The Skybound Sea

FIVE

Wizards were elite. That word still had meaning even among men who turned breath to ice and spark to fire with a word. To Librarