the room bearing the cups of wine.

“Our hero!” said a man named Dade, one of the local farmhands. Dade’s defining feature was that he always smelled like manure no matter how much he bathed, but his personality was so bright that everyone forgave this fault.

“You’re so kind, “Geraldine said, taking a cup from him. “You never did tell us what the occasion was for all of this though.”

“Oh, y’know,” Pete said. “No real occasion. I guess just because it’s been a bit of a rough go for everyone I think because of, well…”

“Eric, right,” said Benson.

Pete nodded. “Yeah. And the nobles up north have been asking me to come and cater all their parties. It’s always such a nice little experience so I thought to myself, ‘Why should all these snobs have all the fun? Why don’t I throw a bash for all my friends?’”

Everyone laughed and clapped.

“Hear, hear,” cried Benson, raising his cup. “To Pretty Pete Pendleton and his glorious mountain of food!”

Pete blushed as the room cheered. He turned to take the tray back into the kitchen when a knock came at the door.

“Ah, more friends!” Pete announced, gently putting the tray back onto the table.

“Thank heavens,” Geraldine said, as Pete opened the door. “We need more mouths if we’re to have any hope of excavating this mountain.”

In the doorway stood Minnie, the outline of her biceps prominent through her tunic, her little jaw resting beneath the most beautiful smile and eyes he’d ever seen. His heart quivered in his chest.

“Minnie,” he said, “come in.”

Suddenly, he felt her arms wrap around him and heard her say something that sounded like “Petey!” Briefly, he closed his eyes and allowed himself to feel the tightness of her hug. It almost felt like home. He opened them as she pulled away and introduced the woman standing next to her. She was small and thin, pale with gorgeous red hair.

Pete’s heart dropped; his stomach tumbled.

“This is Priscilla,” Minnie said. “I told you about her.”

“Oh, this is the Priscilla Page,” Pete said, welcoming them into the cottage, trying to hold onto his smile. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

“Minnie is here!” Lucie called out. Geraldine huffed, but Marcel shot her a look, and she kept her words to herself.

“That…is a lot of bread,” Priscilla said, looking at the hill of pastry delights on the table.

“I have some pork I can fry and vegetables I could sauté if you need something more substantial,” Pete offered. What are you doing? he thought. Don’t be nice to her!

Priscilla smiled. “Oh no, that’s fine. Believe me, I’m excited to eat some of those pastries. It’s just very impressive.

“See, baby,” Minnie said. “I told you Peter was wonderful. He’s a darling.”

“I’ll get you both some wine,” Pete said, as they stepped past him. He noticed, as the pair took their seat on the bench next to Lucie and Benson, that Priscilla had a lute strapped over her back. It was smooth and made of olivewood, with tight gut strings and an ornate flower illustration beneath the bridge.

Minnie always has loved music, Pete thought, stepping into the kitchen. He pulled the jambons from the oven and placed them on the counter to cool as laughter rang in the dining room. His spirits lifted at the sound of his guests enjoying themselves. He poured the wine and bore out a tray with the cups and knishes to the dining room.

“Knishes!” Minnie yelled, seeing the tray as he set it before.

“What’s a knish?” Priscilla asked. Uncultured oaf a very mean voice in Pete’s head said in response. He hated that he felt the way he did.

“It’s a pastry with mashed potatoes in it, quite novel,” Minnie explained through a mouthful of the stuff. Priscilla took a bite. “Gods, this is delicious!” she said after swallowing. Pete managed to keep himself from frowning. He would have been happier if she hated it. Give me some reason, any reason, to dislike her, he thought, despising the small woman’s politeness.

“Your lute is beautiful,” Benson said. “Are you part of a troupe?”

“Oh no,” Priscilla answer. “One-woman act. I play shows when I’m not composing poems.”

“You’re a poet!?” Lucie exclaimed.

“Yes. Sometimes they bind my poems into books and sell them. I just had one come out called Paisley Days.”

“Oh, how lovely!” Geraldine said. “I’ve heard of that one.”

“You’ve read it?” asked Priscilla.

“Heavens no. I can’t read. But it’s all the noblewomen ever talk about when they come to get their dresses. I’ve heard…there’s some saucy words in there. You’ve got quite the imagination when it comes to the bedroom, dear.”

“How do you think she ensnared me?” Minnie said, laughing.

Priscilla blushed deep red. Pete felt sick but continued to smile.

“Geraldine and I used to play together,” Marcel said. “I was a lute fanatic in my youth.”

“It’s true,” Geraldine said. “He wooed all the girls near and far. Filled me with jealousy, so I made him write songs for me to sing. We were popular for a time. Nobles would invite us to play songs that are all but forgotten now.”

“What days those were,” Marcel said, smiling, the valleys of his teeth stuffed with flakes and breadcrumbs.

Priscilla took the lute from her back and stood up. She came around the table and presented it to Marcel and Geraldine. “I’d love to hear you perform.”

Lucie clapped her hands. “That’s a wonderful idea!”

“Oh, but it’s been so long….” Geraldine said. “My voice is not what it used to be.”

“Nonsense,” Marcel said. “It’s only become clearer and more beautiful with the years. I hear you singing when you’re tending the garden in the morning, dear. I will play if you sing.”

“Go on, play us a tune,” Benson said.

“A song!” Minnie cried, banging the table with her fist. “We want a song!”

Even Pete joined in. “I’d be honored to have you perform in my humble home.”

Geraldine looked around, a young woman’s smile on her old face. “Well, if you all insist.”

Marcel took the lute gently in his weathered hands, and he and Geraldine came around the table to stand in the middle of the room. The late afternoon sun was cutting through the window and the air was thick with anticipation.

“What should we do, dear?” Geraldine asked.

“We sat out,” Marcel started, “one day a lifetime ago at the pond. It was summer and the sun was beating down, but we didn’t care. We had delicious, sweet apples, and we were in love. Do you remember that day?”

“Vividly,” she said.

“We sat out there for hours. We wrote a song. I want you to sing that song. Is that okay?”

“I can sing that song for you,” she told him. “Gladly.”

Marcel smiled and strummed the lute a few times in a slow, mournful melody. All the party guests fell into complete silence as Geraldine sang.

Fal-con boy
I spy you through the trees
Falcon boy of the plains
Won’t you ever see me?

Your hair is as gold
As the setting sun
My Fal-con boy
if I can’t have you – I’ll be a nun

The noble birds
Taking flight from your hand
I’d do anything
To make you my man

You’re my Fal-con boy
My little secret
What I wouldn’t give
To be your eaglet

Pete watched Minnie out of the corner of his eye as Geraldine sang, clear as the blue open sky, watched helplessly as her hand moved toward Priscilla’s. The two women’s hands touched, and their fingers became interlaced.

Ah, thought Pete, glancing at Priscilla, her head on Minnie’s shoulders. To be her. May she always know her blessings.

Geraldine sang on.

The years have passed
My Fal-con boy
I’m an old woman now
who’s never known joy

Oh, Fal-con boy
You’ve reduced me to a scart
My would-be lover
Sleeping in the nest of my heart

Their song finished, Geraldine and Marcel gave a little bow. Everyone clapped.

“Fantastic!” Lucie said.

“Absolutely lovely,” Pete told them, wiping a tear from his face.

“Oh my!” Priscilla cried suddenly. Everyone turned to see the redhead holding up Minnie’s blood-covered hand.

“Oh geez,” Minnie said sheepishly. “Guess I banged the table a bit too hard earlier.”

Pete rose and took Minnie by her uninjured hand. “Come on. Bandages in the kitchen.” He turned his head. “Enjoy yourselves, everyone! Have no fear. I’ll get her patched up.”

Stepping into the kitchen, he ducked down to grab a spool of bandages from the cupboard.

“Sorry about this, Minnie,” he said. “That table is gnarly as all get-out. Should really smooth it down.”

“What are you apologizing for?” she asked, holding her hand. “I’m the fool that got frisky with it.”

He stood back up, delivering a pleasant smile. “Let me see your hand.” She opened her palm. He took note of the nub that was once her pinky, completely healed without any infection – chiefly due to his persistence in keeping it clean and bandaged, he was proud to remind himself.

“Ah, that’s not too bad,” he said, looking at the cut. “Should still see a doctor once the bleedin’ stops though.” He poured water on the wound and then rubbed it gently with a cloth.

“How often have you done this for me?” she asked, “fixing me up like this?”

“I dunno. A couple twenty, thirty times – who’s to say?”

“Why?” she asked. “You never ask for anything in return. Not once. You drove the wagon when I was hurt. You invite me to these parties knowing I’m the odd one out. You make me food. You’re my dearest friend, the more I think about it, and I just don’t have much to give you in return. So why are you so kind to me?”

“Because you’re wonderful,” he said, happy not to lie and equally happy she did not press further. 

“Thanks Pete. Ask you something else?”

“Of course,” he said, tightening the bandage around her hand.

“Priscilla. What do you think of her?”

“What does it matter what I think? She seems very nice.”

“Do you think she loves me?” Minnie asked. He noticed that her voice was slightly trembling. “Like truly? I’ve been with a lot of girls, and a lot of the time it’s nice and then sometimes it’s not so nice. But this is the first time I’ve felt I could have something with someone that’s beyond nice, you know?”

“Sure,” Pete said, wincing. “Sure.”

“Well? Does she seem like she cares about me in that way?”

Pete thought for a few seconds about what to tell her. There were hard, bleeding things that came from deep within that he wanted to say, things he wanted to scream, but he knew not just the futility of those words – but the damage they would leave on each of them. He sighed and put his hand on Minnie’s shoulder.

“That woman literally just walked into my house an hour ago. She seems very kind, but I don’t know her well enough to give you the answer you want to hear,” he said. “However, if she doesn’t feel about you the way you feel about her, then she is a fool.”

Minnie’s trepidation faded into a relieved smile. “Thanks Pete. You’re a good one.”

“I try really hard,” he said. He meant it, with every fiber of his being, he meant it. “We should go back in,” Pete said. “I don’t know how they’ll survive without us.”

The party went on for another hour. Everyone laughed and talked and ate their way through the breadscape. Attendees slowly began to filter out as the sun descended, casting the land in orange-red twilight. Marcel and Geraldine went first, then Lucie, then Benson. When Minnie and Priscilla went to leave, Pete made sure to give them a basket filled with knishes and makmurs, which Priscilla would not stop complimenting.

“Too bad we couldn’t knock down that mountain,” Minnie said at the door, nodding toward the pile on the table. It was significantly smaller now than it had been at the start of the party but there remained several pounds of bread.

“It’ll keep through the evening,” Pete said, “and then I can just give it away to children tomorrow. It’ll all get eaten one way or another.”

Minnie reached her arms around Pete and embraced him. “Thanks for the lovely evening, Pete,” she told him.

“Of course,” he replied. “And it was wonderful to meet you, Priscilla,” he added, reaching out to embrace her as well. “Take care of this one, will you? She’s a troublemaker, but she’s worth it a hundred times over.”

“I will,” Priscilla answered, accepting the hug. “And thank you for having me.”

“Anytime. Farewell.”

He stood at the door for a few seconds, watching as they stepped off his lawn and onto the dirt path that led to the village proper. It pained him to see the pair of them walking together, but the hurt had changed somehow. It was a soft ache, one that would leave no scar in the end. There was no injustice here. They were together beautifully and beautifully together. He would not begrudge them that happiness and, instead, hoped only that one day he may discover it for himself.

The breeze of autumn blew across the back of his neck as it does through the pecked wounds of gnarled bark and the skin of red and yellow leaves.  The seasons were changing; it was quite pleasant.

He would write his mother that evening, he decided, after his few remaining guests had dispersed. He would tell her about his party.

15
Brighton Upshaw, Corpse

What’s this then? Grass. Overcast. Cloudburst. Water standing on my cheek but no wetness. Cannot hear the roar of thunder nor the stiff grass pricking my elbows. The pain of my broken, aching tooth no more.

Am I…

No no no no…we outnumbered him ten-to-one! Man nor demon can beat those odds.

I can’t believe. I refuse to. The facts do not line up. And yet… Yes, yes. I remember now. We had tracked him for miles through the woods and leapt from out of the trees. All of us lashed at his body with our weapons, sure that our blows would lay him down once and for all.

We were fools.

I was nothing next to his strength. He caught my sword in his hand and snapped it in twain. Before I could grab my dagger…gods…he ran me through with my own broken blade as my comrades shrieked and turned tail.

And here I lie.

It’s over and yet…is this it? Is no one coming for my soul? This cannot be my eternity, lying here. I’m dead and have not been afforded even the decency of darkness, the peaceful silence of the mind. I was told there would be light! Ecstasy! Not this.

They can’t leave me here. Surely, someone will bury me. They will take me to a graveyard, any graveyard. Will I find others like me? Do cemeteries speak? I can’t spend the rest of my…my…whatever this is, like this!

How will they get on without me? My parents! My wife! How long will they search for me? How long before they abandon me?

Will I rot? Of course I’ll rot – unless the animals tear at my flesh and chew my eyes. Maybe the destruction of this jail of flesh is my salvation. Will I, after the years have eaten away at my innards and bones – and all that remains is dust – be free? Or perhaps I shall simply be fragments of a mind blown across the winds of Azra, scattered above all that is, was, and will be.

Gods of Azra! Namu! Lordrow! Philoe! Even accursed warmonger Xani! Save me! I’ll pledge my soul to you! I’ll accomplish any labor! I beseech you: anything but this. Enslave me! Make me your thrall! Crush my soul! Devour it! I’ll take centuries of torture over this nightmare. I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve any of this.

Please please at least let me feel. Sight alone is a curse. Let me hear the howl of the wind or smell the summer soil. I cannot spend eternity as a pair of eyes alone. Do not make me a numb specter. Let me be a man again, even a dead one.

I miss it all already! I desire the pressure of a woman’s lips against my own! I yearn to swish and spit and swallow the foam of ale, to clean the dirt from beneath my fingertips and feel the river running through my hair and over my back – to hear the joyous purr of my cat in my ear.

I miss…

I miss my toothache.

16
Dawn Loach, Fisherfolk

The catch was ill. Dawn had hoped, paddling to shore in the canoe, the fish was simply fat and not bloated with disease. She cut into the creature’s belly and musky purple goop bled over the dock. Cursing to herself, Dawn tossed the corpse back to the murky water and watched it sink, the purple ooze trailing its descent and bubbling to the top of the lake.

She tied the boat to the dock, wishing whoever took it next better luck, and headed up the path through the woods. As she went, Dawn looked down at the grass, tinged purple with the rot of curse and reeking of death. The Wilt of The World, the mages called it when they came down to investigate the dying forest the wilderfolk of northern Azra called home.

That loathsome Eric had killed the seer several hundred miles away, soaking the ground in holy blood. The gods had decided to repay that crime with a disease that poisoned the land. The mages said they’d be back with a ritual to lift the curse. That was months ago. No one had seen any mages since. The lake was still alive then.

The Academy is useless, Dawn thought as she stepped into the wilderfolk camp at the end of the path. She saw more people were leaving – packing up their tents, loading their meager belongings onto horses and wagons.

She walked into the middle of the camp and looked at the far end to see a familiar tent, crafted with cedar and well-worn leather, was no longer there. For a moment, her heart felt heavy. Then she turned away.

“Good riddance,” Dawn muttered, walking back to her own tent at the other end of the camp. Her neighbor, Ryku, was out on the lawn, sitting bare-chested and skinning a deer with his knife.

“Oi,” he said.

Dawn nodded, taking a seat on her lawn. It was overcast. The wind blew against her skin. She sensed the rain would start soon.

“No luck?” Ryku asked.

Dawn shook her head.

“I think the pond’s done for,” Ryku said. “Killing a holy man will do that to a place, I guess. You’re more than welcome to have dinner with me and Cheryl tonight.”

“Thank you,” she answered. “More people left, I see.”

“Yeah, I think four today.”

“Michael’s gone,” Dawn said.

Ryku gave a sympathetic look. “He didn’t say goodbye, I take it?”

“No.”

“May he fall into a creek of shit then.”

“I think I’m going to go, too.”

Ryku stopped cutting into the meat. “You’re going to follow him?”

Dawn looked up at the sky. “No. I think it’s just time. The Wilt won’t stop with the lake. Soon the poison will spread to the trees and animals. Nothing will survive.”

“The mages said…”

She tilted her head at him, held back a scoff. “They don’t care about us, Ryku. No one is going to come here and do anything until the plague reaches a city that matters to them, maybe Luxburg, and by then everything near us will be dead and useless. You can kill the curse, but you can’t fix the damage it’s caused.”

“You an expert on mages?”

“My mother was a mage, monster that she was. Trust me, they don’t give a single tuk for us out here.”

“It’s going to rain soon, at least stay the night. Don’t get caught in the downpour.”

Dawn shook her head. “I’ll head out now. I’ll lose my nerve if I wait till morning. The rain is no stranger to me.”

Dawn went into her tent. She packed her bedroll and the few belongings she had to her name: a compass, miniature book of beginner spells and enchantments, and a canteen. She packed her skinning knife and flint blade and strapped her quiver across her back, choosing to carry the shortbow in hand.

Stepping outside, Dawn found Ryku there, two wrapped packages of venison in hand.

“It’ll get you through the night at least,” he said. “They’re from the plains, untouched by the Wilt. Safe to eat – I swear on my soul.”

She took the slabs, packed them away, and then hugged him.

“I wish you were staying,” he told her. “But I understand.”

“Part of me wishes I was, too. This place felt like home – for a while. Please feel free to give my tent to anyone who comes to the camp in need.” Dawn thought of nights not too long ago in there. Michael’s fingers running through her hair, teeth nibbling her ear, lips on her shoulder. Yes. Best to leave the tent. Smells of him. Will make things harder.

“Aye,” said Ryku. If he thought it strange Dawn was leaving behind the tent, he did not say so. She appreciated that.

“And give my love to Cheryl,” Dawn said, walking away.

“I will. Gods be with you,” Ryku said.

“Gods be with you,” Dawn called back. She went to the edge of the camp and looked at the empty spot of grass where Michael’s tent used to be.

He made his choice, she thought, turning to head into the woods as thunder bellowed above.

***

The downpour lasted for hours, well into the dark of the night, as Dawn trudged through the forest. She did not mind the wet or the cold. In fact, she welcomed the distraction. It was nice to think of things that had nothing to do with Michael.

She went north for miles without need of light, as she had spent years in this forest and knew its labyrinthine ways. When the rain stopped, Dawn made camp on a small stretch of ground beneath a massive oak tree. The flint knife was wet, so she cast a small spell of flames into the collected sticks and warmed her body by the fire as she cooked one of the steaks.

That night, chewing on delicious venison, Dawn ruminated on the path forward. Nearly a decade after running away from home and taking shelter in these woods, she would leave them for good. There was no choice. The Wilt would not stop here. She did not know if it even could be stopped. Everyone assumed the mages could kill such a curse, but those buffoons were more than eager to overestimate their own abilities.

She would have to go many miles, to somewhere far away. The prospect was daunting but not because Dawn was afraid of what may lie in wait for her. She was handy enough with a bow and knew enough spells she could safeguard against any robbers or beast that mistook her for prey.

No, Dawn had always known the departure was inevitable. She just didn’t expect to be making the journey alone. In a moment of weakness, her mind turned to Michael, how he had sat next to her in the summer sun two years past, the naked wet flesh of their shoulders touching. They had been diving and spearing Splitfins for the camp – back when the water had been clean and clear as seeing glass. Back before everything was dying.

“We could go to the coast,” he had said. “You and me. Have a hut on the beach. Make a little life for ourselves.”

“I think I’d like that,” Dawn had answered, leaning over to kiss him, and then pulling him down and deep into the blue water itself, their conjoined laughter dissolving into bubbly waterspeak.

That day he had tasted like blackberries.

***

Dawn left the forest two days later. She hunted birds and ate the sap from trees she found in the mountains, cutting east to the shoreline.

Travel was difficult. At one point, Dawn rolled her ankle and limped slowly across the ridges for several days. It took a full three weeks to traverse the range before she came down to the flatlands. She could taste the salt in the air. The coast was close.

As she went on, the cedars and redwoods gave way to palm and papaya trees, soil to sand. Soon enough the great rolling blue ocean was before her. Collapsing onto the beach in the morning light, Dawn smiled.

She had made it.

A few days – and not to mention more than a few splinters – later, Dawn cut down and transformed a couple of trees into a small shack with a thatched roof facing the water. A pile of papaya and mangoes rested in the corner of the structure next to her unfurled sleeping roll.

The first night she laid down to sleep, moonlight cutting through some of the holes in the roof, her muscles screamed and her bones whined. Dawn had never felt such exhaustion. It hurt even to bend a finger. There was sand in her throat.

She lied on the sleeping roll, chewing the sweet pulp of mangoes, not caring that the juice spilled onto her hair and neck. She ate until her belly was so full that it hurt to turn over. When Dawn finally fell asleep, her hair was sticky with sand and mango shreds, and there was almost no part of her body that had been spared the sun’s wrath.

It was one of the happiest nights of her life.

***

In the weeks that followed, Michael proved inescapable. Dawn would be lying on the beach or feel the chill of the tide wash over her shoulders and suddenly his stupid face would come pouring into her consciousness.

He was the only one who had ever loved the water as much she did. Even as a child, she had only ever felt safe in water. When mother yelled and threatened to burn her flesh with a spell of fire, Dawn would run down to the river behind the manor and, discarding her clothes, sink slowly beneath the waterline, only allowing her nose and mouth to break the surface.

She told herself the water was a barrier, that mother’s cruel words and all the evils of the world couldn’t touch her under that blue liquid magik. Even now, all these years later, she only felt in total peace when submerged. And now Michael had ruined all of that. The two of them had a good thing, a precious thing, a thing most people don’t have – and he had let it go. He had let Dawn go.

Because he wanted to go back.

“I want to stand in the marketplace,” he told her a few months ago. His eyes were closed. They were sitting at the edge of the dock, legs dangling. He was not, Dawn noticed, touching her foot as he usually did. “I want to hear all the sounds around me. The people chattering. The beggars. I want to smell the grease burning off food carts. I want to feel strangers brushing past me.”

“You left because you hated it,” Dawn protested. “You wanted to live in harmony with the wilds. That’s what you said.”

“I did,” he confessed. “But I miss it.”

“Miss what? Being crammed into a city block with a thousand other stinking people? Learning a trade only to give most of your earnings to nobles so they can fund their orgies?”

He sighed. “I miss being among people. I yearn to be part of something.”

“You’re with me,” Dawn offered. “We’re part of something, you and me.”

He didn’t say anything to that. He just patted her leg and turned away to look at water. And that’s how Dawn knew. He didn’t even ask her to come with him.  

It had all felt like a small, sharp death.

A few weeks after arriving at the beach, she started hunting birds in the tree line a couple of miles from the shore, so she could supplement all the fruits and greens with meat. One day Dawn was hunting when she heard a familiar sound that stopped her in her tracks.

She quickly strung an arrow across their bowstring only to lower it, realizing that the bark she had heard sounded too pathetic to belong to a wolf. The creature, whatever and wherever it was, began to whimper loudly. Dawn followed the sounds until she came across a ragged-looking dog sitting beneath a tree. The hound was large, with a brindled coat, but Dawn could see the outline of its ribs. This dog had not eaten in many days. It smelled of urine.

Dawn raised her hand gently. The dog winced but slowly lowered its head, letting itself be petted.

“That’s a good pup,” Dawn whispered. She lifted the dog’s collar. “Quilco,” she said, reading the nametag. “Well, that’s a good boy, Quilco.”

Dawn quickly pulled a fish she had cooked the night before from her pack and offered it to the dog. The canine gorged itself and whined in appreciation.

“If you come with me, there’s more where that came from.”

The dog named Quilco looked at her, tilting his head. He hesitated for a moment.

“I promise I’ll take good care of you,” Dawn said. And she meant it.

Quilco, having made up his mind, wagged his nub of a tail and followed his new friend out of the forest and toward the beach.

***

The dog made for a fine companion. In the mornings, the two of them would go running into the waves and then he’d help her gather sticks for the evening camp – demanding his new master play fetch with him. When they went hunting, Quilco would scare up the birds, making it easy for Dawn to shoot them down with arrows. The pup had even taken to diving into a nearby pond with her on the occasions when they went spearing for fish or bathing.

They lived like this for nearly half a year. With Quilco to attend to, Michael slowly faded from her mind like a dying torch in a cave. Dawn did not need a lover. She had the grandeur of the wilderness. She had a loyal, loving pet. Dawn had everything she could ever need.

And then one day, the Wilt found them.

She had gone into the woods to hunt. Dawn knew something was amiss when she could not hear the chitter of birds fluttering about or slamming their beaks into bark. And then she smelled that sweet, sweet scent of death.

She didn’t have to look far before she found a purple patch of grass reeking like rotted fruit and beyond that patch, leaves stained purple as far as the eye could see amidst decayed trunks and dead branches. The Wilt had spread. Through the mountains. Down the plains. It was as though this blight had followed just to shatter her peace.

Quilco whined at the sight of it all. “Come on, boy,” Dawn told him, and away they went, down to the beach, where Dawn packed her bag and muttered an incantation that set her humble shack aflame. No way was she going to let the Wilt take that too. It would die with dignity at least.

Dawn turned to the ocean that seemed to stretch out to eternity and thought of the fish and the coral and all the countless things lurking beneath the waves that man had never seen. She wondered if that wilting purple would take it all in the end.  

She fought away tears. They could have been truly happy here, she and Quilco, living out the remainder of their days on the beach. Why was it that any joy she found was doomed to wither? Who above had Dawn offended so badly that her fate was to suffer? Would she ever again feel anything close to the delight of these past few months? And if not, what was the point of drawing breath? Why go on?

A lick on the hand brought Dawn back to the present. Quilco pawed at her knee reassuringly. She looked down into the eyes of her adoring companion. No, Dawn thought. She would not allow herself to feel defeat. The dog was a part of her life now. He needed her. She could not afford to despair. She would go on, Dawn decided, even when she did not want to.

“You’re right,” Dawn told the dog. “We should get going. There are more than enough places in the world that we can call home. We just have to find them.”

The hound barked agreeably, and the two set off east in search of wherever their wanderings would lead them – each quite content to spend the rest of their days with the other.

17
Clyde Winslow, Scout

Grand Sorcerer, the following documents were delivered to the Academy yesterday around three in the afternoon. As you can see, the message was coded, per regulations. Using the on-site cipher key, Desmond the Dozen and his able-minded apprentice Felicity worked well into the night by candlelight to decrypt the letters. It appears to be another report from Mister Winslow.

Please do let me know if I can be of any assistance with regards to any actions you wish to take based on the information within.

Margo Tellus,
Senior Director of the Academy of Magiks

Intelligence Report: Project Man’s Quivering Eye

Overview

The following is an updated status report on our efforts to track and gather the most relevant and accurate information on the player-controlled cataclysmic threat, Eric the Doombringer. These findings emerge from our trailing of the subject through several territories in Southern and Central Azra, taking note of his growing powers, interactions with the populace, and the destruction left in his wake.

Next month we will supply another field report. If a report does not come, the Academy should assume that my men and I have been discovered and summarily eliminated. Upon such an occasion, the Guild of Watchers should be contacted, and a new party will be assigned to this priority task.

Subject Breakdown

Name: Eric
Title: Doombringer
Age: ?
Sex: M
Height: 6’8
Weight: ~ 250 pounds (with armor)
Place of Birth: Maloria

Powers & Abilities

• Incredible strength and stamina.

• Master-level efficiency with all bladed weapons.

• Currently donning Frost Lord’s Vestments, which grant unto the wearer the following powers:

  • Increased resistance to frost magik

  • The wearer’s weapon swings are more powerful, as is his threshold for receiving pain

  • The wearer is able to cast more powerful magik for longer periods of time

  • The wearer’s speed is heightened

• Upon his person, Eric carries a bewitched knapsack that grants the user the ability to carry far greater weight than the average person can as well as the power to conjure their belongings into and out of said knapsack instantly.

• Born under the constellation of The Cow, Eric can rapidly heal even grievous wounds by consuming milk or cheese.

• [RUMORED] It is said that Eric, upon death, can travel through time to any point in his life before that moment of his demise. It is beyond the guild’s abilities to verify such hearsay.

Weaknesses
Eric the Doombringer has no discernable weaknesses. He is immune to sickness and his regenerative healing abilities have rendered the few wounds dealt to him over the past year entirely moot.

Victims
Currently: too many to list.

Future: the whole of existence.

Objective
The Doombringer’s erratic behavior of violence and grotesque whimsy (such acts detailed below) paint a picture of a man without an endgame. His travel is random, with seemingly no overarching goal. His motivations are only clear to his own crazed mind and his substantial appetite for death and calamity.

Travel Log

Day 1

Eric emerged from the Brush, into the hinterlands. He was missing a finger but did not seem to give the wound any mind.

He killed a Biforn, ate it raw, and slept out on the plains beneath the stars.

No one disturbed him.

Day 2- Day 4

Eric traveled the wilderness. A group of bandits tried to take his money. He slaughtered them all and rifled through their pockets for coin.

When he found none, he kept moving.

Day 5

Eric found a small farm run by a husband and wife. Seeing his wounded hand, they invited him inside and offered medical attention. The wife realized who he was first. She barely had time to scream before he cleaved her in two. The husband was reaching for his gelding knife when the Doombringer put his fist through the poor man’s face.

He discovered a cow in the barn and set to work, gently milking the creature. When he was finished, he drank the milk out of the pail, standing out on the lawn. Four minutes later, his finger had grown back. Eric continued his way down the dirt path.

The puddle of red on the farmer’s windowsill expanded and grew dark in the light of the sun.

Day 6 - Day 10

More travels. Nothing remarkable. One night Eric cut down some bears in a cave and slept next to their carcasses.

He did not bother to skin them or eat the meat.

Day 11

Eric stepped inside a trading post in the wilderness. Upon his departure, he could be seen stuffing several wheels of cheese into his magikal knapsack.

Day 12 – Day 19

Eric crossed over into the northern territory to cut through the mountains.

He came across a small town near the peak of Mount Freeworth, with a population of 79 people. The first evening there, he ate a steak in the tavern and drank two ales. Everyone knew who he was and braced for the worst, but he did not hurt a soul. To the contrary, this was the longest period of time since we’ve begun tracking the Doombringer that he has not committed any acts of violence.

Eric took to living among the people of this town. He rented a room for a week. He bought fabrics from the tailor and used some of his coin to renovate the run-down stable. He even gifted a local gardener exotic seed from his travels in the Brush so that she could win a flower contest – the first and only quest we’ve seen him undertake as far as the Guild of Watchers is aware.

On the last day of his stay, Eric quietly left his room and said goodbye to no one. However, he stopped in the center of town, where a massive statute dedicated to the god of protection, Lordrow, stood and seemingly deposited all coins he was carrying onto the ground in an act of charity that continues to baffle our operatives.

Day 20

Eric traveled through the mountains, toward the west, and met a wandering merchant who offered him a sampling of his most popular item, jerky of a boar.

Eric tasted the sample and then promptly slew the merchant. For nearly a minute, Eric took to standing over the man’s body and then crouching and then standing repeatedly in an odd display.

When he was finished, Eric pilfered the rest of the merchant’s jerky and went on his way.

Conclusion

Our surveillance continues to confirm that Eric’s unstable mind and powerful abilities pose an immediate danger to Azra. While we at the Guild acknowledge finding a solution to prevent Flarel’s prophecy from coming to pass is vital, we urge the kingdom to dedicate even more attention and resources to determining how to put a permanent stop to the Doombringer, as his actions suggest a more immediate apocalypse may be at our doorstep if it is not given the proper attention.

18
Barton Shorntooth, Shopkeeper

INT. TRAVEL POST. EVENING.

A small shop for travelers on the road. Candles burn on various shelves, wax dripping onto wood. Behind the counter stands the shopkeep, BARTON, one of those men who’s in his 30s but looks closer to 50. He is balding, stout, and has a mean underbite. His glasses make his blue eyes seem massive.

The shelves around BARTON are lined with various goods that any wanderer might find handy: fruits, bandages, glass flasks containing red goo with miraculous regenerative powers, pickaxes for mining rock, rope, and so on.

BARTON is working the accounts in his ledger.

The whine of a wooden hinge is heard.

BARTON glances upward to see the wind blow through the flame of the nearest candle. The door has opened and shut.

BARTON turns his eyes back to his book without offering the new guest even a cursory glance.

BARTON
(doing math in his ledger)
Good evening, sir. How may I help you?

The only reply is the heavy footsteps of…

C.U. ON STEEL BOOTS

BARTON looks up to see the figure of ERIC THE DOOMBRINGER towering over him and the counter. His potential customer is massive: nearly eight feet tall and armored from head to toe in enchanted steel. His eyes are hidden in the darkness of his visor, but his tightened, gloved fist promises only carnage.

BARTON
Well, you looking to buy something?

ERIC turns his head, the steel plates between the helmet and bevor screeching as they scrape one another. He points at several wheels of cheese on the shelf in the back of the store.

BARTON looks at where he’s pointing, turns back.

BARTON
(gently slapping the counter)
Cheese it is. We got five wheels. Three gouda, one muenster, and a delightful new delicacy for the adventurous: holey but the holes are plugged with seal meat. Haven’t tried it meself, but I’ve heard it’s…well, it’s supposed to taste like something if you catch my drift. Now which ones will you want?

ERIC extends all five fingers on his right hand.

BARTON
Would not have taken you for a dairy connoisseur. That’ll cost you… (does the math) thirty-eight gold.

A sound emanates from inside ERIC’s helm reminiscent of geyser steam. ERIC slowly pulls his longsword from its sheathe and points it at BARTON’s chin. BARTON raises an eyebrow.

BARTON
Oh, you must be that special case who’s turning everyone on the continent into shish kabob, eh?

ERIC nods slightly.

BARTON
(pointing the tip of the blade away from him with his index finger)
Right. Wasn’t enough to doom the world. You’ve got to go killing your way across it as well. You young people. In my younger days, we went to war all hopped up to kill each other and then those of us who were lucky, we’d kill one man – a single man – and that was more than enough for us. All the entrails and the light going out of their eyes. A miserable adventure, slaughter. I just don’t understand it, the bloodlust that overtakes some fools.

An impatient hiss from within ERIC’s helm.

BARTON
(mildly annoyed)
Look here: You slice my head off, you lose the only shopkeep for nearly 200 miles. Do you want to hoof it over to Zeerville every time you’re in this part of the territories and need to restock your arrows, repair kits – your damn cheese, hmm?

ERIC says nothing but he lowers the sword slightly.

BARTON
See, you’re vicious, but you’ve got some sense. It’s just not worth the inconvenience to kill me, is it?

ERIC slowly sheathes his sword. BARTON goes to the shelf and grabs all the cheese wheels. He clumsily drops them on the counter in front of ERIC in a pile.

BARTON
Right. I still need to make my living but out of respect for your talents, why don’t I give you a generous twenty-percent discount on this cheese, hmm?

Minutes later, ERIC leaves the shop, stuffing the wheels of cheese into his knapsack as he steps out into the night.

BARTON
(falsely cheery)
Thanks for your business! Travel safely…

He waits until the door closes.

BARTON
Ye prick.

A door opens, this time behind BARTON. He turns to see a small child, his daughter ELIZA, stepping into the store. She’s rubbing her eyes.

ELIZA
Daddy? I looked outside and saw a scary man leaving the store. Who was that?

BARTON
(escorting his daughter back through the door)

No one important. Let’s get you back to bed.

He closes the door behind him.

PULL BACK to focus on one of the wax-sweating candles on the countertop, the flame dancing slowly as we

FADE TO BLACK

19
Xylar, Spirit

Xylar knew his body was somewhere back there, in the belly of mine. Rotting. To be honest, his death had been particularly unglamorous: Some idiots on the second level of the mine pushed a cart down the wrong path, sending it over the edge of a cliff and down onto poor old Xylar’s noggin. On the very week he was to be married, in fact.

Oh well. When he was alive, he’d never been a man with a stomach for self-pity, so why should getting his skull caved in change that?

This quasi-death wasn’t so bad, actually. Sure, it could get boring, and the other ghosts here complained a little too often for his taste. “When will the hero Eric come,” they bitched all day long, floating next to the gemstones in the wall, “when will he come and complete the quest to lift the curse upon this mine so our souls may continue their voyage to Hethica?”

Well, if you asked Xylar for his opinion, he would have said nope. Who’s to say what comes after all this? What if there was no Hethica?  What if it all the stuff about the gods was just hogwash and there was only, like, oblivion at the end of everything? Or worse, you were born into the world once more, doomed to live again and again with the weak flesh and stinging hunger and the tiresome bloat of a full bladder? No no no no no no — no thank you.

Xylar liked this whole drifting-between-the-two-worlds thing. He never felt too hot or cold. He didn’t have to pay rent. He was never tired. No one had expectations of him. He did not have to bear the burden of someone’s hate or, worse, their love. Being dead-but-not-dead, for lack of a better word, ruled.

He drifted across the floor of the cursed mine to look at the precious gemstones. Sometimes the light of the sun would cut through the cracks in the walls and strike the gems all around Xylar and the other spirits, bathing the entire mine in gorgeous blue incandescence. He did not technically have a heart anymore, but in the place where his heart once was, he felt sheer astonishment at that marvelous sight. He couldn’t bear the idea of not seeing that wonderous blue anymore.

Stay away hero, he thought. Forever leave me in the peace of my undeath.

20
Prostitute B, Sex Worker

Prostitute A and Prostitute B sat in the lobby of the brothel, playing a game of cards, as all around them the sounds of moans and squeals of glee could be heard muffled through walls of pine. Above them, a chandelier swung gently beneath the force of pronounced stomps, sprinkling dust on the table below.

“Ick,” said Prostitute A, spitting out the dirt that had fallen in her mouth. “That’ll be R then, sneaking clients up to the attic. He knows he shouldn’t do that. Floors up there are weak. A blooming hazard is what it is.”

“Let him have his fun,” Prostitute B replied, scratching the back of his ear before gently laying down his trump card. “It’s the only way R gets off, courting danger.”

More stomps. More dust, which Prostitute A promptly waved away from her face. “I’m not saying don’t get your kicks. I just don’t want to be in the blast radius.”

“I hear you,” Prostitute B said, taking the cards and shuffling them. “Another game?”

Prostitute A frowned. “I can’t. Have an appointment is in twenty minutes.”

“Afternoon delight!”

She rolled her eyes. “For him maybe.”

“Who is it?”

“Farmer C.”

Prostitute B winced. “Not a looker, is he?”

“Yes, but he lost his wife, y’know? He just talks. Some light action on the lips. Hasn’t been able to get it up yet. Probably on the account of the grief, but who knows – I’m not a mage. I can’t read people’s minds.”

“Well good luck with that whole mess, you saint,” said Prostitute B, stuffing the cards in his trouser pocket.

“What about you?” Prostitute A inquired.

“I’ve got some time to kill before my next appointment. Think I’ll pop over next door to the tavern. Have you tried this new take on coffee they’ve started making over there? They add milk, and it makes it all…different. Delicious as sin.”

Prostitute A smiled mischievously. “You don’t have to lie to me, B. Did you know Barman was here yesterday, looking in?”

“Oh?”

“Indeed. Spying around the corner like some small sprat.”

“He book an appointment with anyone?”

“You already know the answer. He just peeped in, asked after you and then left. You should try and figure that whole business out – if you want my advice.”

“Well, I didn’t ask for it,” Prostitute B said, taking his stand, “but you’re already in the middle of divvying it out, so it’d be rude stop you now.”

“You should either turn his curiosity into a business opportunity or, if he’s a romantic, nip it in the bud. Those romantic boys, they can get right dangerous. You hear what F’s lover did to him?”

“Bit the tip of his nose right off,” he muttered.

“I just don’t want to see you get hurt, hmm?”

“Appreciate it. Bring you back a coffee? Tavern loans the mugs as long as you bring them back the next day.”

“Eh, I’m good,” Prostitute A answered. “I’ve got to go get ready and that shit just makes me queasy to be honest,” she said nodding at her stomach. “Take care, darling. And remember: Nip. It. In. The. Bud.”

“Yes, yes,” Prostitute B said, waving her off and then taking leave himself, stepping outside of the brothel into the heart of Brittletown.

Now Brittletown had a pretty interesting history. The small settlement on the northeast edge of the continent was the last one added to the game, when the Creators realized there wasn’t a village in the territory for at least 100 miles – leaving any would-be player in that part of the world with seemingly endless grasslands populated only by wildlife, berry bushes, and the occasional roving party of bandits.

With only a few months to release and the vast majority of the team dedicated to plugging holes in code and patching out a menagerie of ghastly graphical glitches (including a man with an animation bug that made his head spin all the way around repeatedly while his neck extended without pause, a forever rising tower of flesh and skull piercing the skies), a handful of Creators set to building Brittletown out.

To be honest: It was a cobbled-together affair. Most of the buildings and inhabitants were copy and pasted from other hamlets. The Creators didn’t even get around to properly naming the citizens, as studio budget cuts led to all the writers being sacked, and then they were forced to step away to build a decidedly anachronistic casino in Pilath.

So it was that the citizens of Brittletown came into being and, most importantly, came into being without names – not that it bothered them. In fact, it probably made life much easier. Names were things people could hide behind, after all. When one meets someone named Dennis, one does not know what Dennis is all about. What Dennis wants. What sickening, macabre thoughts go running through Dennis’ head. No one in Brittletown could hide. Their titles condemned them and kept them safe all at once. You had nothing to fear from Farmer D or Tailor A, but you knew not to mess with Thief C, who slept in the trees on the outskirts of town and robbed any passerby with his crossbow.

In Brittletown, everyone knew their place and knew the place of their companions. Prostitute B thought about this as he crossed the center of town in his sandals, his slim belly exposed by his small shirt and warm in the sun of the early afternoon. It was a comfortable world, all things considered.

As Prostitute B stepped into the tavern, he was relieved that he had started the day in more revealing attire, as the afternoon always turned this place into a hotbox. Looking out across the two long tables that took up most of the bar, he saw a few familiar faces. Farmer H and Miner C were drinking ale. Across from them sat people he did not know – travelers with names – and they looked at his exposed legs and belly with disdain. He winked at them, and they recoiled in disgust.

“Prudes,” he muttered. He turned to Farmer H and Miner C.

“Boys,” he said.

“Prostitute B!” Farmer H cried in hearty joy.

“How’s tricks?” Miner C asked.

“Just another day of manual labor, y’know – filling holes and having holes filled.”

The two men laughed.

“How about you two oafs? Putting off work per usual?”

“I was just telling Farmer H here about what those two skunks was talkin’ about,” Miner C motioned over his shoulder with his finger at the two travelers, who were leaving the tavern. “You ever hear any of your customers talk about this Wilt of the World business?

Prostitute B nodded. “Couple of ‘em. Some kind of plague, right?

Farmer H nodded while Miner C continued. “Apparently, they’re all up in arms in the capital city because neither the crown nor the Academy are doing anything about it.”

“Academy says figuring out how to prevent Flarel’s prophecy from coming to pass and stopping Eric takes precedence. The king refuses to acknowledge Eric nor the Wilt.”

Prostitute B chuckled. “They’re not going to care about it until it creeps up to the castle gates, those self-serving fools. But it’s not anywhere near us from what I hear.”

“Right,” said Miner C. “That’s what those two were here about. They’re tailors looking for a new place to set up shop somewhere, far away from the Wilt. Glad they’re moving on. We don’t need no namey-wamey people

“I ain’t a politician, but I don’t really understand the priorities,” Farmer H interjected. “Eric and this disease are much more immediate dangers, yeah? Who cares what happens forty-two years…”

“Thirty-two years,” Prostitute B corrected.

“Right. Thirty-two years from now. I mean, most of us will be dead by then. Let’s take care of the madman and sickness killing our people and then worry about the trouble on the horizon, yeah?”

Prostitute B shrugged. “Not my department.” He looked up and saw a pair of cutting blue eyes gazing at him from behind the bar. They disappeared, turning downward as soon as his own eyes rose to meet them. “Well, I just came to get coffee, boys,” he said, edging away from the two. “I’ll be seeing you.”

“Oh, do you know if Prostitute J has any openings?” Miner C asked as Prostitute B wandered toward the bar.

He called back, “I’m not sure. I’d check with Secretary D at the brothel.”

Prostitute B took a seat at the bar. “Hello, Barman,” he said.

Barman looked up with those beautiful blue eyes and frizzy hair. Even though one of his front teeth was chipped, it made his smile somehow more charming. He had a dimple on his smooth, tan skin. He was the only Barman in town, so he didn’t need a letter at the end of his name. He was cute, Prostitute B had decided long ago.

“Hello, B,” he said, his voice deep but nervous. Prostitute B smiled. He wondered if Barman had nicknames for anyone else or if he was the exception.

“Can you make me one of your coffees? Can’t get enough of them,” he said, flashing a practiced but heartfelt smile. Barman blushed.

“Of course. Already have some that should be ready and fresh.”

He took one of the many mugs behind him and placed it in front of Prostitute B, who watched Barman pour the coffee with great expectation. The miraculous smell of the coffee lifted off its black waters into Prostitute B nose and mouth and set his heart to pounding.

“Don’t forget your special touch.”

Barman said nothing, simply smiled and poured some milk into the black liquid, stirred it with a spoon. He pushed the coffee in front of his customer. With a mix of agility and delicateness, Prostitute B softly took the man’s arm, turned it over, and placed two coins into his hand. He made sure his finger delicately touched the palm.

“A little extra for a job well done.”

Barman’s cheeks flushed crimson. He muttered his thanks and took to wiping down the bar with a cloth, though it already looked clean.

Prostitute B sat, sipping his coffee.

“You can take the mug if you want,” Barman said. “Just bring it back.”

“I know. I’d like to sit here,” Prostitute B told him. “Sit here with you and talk a little. Unless you want me to go.”

“No,” he answered quickly. “I like it. You here, I mean.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry, words are not my profession.”

“That’s alright,” said Prostitute B. “I’ve heard you’ve been at the brothel. Some of my colleagues have seen you. They have the idea that you’re pining for me.”

“I—” he started, but Prostitute B put up his hand.

“You don’t have to be shy about it. To be wanted is flattering, and I’d happily work something out with you if you can’t afford it.”

“It’s not,” he stammered, “I don’t—it’s not like that.”

“What’s it like then,” Prostitute B asked, perhaps having a little too much fun. “Have you got a wife or something? Discretion is part of the package.”

“You misunderstand,” he told him. “Look, B, you’ve taken me by surprise, and I don’t have the words as I am right now.” Prostitute B was amused. He liked to see this burly man squirm and trip over words on his account. The experience was pleasant.

“Perhaps I’ve misunderstood,” Prostitute B said, sipping his coffee. “I apologize if that’s the case.”

“Can we meet for dinner?” Barman asked suddenly. “Just you and me.”

“I don’t make it a habit to meet with clients for dinner.”

“I’m not a client.”

“Clients, potential or otherwise,” he added.

Barman sighed.

Prostitute B finished his coffee and looked up at the Barman. “Look: you’re far from the first man who’s ever fallen in love with a hooker, okay? Far from the first one who’s ever fallen in love with this particular hooker, in fact. It always passes.”

Barman reached out and touched his arm. Prostitute B was surprised by the sudden boldness but not opposed to it. He did not move his hand. He liked how warm Barman’s gentle touch felt on his wrist.

“Can you just meet me tonight?” Barman asked, looking at Prostitute B’s wrist and then meeting his eyes. “Just to hear me out over a dinner. Hour of your time. I’ll give you free coffee for a month.”

Prostitute B grinned. “That’s more like it,” he answered. “I love a good negotiation. Two months and you’ve got a deal.”

Barman nodded slightly, his lips forming into a trembling smile as their eyes met. “It’s a deal.”

“See you tonight, then, my Barman.”

Prostitute B left the tavern just in time to make his appointment, but his mind was elsewhere the rest of the afternoon.

***

Prostitute B spent nearly two hours preparing for dinner. He drew a bath and shaved away the slight whiskers in his cheeks that were beginning to show. He applied oil to his neck and arms that made him smell of cedarwood and cinnamon. After much deliberation – not to mention input from Prostitutes E and J – he wore black trousers and a rose-colored tunic that fell just past his knees. He even went the extra mile, forgoing his beloved sandals for brown slippers that were a little too small for his toes and caused a fair amount of pain whenever he wore them for too long. And yet he felt an urge to look his best. It wasn’t as though he loved the Barman (obviously), but he did like being in the man’s presence, certainly, and did want to remain impressive in his eyes. It was a nice feeling, a sensation that was not entirely necessary to his happiness but one that he’d rather be with than without.

The moon was high in the sky when Prostitute B knocked on the door of the tavern, from which hung a sign that read in crudely drawn letters CLOSED. The door opened a few seconds later and there in the moonlight stood Barman in his trademark brown shirt and black trousers. The hairs of his chest poked through the opening in his shirt. He blushed upon seeing Prostitute B.

“You look stunning,” he said.

“I’m aware, but thank you,” Prostitute B said, taking a little bow.

“I’m so sorry,” Barman said, looking at his own ragged clothes.  “I don’t own any finery, otherwise—”

“I like you as you are, darling. Shall we have dinner?”

“Yes,” said Barman, his blue eyes twinkling. “Let’s.”

Inside, Prostitute B found both long tables had been moved out of the bar and there was but one smaller table in the middle of the room. On top of this table were a candle and two plates of steak, each accompanied by a stein of ale.

“I can get you water, if you’d like,” said the host as they sat down. “Not sure if you’re a drinker or not. I’ve never seen you order anything except coffee.”

“Oh, ale will do just fine. I don’t drink that much because, well, it’s important I keep my figure. It’s what my clients like about me, y’know? But occasionally, I like a good drink.” Prostitute B waited, looking in those blue eyes to see a flash of judgment – the quiet condemnation he had seen reflected from previous lovers.

Barman’s happiness did not seem to waver. “Of course, that’s more than understandable.”

“Let’s give this cow a taste, shall we?” Prostitute B sliced into the steak and took a bite. It was pretty good. Tender and juicy. “This is wonderful,” he told Barman. “You cook this?”

Barman beamed with pride. “Myself.” He bit into his food as well.

They sat for a time, chewing, not really talking. Prostitute B could feel the anxious energy coming from across the table. He had felt it emanating off many of his clients in the past. The need to say something but not just anything. To express something that commanded attention and left an impression of awe. In truth, Prostitute B often preferred the silence. Voices were distractions from his own thoughts, which he valued very much, and the expectation for him to mingle his voice with another always bothered him. And yet, here with Barman, he didn’t feel annoyed. In fact, he desired to put his friend at ease.

“So, you wanted to talk? You said you had to get your thoughts together.”

Barman nodded. “I did.”

“Well, I’m here.”

“I uh–”

“You don’t have to be scared,” Prostitute B told him. “I’ve heard it all, darling. Every desire there is. Trust me, whatever you have in that head of yours that’s making you tremble so, men – and women – have told me far, far worse.”

The big figure of Barman trembled briefly, like a mountain under the siege of an earthquake, and then stopped as he took a breath. “I feel things whenever I see you. In my tavern. Out in the street.”

“You want to take me to bed?”

“No – yes, but well…”

Prostitute B suppressed a smile. Seeing this giant man fidget so on his account was something else.

Barman continued. “It’s beyond that.”

“You don’t know me that well, darling,” Prostitute B said, repeating what he had told many men before. “How can you love someone you haven’t met?”

“Oh, dear me, no. I would not call it love,” Barman answered. “Maybe the beginning of love. Could-be-love,” he said, fast, like it was all one word.

“Could-be-love,” Prostitute B repeated, tasting the words in his mouth.

“Right. I see you and I feel warm. Content. I don’t know how to explain it. I’m not a philosopher or a mage or any of that. To be honest, I don’t think I have much in the way of brains up here,” he tilted his eyes upward in the direction of his skull. “But I walk around with these feelings about you, not knowing what to do with them – you see my predicament?”

“I do. Do you feel better, having expressed this sentiment to me?”

The Barman nodded, the fear leaving his face. “I do. I really do.”

“Well, what do we about it?”

“I don’t know. This is new to me.”

“I’ve been in love,” Prostitute B said. “Two times. Each of them loved me fiercely. I was young then and I thought that yes, I could do what I do and have what I want with someone else. But both of these men couldn’t stand it when I went to work. One was rich, one was poor – they both entreated me to leave the profession. Thought they could save me from what I do, but I don’t want to be saved,” he said. “I like what I do. I’m very good at it. And when I told them that, they looked at me like –” Prostitute B trailed off, the words hanging in his mind. He was unable to say them. He thought such memories could no longer hurt him; he was mistaken. “Anyway, they both left,” he finished.

Barman looked at him with his soft, blue eyes. “I’m so very sorry to hear that,” he said. Prostitute B was struck by how sincere he sounded, as though his mind and heart had truly left his own predicament and he was hurting for Prostitute B. “You did not deserve that hurt.”

“Thank you,” Prostitute replied, shifting into a more neutral tone. “So, you can see how the affairs of the heart are a prickly issue for me.”

“I can. May I ask you for your honest opinion? With an uncomfortable question?”

“You have been honest with me. I feel as though it would be quite unfair for me to shirk from my own honesty under duress.”

“Are you attracted to me at all? Do you feel any warmth toward me in the way that I feel about you? It’s okay to say no,” he said. “I’d just like to…I find myself needing to know.”

“Yes,” Prostitute B said before he could think about it, to consider how startling that confession could be. It felt so calm and natural to tell the man sitting across from him – barely more than a stranger – that he found him lovely.

Barman’s lips danced into a smile. “You’re not putting me on?”

“I wouldn’t. You are very handsome. I find you attractive and I like spending time around you.”

“Well,” Barman laughed. “I was sort of hoping you’d say you didn’t.”

“I know,” Prostitute B said, chuckling, tapping his companion’s hand with his own. “We’re in quite the pickle now, aren’t we?”

Barman turned his hand and touched Prostitute B’s arm with his finger.  Again, the warmth of the man’s hand against his own felt so nice. “I suppose we are.”

“Do you want me to stay the night?” Prostitute B asked. “I could do that.”

Panic filled Barman’s eyes. “I, uh—I don’t. I haven’t –”

Prostitute B smiled. “You’re not ready. That’s okay. Nothing to be ashamed of.”

He nodded sheepishly. “How about dinner again tomorrow?”

It was Prostitute B’s turn to be uncomfortable. Going to bed could mean nothing. A bit of fun. A place to put emotions to the test. Another dinner was different. There was no getting around it. He had to be upfront. “I don’t want to stop doing what I do. I won’t stop. Not for anyone. That includes you. No matter where this goes.”

He nodded. “Okay.”

Prostitute B chuckled. “You’re saying that now. A couple of months go by, and you could feel different.”

“Then that’s my own problem to deal with. I don’t want to ever be someone who comes between anyone and their happiness,” he said.

“Okay,” Prostitute B told him. “Dinner tomorrow. I’ll cook this time. I make a mean cauliflower stew.”

The Barman’s lips broke into an open smile. “I would love to eat your cooking.”

The two of them talked for another hour. Barman told him about growing up in the capital, hawking fruit in the marketplace at his father’s stall, his parents’ sudden death of consumption in a brutal winter – and, of course, his escape to a quiet life in the wilderness.

“I like the sounds of insects and birds in the night,” he told Prostitute B. “Sometimes I go out to the woods behind the tavern and just stand in the darkness, listening. There’s a sort of harmony amongst the children of nature that cannot be found with people.”

“Maybe you’ll take me out one night so I can listen for myself,” Prostitute B answered. “I think I’d like that.”

“Sometimes there are fireflies,” Barman told him. “It’s astonishingly beautiful.” His eyes looked beyond Prostitute B, as though he could see the past playing out before him right above the shoulder of his guest. Prostitute B felt something stir in his heart and knew it was time to leave, yes. He did not want to leave, but he would respect the border that Barman had raised. There would be time, he decided.

“I should go,” he said, rising. “Work starts early tomorrow.”

“Of course,” Barman answered, standing and pushing his chair beneath the table. He walked Prostitute B to the door. At the threshold, Prostitute B turned and gently kissed the Barman’s cheek, right on his dimple. He felt the man shudder slightly.

“I hope that was ok,” he told Barman. “I really wanted to do that.”

“I liked it,” he said, touching the spot where he’d been kissed. “I welcome more of it.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow night,” Prostitute B told him. “And I hope to see you more nights after that too.”

Barman opened his mouth to say something, but his companion was already leaving, his shape receding into the town square, crossing over in the direction of the brothel with confident strides. “Goodnight, B,” Barman said, at last, all the other words failing him.

Once inside the brothel, Prostitute B walked up the stairs to their room. He could hear wet smacking sounds and pleas of passion coming from behind the doors he passed along the way, but he paid them no mind. He was used to them.

In his room, he stripped the clothes off his body and stood for a few moments, letting the breeze blow across him. He thought briefly, as he crawled into bed, about how much he would have to tell Prostitute A over their card game the next morning. He expected her disapproval and welcomed it to a degree; she was fun to scandalize. Even more, however, he looked forward to his morning cup of coffee. He thought of its milky taste and the zest it would imbue his spirit, and he thought of Barman smiling softly as he served it to him.

Lying there, beneath the wool blanket in the dead of night, he began rolling that phrase around in his mouth once more. “Could-be-love,” he said in the dark, chuckling, tasting the sweet sensation of his inevitable surrender.

21 – Ly’wall, Last Of His People

The giant Ly’wall lumbered through the green woods of central Azra, clearing entire bushes of their blackberries into his wicker basket, the bony horn in his forehead scraping the branches of oak trees as he went.  He could feel himself growing tired; soon he’d have to turn back to the life-giving barrier. The morning was slowly giving way to the afternoon heat when he heard a dog barking in the distance. Curious, he walked north until he found the creature making the sound – as well as the human at its side.

The human appeared to be a woman. She had her eyes closed but was breathing heavily, her back to a tree. The dog did not run at the sight of Ly’wall as most animals did, but instead stood its ground, growling at the giant’s approach.

“That’s a good boy,” Ly’wall chuckled. He put down his basket and stooped, presenting his massive hand for the dog to sniff, which it did. Cautiously, the canine lowered its guard and sat on the ground, keeping his stern eyes on Ly’wall, but he had ceased growling.

“May I examine your master? I do not wish to harm either of you.”

He waited a moment for the dog’s permission. The pooch whined. Ly’wall took that as entreaty and proceeded to ever so slowly to touch the girl’s forehead with his finger. She was burning up and seemed to be hallucinating, muttering gibberish under her breath. Reaching over her legs, he grabbed her knapsack and opened it. A sickening scent emerged that singed the inside of the giant’s nose. He looked down to see fruit, rotted and purple.

“She’s sick,” he muttered, turning to the dog. “You’ll have to come with me. I can heal her but not out here. I’m going to pick her up now. Please don’t bite me. I’m trying to do right by both of you, I promise.”

The dog did not take his gaze from the giant as Ly’wall gently picked up the woman with his hand, gingerly closing his fist around her torso.

“Well come on, boy,” he said. “I have some traps in the village I can set to catch and cook you squirrels while I see to your master.”

The dog followed Ly’wall through the forest. Ly’wall grinned as he stalked past the trees. He hoped the girl would live. Some company would make for a nice change of pace.

***

Each morning Ly’wall took up his mortar and pestle, mashing blackberries and leaves into a fine paste. He’d cover the sleeping woman’s neck in the material and then, uttering a few words under his breath, hum the blessings of the soil and the tree and the sky until he felt some of his own precious energy leave him. He’d leave her sleeping in the dark, high-ceilinged hut under the watchful gaze of the dog, so he could fetch the pup squirrels for sustenance.

She did not stir for nearly a week and then one day, as he rubbed the paste across her neck, her eyes shot open. “Who are you!?” she screamed, scampering back into the wooden wall, reaching for a knife that no longer hung from her belt. “Are you going to eat me!?”

Ly’wall laughed, his voice booming through the hut. “You? You’re scrawnier than a starved cat. Even if I did eat meat, you’d make a poor meal.”

“What is this on my neck!? What have you done to me?”

“Why I’ve saved you, little one. You were dying from a poison. Is this the customary reaction of gratitude among your kind, human?”

Before she could answer, the dog barked, demanding her attention. “Quilco!” she cried, wrapping her arms around the hound as he ran into her chest. She held him tightly.

“He kept watch over you,” said Ly’wall. “He’s a good boy.”

Quilco whined, licking the woman’s face.

“What’s your name, human?”

The woman was quiet at first. The darkness of the hut obscured her host’s face, though she could make out that he was massive – larger than any human should be. “Dawn,” she offered at last, unable to think of any reasons not to at least give him that.

“Dawn,” he said. “A nice name. Dawn, I am Ly’wall. It’s dark in here – and rather cramped for me, despite the ceiling – so why don’t we step outside? I promise that you will not be hurt. Quite the opposite, in fact.”

His voice was booming but gentle. She could feel no desire or intention to do harm there. Cautiously, she rose and nodded in the darkness. “Okay.”

“Excellent. Follow me.”

She saw the shape of his arm reach out in the stilted blackness and move what appeared to be a large piece of fabric. An explosion of light. Dawn whimpered, covering her eyes with her forearm.

“Ah yes, sorry about that. You’ve been in here for a while. Just take some steps forward and you’ll be outside.”

She did as was suggested, letting Quilco guide her with one hand by his mouth until she knew she was outside. The sun’s warmth was on her neck, the gentle breeze in her hair.  Slowly, she lowered her arm from her face, taking the light bit by bit until the cascading pain reduced to a mild ache. 

Looking up, she saw her host at last. Ly’wall was truly large – twelve feet at least – and bare-chested, with a belly jutting out over burgundy trousers roughly stitched together and poorly dyed. His eyes were gentle azure and his smile missing a few teeth. Most notably, he had a massive horn sticking straight out of his bald head.

“You’re a giant,” Dawn said. “I thought you were all extinct.”

The smile faltered somewhat but did not fade entirely. “Mostly true,” he admitted.

“Do you really not eat people?”

“This again? My palette is not so poor that I would stoop to devouring something as tasteless the human body, I assure you. I partake of nature’s boon.”

“Well, thank you for all your help,” Dawn said, out of breath, leaning against the hut. “But I should be going, so if we could discuss payment for the care you gave me…”

“Payment? I’m not a doctor nor merchant. And you’re in no state to go anywhere. The poison has left your body, yes, but you need time to rest and recover. You should stay a few days longer in ou…my village. I will take care of you and your hound and in return I shall have your company. A worthwhile trade for both of us, I’d say. I’ll make you better, safer food than anything you’re likely to find in the wilds, my friend.”

Dawn looked around, taking in the village. The huts, clumsily built but towering high, were many. There appeared to be shops as well and even a tavern with tables outside of it large enough for giants to stand at and drink from steins. All of it deserted. No other being in sight except for her, Ly’wall, and the dog.

She opened her mouth to ask all the questions surging into her mind but something inside of her snapped off, darkness descended, and Dawn fell face forward into the dirt.

Stooping over her, Ly’wall scratched his chin. “I’ll take that for a yes.”

***

The days went slowly but not unpleasantly. Dawn spent much of the time resting inside the hut, with Ly’wall bringing her three meals each day – usually a mash of berries and, other times, cooked fish and venison. It wasn’t until the third evening that she asked him to stay.

“You sure you want a massive, man-eating beast such as myself to keep you company?” he asked with a wry grin.

She nodded weakly.

They took dinner out to the west of the village, where there was a colossal firepit. She basked in its warmth and then, looking out to the deserted buildings, finally asked her host the questions that had been on her mind as they ate fish.

“What is this place?”

“Why, it’s my home,” he said, poking the kindling and logs with a stick so that sparks shot across the stone belly of the pit. “But many years ago, it was our home. The last refuge of the giants.”

“How many of there were you?”

“When the elves created us from the sand and the muck, we were many. After the war? Maybe thirty. We built this place to live out our years in peace and harmony, hoping that the new race of people flooding the continent – your people – would leave us be.”

“So it’s true then?” Dawn said, petting Quilco and feeding him a piece of her fish. “You were children of the elves?”

“Slaves is probably the more accurate word. They created us from the soil to do their bidding. Most of the time we were laborers. Sometimes killers in the petty wars they waged against one another across the centuries, back when their spires touched the sky – before it all went to ruin, as is the way of things. Their cruelty was immense. It was beyond their capability to see us as living beings. Whenever one of us would fall in love with another, they’d kill both lovers. They even left us barren, unable to have children.”

“Because they feared you.”

“They were right to do so,” Ly’wall told her darkly. “We rose up and wiped them out. The emperor. The warriors. The tradesmen. We demolished their cities. We killed their children. Not out of revenge but simply because it was us or them. I, myself, ran into many battles wielding my club to bash in their brains. It was terrible. It was glorious. I’ve never felt more alive.” His eyes lit up briefly, as though he were experiencing the thrill of battle, before fading once more into the silence of aged rumination. He turned his eyes away from the past and onto Dawn.

“And what about you, my friend? What brought you and your pup to these woods of mine?”

“The disease you took out of me: we call it the Wilt of the World because it’s spreading everywhere. Quilco and I have been running from it, making encampments, getting just comfortable enough to make a life for ourselves out this in this great wilderness – only for the Wilt to show up and force us out. It will find this place soon enough. You should move on as well, to stay safe.”

Ly’wall chuckled. “I have no fear of that disease. It cannot harm me or this village. But, curious, the humans have done nothing to stop it? Do you not have an Academy of healers and mages? A proper civilization?”

“The ones in charge only look after themselves. They’re corrupt, hearts black as the night sky. It was true before The Wilt and is doubly true now. A hero was supposed to come and save us from them and a lot of other things. Instead, he damned us all.”

The giant nodded. “Eric. The Doombringer.”

“You know of him?”

“There’s a group of villages nearby. I give them gifts of fruits and vegetables sometime, mostly to reassure them that I mean them no harm and so they don’t call in mercenaries to hunt me down. We’ve gotten friendly over the years. I’ve heard much conversation about this Eric fellow. He sounds like a piece of work.”

“That’s putting it lightly,” Dawn said, staring out into the trees. “Sometimes it feels like I’m just…in the wrong world. Like, I can feel the right world just beyond all of this. A world where we do have a hero. Where the world is healing, not fracturing. I can taste it in my mouth sometimes – like honey. And then…” she paused, looked at the dirt. “And then it’s gone. And there is only the agony of knowing the impossible.” She clenched her fist. “I hate it,” she said. “I hate it more than anything this…powerlessness.”

“What were you before you were a traveler, hmm? A warrior?”

Dawn’s turn to laugh. “I was fisher.”

Ly’wall scoffed. “Really? You have a rage about you more befitting a fighter.”

“What does one fight for in a wilted world such as this?” Dawn asked bitterly.

Ly’wall raised an eyebrow at her as he poked the fire a bit more. “For the hope that one might keep the end at bay just a little longer. You humans, you make such a big deal out of everything meaning nothing. It’s astonishing to me.”

“So you agree it’s all pointless then?”

“Oh yes. Chaos is inevitable. Destruction assured. All creations are mistakes to be rectified by churning oblivion. The elves failed to understand that, see? They thought themselves the center of the universe. And then their time ended. And soon my people’s time will end. And then one day, your people’s time will end. Birth. Legacies. Wealth. Empires. Ruin. It’s all a pointless cycle.”

“If there’s no point, then why did you save me?”

Ly’wall tilted his head as though he found it strange his motives were not understood without explanation. “We mistakes must look out for one another, yes? We are born into a hard, uncaring world. The only power we truly have is to live in defiance of its apathy – together.”

“But none of it means anything.”

“Everything is futile. That does not mean the situation cannot be enjoyed. The futility of life did not stop you from enjoying this dinner I made you, I hope.”

“It was delicious,” Dawn admitted.

“I enjoyed making it for you. I enjoyed seeing you use it to quell your hunger. I enjoy feeling the night breeze on my skin. I enjoy being in the company of others when I am afforded the pleasure. All of that will end one day, and there is nothing any of us can do but embrace those moments. Their futility – our futility – is irrelevant. The universe does not care about us? Then we shall care about one another instead. That is the only true power we have. Anything else, little human – cruelty, fear, greed – is existential panic.”

Dawn sat quiet for a time, mulling over his words, chewing the fish. Quilco napped next to her in the dirt. She watched Ly’wall, who was staring up at the moon, his mind pondering things she could not understand.

At long last, she spoke. “You cured my sickness. Would it be possible to use your magik to create a remedy for the wounded land?”

Ly’wall sighed softly in the moonlight. “The ruined land cannot be recovered,” he said, not meeting her eyes.

“But can we wipe it out before it destroys more of the world?” she asked, insisting. “You healed me. Would it not be possible to cure others? There must be something that can be done.”

The giant sat with the question for a few moments. He lifted his head and looked around the deserted village. “This place used to be so alive,” he said. “We would dance with each other beneath a full moon, this very firepit roaring. There was a woman I loved. Her name was Myria. I miss her very much. Sometimes I still hear her voice in the breeze. It is a hard thing to live with. A thousand years have passed before these eyes, little one. I’ve encountered more pain than most sentient beings, but there is truly nothing worse than being alone.”

He looked at Dawn with resolve, nodding. “I can teach you how to destroy this Wilt, but it will cost you much,” he said, his voice containing sorrow as much as warning.

“I’m sure I can round up the money. Even if the kingdom will not pay the toll, the people will pool together their coi—”

Ly’wall shook his head sadly. “The forest does not take its toll in that way. It will want to join with you. It will want to share your body. Once you let it inside, it will not leave.”

Dawn swallowed. “Are you joined?”

“Yes. The elves made us this way. We had no choice in the matter. It is a wonderful gift. It is a powerful curse.”

Her throat went dry. “What will happen to me?”

“You will age much slower than any of your fellow men. You will hear the cries of dying branches, feel the suffering of every diseased animal around you for miles – as though the pain were your own. You may only eat what the forest and the soil offer. Cities will disgust you to the point of sickness. Every murmur of the planet you will feel in your breast, and it will make you want to weep. This is a pain unlike you have ever experienced, and there is no escaping it. Your suffering will be grand and without end.”

“And in exchange?”

“The vast, unfathomable power that stirs in the dirt beneath our feet, that whispers in the wind at our backs, that hums in the bark of the trees. The fury of the forest and the rage of rocks will be at your beck and call. By most measures, you will be immortal.”

Her lips trembled. “But I will no longer be human, will I?”

“You will be greater and lesser, all at once.”

Dawn thought of the people in the fishing village, of how most of the ones who had stayed were probably dead. She thought of the sick fish and dead purple grass. She looked down at Quilco sleeping, the light dancing across his face. How long could they run? What cost wouldn’t she pay for a shred of lasting peace?

“I’ll do it,” she said.

She could see the tears in Ly’wall’s eyes as he nodded. “Tonight we rest. Difficult days lie ahead.”

***

Dawn sat in the center of a circle drawn in the dirt, her body covered from head to toe in the paste that Ly’wall had used when nursing her back to health. The morning sun was hot, and she could feel the sweat down in her armpits. Ly’wall had broken a tree branch into four pieces and placed a single piece at the top, bottom, and sides of the circle. He had then taken a knife and sliced open both his finger and Dawn’s, joining the blood together in a small cup.

“Was that really necessary?” Dawn complained, sucking her index finger.

“It will heal,” Ly’wall replied, using a small branch to paint symbols Dawn couldn’t understand on her forearms with the mixture of their blood. When he was done, he sat outside of the circle in front of her, his eyes meeting hers.

“This is the last chance. Once I start the incantation, there is no going back.”

 Dawn nodded. “I have to.”

Ly’wall closed his eyes and began to chant under his breath. At first, Dawn tried to catch what he was saying, but the lightheadedness set in. Her vision whirled. She looked up. The sun rapidly descended as the sky turned like a wheel, churning through night and day, moon and sun. The years sped by. She opened her mouth to say something, to scream stop stop stop no more but could only choke, watching in terror as branches emerged from her mouth, sticky with blood.

Pain coursed through her body, agony like she had never felt before. Her arms flailed wildly as she fell onto her back convulsing, the gnarled, twisted limbs still emerging from her mouth, rising and spreading in every direction – covering the sky in tendrils of bark. Dawn tried to cry out again as her body slammed into the ground over and over.

This isn’t happening, her mind told her body. This is just a hallucination. Looking down at her arms, she saw grass sprout from the pores of her flesh. Time continued to whip by as the branches filled the air, circling her, transforming the space around her into a hardened cocoon.

Close your eyes, she told herself. Close your eyes and rise above the pain. None of this is real.

She shut her eyes. She could still feel the branches cutting into the flesh of her mouth as they continued to emerge and the pain in her back as her body slammed into the ground repeatedly – but somehow it was all bearable now. The sensations slipped away as she fell fast into the darkness – the millennia whirling by unabated.

When she opened her eyes, it was dusk. Ly’wall was in front of her, sleeping on the ground next to Quilco, who sat at attention. Seeing she was awake, he barked.

“What’s that!?” Ly’wall said, sitting up. “Oh good, you’re awake. It’s been nearly a week. How do you feel?”

Dawn started to say something like I’m okay when she realized that was not an accurate answer. She felt more than fine. Her heart was pounding fast. She looked out across the trees. They seemed…different somehow. “I’m humming,” she found herself saying. “My body is humming. With the trees.”

Ly’wall smiled. “It worked,” he said, getting to his feet.

She could see immediately that something was not right. He was moving slowly. His flesh had taken on a pale grey color.

“You did something to yourself,” Dawn said.

The giant coughed. “That noticeable huh?”

“What did you do, Ly’wall?”

“Confession time, little one. I should have died long ago. When the last of my companions passed, I felt as though I should buy myself more time. To see if I could find a way to have the giants continue in some way. It seemed so sad then that my people should fade out of existence entirely. I used magik to construct a barrier around the village. It has maintained this place’s secrecy and my very own life despite my fruitless search. I have accomplished nothing except prolonging my life – until now.”

Dawn, feeling the dwindling energy in the air, understood at once. “You drew upon it for the ritual, didn’t you? How much?”

“It won’t be long now,” Ly’wall said, betraying no emotion. “A few days perhaps.”

Dawn clenched her fist. “How could you!?” she screamed. “I would have never agreed to this if I knew yo—”

Ly’wall put his enormous hand up, as he took several deep breaths. “The fate of many hang in the balance. You decided to bear your own terrible cost to save them. I am willing to bear mine.”

“It’s not fair,” Dawn whimpered. “You saved my life and I paid you back by taking yours.”

“Enough of this. We’re both in no state to argue. Why don’t I cook us some lunch and then—" He fell silent, turning to the west of the village.  Dawn could feel it too. The trees were screaming.

“It’s him,” Dawn said.

Nodding, Ly’wall got to his feet. The three of them crossed the village and looked to the tree line. There, at the edge, stood an enormous man – though not quite as enormous as Ly’wall – encased in armor. He had a massive claymore and was using it to poke the air. The mere sight of him chilled Dawn. She looked into the visor of his horned helm and saw only darkness there.

“He can’t see us?” she asked.

“Not yet. The ritual’s surge of magik must have attracted his curiosity. The barrier has some life left in it, but all he needs to do is push in the right spot and –"

“We will fight him,” Dawn interrupted, feeling this new, bold power inside of her. She could unearth a mountain and pound this monster into an annihilation, drown him in an ocean of rocks.

Ly’wall put his hand up. “No. You must go. I will buy you time so he cannot pick up your trail.”

“But the cure.”

“You already know how to do it. The answer is a part of you now.”

Dawn, searching her mind, was stunned to find that she did know. Closing her eyes, she saw all of it: the plants she’d need, the enchantments – all leading to the creation of a miraculous brew capable of turning back the plague. She felt excitement and, for the first time in a great while, hope.

She opened her eyes and looked to Ly’wall with determination.  “I can’t leave you here. We will fight together and end him.” Quilco growled beside her in agreement.

“Please do not be foolish. We are outmatched,” the giant said calmly. “I cannot win this battle, with or without you. If you stay and perish, the Wilt will spread and legions more of your people will die. The ritual will have been for nothing. I will have given you the last of my life for no purpose at all.”

Dawn started to speak, but he interrupted. “No more, now. It was a pleasure to call you my friend. Now please…go.”

Dawn searched her mind for the words that would save all three of them, some solution, but the futility was there everywhere she turned – dead ends in every direction.

“Go!” Ly’wall’s voice boomed.

With no choice left to her, she and Quilco took off running, leaving the giant by himself.

He stood his ground, weak in the legs, watching as the Doombringer poked more air with his claymore. He could feel his own energy fading fast. Once the barrier fell, he would have mere minutes before what little life left inside expired. He felt no bitterness. The time of the giants was over. His life would end having helped save countless humans and engaging in battle with one of the most powerful beings Azra had ever known.

“The stories they will tell,” he said, a smile touching his lips. The Doombringer poked a particular spot with his blade twice and there was a flash of light. Ly’wall watched as cracks appeared in the barrier. He stepped over to a nearby young elm tree and, wrapping his arms around the trunk, pulled with all his strength. The soil muttered and spewed as the roots snapped. With another tug, the tree came loose, and Ly’wall shook the dirt from his new weapon. Not my club, but it will do.

The barrier shattered with a scream and the Doombringer stepped through. He turned his horned helm to the village and then to the only living being he could see.

Ly’wall looked at him. “So you’re the troublemaker I’ve heard so much about,” he said, fighting not to wheeze.

Eric stepped forward into village with hulking steps and lifted his claymore. A hiss came from within the helm.

Ly’wall smiled. “Thank you for this gift of a glorious battle, my foe.” He lifted his club with both his hands, as he did when he was much younger. The air was leaving his lungs. His heart was slowing down. A minute, he supposed. Three, if he were lucky. What hallowed moments they would be. His hands gripped the tree, building what was left of his strength. He would wait until Eric stepped in front of the firepit to swing.

A moment passed. The breeze blew between them, kicking up leaves and swirling dirt. And then the Doombringer ran toward him, lifting his blade on high.

Standing there, in the ruins of his people, the last of the giants made his stand.

22
Tyra Quincast, Spymaster

The evening was approaching. Tyra Quincast, the spymaster for his excellency Toldat the Third, looked out from her tower as the clouds billowed across the red-purple sky. Dusk was her favorite part of the day. The stillness that often took hold of the world, the mesmerizing swirl of colors, the very air filled with the subtle energy of churning transition. She soaked it in for a few minutes, watching as the color faded into the night and the clouds turned to dark cotton.

Tyra looked to one of the several letters on her desk. Nestled amongst the other finished messages, this one had one word written on it: Oolow. She took up her quill, dipped it in ink and brought it above the paper, but she found herself unable to write.

What could she say to him, really?  She felt as though she owed him, but the debt’s nature escaped her. They had something together, at one point in time in their youth. It had ended when the voices in his head erupted. When he became something more than the Academy’s bright, shining star. She struggled with the feeling before eventually surrendering. Whatever the sentiment was, the words did not exist in her to express it or she lacked the courage to do so. Those moments long ago would have to speak for themselves. She could only hope they meant as much to him – or one of him – as they had to her.

Tyra wrote a brisk note small script:

Oolow,

Despite your protests, I will be proceeding as planned. By tomorrow morning, you will have everything you need. Take care of bird.

She tore off the section of the parchment containing her message and rolled it. Her fingers gently opened the little cage next to her desk. Out leapt a small pigeon. He cooed softly as she fed him some of the cracked corn she kept just for him. She tied her message around his leg and gently petted his crown with her finger.

“One last message, Roc.”

The pigeon cooed once more as Tyra presented her hand. Roc hopped onto her palm, and she held him to the window. He took flight. She watched for a few moments until his shape melded entirely with the darkness of evening and he was gone completely.

Turning to the rest of the letters on her desk, she arranged them appropriately in the way she wished them to be discovered – placing the most important one at the center of her desk. She laid her quill down on top of it and then stood back, imagining hands and eyes all over her table, searching each word she had written these past few hours.

Satisfied, Tyra went and dressed herself in a velvet black dress. She had better dresses, flashier ones, but decided it would be best not to draw attention to herself. Besides, she thought, this one has something the others don’t. She took care in packing the only tool she needed for the evening inside the tiny pouch stitched into her inner left sleeve.

She left her tower as the moon was rising high and crossed the courtyard, filled with innumerable guards, each armed with a longsword and shield. They were not particularly agile fighters, but their numbers did send a message to the grumbling peasantry.

Zidel, the youngest prince and her pupil, was waiting for her by the lift. He was a teenager with golden hair and blue eyes, gifts from his father, but he had a smirk and wit that came solely from his mother.

“You’re late,” he said.

“The lords will not have their meeting without their spymaster. We can afford to be late. Where’s your personal guard?”

“Slipped ‘im,” Zidel told her nonchalantly as they boarded the wooden lift. He pushed the lever, and the platform groaned before starting its long ascent.

“Such a mind given to mischief.”

“You’re the one who taught me,” he said.

“I taught you how to evade danger, not use chicanery to bully those who only have your safety in their interest.”

“Someone is in a mood tonight,” he said.

She shot him a look. “It’s the crown prince’s birthday this evening. We should be on our best behavior.”

Zidel groaned. “These meetings are bad enough. Now I have to sit around while everyone talks about how great my murderous blockhead of a brother is on top of that?”

“It’s just as important for you to attend these as him. You must know what’s happening in your kingdom.”

“Why?” he asked, taking a seat on the floor of the lift. “It’s not like these fools are going to do anything. A year and a half has gone by, and they’ve taken no action against either Eric or that damn Wilt. Our people are dying, and all these pigs are worried about is their coffers.”

Tyra shot him another look. “Young one, I would caution you to lower your voice.”

“I’m not wrong. We’ve barely sent any aid to our villages and cities. All these lives being extinguished, and my father refuses to do anything. When will it end? When will we actually take care of the people we’re sworn to protect?”

Tyra couldn’t help but smile. A child’s heart. A pure heart. “Be patient, my student. Justice moves of its own accord.”

The lift came to a grumbling stop near the top of castle. Zidel got to his feet and brushed off his leggings. “Let’s get this over with,” he muttered.

Stepping into the hall, they found at least ten guards stationed between the lift and the operations room. None of them said anything, standing stiffly at attention, as Tyra and Zidel passed by. The two of them could hear loud, hearty laughter from within the operations room as they approached. The guard next to the door opened it as they stepped close, and both Tyra and Zidel walked through.

Inside they found a long table stretched from one end of the room to the other, with glorious offerings of poultry, pork, boiled fish, bread, and soup across it. There were four men, not including king Toldat himself. Tyra quickly scanned the room, taking note of each of them.

There was Calgry, the duke of the west, with thick mutton chops in lieu of a brain or heart, a man who never spoke much but was happy to follow in the footsteps of the crowd no matter the evil at hand.

Mintho, the lord of the southern wastes, sat at the other end of the table from the king. He was bald and tanned crisp. It is said that he needed nothing to sustain him other than water and the gleeful slaughter of man. Always looking for a fight and new lives to cut down.

Pollo, baron of the Brush in the east, enjoyed the cuisine of the animals that lived in his jungles. The trade of fur had made him and his family rich, at the cost of dwindling wildlife, though they showed no sign of stopping on the poor beasts’ accounts.

Nyweir, master of the north, only loved coin. He was easily the richest man at this table – even more so than the king – but he did nothing with it. To spare a coin for any reason or to any person in need was a pain too severe. His mountain of wealth was his art. Why should he chip away at his masterpiece?

And of course, the king himself. Tyra looked at the small man in his throne. He was thin, often sick, and in need of constant approval from those around him. She pitied him. Once Toldat had been a great ruler, one that loved and cared for his people. The death of his wife had broken something in him long before Eric broke the world.

For a long time, Tyra’s voice alone had been enough to sway him to action even in his most desolate moments. Over the years the power had shifted. His trusted nobles had grown craftier, using honeyed words to become like family to the king they wished to control. Now he did as they instructed while she vainly sought to counteract their harm – these greedy gluttons who chose their own sickening pleasures over countless lives.

Tyra took her seat, silently regarding all the lords with the loathing they were due.

“So good of the spymaster and the young prince to join us,” said Pollo with more than a little snark before loudly slurping from his soup bowl.

Tyra smiled politely as the man. “We apologize for the tardiness. The blame lies with me. Not the prince.”

“If you want to be late to your own meeting, it’s no skin off my back, Quincast,” Mintho said.

“Please gentlemen,” the king said meekly from his throne. “Let us remember our manners.”

“Do we even have to do this meeting?” Calgry said, slamming his stein. “It’s the Crown Prince’s birthday after all. Why don’t we just all drink some ale once he arrives and have a real bash? Kingdom’s not going anywhere. We can all delib…what’s the word…debilerate next week, yeah?”

“No, no,” said Nyweir. “I spent a substantial amount of gold to get here for the sake of this gathering. Those travel expenses must be justified. We are going to have the meeting, Calgry, you brute.”

“Where is the prince anyway?” Mintho said. “It is not in Dante’s nature to be late.”

“Maybe he’s sowing his oats with some working ladies, eh?” Pollo said, flashing a disgusting smile, his teeth covered in chicken flesh and bean skins. “Cavortin.’”

“Pollo!” The king exclaimed. The lord’s smile disappeared. “Beggin’ your pardon, Your Excellency. Just wondering aloud.”

“I am sure my son will be here soon,” Toldat said timidly. “But as Lord Nyweir as pointed out, all of you have traveled a long distance to be here for our annual meeting. The royal spymaster has taken it upon herself to present a series of topics she’d like to discuss amongst our council.”

Mintho frowned. “Oh, she has, has she?”

“As is my charge,” Tyra said.

“I understand that. I just don’t know if I’m fond of having your people out in my territory spying. We’re all friends here, are we not? We all have Azra’s best interests in mind.”

“Technically, Lord Mintho, your territory belongs to the crown,” Tyra sad matter-of-factly. “Therefore, it is within my purview to observe happenings in the region for the safety of our kingdom.”

Mintho glowered, but the king interrupted before he could reply. “Please, Tyra, Mintho. Let us proceed with this meeting, yes? I’m already exhausted and we’ve not yet begun.”

“As you wish,” Tyra said. She turned to Nyweir. “My lord, are your people content?”

“As can be,” Nyweir smiled.

“Curious, I hear differently.”

“And what have you heard precisely?”

“That the people of north are dying in droves. That villages in the mountains and the flatlands are perishing because they eat Wilt-contaminated food and drink Wilt-contaminated water because the kingdom does not send them fresh supplies – despite countless requests.”

“Hogwash, spymaster. I don’t know who you’ve got doing your intel, but they’re giving you the runaround,” Nyweir said without emotion. “The Wilt’s effects on my region are negligible.”

“Really? Perhaps we should compare numbers. I believe last month, I was told the region lost nearly four thousand citizens within a week’s time due to sickness, bringing the annual total to approximately one hundred thousand dead under your watch.”

Nyweir stiffened. “I do not have a report with the accurate numbers on me, spymaster.”

“Curious you would show up to such an important meeting without the information necessary for us to conduct an enlightened conversation on the matter and reach a solution that aids your territory.”

“We have sent supplies,” Nyweir said, growing red. “Bandits have picked them off, as everyone here is aware. Bandits are the most pressing issue facing our kingdom now. Every region is having to deal with them. They’re affecting trade and they’re growing bolder. Just last week one of my nobles had their face sliced open while they were standing in their own garden. Can you imagine?”

“Quite true,” Mintho said. “We’ve also had problems with bandits. It’s why we’ve kicked up our military spending.”

Tyra did not break her gaze from Nyweir. “I’ve seen no reports on any uptick in bandit activities since the Wilt began. In fact, given just how much of the population Eric and the plague have decimated across the continent, I believe – if I’m recalling the number correctly – robberies of government shipments are down four-point seven percent.”

“Again, spymaster: No offense intended, but your intelligence is faulty.”

Tyra smiled and clasped her hands together, peering over her fingers directly into Nyweir’s eyes. “The Guild of Watchers works from the shadows, Lord Nyweir. They are the most efficient, ruthless operatives in the land because I trained them, every single one of them handpicked by me for their skill and loyalty to the crown. There is no flaw in their method or output. The intelligence is not faulty.”

“What are you saying to me, Quincast?”

“I’m simply explaining what the facts say, my lord of the north, and the facts say that you run your country and its people into the ground. That you cling to a wealth that should be shared freely with your people in such dire times as this.”

“Outrageous,” Nyweir cried, turning to the king. “I must protest!”

Toldat turned his gaze to Tyra. “I will not have my lords spoken to as such, Tyra. Apologize.”

Tyra swallowed the wrath in her throat. “Yes, Your Majesty.” She turned to Nyweir. “My lord, I apologize for calling your leadership into question.”

Nyweir nodded. “Apology accepted, Quincast. I do urge you to not take such false pride in the work of your intelligence. Perhaps it would be more beneficial to dedicate your energy to hiring people who know how to do their job instead of the buffoons you have employed now. We might actually get somewhere then.”

The table, except for Tyra and Zidel, burst out laughing. Even the king joined in tittering.

“You’re wrong,” Zidel said suddenly. Tyra turned to him, mouthed the words STOP, but it was too late.

“What was that, little prince?” Mintho said.

“I said you’re wrong. All of you. She might not be able to speak to you in such a way, but I can. You’re all fools at best and monsters at worst. But perhaps you are worst of all, father,” Zidel said, turning his gaze to the man sitting in the throne. “You have the most power, but you do nothing for the good of our people. Instead, you are weak and broken, a coward by any measurement to civilization. I almost wish you were evil because then at least you would be something of a man, but instead you are worse: You’re the betrayer who opens the gate to let evil in because he cares so little for his people.”

“Enough,” Toldat spat. “I will not be talked to in such a way.” The king weakly pounded the arm of his chair with his fist. The impact was barely audible.

“Quite the poet, this little prince,” Pollo laughed. “You should take up writing while the real man of the house, your brother, rules the kingdom.”

“Is Dante still not here?” Mintho asked. “This is peculiar.”

“I grow tired of waiting,” Pollo complained. “I want wine. Can we have the wine now?”

“Fine,” the king said glumly, still wounded by his sons’ younger words. “Zidel, be useful: go to the guards and call for the servant.”

The prince started to rise, but Tyra held up her hand. “Why wait for the servant?” she said. “Begging your pardon, Your Majesty, but I also thirst for wine. With your permission, I shall serve everyone.”

“Hardly seems a fitting task for my spymaster.”

“I find myself insisting. I’m quite parched and would rather not wait.”

Toldat, still depressed, shrugged. “Very well. Far be it from me to keep you from your happiness.”

“Thank you, my lord.”

Tyra rose and walked to one of side tables at the end of the room, where the wine jugs and the goblets sat. She slowly poured wine into each of the goblets and then carefully reached inside her inner sleeve to fetch the small glass bottle with the stopper in its throat. Behind her, the lords complimented Pollo on his wildcat skin cloak as she tapped two purple drops from the bottle into each goblet of wine.

She packed away the bottle into her sleeve pouch and then lined the goblets up on the silver tray. Carefully, she brought one goblet to everyone at the table – except for Zidel. The lords took their wine greedily, and Nyweir made sure to sneer at her.

“Why don’t I get one?” the prince complained once she took her seat.

She started to tell him that there wasn’t enough in the pitcher for everyone, but the king interrupted: “I don’t think cheeky little princes should get wine. You’ll live without some tonight,” he said, though his delivery had no force behind it.

Zidel frowned.

She watched as the lords drank from their goblets and felt a surge of malevolent glee in her heart, one that sank into a chill when she turned to see the king drinking from his goblet.

Had to be this way, she thought, taking a small sip of her own wine. Cut off the rot-afflicted arm or the sickness will spread to the brain.

She cleared her throat. “Now my lords, I was hoping we could move onto the next topic of conversation.”

“Oh, must we?” Pollo said. “This wine is absolutely delicious.”

“Our next item is my proposal for a shared emergency fund between all the lands to help support the public and bolster our communities reeling from both The Doombringer and the Wilt.”

She paused, waiting. Nyweir answered first, with a booming laugh.

“You cannot be serious, Quincast.”

“I am,” she said, feeling a small tingle of numbness in her lower jar. It’s starting.

“I refuse. There is no law that compels us to such unwarranted charity.”

“Enough of Eric this and Wilt that.” Mintho added. “What we need is to increase our military spending, reintroduce conscription to all the lands, and really get this bandit problem under control.”

“I agree with them. Whatever they’re saying,” Calgry answered, soup dripping from his mutton chops.

“Well, if they’re not paying, I’m certainly not fucking doing it,” Pollo said.

Tyra smiled. “I thought you might all say that. I can only hope your successors feel differently.”

The energy in the room instantly evaporated. The smiles, the looks of smug superiority gave way to stark bafflement on each of their faces.

“Successors?” Nyweir said. “I can’t say I care for these games you’re playing.”

“My head feels…strange,” Calgry said, caressing his left temple with his fingers.

“I say, where is Dante?” Mintho yelled. “Where is our warrior prince!?”

“The Crown Prince is dead,” Tyra stated, rising to stand above all of them.

The king choked. “What?”

She turned her gaze onto Nyweir. “My buffoons found him as he was hunting game in the woods this morning. They slit his throat and threw his body down a ravine.” She could feel the pain rising now. In her head, down in her chest. Her throat was dry.

“This is not funny, spymaster,” the king said, his voice firm for once. She could see the panic in his eyes.

“It is no joke, Your Majesty. I’ve killed your son – on his birthday, no less. Just as I’ve killed nearly everyone in this room. You all know it, don’t you? You can feel the tingle in your mouths spreading. Maybe in your chest now or your legs?” Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Zidel cowering in his seat in abject confusion, watching the scene playing out before him.

She continued, smelling metal in her nose. “You’ve consumed a hyperaggressive strain of the Wilt. There’s nothing to be done now. We’ll all be dead shortly. All except for the boy.”

“Get…get the guard,” Nyweir stuttered.

“I’ve had enough of this tomfoolery,” Minthos said, rising. He took several steps toward the door and stumbled. “What?” he said, falling, and then slamming into the floor. His body twitched and convulsed, gasping. He coughed up red sticky blood over the tile, shook one last time, and then went still.

“No, no, no,” Nyweir whimpered.

“Pity your coin can do nothing for you,” Tyra said, smiling gleefully as blood ran down Nyweir’s nose.

“Help me,” he said. “Please. I’ll do anything. Just hel—” The man’s body tumbled out of his chair and shook on the floor. Pollo was rising from his seat when blood erupted from his mouth all over the banquet table. He fell forward, face slamming into the wood of the table, and then sagged to the ground next to Nyweir.

Calgry, red tears trickling down from his eyes, looked at all chaos happening around him. “Bugger,” he said softly, before collapsing himself.

“Wh…why?” the king exclaimed, shuddering, blood flowing down his twitching mouth and onto his regal robes. “I do not deserve this.”

Tyra nodded sadly, tasting metal in her mouth now. “None of us do.”

The king slumped forward, his face striking the table, and he was dead.

The strength left Tyra’s legs. She fell back into her seat and found herself staring at Zidel. The boy made to move toward her, but she raised her hand.

“Don’t…blood infectious,” she wheezed. “Stay away.” She could feel the blood leaking out of her nose.

He kept his distance, tears streaming from his eyes. “My family…how…how could you?”

Every breath was fire, but she spoke anyway. The job was still not done: the boy had to know. She thought of the confession on her desk. Even if she could not tell him everything, at least the letters would be enough to absolve him of her crimes. “They were all killing us,” she choked. “Your father. Your brother. The council. Just as much as Eric and the Wilt. I know you cannot forgive me, but I hope in time you come to understand.”

She coughed. More red. Time falling away from her. Had to get the last words out. She pushed through with deep breaths.

“Look to Oolow for counsel.” She gulped for air. “Rule with justice and understanding, as I taught you all these years. Be the man those who came before you failed to be. For your people. What a terrible gift to leave you with,” she murmured as darkness fell over her eyes. “If only –”

But she spoke no more. The words had left, along with the rest of her.

The new king watched his old teacher for a time and then, wiping the tears away from his eyes, called for his guards. It was all he could do.

23
Nartel, Priest

Nartel sat in the husk of the church, the rays of the sun cutting between the black-burnt planks hanging above him. Nearly nothing remained of the building where his congregation would gather day-to-day to sing glories to the king of the gods himself, Lordrow.

He had been sitting there in his tattered priestly robes, not moving or drinking or eating, for nearly two days. He wished to die but he did not have the will to kill himself, so the waiting had begun. The skin beneath his hair follicles turned red and flaky, and his belly took turns roaring and whimpering. His throat was parched. His body demanded that he rise, go to the stream to soak himself and then to the village storerooms to fetch potatoes and onions. He could smell the sizzling vegetables now in his mind, earthy and powerful, but even that was not enough to move him.

Nartel could not go out there and see those ominous mounds of dirt – 14 in all – rising out of the ground, reminding him that he had lived – unjustly so. He was staring at his feet when he felt a sudden rush of cold wetness on his back, neck, and head.

Shouting in surprise, he turned to see a large man with a potbelly standing over him, a bucket in his hands, the sunlight outlining his large figure.

“Father,” the man said. “Do you need aid?”

Nartel said nothing but did not resist when the man took him by the arm and led him toward the village. The priest turned his eyes from the mounds of dirt as he was led away but could feel them in his mind, ever looming.

Nartel and the stranger were outside of the storerooms of the village an hour later, a firepit before them. The man passed him a bowl of stew made of potato and leeks. Nartel took it in his trembling hands.

“Eat,” the man said gently. Nartel looked up at him and saw his face in the light for the first time. He was older, with grizzled stubble and thinning white hair, but he had a warm yet weary smile.

Finding himself unable to protest, he joined the stranger in eating the soup. Nartel felt warmth flood his belly. They sat in silence for a few moments, accompanied only by the wind whistling through the planks of the deserted buildings around them, before the stranger spoke. “This village…it is known as Langdai, yes?”

Nartel nodded. “It was,” he let out in a rasp.

“The Doombringer do this?”

Another nod.

“I’m sorry, Father. We received reports that such a fate had befallen your home. It was my hope to find such information faulty.”

“You are from the Pilath then?”

“Aye.”

“Is it true what they say about the king?”

“Cold and still as stone, alongside all his governors. Killed by the traitorous spymaster who had designs on the crown. They found plans in her room confessing to such ill ambition. Thankfully she didn’t have the nerve to see it all through. Took her own life and now the dead king’s young son bravely leads us all.”

Nartel put down his bowl in the dirt. “I do not understand this world,” he said. “We were promised something else.”

“Weren’t we all?”

Nartel looked up at the man. “What is your name, my friend?”

“Dagnar but Dag is what my friends call me.”

“And what do the people you rescue call you?” Nartel said, attempting to form a weak smile.

“Dag will do just fine, Father.”

“Nartel is my name. I do not…I don’t know if I find myself a believer anymore.”

The man named Dag looked down the path, in the direction of the church. “I’ve found that Eric has that effect on people. I take it from the markings on your church you served Lordrow.”

“Lordrow, the guardian of man and all his works,” Nartel found himself reciting bitterly. “Where was he when the Doombringer came?” he asked, barely above a whisper. “Where were the gods when he butchered my congregation one-by-one and then set fire to a house of holiness? And left me…” Nartel choked, “and left me alive to see it all, mocking me. He was silent, but I could hear him, Dag, I could hear him laughing in my head as he brought my life to ruin."

Nartel slumped into the dirt. I wish he had slain me,” he whispered. “I don’t want to be alive in a world such as this. Where have the gods gone? The creators made them our guardian. Why have we been abandoned?”

“Perhaps they have left,” Dag said sadly. “Or were slain by the Doombringer himself. Maybe there were never gods to begin with. I don’t know the answers.” He reached out and touched his new companion’s arm gently. “But just because there are no gods does not mean we are alone.”

Dag’s touch seized Nartel. He felt himself becoming calmer. “He’s caused you suffering too, then?” He looked up to see Dag nodding.

“A year ago, he burned my village just the same. My wife and child...I was away hunting when it happened. I came home to find the life we had built for ourselves turned to ash. I joined the army afterward, eager for an opportunity to march on Eric and run him down.”

“Have you ever seen him?”

Dag pulled back his arm, shook his head. “I’ve never laid eyes on the fiend. We were sent to hunt highwaymen and patrol the territories outside of Pilath. We should have been tracking down that vile butcher. Instead, we were cutting down thieves and plague-ridden refugees making for the cities. But that’s all changed now,” he said, lifting his eyes to meet Nartel’s. “The new king has given the Academy full power to proceed against The Doombringer.”

“They have…a plan?”

“The Grand Sorcerer is going to bring the fight to Eric, and we’re going to put him down once and for all,” Dag said, his voice building intensity before falling back into calm somberness. “But there is a cost.”

“Bodies for the army? Fodder.”

“No. I am told the Grand Sorcerer needs more than lives. To be plain, Father: that is why I’m here. I’m on a recruitment drive of sorts.”

Nartel did not immediately grasp his meaning and then his eyes went wide. “Necromancy.”

“Soul magik,” Dag corrected.

“Gods,” Nartel whispered. “He needs energy, then.”

“Much of it.”

Nartel sat with the knowledge for a few minutes, and Dag allowed him his rumination. The sun was sinking, the oppressive heat wafting out of the dead village. “Worse than death is soul conversion,” he said tonelessly, “You are annihilated completely, never to enter the gates of Hethica and live among the dead in peace.”

Dag nodded. “Perhaps. But the Grand Sorcerer says it is our only hope.”

Nartel choked. “What kind of hope is there for a world where the obliteration of the soul is necessary for it to go on?”

Dag shrugged. “If you can’t have hope, have revenge instead.”

“You’re offering yourself up, then?”

“Yes,” Dag said. “When I joined up, I had this fire about me. I saw myself ripping that monster limb from bloody limb and putting his head on a pike. But then I served at the city walls. The things we had to do to people who did not deserve it, poor sick fools who would not turn back…” Dag closed his eyes. “I’m not made for battle. I don’t have it in me.”

“Do you intend to take me prisoner then?”

“Of course not,” Dag replied, seemingly outraged at the suggestion. “If you come with me, you come of your own volition. The same is true for everyone who volunteers to…” Dag fumbled for the term.

“To be sacrifices,” Nartel said quietly. “How many does the Grand Sorcerer require?”

“I do not know. Many.”

“How many have volunteered?”

“I’m told thousands. All like us.”

“Are you afraid?”

“Of dying? No,” Dag said. “If this will put an end to The Doombringer’s devastation and make him suffer for what he has done, I go to my end gladly.”

Nartel considered his words. “If I say no, you’ll just let me go?”

“I give you my word. If your heart is not in this, I urge you to embrace life. I, nor will any other reasonable man or woman, judge you for choosing to live. This request is not an easy one. I have no illusions about that.”

Nartel sat, considering the mounds of dirt and all the people within them that he had come to know during his years in Langdai. People he had taught and loved, people he had played confidant to and reassured in their darkest hours that yes, things would work out in the end, that the world was built on love and justice. Their faces, pale and unmoving and covered in dirt as he had buried them one by one, flashed by in his mind.

“I will go with you,” Nartel said.

“Are you sure, Father?”

“Please. Nartel is my name. The gods have left us and, as such, deserve no devotees. Who’s to say any of the legends about them are true in the face of such cruelty? Perhaps there are no gods or Hethica. Maybe there is just void. Then there’s no difference if you leave this life with a soul or not.”

Dag nodded sadly. “We can depart in the mornin—”

“Let us leave now, please. I cannot bear to be here any longer. There are things here that…” the words failed him.

Dag did not need to hear the words. “If you insist, we can go now. We will be to Pilath in two days’ time. We can set up camp a couple of hours down the road and get some rest. I know some safe areas.”

“Let us go then,” Nartel said, slowly climbing to his feet. Dag did as well, kicking dirt over the fire. The big man stooped down to grab his knapsack.

Nartel looked out at the burned church in the distance as the sun sank behind was left of the sloped, soot-covered roof. If there was no hope in this world, then perhaps he could at least do his part to rekindle it for everyone that would come after him.

The former priest turned back to his new friend. “Shall we go then?”

The two men made for the road leading to the country, their muffled footsteps in the dirt dying away as night descended upon the village of the slain.

24
Zane Reaper, Coroner

The elderly, thin coroner sat at his desk, scribbling notes unto parchment from the latest autopsy. Another lost to the Wilt. He frowned. Ever since king’s death a few months prior, assassins throughout Azra had taken a page out of the treacherous spymaster’s book and started using the disease as a natural poison – easily poured into a goblet of wine or over a sizzling steak. At this rate, within a decade, such a weaponized disease will kill more people than the Doombringer has. Though he supposed that Eric was just as responsible for the plague as he had been for realizing Flarel’s prophecy. The blood that had cursed the land, after all, came from Sidil.

Zane looked wearily at the candle. Midnight crept close. Seven autopsies this day, barely any food in his own belly. And yet still an important appointment to see to before he could close his eyes.

Coffee, he decided, rising. Knowing Margo, she would need some as well.

He stepped into the stone kitchen of his office – on the far end of the government district of Pilath – and looked over the small cauldron containing the miraculous black liquid. He did not have the time it would take to brew a new batch. He swirled the coffee with his ladle and then poured some of the cold liquid into two mugs, carrying them down the hall.

As he approached the steps leading to the basement, he could hear yelling from below.

“How do you lose a spleen!?” Gregory, the senior assistant was screaming at the younger assistant, Kilroy.

Zane frowned at the two of them as he stepped into the basement. Gregory was red in the face, with Kilroy turned away in shame, his hand leaning on the nearest empty autopsy table for support. All around them, more tables holding more bodies – each still and quiet as the other.

“You raise your voice any louder master Gregory and you may just wake our guests,” Zane said, sipping his coffee.

Gregory’s face remained red, but he cast his eyes to the floor. “I’m sorry, sir. It’s just that Kilroy here lost a scarred spleen that might have told us what happened to that unfortunate bloke over there,” he said, nodding at a body in the corner of the room. Zane placed the coffees on the empty table and then walked over to look at the corpse. “Kilroy, retire for the evening, will you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Gregory, attend to this body with me.”

Zane looked over the body. When Kilroy’s footsteps died away, he said, “A canker rat probably made off with the spleen. It’s Kilroy’s duty to put the organs for review away properly, yes, but remind me whose job it is to make sure our traps, rodent and otherwise, are working and placed throughout the premise.”

“Mine, sir,” Gregory said quietly, shamefully.

“We all have off-days,” Zane told him, digging his naked hands deep down into the corpse’s gaping chest cavity and feeling around in the wetness. “Try to remember that and treat Kilroy with the same kindness that others have shown you when your shortcomings rear their head.”

“Yes, master.”

“What’s this fellow’s name?”

“Luke Gabbinton.”

“Well, poor Gabbinton here was the victim of ice magik. Perhaps a frost shrapnel trap. I can feel icicles in his spine. Write it up, let the sheriff know, and then depart for the night. I’ll close up.”

“You’re sure? I can stay until you leave.”

“No, I appreciate the gesture, but we have an appointment this evening, I’m afraid.

“This late? It’s nearly tomorrow.”

“Mage business,” Zane said briskly, stepping over to one of the many water buckets they kept filled and plunging his hands into it.

“Yes, master. I’ll see you tomorrow then.”

“Do remember what I said about kindness, hmm?”

“I will, master.”

Zane washed his hands thoroughly as Gregory disappeared up the stairs. He was not alone for long. The familiar shriek of a portal announced itself as he was drying his hands with linen cloth, and turning, he found Margo Tellus standing in his examining room. Her stern face betrayed no emotion, but Zane did not take it personally. He knew she regarded him more warmly than most. Their history, stretching back many years before when he had served as a professor of war magik, had proven as much. Another life, far far away, before he had cut himself off from magik entirely. I could not escape the art of death, he thought, but at least I could stop myself from teaching people how to cause it.

He bowed. “Director.”

“Spare me the titles, Zane, but I’ll take any coffee you have on hand.”

He passed her the cup he had prepared. “It’s two days old. I would have prepped another batch this morning if I had known you were coming then.”

“No matter,” she said, holding the mug aloft with one hand and conjuring a small flame with the other to hold against the bottom of the mug. “It shall be warm soon.”

The weariness of the day was settling on his bones and the tendons in his back. Best to get through this as soon as possible. “Your letter said it was urgent.”

“Yes. The Grand Sorcerer requires quick, expert work.”

“I am honored he puts such trust in me.”

“Oolow and I both do,” she said, sipping from her cup. “You know he would be more pleased if you should return to his side, especially in times such as these. He needs his War Mage. The post has been unfilled since your departure.”

“One must truly turn away from the past with a full heart if they wish to elude its demons. Besides, I believe those robes should look more fitting on you than I – do forgive my boldness. You were always one of my best pupils.”

“Forgiven. Now, about the letter….”

“Yes. You are in luck. I think we have such an unfortunate soul, right over here, in fact.”

He brought her over to one of the tables at the far end of the basement. A large, muscular man lie upon it, wearing nothing but a sheet covering his privates. Except for the deathly pale tone of his skin, he looked unblemished.

“This man was brought in over four months ago.”

She sipped her coffee. “He hasn’t rotted at all.”

“A keen observation. My assistant Gregory sliced an incision in his chest only to watch it heal instantaneously. There’s still magik in this body.”

“Which means there’s a soul in there,” she murmured. “Or pieces of one at least. The poor man.”

“I’m assuming you’re going to ease his suffering?” Zane asked, feeling something inside him go cold.

She nodded. “If he’s willing. But we both know that deal is not going to be generous for him.”

“Can’t be any worse than what he’s going through now.”

Margo handed her cup to Zane, who took it gently, and then snapped her fingers. Out of thin air, her leather-bound grimoire appeared, falling into her hands. She opened the massive tome and flipped nearly to the end of its pages until she found what she was looking for. She read the page with her eyes and then, closing them, read the words aloud from memory.

Ith’gar no wom
langrew polchok
enlow mightem

Before them the body moved. Slightly, at first – a tremble in the arm and legs. And then they watched as the dead man stretched his fingers and his mouth fell open and began to speak, though his eyes stared straight at the ceiling.

“Hello?” said the corpse in a voice that sounded like a wailing whimper. “Can you both hear me?”

“Aye spirit,” Margo said. “Your voice is heard. What is your name?”

“Brighton. My name is Brighton Upshaw. From McClaren Plains. I have a wife and a cat. I miss them very much. They do not know what has happened to me, I think.”

“And what has happened to you?” Margo asked. “What fate befell you, sir?”

“The accursed Doombringer. Me and a party of hunters found him in the woods nearby some time ago. We attacked. He slew me, and I’ve remained in this body ever since.”

Margo nodded. “I see.”

“Please tell me what’s going on,” the mouth flapped. “My situation – just tell me the truth.”

She sighed. “This world is half-born, broken. Sometimes when someone dies, their soul does not go where it should – wherever that is. It becomes trapped inside its container.”

“Such is what has happened to me.”

“Yes.”

“There is no fate worse than this for a man. I can sense that you have some great power about you, master mage. Please. Do not leave me to this,” the corpse begged.

“We can help you,” Zane offered. “But you might not wish it.”

“Anything,” Brighton said. “I will take anything over this.”

“I do not know if there is anything for us after this life,” Margo offered. “I do know, however, if we should wrench you from this body the only way we know how, you will be reduced to pure energy. I cannot offer you salvation – only the peace of oblivion. I will not do so without your consent.”

“There is no other way…is there?”

“No,” Zane said sadly. “Total destruction is your only escape.”

“My family…” Brighton’s mouth said.

“If you relay a message to us, we will tell them,” Margo answered. In exchange for your body, we will also give them more gold than they could ever need.”

“My body?”

“We seek to use it as a weapon against the very one who has cursed you with this fate.”

“I see.” Brighton fell silent for a moment. “Do you need parchment to write down my message?”

“I will remember every syllable,” Margo said. “I swear to you.”

“My wife’s name is Lilah. Tell her nothing about what I’ve gone through. Just tell her you found me sick and dying. I do not care. But tell her nothing about this.”

“You have my word.”

“Tell her…tell her I loved her all my days since we met, all those years ago, in the grain fields. Tell her I’m sorry that I could never be the man she deserved. Tell her to find someone worthy of her heart. Tell her I died thinking my last thoughts of her and Jonesy.”

“Who’s Jonesy?” Zane found himself asking out loud.

“My cat. My darling cat,” Brighton’s mouth said softly. “He’s a little demon, but I love him so.”

“Is there anything else, my friend?” Margo asked.

The mouth said nothing for a few moments, and then at long last the lips parted, and Brighton spoke. “It’s so awful here,” he said. “I look forward to the silence.”

Margo nodded and turned the page in her grimoire. Once more, she closed her eyes and spoke words from the book loudly.

Hyquo no mar
Zemah brequay
pomblow marza littem

No sooner was the last word out of her mouth that the body started to convulse for several seconds before going still. There were no screams, no last gasps or death rattles. The mouth said nothing but remained slack-jawed.

Margo closed the book and snapped her finger. The Grimoire disappeared in a puff of smoke. “Poor Brighton,” she said. “What an unjust fate.”

Zane nodded in agreement. “The body is truly empty then?”

“Yes. The occupant is gone, but the magik remains. It cannot rot. It cannot be destroyed.” Margo turned away from the body. “We now have a chance that Oolow’s plans will bear out. Thank you for your assistance, Zane. From the Academy and me. We will send some initiates to bear away the body and see you rightfully compensated before the hour is up. Good evening.”

He watched as his visitor, moving her finger in a circle, summoned another wailing portal.

“Margo,” he said. “What we just did was a mercy. Trust me. Treat yourself kindly.”

She stood at the portal for a moment, looking at him, as though she wanted to say a thousand things. What she settled for was this: “Thank you, my teacher.” And then she stepped into the portal, and both she and it popped out of his basement in a flash.

He took up his mug once more and walked over to Brighton Upshaw’s body to look down at the dead man’s face. So this is what it’s come to then, Oolow. He could feel the sweat sliding down the hair of his temples. A sip of cold coffee passed through his lips. This is what your miraculous multi-mind has decided is the only solution.

Zane could only hope it was worth the cost of what was to come.

25
Cassandra Bennett, Tavernmaster

Four years to the day after my husband was kilt when his prized horse kicked him in the head, Dawn showed up with the dog. Me and Rupert were out amongst the barley, and I knew then when I saw those two in the distance, that the course of my happiness was going to change. I felt it in my gut and my gut has never been wrong – not once.

But I guess I’m getting a head of meself. Always been a bad habit of mine. I should go back a bit to the night Rupert and I met. It all started about a year and a half back. It was late and the tavern was cracking. All the boys were there – Bill, Tim, Wallace – and some of the girls as well…I’m thinking it was Molly and Angela, but they’re both a little too bitchy for my taste so I’ve never gone out of my way to be cozy with them, hence me not being sure about the particulars of their possible attendance. But yes, Bill, Tim, Wallace, I’m sure of that much because they’re always in my tavern causing a ruckus, farting up, and mocking the nobles – foul boys, lovely fools that they are.

And then in walked this quiet man. I couldn’t see him at first, just his outline: He was all tall-like and wearing a wide-brimmed hat that had these holes in them.

He took a seat in the corner of the bar, away from the conniptions happening before me. My serving girl, that’s Mary, went over and put on her business, puffing her chest out at him trying to hook herself a husband like she’s always doing, but he wasn’t having any of it. He just quietly ordered some ale, and I remember spending the rest of the night watching him silently sip his drink in the candlelight. He didn’t order no food or nothing, except beer, which wasn’t strange in itself but he just sat there for hours, drinking and staring at the wall.

I’m quite embarrassed to say I started making up stories about him in me head. I used to do it for all my non-regulars, the drifters who blew into town and then wandered out by the next week or so. I imagined him a necromancer on the run or a fugitive wanted for murder – fool that I am. Couldn’t have been further from the truth.

He came back the next day. And the next day. Same thing every time. No food. Just drink, every time. Sometimes he’d stare off in the distance. Other times, he had this little book with him that he’d scribble in. Days turned to weeks. And then that thing happened – a sensation that every bartender in the world knows: a stranger became a regular.

A couple of weeks after he first stepped into my tavern, I took it upon myself to visit his table. I had noticed that he had been growing thinner since I first saw him and decided that he hadn’t been eating. It was pretense, of course. In my mind, this stranger had been a growing mystery – one I couldn’t help but unravel.

“Hello there,” I said to him, putting his stein of ale down on the table.

He didn’t say anything at first, just nodded politely. I’m guessing he was shocked that Mary wasn’t the one serving him. He was like that, shy and quiet, easily perturbed by sudden change.

“Hello,” he said, and he was looking at me, and it was the first time I had really gotten myself a look at his face. His jaw was square, and he had black hair on his face and atop his head. His eyes were green and the left one drifted – not a lot but you could notice. I’d learn that he was very self-conscious about his eye. He thought it made him look like he was mentally incompetent, but I think that was just in his head. Anyone could take a look at my Rupert and know he could handle himself. That was what I thought about him, looking at him up close in the candlelight: he was a man who exuded an excess of, um, capability.

Looking down, I saw his little book spread open, and in there – to my shock – was this portrait of none other than Bill, Tim, and Wallace hollerin’ and swishing their steins in the air. He tried to hide it, but I’d already seen the drawing.

“That’s gorgeous,” I told him.

He went all red in the face, said “Thank you, Miss…”

I told him my name. 

“Thank you, Miss Cassie,” he said. I told him just Cassie would do, I wasn’t anyone’s Miss anymore. Not since Lance died and that had been sometime before. I asked him if he had a drawing of me in his little book and he flushed a shade of red I hadn’t seen on a man before, I must say.

Ever so gently, he flipped his notebook to a picture of me. And gods, I’d never been so flattered in my life. The drawing had me scrubbing out a cup with a cloth, as I did every day a thousand times over, but he had made my face so beautiful. I scarcely recognized myself and yet I knew it was me. I looked so noble and strong. Not a bit dainty at all. It was as though he saw…how do I put this? It was like he saw me as I wanted to see myself but so rarely do.

To know that someone looked at me and saw that I was, in fact, the person I wanted to be – I think that’s when it happened, y’know? I think that’s when I fell in love with him.

I asked him if I could keep it, and he gave it to me freely. In fact, he seemed happy that I wanted it. First time I saw him crack a smile. He gave me the picture and then I told him then and there, I swear I said “Right, so this is what we’re going to do. Every time you come in here, we’re going to serve you dinner. It will cost you nothing. Steak and potatoes. You look like you’re starving yourself, and I refuse to have any regular of mine leave my tavern under such conditions. Bad for me business.”

And Rupert, well he about fell out of his chair, but what could he say? When I want something, I’m very good at getting it. For a time at least.

Me and Rupert, well we just sort of went from there, as it were. He’d come in and I’d serve him his drink and dinner, and we’d take to talking for a bit. He started opening up to me. I learned about his childhood, endless days spent in the wilderness with his daddy. I came to know more than I thought I’d ever know about the art of bounty hunting. He told me about all the places he traveled in this wide world – the frozen lands of the west, the wildcats of the Brush. I felt so foolish telling him about my little joys. Gardening. Caring for the horses my ex-husband had left behind. Watching the birds in the pond. But he seemed as enraptured in my mild little life as I was in his adventurous one.

I brought him home. He did not want to be intimate in a particular way, which was fine with me. I had been that way with Lance but had never felt the need for that kind of love. It was a relief that Rupert did not yearn for that kind of touch, though he did allow me to wrap my arms around his neck.

“Is this alright?” I asked.

“This is quite fine,” he told me. I could feel his heart beating against mine. “And what about this?” I said, kissing him on his forehead.

“I’ll allow it,” he told me, softly kissing me back.

I remember our first night home vividly, lying in bed, him fast asleep on my chest, me staring out into the great darkness – feeling whole and overjoyed for the first time since childhood. Lance and I had always been good together. He was a decent man who tried his best to provide for and make me happy, and the same was true on my end of things. I cared for him, but I did not love him as I loved Rupert.

Rupert just stayed with me after that night. He went and grabbed his things from the inn but for the next year, he lived with me.

One morning we was standing out, looking at the few cows Lance had kept – they was grazing in the field. And he asked, “This was a real farm at one time?”

“Something like that,” I told him. I laid out how Lance had all these big ambitions about making this the biggest farm around, but they never came to bear. He always struggled – with the land, with the animals, with himself. His father was a farmer, so I think he thought that meant he should be one too. He never seemed happy with any of it, and it killed him in the end.

“Would you be offended if I tried?” Rupert asked. At first, I thought he must be joking but I saw clear in his eyes that he meant it. “I’d like to try my hand at something other than hunting people,” he said.

“Sure,” I told him. “Just don’t get yourself kicked in the head by a horse.”

I guess most women would have been put out by their lovers trying to keep their dead husband’s dream alive, but some part of me understood it. The way I figured, if I had been one thing all my life – and that thing had only ever made me as unhappy as it had made Rupert – I suppose I would have taken the first possible chance out no matter how peculiar the situation. Wasn’t like Lance was in in any state to throw a fit anyway.

To be honest – and I loved the man, I do – Rupert did not have a green thumb. He never planted nothing that wasn’t dead a couple of weeks later. Now the animals, they cared for him. The cows let him milk them without much fuss and the horses, well, they took a liking to him – much more than they ever did Lance, clearly. They let him ride him. I don’t think he wanted to sell them or anything. He just wanted to care for them, and maybe they picked up on that – his kindness. I’d like to think so anyway. It radiated from him.

Most importantly, he seemed happy with the work. We couldn’t grow shit and the coin we made off selling milk was barely enough to justify the squirtin’ in the first place, but he always smiling during the day. I’d come home sometimes just to make us a nice lunch and see him sunburnt and grinning like a big old fool – my gods damn fool, y’know? He was mine. And I was his. And we were happy.

And then it happened. Dawn showed up, that beautiful, accursed girl, with her lovely hound. It wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t Rupert’s fault. It was just…how do I say this? Bountiful days can never last. This has been the lesson life has decided to instruct me in over and over again. And the moment I put eyes on her, I knew something changed – in the air, within both me and Rupert. Happiness was coming to an end in some way that I did not know yet how to put my finger on.

She came to us in the field, her dog trotting behind her. She looked afraid.

“I need help,” she told us.

“Of course,” Rupert told her. “What can we do?”

“A message,” she said, wheezing real bad. She handed him this pouch. “I need to deliver this to the Academy of Magik, but I cannot go into the city.”

“Why?” I demanded. “Are you sick with the Wilt? Are you contagious?” Now maybe I was being a little rude or heartless because Rupert gave me this look, but I do not think the question was unfair!

She shakes her head and goes “No. I just…I’m cursed. It’s hard to explain. I cannot go near cities. It is impossible for me to.”

“What is so important about this message, my friend?” Rupert asked.

“There’s a note in there I’ve written for the Grand Sorcerer. See it to yourself if you wish but just…be gentle with the vials.”

He opened the pouch and pulled out a piece of parchment. He read it slowly, more than once, and then turned his eyes back to our visitor, who was sitting now in our field, petting her dog. “Is this a joke?” he asked. He sounded angry, angrier than I’d ever heard him.

She shook her head. “It is the truth,” she was saying, “a dear friend of mine paid a heavy toll for it. It must reach the Academy.”

Her skin was pale, and she was covered in sweat. She went on to tell us how she already tried to go into the city but couldn’t make it pass the gates without vomiting.

Rupert turned to me. “I’m going to deliver this,” he said. “Can you attend to her?”

I told him I didn’t like it, none of it. “Trust me, love,” he said.

I reached down and took the girl by the hand. “Come with me,” I said to her. I turned to my fool and I told him to come back in one piece. I kissed him on the lips and then tugged the girl in the direction of our house. The dog whined as it walked at my side.

I was right pissed, dragging this poor girl all over my yard, threatening her. “If he is harmed, I will never forgive you,” I told her. “Whatever the hell your name is,” I said.

“It’s Dawn,” she said back to me. “Your man will be fine. And besides, he carries something far greater than any of our lives are worth.”

“That may be,” I answered, pulling her into the house. “But that won’t stop me from sticking your head on a pike if he don’t come back.”

I put her down in a chair and took to filling a cup with well water. I heated a cauldron for stew outside, and she called to me from the porch.

“Ma’am, please no meat. Just…vegetables.”

“Don’t call me Ma’am,” I yelled back. “And you’re awful picky for a girl at death’s door.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, and she did seem quite out of sorts, so I let up on her. I cooked onions and cabbage and garlic and salted it to hell and back. We ate out in the yard, arses in the sand, and she seemed grateful for the stew. The color returned to her face.  I gave her a second helping and she was halfway through her bowl when, in the distance, I saw Rupert returning on his horse.

He was not alone.

At least 10 armed soldiers rode behind him. And not only that but there were two mages, clearly high up on the Academy food chain. I could tell by the quality of their cloaks. One of them was a woman with a real mean face who looked like she’d never had an ounce of fun in her life. The other was a skinny man with this wispy, black and grey mustache and the saddest eyes I’d ever seen. He seemed more fragile than stained glass.

“Oolow,” Dawn whispered with awe.

I was laying into Rupert before he was off his damn horse, you bet I was. “You brought the Grand Sorcerer over to our farm? I hope you all ate on the way over because I don’t have near enough stew for all of you, begging your pardon Your Majesties,” I said, bowing to the mages. I didn’t like them none – like ‘em less now – but I can make nice when I need to.

“No need, madam,” the thin one said, his voice surprisingly deep and loud for such a small man. “We apologize for taking your husband away from you. We will depart shortly. I just need to speak to our friend Dawn here.”

Rupert was not my husband, but I did not feel the need to correct the man. It was a nice mistake to hear, actually.

“My lord,” Dawn said, and she shook his hand.

He looked at her hand funny, said “Yes, I see. You’re not an ordinary woman, are you?” And then he said some shit like Such earthen power! My girl, I take it you’re scarcely human, which seemed to really hurt Dawn’s feelings. I don’t guess I blame her. Doubt I’d take it as a compliment if someone said such filth to me.

Anyway, he kept on going, said “I am sorry. All of us, in our own way, must pay a terrible price in these times. I do not envy yours.”

She asked him if the cure worked. He told it was too early to tell, but that patients had responded positively. “Better than any of the solutions our doctors have created,” I believe was his exacting wording, and I’ve got a pretty good memory.

“It is likely you have saved countless lives,” the stuck-up lady said.

They got to talking some more – Dawn and the two mages. Oolow said they’d need her to stay nearby so they could consult her on the cure and so she could teach the Academy how to make it. Problem of course was she couldn’t go into the city, so that bastard mage put it on me and Rupert to host her. I was not in love with the idea, but what could I do? The Grand Fancy Pants Sorcerer of Azra had given me a request. I wasn’t gonna tell him no.

“Of course she can stay with us,” I told them, trying to hide how put out I was.

The mages seemed appreciative. They told us they’d set up a tent in the field near the cows where she could teach the initiates, and then Oolow promised to pay all three of us a “weekly and generous fee” to serve as consultants for the kingdom, which I guess I didn’t mind that much – ha!

After that the mages took their soldiers and rode away, leaving Rupert and I with our new guests. In truth, I started feeling rotten about how I had treated the girl. I decided to do better, and to give myself some credit: I did. We made her a guest room in the house, and I made sure that our pantry was constantly stocked with vegetables from the local market, though I kept steaks on hand for the dog Quilco, who took to following me around the house and pleading me to feed him meaty treats.

I always did, much to Dawn’s chagrin.

In truth, it was rather nice. The four of us developed our own rhythm. I’d go to work at the tavern and come back at dusk, sometimes earlier, to cook dinner. Every day I’d come home and see Rupert out in the fields with the cows or horses, while Dawn had grown attached to the field – planting carrots and cabbage in tidy little rows.

“It will take several months,” she told me. “But they’ll be best vegetables you’ve had; I promise you that.” She was not wrong on that count.

Dawn and Rupert took to sparring with blades in the yard at dusk. Rupert claimed he was a little slower than in his prime because of his arm injury, but he could still strike like lightning to these eyes. The girl, she was slow first, clumsy with the sword that Rupert gave her, but learned quickly. Her footwork never ended up being much to speak of, but there was power in that swing, for sure. I liked watching them, Quilco resting his head on my lap. In those moments, it felt like we were a family, kind of.

At night, we’d sit outside and pass stories around the fire. Well, I mostly listened, but Dawn and Rupert had such tales to tell. Of treks all across this country. Of being waylaid by bandits and brought back from the brink of death by a giant. One night, Dawn told us of the ritual she conducted to transform into whatever deathless thing she had become, and I had the most horrific nightmares of bark and vine tearing through flesh. I woke up screaming, and Rupert had to hold me until I stopped shaking.

And then one night, the conversation turned to the Doombringer. Dawn brought it up. It didn’t seem like a big deal in the moment but, I could tell something had changed in his demeanor. He became stiff and warmth left him. It reminded me of when we first met.

“I just don’t understand what makes him the way he is,” Dawn was saying. “How could someone do such things?”

“The Doombringer isn’t a person…just pure evil,” he said to us, jabbing at the firepit with this little stick. “An unstoppable force.”

Dawn’s eyes got real big. She wasn’t the only one. “You’ve seen him too?” she asked.

He looked up at me all sorry-like and then set to telling us about his last job – the one before his retirement. I had asked him about it before, but he had never answered the question. I figured it wasn’t any of my business and it clearly wounded him in some way. To see him talk about it openly was something else.

He told us about a woman named Fiona Fang. She had recruited him to hunt down the Doombringer. He said the job went bad. People he cared about had died.

“And the kicker,” he told us with this bitter chuckle he had. “I thought we had done it. For a brief second, I was convinced we had killed that sick son of a bitch. Because I am and always have been a fool.”

He poked the kindling a little more. The girl was off in her thoughts, thinking about that giant friend of hers, I imagine – the one that got kilt. I turned to look at Rupert and saw his face above the fire and his eyes all wet. He had this look, I plum don’t really know how to describe it. Him looking out into the darkness of the field and seeing something there that broke his heart.

He went on. “I killed an innocent woman years ago,” he said, and I felt my heart drop into my stomach. His voice was all…raspy and strained, like the confession was working its way out of him, y’know? Like when you got in trouble as a kid and you knew maybe it should be better to lie but you couldn’t bring yourself to do it; it’d just wrench its way out of you. Yeah, it was like watching that happen. “The girl, the one who di…who I killed, she was seventeen,” he said. “I didn’t mean to do it. I was just chasing a bad man who ran into her house. I stepped inside with my bow in my hands and I just, I um, I let loose the arrow at the first shape I saw.”

He sniffled a bit and then kept going, not raising his eyes to mine or Dawn’s face. “I took that last job with Fiona because I wanted to die. I thought if I could do this one thing and help put an end to that monster, then maybe the gods would forgive me. But I suppose that doesn’t matter anymore. There are no gods or heroes in this land. Just us. We’re all we have.”

Well, as you might imagine, I was furious at him for saying such foolery about wanting to die. I thought about letting him have it then and there for talking that nonsense and what not, but I reached out to him instead and I touched his hand and I said “Baby, I’m really glad you’re still here.” And he looked up at me with those shining emerald eyes of his and he just smiled and said “Yeah. Me too.” And he squeezed my hand.

The months passed. The mages would come, and Dawn would show them how to concoct her miraculous cure in the field tent. Sometimes a courier would bring us bags filled with more coin than I’d ever seen in my life. But outside of that, the day-to-day was the same. Play duels at dusk. Food and stories by the campfire. Rupert sleeping next to me, his face touching my shoulder. It was a good life.

And then one day the Grand Sorcerer returned, this time through a portal, walking calmly into my yard to uproot my happiness, like it was some kind of weed or something. I watched from a distance as he spoke with both Rupert and Dawn. They talked for a time. Rupert seemed ill at ease, but over time he just got this determined look in his face. And I felt my heart growing cold. After what felt like a thousand years, Oolow summoned another portal and disappeared.

As you can imagine, I wasted no time in confronting the pair of them. They hadn’t even reached the house before I demanded to know what was happening. Rupert looked away sheepishly. Dawn spoke first.

“The Grand Sorcerer has a plan to take down the Doombringer,” she said.

“And he needs us,” Rupert added.

I screamed at them. I’m not proud of myself for losing my dignity, but that is what happened. “He can find other people!” I yelled. “He has a whole kingdom.” I begged them. Our lives were so good. Why go get themselves killed? How could they do that to me? After all I’d done for both of them. Fed them. Cared for them. Loved them with my whole soul. How how how could they do this to me?

I broke and wept into Rupert’s arms because I knew he was going to do it. I could see it in the way he had walked back toward the house, the glint in those eyes. He couldn’t resist one last chance to set things right. He was leaving me to get killed for the sake of some ghosts. I cried out there in dust, begging him not to go, I cried and I cried until the fight went out of me, and he carried me home.

There was no joy on our little farm that night. Dawn and Quilco sat out in the yard, staring up at the moon. She was telling him that she had to leave him behind. “I’ll come back,” she told him. “I promise.” He whined in reply.

Later that night, as Rupert and I lied in bed, I turned to him.

“You better come back to me,” I said.

“I will.”

“If you die out there, I will throw myself off a cliff just to hunt your hide down in Hethica.”

“I should bring you with me,” he said. “Sight of you will send that bastard running.”

I punched him in the arm. “Don’t joke. I mean it. Don’t go dying on me.”

“I’ll try my best,” he said, absentmindedly rubbing his weakened arm.

I was awake that whole night, even after he fell asleep, just feeling him next to me, taking stock of those precious seconds as they ticked on by. Before I knew it, the sun was rising. He and Dawn packed their belongings into knapsacks. He kissed me. I wrapped my arms around him and held on for dear life. I still remember how he tastes. It’s agony to think of that. His smell. The warmth of his chest against my face. I hugged Dawn and told her to stay safe and to keep my man alive.

Quilco whined at my side as the two mounted their horses. I scritched his head to comfort him as well as myself, if I’m telling the truth. My fool turned back to smile at me before the pair of them took off, away from the farm and out of sight.

That’s how it all happened, I guess. I met the love of my life. We lived together, happy for a time. And then I watched him ride off toward to certain death, smiling all the while.

26
Oolow, Grand Sorcerer

The Grand Sorcerer knew he was dreaming. Tyra, wearing her favorite silk robe, sat next to him on the bed’s edge. They were beneath a straw ceiling. He felt the chill in the air and knew that they were far away from Pilath, somewhere north in the mountains. The winter wind was whistling outside. On the bedside table, the smoke of the extinguished candleflame danced softly in the morning light.

“How long do I have?” he asked her.

“Less than a minute outside. The voices are already trying to wake you.”

“Which means a couple of minutes in here,” he mused, reaching out to touch the bare leg peeking out from beneath her robe.

“This is a pleasant memory,” she told him. “But we were younger then. We did not have these wrinkles.”

“Decade and a half since. It was a nice little trip up north, before our exams that year. You woke up every morning and wanted to go pet the goats.”

“They were quite fluffy.”

He sighed and rolled closer. He kissed her knee and looked up at her. “None of this is real, is it? My mind is just having a conversation with itself.”

She ran her fingers through his hair and then got to her feet. “I’m going to go pour the coffee.”

He nodded, remembering, yes, they had played this out several times in his mind. She wasn’t here: just a form retracing the steps the woman he loved had once taken years ago.

He flipped over on his back and looked up at the straw of the ceiling, closing his eyes. He could hear her in the kitchen of the little cottage. The clang of silver. Plates being placed on the wood surface of a table.

“Are you coming?” she called.

“I’ll be right the—”

He opened his eyes and there was a ceiling of stone above him. Looking down, he saw goosebumps on his arm. He was cold still, even though the heat outside the tower was sweltering outside.

Mind is a curious thing isn’t it, said one of the many voices in his head. Can trick itself into thinking anything is real.

“Quiet, Cody,” he said, rising out of his bed to put on his tunic and red and gold robe. “Leave me be.”

Someone’s moody.

He scratched his neck and felt a tinge of guilt. Cody was one of the few decent ones. He shouldn’t be picking fights with allies.

“Sorry, my friend,” Oolow muttered. “Stress.”

All is forgiven, your majesty-wajesty.

I don’t see why you’re so broken up about a wretch like that, barked the voice Oolow needed to hear the least. She leaves you in your most vulnerable hour and you spend the years wasting away, mourning her absence like a little flower of a man.  Best she’s dead. You can move on. Be the man your pathetic people need you to be.

“Petriv, I don’t remember asking you for your opinion on the matter.”

It is freely given, sorcerer. I am a charitable soul.

“You could stand to be more miserly,” Oolow said, fastening his cloak around his neck.

HaHa ThE ChEeK, said another voice. He GoT yOu ThErE, Pe-pe-PeTrIv.

Cease your chattering, Dorik, you imbecile.

“Enough, all of you,” Oolow said, stepping through the door of his quarters and out into the hallway. He muttered a quick incantation Some peace, he thought. At least as long as the spell holds. Maybe 15-20 minutes. Enough time to wake up at least.

Walking through the hall, his found his mind turning back to the dream. Was it a dream? He often wondered if what he regarded as dreams were in fact windows into the many other versions of this world he knew existed. It made him briefly smile to think that maybe somehow Tyra or a version of himself were reaching out to him from another plane, letting him know that, yes, in another world you two have found your bliss.

His happiness never lasted long; he’d always end up chastising himself. That Tyra is not your Tyra. That you is not you. Return to the bitter reality you inhabit. The reality where she had left him after the accident, all those years before. He wondered if she ever felt guilty about the ritual. The fault was chiefly his, of course, though she had been the catalyst. They were young. He had sought a way to bring a soul to the physical plane. For her.

“What do you think a soul could look like?” she had asked him one day as they sat in the courtyard after alchemy lessons. “If you could touch it, would it be jagged? Smooth? Maybe different souls have different textures, different weights, and shapes.”

“Perhaps I could fetch you one. Let you hold it in your hands,” he had told her.

She had laughed, but he had set to the task anyway. To prove that he could. To see her smile at the gift of his very own soul in her hands, given to her freely, yes. The ultimate romantic gesture.

So many fools have done so many foolish things for the sake of love. Your labor might take the cake, Petriv said.

Oolow turned the corner, frustrated. The silencing spells were no longer working as well as they used to. He was deteriorating as the power of the voices grew in him, as more souls were caught in the trap. Over the years, his supple muscles had shrunk, his stamina evaporated. He had chalked the diminishment up to age or stress (who wouldn’t be stressed, after all, when you have a legion of different voices in your head?) but he knew now that the thing inside him – the thing that had resulted in Tyra’s departure from studying the magik arts and the tremendous unnatural powers he possessed – was eating away at him in ways he could not fully understand.

He muttered another mind-shielding incantation and stepped through the door into a massive hall. He passed through the hallway, turning his eyes downward to see aisles of battle mages training with one another, casting flame and lightning spells at training dummies enchanted to move like swordsmen. The mages all looked so young. He even spotted a few 15-year-olds amongst the crowd, practicing restorative magiks.

Poor Margo. He did not envy her role in all of this. But she was the only one he could trust now. The new king and his generals, though nowhere near as useless as those who had come before, could not comprehend the lethality of the enemy they faced.

He walked into the west wing of the Academy and, catching a glimpse of the courtyard out the window, found himself drawn back into the past. He stood by the window, watching as the summer sun gave way to midnight moon. Far below, he watched himself – younger, bolder – standing next to Tyra. The ritual raged, green light breaking over him as he screamed – Tyra running toward his convulsing body crying his name.

The wages of forbidden soul magik, Cody mused in the Sorcerer’s head.

Oolow nodded but said nothing. The ritual, as Azra’s citizens knew, had worked in a sense. Oolow’s soul had become tangible – at a cost. As the masters of the Academy explained to him later, his spirit had to shatter for it to be rebuilt in the physical realm, and now his soul swirled inside him – stowed between his heart and his liver – a tiny prism.

This much was understood: his physical soul was a conduit for magikal energy, granting the Grand Sorcerer abilities and power that eluded even the most powerful masters of the magik arts. But the prism also worked as an unintended trap, ensnaring any unfortunate souls of the dead that passed through him and it. Hence the voices. The many, many voices. Almost always chattering in his head. Arguing with one another, with him. Giving unneeded advice. Mocking him. Confessing their sins to him. Weeping. Cursing him for trapping them inside his unfathomable darkness, subjecting them to such undeserved torture.

Free us, they would always say.

“I know not how,” he would answer.

Kill yourself, they would suggest. Set your body aflame. Pierce your heart with a sword. Throw yourself from the roof of the Academy. End this.

When the news of Tyra’s death reached him, the fire to live had nearly been extinguished. “You will have your freedom,” he told the voices. “But not until the Doombringer has been brought low.”

Good luck with that, stupid, they had told him. The voices were many things – supporters they were not.

“Master,” he heard a voice, one outside of his head, call to him. Looking up, he saw Margo standing outside the door to the war chamber. She was wearing her new robles, the darkest blue, and he could see rare pity in those eyes. She knew where his mind had been, he imagined. “They’re waiting for us.”

He followed her into the chamber.

ShE lOOks quite DASHinG iN ThOsE NeW RoBES, Dorik whispered.

Not really War Mage material, Petriv replied. If anyone were to ask me my opinion on the matter.

“She will do fine. I have faith in her,” Oolow whispered angrily.

“Pardon me, sir?” Margo said as they stepped into the chamber.

“The voices,” Oolow confessed. “They were questioning your capability for your new role.”

“Ah. I will excel regardless of their opinions on the matter. And besides, I take it I have your vote of confidence given that you promoted me.”

“Precisely.”

They walked into the chamber proper, where the new king, the teenage boy Zidel, sat at the long table with a massive map of Azra spread out across it. The crown sat askew on his small head. He was attentive and ready for the meeting, containing none of his father’s apathy, Oolow noted with relief.

At the king’s sides were his generals Rodau and Keilay. They had risen to the ranks shortly after Zidel tore through his father’s government, tossing aside all the sycophants and would-be backstabbers, even going so far as to execute a few of the worst offenders to send a message.

Both the new generals and the executions, Oolow surmised, had been Tyra’s recommendations, probably left to the new king in a hidden note to be read after her death. She had never been particularly bloodthirsty, even as the kingdom’s spymaster, but she was always willing to make the difficult choices when no one else would.

And now she’s been branded a traitor to all of Azra, Cody murmured. To be remembered in the histories as a power-grabbing, murderous monster when she should be honored as a hero.

I wonder what they will say of you when your time comes, Grand Sorcerer. Will they call you savior? The hand of vengeance? Or will they cast you down for what you are? A reaper of souls. Something worse than a murderer. For the murdered can still supposedly live on the other side of death in paradise. But you…you take away even that.

Oolow didn’t reply. He approached the table and met the eyes of the generals before bowing to the king. He knew how people outside of the Academy looked at him. Ever since the incident. More demon than man.

ThEy F-F-F-FEAR yoU, SoRceRer.

As they should.

“Greetings, Your Majesty.”

“Grand Sorcerer,” said the boy in a quiet yet firm voice. “How go preparations?”

“I’m pleased to report we are nearly there. After two years of this menace terrorizing our lands, we can finally put a stop to him.”

The king looked to his generals. “Rodau and Keilay have said that you suggest I stay here during the course of the battle?”

“It would be wise. We believe the energy expenditure of the process will bait the Doombringer to the temple where we’re conducting the ritual. It is unlikely he’ll go anywhere else given that most of our forces will be here drawing his attention,” Oolow said, tapping a section of northern Azra with his finger, where the ancient Temple of Lordrow lie in the belly of a deep valley.

“However,” interrupted Margo, “we feel it’d best that you stay on Academy grounds with a regiment of our battle mages to bolster your armed guard – just in case. We have a bevy of enchantments to conceal and protect the Academy in the instance of an attack.”

The king considered the advice. “You are in agreement, my generals?”

“Yes, sir,” Rodau answered with his trademark hoarse voice. “The Academy can offer protections beyond those of the castle. I do have questions about this proposed solution, however. It seems strange that we should be offering most of our army to the Grand Sorcerer here and not know the intimate details of why our people are risking their lives.”

“It is also disconcerting that this ritual requires the sacrifice of three thousand of our citizens’ souls,” Keilay added softly. “The scale of such death is horrifying. I must question whether such barbarism is necessary – no disrespect intended, Grand Sorcerer.”

“The Grand Sorcerer does not need to exp—” Margo started, but Oolow put his hand up to stop her.

“They are right. Everyone here deserves to know. We’re asking much of the kingdom and its people.” Oolow turned his gaze on the king. “The player cannot be killed. It is impossible.”

Rodau scoffed. “Anything can be slain with enough cleverness and menace, mark my words.”

Oolow turned his eyes to the older general. “What I meant to say is that killing the Doombringer is useless. If we should somehow expend countless lives and resources to strike him down, he can simply return from death. We’ll be transported right back to another time in the past where he lives. We’ll have no knowledge that we’ve killed him. It’s possible he’s done it already multiple times, and we’d just never know.”

Keilay cursed. “Then what’s all this for if you’re saying our efforts will come to naught, Oolow?”

“We’re going to trap him,” Margo said.

“We have a body,” Oolow explained. “A corpse born out of the world’s broken state. One that does not rot and cannot be harmed, though it has no life in it.”

The king looked from Oolow to Margo. “The ritual will trap his soul in the body, then?”

Oolow nodded. “That’s the idea, my lords. If we can pull this off, he will be contained within an immobile body. Forever deathless but unable to sow any more mayhem.”

“Couldn’t he break free?” Keilay asked.

“Only I’ll have the key to his prison,” Oolow answered. “And I shall see it destroyed the moment we have him imprisoned, mark my words.”

“What if we can get him to change his mind after we’ve sealed him away? Bargain with him,” Rodau offered. “This might be the means to diplomacy. If he has the power to travel through time, we can use his imprisonment as leverage. Could we not convince him to travel back to the moment before he slew Sidil and do the quest properly?”

“None of us could hold him accountable,” Margo answered. “If we let him back out, he’d be in control of the situation once again. We’d have sacrificed countless souls – not just lives – for the slim chance that that an all-powerful psychopath might fulfil a hollow promise.”

The king met Oolow and Margo’s gazes. “Is there truly no other way, my mages?”

Oolow looked from Margo to the generals and then to the king himself. “This is our one chance, Your Majesty. I swear it. I wish we had another option.”

“Leave us,” said Zidel suddenly. “I’d like to speak to the Grand Sorcerer in private.”

“My lord,” Keilay protested.

“Please, my generals.”

The two men nodded. Margo, with one last worrying look at Oolow, led the generals out of the chamber and closed the doors behind them. The king looked to Oolow. “My spymaster thought the world of you. She was a great woman.”

Oolow was uncertain of what to say, if this was a test.

“Lower your guard,” Zidel told him perceptively. “I forgive my teacher for doing what she knew had to be done. My family…” The king cleared his throat. “My father and my brother made their choices. They surrounded themselves with men who only told them what they wanted to hear. Tyra taught me that we must be responsible for our own choices, even in the most difficult moments. To shirk such courage is ill-fitting for someone who wears the crown.”

“She was wonderful, wasn’t she?” Oolow admitted.

Oh, watch out boys, he’s getting all sentimental. I wonder if he’ll cry.

Quiet farts-for-brains they’re having a moment, Cody hissed.

“She trusted you, so I entrust the very fate of Azra to your hands, Grand Sorcerer.”

Oolow bowed.

“I must ask, for my people, what can we do about the prophecy? What can be done about Flarel? Tell me honestly.”

The Grand Sorcerer raised his head. “That I do not know,” he replied. “I think we will have to settle for answering that question – if there is such an answer – once Eric has been stopped. But if we cannot put an end to this tyranny, we will have nothing to save five years from now – much less thirty.”

“I appreciate your candor,” Zidel replied, refusing to avert his steely gaze. “I will not be my father. My kingdom will be one where we accept our harsh realities and rise to meet them instead of fleeing to the shadows. We will see to Flarel’s doomsday once the present situation is concluded.”

“I thank you for your confidence, my King. I am determined to be worthy of it.”

“I will tell my generals to rally our army and put their forces under War Mage Tellus’ command. They shall meet at the Temple of Lordrow as quickly as possible.”

“You have my deepest gratitude. With your permission, I would like to see to the final preparations for the ritual.”

“Of course. Oolow, if there are any gods left in the sky, may they look after us in these dire hours.”

Oolow bowed one final time, and then, without another word, made his way to the chamber doors.

Curious you did not tell him what you already know. There is no salvation. No way to stop the inevitable. The Dread Lord will see this world will drown in shadow and flame. What held your tongue, Sorcerer? Cowardice?

“As long as the people have hope,” Oolow muttered, pushing open the door. “A chance remains for salvation.”

He stepped into the hallway to deliver the king’s orders.

***

Oolow stood inside the deepest chamber of the temple, surrounded by stone walls over a thousand years old. He and his chosen defenders waited atop a platform hanging at least 40 feet in the air. Beneath them, in the belly of the temple, were the doomed volunteers – all three thousand of them. Their many bodies, each naked except for the barest clothing to afford them modesty, huddled together. They were waiting for the end.

Oolow peered off the side of the platform down at them and felt the sickness in his stomach spread to every inch of his body. They all knew what was coming. There would be no forgiveness for what must be done to them. Some of them cast their eyes up at him, a tiny figure high above. He turned away, unable to meet the gaze of the many.

“Are the troops in position, Margo?” he asked, trying to still his shaking voice.

“Yes, master,” Margo said, standing in front of the stone bridge that led from the platform to the entrance of the temple and beyond into the canyon. “Four thousand soldiers. Eight hundred battle mages.”

“He will come,” Oolow said, looking at not just Margo, but Rupert and Dawn as well. Hand-picked to be his last line of defense, for they were the only ones he knew who had seen the Doombringer and lived to tell the tale. “As soon as the ritual begins, he will sense all the energy from this place and not be able to resist his curiosity. He will come looking for the slaughter. We need him to.”

“And we will meet him when he comes,” said Rupert, twirling his steel sword in his good hand. He looked ready for a fight, standing there in his leather cuirass, though his eyes were tired and his expression dark.

“If you were to leave, I would not think less of either of you,” he told them. “I know what I have asked is…I’ve asked much more than is my place to. Of everyone.”

“If all those people out there and below us are willing to give their lives,” answered Dawn, “then I’m willing to offer my life up as well.”

Rupert nodded but said nothing.

This is the best you’ve got? Petriv cackled. An invalid and a plant lady? This is going to be a hell of a show.

“So be it,” said Oolow, trying not to think of the loss – the ocean of death – surging toward them all like a tidal wave. “I will begin the ritual. I’ll need time to complete it. And we’ll need him in here, standing still.”

“We’ll do what we must,” Margo told him. “I will go ready the soldiers.”

“Margo, wait.” He leaned over to her and whispered in her ear. “If the worst should happen to me, never stop looking for a solution to the prophecy. Never, ever give up hope.”

She looked as though she was going to say something, but no words passed beyond her lips. Her expression enigmatic, she made her way across the bridge, toward the valley outside.

Oolow walked to the center of the platform, where the enchanted corpse lied, pale face staring up into the ceiling. He stooped down and placed a withered finger – one that once belonged to the Doombringer himself – next to the body before summoning his grimoire into his hand.

He turned to the accursed page in the book and closed his eyes, giving one last reverent thought to all the brave people below him. He thought of Tyra. He wished things could have been different.

We’re rooting for you, Cody said. Well, I am. Can’t speak for everyone, but I think you’re going to do fantastic, master sorcerer sir.

KnOCK that bAStard’s BLOck off, Dorik chattered.

Oolow took a breath before reading the words from the book aloud. The prism in his chest spun faster and faster. Green light emanated off the corpse and the finger before him, lighting up the platform. Down below, someone screamed. And then someone else. Soon the cries were unceasing.

In the distance, beyond the mouth of the temple, thunder rolled.

27
Priscilla, Poet

The Pilath Chronicle proudly presents: “The Battle of Grand Sorrow”
An excerpt from renowned author Priscilla Page’s historical account, Bane of the Doombringer
Available this winter wherever books are sold

Wrath, I sing,
wrath of a people fulfilled
at such a grievous cost
of souls and lives,
men and women laid across our most holy valley,
and a great evil at last
undone.

Rain falling, mixing with the dust,
men-at-arms standing fearless
ready to meet the grave maw.
The roar of thunder,
a rumble in the earth itself,
heralding the monster from beyond.

The mages, seeing him in the distance,
walking tall with hellish helmed horns
rising over a horizon
lit by violent emerald light,
bellowed the alarm.

Those brave generals,
the clever Keilay,
the experienced Rodau,
shouted for their men to close rank,
and prepare themselves to fight doom with doom.

High above,
upon the peak,
the War Mage told her troops to raise their staffs,
and smite Azra’s foe with ceaseless lightning.

The Doombringer himself,
tread slowly through the rising mist of the flatlands,
undaunted,
unsheathing his blade,
the promise of slaughter in every step.

Arrows filled the green sky and fell,
as lightning bit and struck the lone figure.
But neither man nor nature’s menace
left a single mark upon this devil
or slowed his advance.

Running now,
sprinting impossibly in leaden armor,
every step booming through the land,
accursed Eric commenced his assault.

The unfortunate spearmen were the first to fall.
Four hundred brave children of Azra,
mighty in skill and heart,
nevertheless brought low.

Eric’s claymore shattered shields,
slicing through spears and tendons,
crushing skulls into bonemeal.
Not a single man or woman,
left alive to tell the tale.

The mages raged from above high,
firing down bolts of lightning,
into their foe’s armor as he slayed
every soul in his path without pause.

The men-at-arms, thousands in their number,
surrounded the sole attacker,
in a bid to avenge their fallen comrades.
Sword met armor, magik scorched helm.

And yet nothing could pierce this moving fortress,
this man seemingly born from darkness,
our would-be savior
turned immortal monster.

The salves and restorative magiks,
hopelessly outdone by the sheer swiftness
of death being doled out before the healers’ very eyes.

Limbs mangled and eyeballs squirming in the dirt,
the Doombringer’s blade beheading and rending arms.
With every mighty swing of his claymore,
thirty men left dead in its wake.

Soon the generals themselves,
lie disemboweled and crushed,
each offering their lives up in a valiant last stand
so the healers could escape.

As fearless as her foe,
the great War Mage cried
“Descend, my warriors!
Fight until no breath remains in your lungs!”

The battle mages,
with magik to soften the blow,
leapt down from the peaks,
landing gently upon the ground.
The wind blew,
the rain fell hard and slanted—
without mercy.

These souls, afraid but brave,
picked up the bloody weapons
that lie all around them.
Casting enchantments to eat through armor,
to slow an enemy’s movements,
to blind him with bright lights,
the Academy’s finest heroes,
leapt into the bloody fray with their charmed blades.

One by one,
they fell,
their magiks useless,
their combined strength incapable
of injuring the beast before them –
but their bravery ringing through all of time.

Within the hour of his arrival,
the valley was soaked with blood and rain,
and there were more corpses than ground.
Precious time bought with precious lives.

“Retreat!” the War Mage cried,
her soul sick with the sight of red carnage
and unable to bear the loss of another soldier.

The surviving mages,
using the last of their energies,
opened portals,
and every survivor who could reach one
fled.

The War Mage, delving into the temple,
turned back to see Eric himself,
descending each step behind her,
two souls speeding toward
the end.

28
Margo Tellus, War Mage

Margo darted across the bridge of stone. The green light filled the platform, a tornado of energy twirling above Oolow and the corpse before him as the Grand Sorcerer muttered incantations under his breath. “He’s here!” she screamed, passing onto the platform and turning to face the exit. At her side, Dawn and Rupert took up positions, drawing their swords.

“I need more time!” Oolow cried just as the Doombringer’s towering form appeared at the other end of the bridge.

Margo felt a lump in her throat. This was the first time she had ever seen him this close. He was truly enormous, barely able to fit through the ancient temple’s doorway.

Eric looked across the stone bridge, slowly taking in the ritual, its conductor, and the defenders. Then the fiend fixed his gaze on Rupert.  The titan slowly crossed the bridge, each step shaking dust from stone.

“You killed some friends of mine, Eric,” Rupert called, stepping forward. “You’re going to regret not having killed me as well.”

The Doombringer unsheathed his claymore in reply as he reached the platform. The monster lunged at Rupert, who stepped out of the way and landed a blow on the back of his armor. The strike loudly dinged off the steel cuirass. Eric turned, a hiss emanating from within his helm as he swung once more. The claymore kissed air.

“Come on, you big bastard,” Rupert cried, leading him around the platform. “Finish the job, liver eater!”

Eric took another few steps and then, raising his foot, found it being dragged to the floor by a sudden burst of green vines erupting from the stone, wrapping around his greaves and pulling him down.

The Doombringer turned to see Dawn touching the platform with her free hand, the vines emerging from her fingertips. She grinned spitefully at him as he slashed at the plants to no avail.  

Margo, taking advantage of the distraction, approached quietly and outstretched her hand at her foe’s head. Flames roared from her palm in a long stream, fire pouring into the slit of the helm. A screech came from within the armor, as Eric stumbled back, plants nipping at his legs and Rupert’s sword clanging against the body.

A flailing arm slammed into Rupert, sending the man flying onto stone. Eric spun wildly, swinging his sword in every direction, cutting through vines, even as the fire continued to pour into the helm’s slit.

“Dawn!” Margo cried. “Dawn, get out of the wa—!"

The sword ripped through the girl’s waist. With a gasp, Dawn fell in two.

Rupert screamed, scrambling to his feet. He bellowed as he ran at Eric, bringing his sword down repeatedly on the man’s arm with all his strength.

Flames still erupting from her hand, Margo watched as Eric’s claymore fell to the floor. And then she saw something moving out of the corner of her eye. Turning her head slightly, she witnessed the impossible: Dawn, still alive, had pulled her lower half up to her waist. The girl was muttering incantations and drawing a line with her finger across the wound. The guts, the muscle, the very flesh of her two halves were rejoining. The War Mage briefly allowed relief to flood her body before turning her concentration back on the battle at hand.

She broke her fire spell, backing away, and closed her eyes, drawing her very life energy to her center. Just hold him off a few seconds, she prayed to any gods who were listening.

Dawn, fully joined once more, ran to the claymore and dragged it to the side of the platform. Heaving it over the side, she watched as the giant blade that had ended so many lives plummeted to its own doom before turning her attention back to the fight.

Rupert swung again and again at Eric, who retreated from the blade, his behemoth fingers fumbling at his back for his longsword. Each struck blow knocked the towering figure off balance.

Touching the ground, Dawn summoned more branches that ensnared the Doombringer once more, slowing him.

“Do you feel that?” Rupert yelled, sweat in his brow as he brought the sword down again and again. “That’s fear. That’s what they felt. All of them. I’m going to make sure it’s the last thing you feel.”

Margo breathed in and out. The energy flowed through her arms. She could feel it collecting at her fingertips, a blue light blossoming larger and larger, even as her organs and skin aged – the years falling away from her.

“It’s over,” Rupert cried at his nemesis. “We’re going to take it away from you. All of it.”

Eric’s fingers finally grasped over the hilt of his sword. He drew it over his shoulder and deflected Rupert’s swing before going on the offensive, bringing his own brute strength to bear, unleashing horizontal slashes that beat away at his opponent’s diminishing stamina.

“No you don’t!” Dawn cried, swinging her blade into Eric’s armored leg. The Doombringer found himself attacked on both sides. He turned to fight one enemy, only to have the other strike at him, their blades desperately searching for any weakness in the armor. He hissed at their persistence, his attention drawn away from the true threat.

They moved quickly, with light steps and fast strikes. Minutes passed, an eternity, before Eric’s sword finally found its mark. He deflected a strike from Rupert and then, with shocking speed, the Doombringer thrust his blade through the man’s chest. Rupert cried in pain, bright red erupting from his torso.

Eric withdrew the sword and dropped his wounded foe like a sack before focusing his assault on Dawn.  

The girl, terrified, backed away cautiously but did not run. “Just hold on, Rupe,” she called, her voice shaking. “I’m going to kill this fool and then I’ll tend to you.” The helm hissed as Eric took another step toward his prey.

Now, Margo thought, opening her eyes. With an exhale and gentle push of her fingers, the luminous blue orb shot across the platform and slammed into Eric’s lifted sword arm. A bright, blinding light filled the room followed swiftly by a momentous explosion that shook the foundations of the temple itself. As the light faded, a grisly sight was revealed in its wake.

Eric stood, at long last, a section of his armor not only penetrated – but blown away, alongside the entirety of his right arm. The stump bled red all over the stone floor.

“He’s human,” Margo said, the world spinning around her. It was all she could do to keep herself standing. “He’s human after all.” She watched as Eric’s unwounded yet shaking hand made a circular motion, conjuring a knapsack from midair.

She gasped, taking a step forward, but there was no way she could conjure a spell in enough time to stop him.

He lifted the cheese from the floating knapsack toward his helm, but a quick crack filled the air; vines leapt from the stone, yanking the hand down and sending the slab of dairy sailing over the edge of the platform.

“Not this time,” Dawn yelled, summoning more vines to hold the weakened villain in place. Eric shrieked as arms – Rupert’s arms – appeared around his throat, pulling back on the helmed head.

“I’m ready!” Oolow screamed, the green energy swirling around him and coming to rest in his outstretched hand in a crackling, luminous ball.

“Do it!” Margo cried. “Do it now!”

“Glory to the end of the hunt,” Rupert whispered venomously to his enemy.

From within the helm came a soul-piercing cry of anguish. Oolow shot the energy in his hand across the platform. The bolt, leaving a jagged trail of light as it zipped through the air, struck the Doombringer in the chest and abruptly disappeared in a whiff of smoke.

The cry ceased. Eric went still, his remaining arm drooping at his side, before falling face-first onto the stone of the platform. Dawn leapt out of the way to avoid being crushed, the impact shaking the floor. She got to her feet and stared at the still form on the floor.

“Is it done?” Rupert asked, his arms still wrapped around Eric’s throats.

“Yes,” Margo whispered. “I think it’s over.”

Rupert slowly let go of his grip and collapsed onto his side. Dawn rushed to him. The wound in his chest was gaping. Blood would not stop pouring out of it.

“We got the monster,” he said, smiling up at Dawn. “We got him.”

“Lie still,” she said, examining his chest. “I need to concentrate.”

“We did it…”

“Yes, we did. Now stop talking, I need to look a—”

“Tell Cassie I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t talk like that, fool.”

“Fiona, Rollo,” he murmured, voice fading into a whisper as his eyes stared up into the ceiling far above. “The hunt has truly ended.” And then he said nothing more.

“Rupert?” Dawn asked pointlessly, knowing. She waited a few seconds and, with a great heaviness in her chest, gently closed his eyes. She began to cry.

Margo slowly crossed the platform to Grand Sorcerer, who sat next to the body and his grimoire, overturned on the floor. Like herself, he had been changed, but his sacrifice was more devastating. His skin was much paler, and his head had thinned of nearly all his hair. Wrinkles overtook his face as he coughed dryly. The man had appeared to age a quarter of a century. More pressingly, she could feel energy leaking out of him, like water through a broken pot.

“The prism,” she said.

“Cracked,” he answered hoarsely. “Necessary to channel all that energy.”

“You knew it would happen, then?”

“Of course.”

She got down on the floor next to him. He looked at her with weary eyes. “Some of your hair is grey. You’ve got more wrinkles. Life magik?”

She nodded.

“How many years did you give up?”

“A decade or so, I’d wager.”

He hung his head. “I’m sorry, my friend. I should have been quicker.”

“It’s done. Eric has been felled. A lot of people paid a higher price than me to make that so.” She tried not to think of all the bodies below them. “What does it mean that the prism is cracked?”

“Most importantly: there is no way for Eric to return,” he said.

“That’s not what I meant,” she said, reaching out to squeeze his arm in comfort.

He nodded. “I have time still. Not much. It will shatter sooner or later. And then I’ll be like all those in the pit below us. More than dead. Obliterated. When that happens, you’ll be the new Grand Sorcerer. Everyone will look to you for guidance. I know you will do a better job than I’ve done.”

She did not know what to say to him, but he turned their attention elsewhere. “Rupert?” he asked, nodding in the direction of Dawn silently crying over his body.

She shook her head.

He sighed. “This is the bitterest victory of my life, perhaps of any life.”

A sudden movement caught their united attention: the corpse’s left index finger twitched.

“He’ll be coming around right about now,” Oolow muttered.

“Good,” Margo said, not bothering to hide the malice.

The form before them moved more of its fingers. And then it opened its bold blue eyes.

The corpse screamed.

29
Eric, Doombringer

Eric was screaming. He could not move his hands or turn his head. The floor was cold, and he did not recognize…wait, yes he did. Looming above him were characters from the janky-ass RPG he had been playing.

“I’m dreaming,” he said. “I must be dreaming.”

“You are not dreaming,” the wizard – Eric couldn’t remember his name – was saying. “You have joined us in a hell of your own making.”

Eric began screaming again. The wizard held up his hand and all sound from Eric’s mouth ceased. He looked around wildly, his thoughts racing, trying to piece together what had happened.

What the hell is going on? I had just got done calling Matt…I was sitting at my computer, playing the game, and now I’m here. There was a battle. It was in this room? What the fuck? What the fucking fuck?

“Please don’t do this to me,” Eric tried to say but his lips would not move. “Send me home! I want to go home!”

The two people above him kept talking like he was not there. The other girl from the battle, some kind of druid, joined them. Her eyes were filled with tears.

“I did everything I could,” she said. “I couldn’t save Rupert.”

The woman wizard embraced her. “His sacrifice saved us all. Both of you did.”

The girl sniffed and wiped away her tears. “What are we going to do with this monster?”

The wizard looked down at him, the disgust clear in his expression. “We have a place picked out for him. For now, let’s see to our dead. This madman won’t be going anywhere.”

The three of them walked out of his vision, leaving him to stare at the ceiling. Silently, in the tomb of this new body, he continued to scream. Why is this happening to me!? He cried.

He raged until his weariness overtook him and he fell deep into darkness.

***

When Eric came to, he was being carried through the countryside on a stretcher, up the slope of a mountain. The sky was tinged pink, early morning. The wizard was walking beside him and there were soldiers all around, including the two men carrying the stretcher.

“Ah, our guest is awake,” said the wizard. He looked much older than Eric remembered.

“Please…” Eric begged. “I’m fourteen years old. There’s been some misunderstanding. I do not deserve any of this. I bought the game on sale.”

“How many of your victims pleaded before you fell them with your sword, I wonder.”

“It’s just a game, “Eric said. “I play it to blow off steam. I didn’t mean to hurt anyone.”

“Look at that skyline. Those valleys below us. You could have saved this world and all its beauty. Instead, you chose to damn it and countless people – and for what? I can’t understand it. It’s beyond me.”

“Are you going to kill me?”

“No,” the wizard answered darkly. “Killing you would be a mercy that we can’t afford.”

Eric howled.

“Quiet, you beast,” the wizard said, holding his hand up once more, imprisoning Eric’s voice in silence. “We’re nearly there.”

Eric lied still for an hour as they took him up the mountain, to the snow-covered peak. There, they took him gently from the stretcher and, working diligently, chained his immobile body to an icy boulder.

The wizard crouched next to him. The anger had left his old eyes; Eric could only see sadness in them now. He reached out and turned Eric’s face so that he was facing the east.

The wind blew softly as snow fell.

“From here,” the wizard told him, “you’ll be able to ceaselessly look upon the world you’ve doomed. Its glorious animals. The trees twisting in the wind. With all its beautiful, flawed people. The sheer marvel of existence. You will remain here until it all burns away, but even then, that will not be the end for you, as you cannot die, Eric. Instead, you’ll float endlessly through the cosmos – a victim of your own making, deathless and damned.”

The body’s face remained emotionless as the man spoke. Sighing, the wizard held up his hand, and Eric felt the pressure in his throat fade away. “Goodbye, Eric. I wish things could have been different. Truly.”

The wizard stood and then walked out of his view, coughing as he went. Eric listened as the soldiers all began to make their way down the mountain. He could not turn the head that was not his head.

“Please don’t leave me,” Eric said. “Don’t leave me alone here.”

He waited, desperate for any reply, listening to the snow-crunching footsteps die away. There was only the sound of wind blowing across the rocks. He watched silently as the dawn crept over the world he had undone.

The Doombringer wept.

30
Taylor, Survivor

Well, since you asked, I’ll tell you plain: I don’t quite understand it. This generation, popping out babies left and right when the end of all things is bearing down on us like hail – ten years! ten years until everything en—what’s that?

Right. Nine years. Of course. Not ten. My mistake.

In any case, like I was saying, I don’t understand it. Maybe people plum forgot how bad it all was or they’re young enough that they don’t recall. Not that the times are getting any better, mind you, but it’s a different kind of bad now than it was back then.

I remember it all as well as I remember the taste of my breakfast this very morning, which, if you’re curious, was a cherry tart of the finest quality from Pendelton’s bakery and a nice cup of coffee.

The worst day of my life was 22 years ago. I was a boy then, large enough to help my father and the rest of the woodsmen but too small to ride a steed. The summer heat was beating down on us all in the camp. Some 30 men had departed over the past two weeks due to the news about the seer’s death spreading. My father and I stayed. Given that my mother had died bringing me into such a world as this and we had not kept a home to call our own ever since I could walk on my own two feet, the pair of us were not fit to live any other life than the one afforded by the trees and the soil and the warm fire of camp.

Me and another, his name was Dalton, we were down by the crik a little way from camp trying to catch fish with sharpened sticks like our fathers had shown us. We weren’t any good at it but that didn’t stop us. Fishing was something to kill time and it was better than being out in the woods with the men helping them gather up those fallen trees and getting all kinds of splinters in our fingers and palms.

The two of us, we came back to camp fishless right around dusk, and everyone was gathering around their tents and firepits for dinner. A lot of the families ate together in the middle of the camp, all banquet-like, but my father never let us join them. My father – I love him dearly, but he was always a bit aloof. I think he was scared of being close to people, ever since mother died, and had become overly fond of his own isolation. He did love me, though I could tell that my presence often left him uneasy given he was a man who only felt complete when he was in solitude.

Still, he always smiled when he saw me coming back from a day away. That evening, he was slowly turning squirrels over the firepit and there were blackberries in the basket next to him.

“Catch anything?” he asked, seeing my approach.

“Dalton almost got one, but it fell out of his hands and the river took it back.”

“Has been known to happen,” he said taking one of the squirrels from the spit and passing it to me. He pushed the basket of blackberries toward me, and I took a handful.

“You pick these, papa?”

“A gift from Anjelica Erikson.”

Mrs. Erikson was a widow whose husband had been brained by a falling tree. She had her heart set on my father, and I liked her well enough, but the plain and simple truth was that she wasn’t my mother – something my father held against every woman that expressed romantic interest in him, which were many. He was quite handsome in a stoic sort of way, after all, with a strong face. I took more after my mother, with her big bright eyes and weak chin.

We ate our dinner slowly that night in serene silence, watching the camp folk below us revel in one another’s company, sharing roasted bird, corn, and mushed grains amidst jovial laughter. Children ran around the dresses of their mothers playing tag, as the adults drank and smoked their pipes.

“We should go be with them one day,” I told my father.

“You can join them,” he said. “Anytime you wish.”

“We should both go. You need more friends, papa,” I told him. I was always a sassy child like that. I just said whatever nonsense came to my brain.

He smiled, amused. Why don’t we go down tomorrow evening?”

“You mean it?” I took a bite of the squirrel. It was too crispy.

“I promise. Tomorrow, we will join the rest of the camp for dinner. It’ll be a nice change of pace,” he said. I could tell he was uncomfortable with the idea but also took some small measure of joy out of making me happy. I think he always felt bad about me growing up out in the wild instead of being one of those namby-pamby nobles or mage children, living their youth inside fortresses of stones with noses in books. He had always wanted something better for me, with less rough living. I don’t think I turned out so bad, though. A bit dim, sure, but I’ve done well enough on my oodles of charm.

Where was I again? Right. The last sliver of good times. Our bellies full, the fire died out and we went to bed as the camp winded down and the moon was high in the sky, bathing the land in its light.

It’s the screaming I always remember first. I rose from the ground, but my father put his hand on my chest and told me to keep quiet. He peered out of the tent as the cries grew louder, with more voices joining in. He drew back inside. His face was pale, as though the very life had gone out of him, and he was trembling all over.

He reached out to the corner of our little tent and picked up the only weapon we had – his ancient, trusted felling axe.

“Let’s go,” he said. “Slowly.”

“Our things,” I said, thinking of the foods and clothes we had stowed away in our chest.

“Leave it,” he hissed.

He stepped out of the tent and pulled me through as well.

I’ll never forget the first thing I saw outside; I had crossed over into a nightmare. Arrows filled the sky with such volume that, for a brief instance, they blocked out the moon itself before raining down on the camp and its fleeing families. Everywhere I looked, bodies were on the ground. Children I had grown up with – their mothers and fathers too. Some of the bodies weren’t moving. Others writhed and moaned as the ground seeped with red.

I saw Mrs. Erikson running, shrieking, as three arrows pierced her back. She fell forward and went still. I began to scream, and my father put his hand over my mouth.

“Quiet, son,” he hissed. “If we live, we shall mourn.”

I’ve been asked many times since that fateful night how it was that a boy and his father came to survive such vicious slaughter. A lot of people have assumed my father was an overly capable and brilliant man. It is not an altogether false notion. However, the overwhelming truth is we were lucky. Our tent was at the edge of camp, on a hill near the woods.

We waited near our tent for a time until the arrows stopped. The bandits descended from the other end of camp. There must have been at least 30 of them. They began to put the survivors of the initial assault to the sword. There was no discrimination for sex or age.

My father and I lied on the ground, playing dead as it were. He told me to shut my eyes. I did not. I could not look away from the horror. I saw an old man begging for the life of the child he shielded with his arms. They cut his head off with a single swing and ran the child through with the same sword. They laughed as they did it, the diseased curs.

I wept into the grass. My father shushed me.

“We need to move,” he said. “If we do not move, we will die.”

Though we were close to the wood, we still had to pass through a patch of the massacre that had happened before us – where countless bodies lie strewn about in the hellish wasteland.

“Follow me closely,” my father whispered, trying still his trembling voice.

I crawled forward ever so slowly. It was dark, but the moon was shining down on us too. I could see out of the corner of my eye, the bandits going about, yanking survivors from their tents and gutting them. Some of the men – and I use the term lightly here – were going across the crimson field with torches in their hands, picking from the pockets of the dead. It was these butchers, I think, that made my father nervous.

Eventually the smell of soil and fragrance of grass gave way to metal, and I felt my arms wading through something warm, wet, and sticky. I fought like hell not to gag.

“Just close your eyes, son,” my father whispered ahead of me, crawling over the corpses of our friends. “Don’t look.”

We crawled for an eternity. I felt the blood of others seeping into my own clothes. I tried to block out the smell, but it was overwhelming. I opened my eyes and found myself looking at my poor friend Dalton. The swing of a sword had removed his jaw entirely. I will never forget that face. It was like his eyes were looking out at me, demanding to know why I got to live and he didn’t.  I vomited into the dirt. Loudly. I waited for a bandit to fall upon me, hoping that maybe my death would give my father time to escape.

Instead, I heard something else. The same cruel voices that had been laughing at the senseless slaughter of our people earlier were now screaming in pure terror.

“Please!” one of the bandits called. “We’ll share the coi—”

Looking up, I saw him, standing less than 30 yards from my father and me. He was the size of a fortress and looked like one too, wearing colossal armor. He had this sword – big as a tree trunk – and I just lied there in sheer horror, watching as he cleaved three of the bandits in half with a single swing. They fell to the ground amidst their victims, guts steaming in the air.

More bandits turned to the newcomer, rushing at him with their swords and spears. He broke their throats with his fists and stomped their heads into red pulp.

I felt a tug on my tunic. My father was standing above me, pulling me to my feet. “Run!” he yelled, tugging me along as we darted to the tree line, my feet stumbling across the stomachs and limbs of the dead. We reached the wood, the sounds of carnage growing louder at our backs, and disappeared into the darkness of the forest.

We ran for miles until all the air in my lungs was cold and my legs were numb. I fell. Father scooped me up in his arms and he walked for a time, me cradled across his shoulder and the axe in his free hand. The air was growing colder. In the brief flashes of moonlight through the trees, I could make out my father’s breath.

After a time, we stopped somewhere on the forest floor. Unfathomable darkness was in every direction.

“I’m going to leave you here for a second,” he told me, laying me next to the tree. “I’m going to get us wood to make a fire. Don’t move but don’t go to sleep. Tell me you understand.”

I nodded in the darkness. “Yes, father,” I said.

“Good boy. Good boy.” And then I felt him go. I lied there for a time and, despite my father’s warnings, fell into slumber. I do not know how long I was asleep but what I do know is that when I opened my eyes, father was not the one standing over me.

It was him. I could only see his outline, but he stretched into the sky like some sort of tower. He held his sword, dripping with the blood of the slain. I could hear heavy breathing coming from within his gigantic helm.

“Please,” I whimpered.

The shape tilted its head at me. He…he was looking at me all curious-like. I don’t know what to make of it all these years later. I would describe his movements as almost gentle, despite what he was.

And then came a yell from behind the tree I was leaning against.

“Get away from him!” my father screamed. “I’ll slay you,” he bellowed, stepping between me and the man I would learn later was known as the Doombringer. His enormous shape loomed over us both.

“Please…” my father said, the might in his voice giving way to sheer terror as he gripped the axe in the dark but refused to drop it. “Please.”

The three of us couldn’t have been like that for more than a few seconds, but it felt like an eternity passing. I worried for my father. I wanted to tell him to run, but I knew he’d raise the axe the moment the man before us made his move.

We waited, my father and I, for the end of our lives. And then, ever so slowly, the tremendous shape before us turned away. Sword still in his hand, he walked away out into the dark, leaving us unscathed.

My father stood there still, hands gripping his axe, for several seconds before picking me up once more. He ran west. We must have been on the move for an hour. The heaping volumes of sweat and the stark cold were assaulting him, but he ran and ran until he just couldn’t anymore. When that happened, he walked. We must have gone at least another mile before we heard a noise – voices.

He stepped back and leaned into the belly of a tree.

I clung to father, my arms wrapped around his neck. The cold air of the night pressed on our bodies and the goosebumps on my arm were rising. He was looking out, past the woods, onto a dirt path that had suddenly become lit by the torches of travelers. They cackled as they walked by. They looked like merchants.

“They could help us,” I said weakly.

“They could be bandits,” he whispered. “Stay quiet.”

His sweat dripped onto my hair. We remained there for a while, waiting until the light vanished out of sight and we were entombed in the darkness of the underbrush once more. We waited, neither of us saying anything, only the shrieks of night birds and the cry of cicadas filling the air – the occasional snap of a branch somewhere out in the unseen realm before us.

We waited and waited. My stomach growled. Father breathed heavily. I could tell he was tired, but he made no motion to put me down, and I did not ask him to. We were frozen in place.

Eventually the first light of morning struck the bark of the trees, and my father’s shoulders sagged, but he did not let me go. I could feel him slowly relaxing, the muscles in his arm bleeding tension away to sacred calm.

“Okay,” he whispered, “alright.” My arms hung heavy around his neck still. I could not feel them anymore. I put my head against his chest and heard the hammer of his heart slow its beating.

And then we were safe – for a time.

Appendix
The Wilted Age: 1468-?

There are those among us who say we are living through the dying embers of our last age. Throughout Azra, those old enough to remember still reel from the greatest betrayal of our time. It is important, I think, to intimately recall our history as plans to contend with Flarel’s ever-looming prophecy of ruin are non-existent. Less than a decade remains before the turn of the century, and by all accounts we still lack a means to thwart the end of days. It is not clear if anyone in power is even trying to save us anymore.

I wrote Bane of The Doombringer to bring this hallowed story to the new generation and help them understand what it was to live through such times. I yearn for this book to help in the ongoing struggle to arm our youth with the passion and urgency needed to bring this world back from the brink. I wish for them to succeed where we all failed in the aftermath of our heroes’ sacrifices.

This appendix functions as a companion to my work, and it is my dearest hope that these entries should help fill in the gaps that it does not answer. This section assumes you have finished the story beforehand; I recommend that you do not read this appendix until you’ve reached the end of the tale.

As always, thank you for your patronage, fair readers, and may the gods guide us in such uncertain times.

Yours truly,
Priscilla Page

The Academy of Magiks
What most of my younger readers will know as the Institute of Mages was once called The Academy of Magiks and operated almost as function of the government, with the Grand Sorcerer representing as a member of the king’s council.

A bitter split between King Zidel and Grand Sorcerer Margo Tellus in 1475 over how Azra should direct its resources to preventing Flarel’s prophecy from coming to pass resulted in the Academy divesting itself from governmental functions and transforming into the Institute. This change, according to Tellus herself, represented the institution’s total commitment to championing the education of young mages.

Regardless, rumors have persisted across the years that the elderly Grand Sorcerer has a hidden department of mages deep in the heart of the Institute that toils ceaselessly to find a way to put a stopper on the end of days.

Azra
The land we call home. Our continent has faced many challenges over the past 22 years – murderous sociopaths, plagues, wars – and yet it remains a thriving world filled with beautiful people working with one another to survive trying times.

In the east, humid weather hangs above the jungles of the Brush and all its wild beasts. Hunters come from all over the continent looking to earn themselves rare animal coats or treasure supposedly stowed away in caves far below the cliffs. More often than not, they find only their doom.

To the west, the cold is king of all. Those who live there – on either the mainland or the isles themselves – wear the thickest coats in all the land as they must bear bone-chilling winds and snowfall on an annual basis. Fish, seal, and bear are often the only natural foods to be found, making fruit, vegetables, milk, and pork the most popular imports for the region.

The south is nearly all desert, with Keyro being the region’s sole city of merit, not to mention the only reliable place to purchase precious water – assuming you have the coin. There is no region with a higher death toll.

And finally, the north, where the glorious mountains surge towards Hethica on high, hiding cities deep in their cavernous bellies. Those who adore the sun, the cool breeze, and the sound of rivers rushing over rocks will find something close to paradise here.

 Calgry
The former duke of the west, during The Wilted Age. Tragically killed, with the rest of the council, by the villainous traitor Tyra Quincast.

The Creators
Though the gods look after us all, they did not bring us into existence. They were created, just as the mortals they were entrusted to rule over were. There exists something beyond the gods – some force or entity – responsible for bringing everything we know into being.

The people of Azra are often content to refer to this force as “The Creators,” though we know nothing about them. The universe, I suppose, is much bigger and mysterious than any of us can fathom.

Dawn Loach
One of the heroes of The Wilted Age. A fisherwoman-turned-druid, Dawn brought the cure that would destroy the Wilt to the Academy and later proved an essential figure in bringing about the Doombringer’s defeat at the Battle of Grand Sorrow. In the weeks following that bitter victory, the druid disappeared.

Children and farmers throughout Northern Azra say they have seen a woman wandering the forests and fields left dead by the Wilt at night with a dog, her skin green in the moonlight. It is said she weeps for what has been lost and for all the loss that is yet to come.

Dread Lords
Flarel’s army. Humans who offer their allegiance up to the King of the Dread Lord find themselves transformed into horned beasts of fire and fury, capable of swift destruction. There is no end to those willing to trade their own souls for a taste of power and, as such, Flarel always has legions of loyal servants to carry out his vile deeds and revive him whenever he has been vanquished by heroes past.

Eric, The Doombringer
Accursed betrayer. The orchestrator of The Wilt, countless accounts of pain and sorrow, and perhaps even the end of Azra and her people; there is no more figure in our history reviled than this man. With the slaying of the seer Sidil, Eric fathered an unfathomable suffering that still ripples throughout the land until this very day.

At great cost, the Grand Sorcerer Oolow and his allies were able to seal the Doombringer away in an enchanted corpse. He remains chained to a rock on the highest mountain in all of Azra, fully conscious. Citizens from all over Azra make pilgrimages to jeer and kick and spit at the chained wretch, his eyes forever turned toward the skyline.

He has, by all accounts, nothing to say to them.

Fiona Fang
The most famous and skilled hunter who’s ever graced Azra’s flowing plains. Fiona Fang fell countless beasts of great renown including Pilgu, the snapper whale that terrorized the Western Isles and Bithgar, the Brush’s most bloodthirsty wildcat.

In the aftermath of Sidil’s death, Fiona formed a hunting party that included Rupert Finley, another hero from The Wilted Age, that tracked the Doombringer to the edges of the Brush itself. There, they fought bitterly. Though the Doombringer proved victorious in this bout, Fiona’s valiant sacrifice yielded Rupert and the Academy a secret weapon that would prove invaluable: Eric’s own dismembered finger.

Flarel, Dread Lord King
Cast out by the gods themselves from the peaks of Hethica for his rebellion, Flarel, the son of the war god Xani, was exiled to live among the mortals for his eternal existence. Enraged by this punishment and the gods’ love of humanity, Flarel fashioned his own hell-home deep in the center of the world, emerging only to wage wrathful war on the humans of Azra, his bitterness and hate transforming the former god into the King of the Dread Lords.

Though immortal, Flarel has supposedly been struck down and sent to centuries-long sleep multiple times over recorded history. His offspring slain and prophecies undone, Flarel has been defeated each time he has risen to drag the world into oblivion by courageous acts of heroism and sacrifice.

Until Eric betrayed us all.

Flarel’s Prophecy
Though there have been many prophecies about the end of Azra. When people say “Flarel’s Prophecy,” they’re usually talking about the following:

Whoever can listen, let them hear what I, Galarth, disciple of the gods and their glorious houses, have to say.

When the sun dawns on the new century, the Dread Lord Flarel will rise with it. First, he will blanket the land in ash that will choke the trees and animals. Then he will breathe a flame that will rend flesh and bone to dust and turn the seas to desert. He will stomp the world asunder, and such will be the end of Azra and all its people. The sun will weep and then become frozen from its despair. The stars will twinkle out of existence one by one. No man, no woman, or child will survive the devastation.

Unless a hero, born in the lands of Maloria, shall take up arms and embrace their destiny from the blind seer Sidil, all will be lost to the tides of the Dread Lord’s fury.

Instead of embracing his destiny, the Doombringer rejected his quest, allegedly condemning us all to Flarel’s doom.

Hell
The subterranean home of the Dread Lord King Flarel and the demons he has made in his own twisted image to keep him company throughout the centuries. Unreachable by any methods known to magik or science, hell is where the Dread Lord King’s soul has rebuilt itself every time he has suffered defeat. Hell, according to Garlath, is where he will rise from in nine years’ time to smite the world with fire and darkness.

Hethica
The afterlife and the realm of the gods themselves. All mortals have their souls flung upward into this realm upon their death. The churches for each god say that regardless of their transgressions in life, all souls are granted access to Hethica and allowed to spend their days feasting amidst their comrades in bountiful love.

That is, except for those who have been consumed by forbidden soul magik – they are lost.

Lordrow
The god of all gods, the lord of protection and the ruler of Hethica, Lordrow was charged by The Creators to look out for the beautiful, pitiful beings of the mortal realm. From his golden throne, he rules with clear eyes and a pure heart.

Ly’wall
The last of the giants, who bravely gave his life so that Dawn the Druid might know the cure to the Wilt. He died in honorable combat with the Doombringer. By laying down his life, he spared mankind much suffering.

Maloria
A subregion in Southern Azra, on the outskirts of Keyro. The Doombringer’s birthplace.

Margo Tellus
The current Grand Sorcerer and one of the last living heroes of the Wilted Age. Tellus, then War Mage, commanded her mages at the Battle of Grand Sorrow, buying time for Oolow to complete the ritual that would seal away The Doombringer.

In the years following Oolow’s passing, Tellus took on the mantle of Grand Sorcerer and has –with little success – pushed the crown to continue dedicating funds to supporting research to prevent Flarel’s prophecy from coming to pass.

King Zidel, disillusioned and openly questioning whether the prophecy is true, has refused to commit national funding to such measures. Tellus’ consequential split of the Academy from the king’s council continues to cause divisive conversation among nobles and peasants alike.

Mintho
The brave war lord of the Southern wastes during The Wilted Age. Another of Toldat’s council slain by that viper Tyra Quincast.

Namu
The goddess of nature. Aggrieved by the slaying of her ardent servant Sidil, it is said that Namu cursed the land of Azra with The Wilt to punish mankind for its cruelty.

Nyweir
Master of the north, sovereign of the mountains during The Wilted Age, Nyweir was beloved by all his people during his reign for his generosity. Another of Toldat’s council poisoned by Quincast.

Oolow LeFair
Savior to some, madman to others, Oolow LeFair was once a young schoolboy at the Academy whose mischievous ways led him to studying the forbidden magiks. A disastrous attempt at soul magik cursed Oolow’s very own soul to be brought into the physical realm as a spinning prism within his chest capable of trapping wayward souls on their way to the afterlife. This prism gifted the young sorcerer with immense power at the terrible cost of having to share his mind with all the souls he had ensnared.

As Grand Sorcerer of the Academy during the darkest interval in Azra’s history, Oolow had to make any difficult decisions, including the sacrifice of some three thousand souls to produce enough energy to trap the Doombringer. Though he and his compatriots’ efforts were not in vain, historians hotly debate the morality of the Grand Sorcerer’s choices.

The ritual cost Oolow much, cracking his prism and eventually obliterating his soul. He was dead six months after the Doombringer’s imprisonment.

He is mourned and condemned in equal measure.

Philoe
The god of the hunt. Any hunter who does not bow his head and utter a prayer before pursuing their quarry is cursed to failure.

Pilath
Azra’s capital. Home of the throne. A grand shimmering city of great wealth, where nobles are happy to gossip and conduct their affairs (diplomatic and otherwise) while the beggars and the diseased perish whimpering in its dark and forgotten corners.

Pollo
The Baron of the Brush. During his time, he made his family’s fortune in the fur trade and was renowned as an exemplary hunter himself. Another of the lords who fell victim to Quincast’s poisoning.

Rupert Finley
One of the greatest bounty hunters of his time and a hero of The Wilted Age, Rupert Finley underwent a crisis of conscience a decade into his healthy career, when he accidentally killed a bystander while pursuing a dangerous criminal. He was cleared of any wrongdoing by the local council on the basis of his sterling record and the murderous nature of his quarry necessitating dire actions on his part, though he could not forgive himself and fled from the mainland.

After three years of self-imposed exile in the west, Rupert was recruited by Fiona Fang to pursue and kill The Doombringer. The bounty hunter emerged as the only survivor of the brutal standoff, and he brought back testimony and a powerful trophy from his battle that would eventually seal away the monster forever.

A year later, in 1470, Rupert found himself called upon again to fight the Doombringer – this time at the behest of the Grand Sorcerer Oolow. Working in tandem with the druid Dawn Loach and the War Mage Margo Tellus, Rupert was able to restrain Eric long enough for the Grand Sorcerer to trap his soul in an immobilized body.

His valiant deed cost him his life. He left behind a small fortune for his partner, a tavern master, though it brought her little comfort.

A copper statute of Rupert stands tall in western Pilath, honoring his heroism and sacrifice. It, and the stories spun about his adventures, are all that remains of him.

Sidil, Seer
The noble servant of the goddess Namu. Sidil was set to start Eric, known then as Eric the Righteous, off on his quest to save our world from the apocalypse of Flarel’s prophecy.

Cruelly slain by the Doombringer, Sidil’s tragic death triggered the land and flesh-devouring disease known as the Wilt, and, according to many experts, has ensured the inevitable end of Azra and its people by the Flarel’s flame.

Soul Magik
More forbidden than life magik or even necromancy, soul magik is the most dangerous of the arcane arts as it depends on converting a living being’s soul into the pure energy needed to fuel the most powerful spells known to the Academy. The resulting conversion destroys the soul, condemning the victim – or in some cases, volunteer – to pure nothingness upon death.

Grand Sorcerer Oolow became a controversial practitioner of such magik at a young age, when a foolhardy experiment brought his soul out of the spectral realm and rendered it a physical part of his being. This resulted in making Oolow the most powerful Sorcerer of his, and perhaps any, age while also rapidly deteriorating his physical and mental health. The Grand Sorcerer’s condition, which included playing host to many voices in his head, led to him being known throughout all of Azra as Oolow, The Soul-Shattered.

It is through Oolow’s soul magik – and the valiant sacrifices of the souls given up to it – that the Doombringer was finally defeated.

Toldat the Third
The tragic king of The Wilted Age. Toldat inherited a kingdom rich with economic promise that had enjoyed decades of peace between the regions, only to watch the Doombringer tear it apart. Though his contemporary critics were harsh about his slow action in providing aid to his suffering kingdom, history has been somewhat kinder, especially with regards to his shocking death – and the deaths of his council and eldest son – at the hands of his traitorous spymaster.

Tyra Quinncast
If Eric the Doombringer is the greatest betrayer Azra has ever known, then Tyra Quincast, King Tolda’s trusted spymaster, is not far behind.

A cruel and ambitious self-serving snake of a woman, Tyra arranged the death of the Crown Prince and poisoned King Toldat and his council in a bid for power – her plot revealed by hastily scribbled letters to unknown collaborators left in her quarters.  According to Zidel’s account, the Spymaster apparently could not bring herself to kill the youngest prince and, in a moment of guilt, did the only honorable thing left to her: she drank her own foul poison.

The Wilt of the World
Namu’s disease, unleashed upon the people of Azra in vengeance for the Doombringer’s slaying of her faithful servant in 1468. The Wilt ravaged every region of the continent for nearly two years, killing millions and leaving vast miles of land infertile for future generations.

The giant Ly’wall and Dawn the Druid fashioned a cure for the disease and instructed the Academy on how to manufacture doses on a grand scale. By 1471, The Wilt had been wiped out, though the damage it left in its wake is still keenly felt.

Xani
The cruel god of war, who blesses only those who commit atrocities on the battlefield for his amusement. The father of Flarel, though he joined his fellow gods in casting out his son.

Zidel the Just
The Savior King. Undertaking the burden of the crown at a young age after the devastating death of his father, brother, and royal council, Zidel quickly rose to the occasion. After forming his own council of youthful nobles, the young king gave command of his armies to the Academy. Though the initial decision was met with an outcry, especially by those fearful of Oolow’s grand powers, this choice was a key factor in sealing away The Doombringer.

Zidel enjoyed popularity in his early years due his decisive actions in supporting both the Academy in vanquishing Eric and spending considerable resources to manufacture a cure and send aid to suffering communities across the continent.

In recent years, a depleted treasury has caused the ruling class to put considerable pressure on him into making difficult choices to relieve the strain on the coffers, including closing down free clinics and homeless shelters and ceasing to provide funding to the Academy for preventing Flarel’s prophecy coming to pass.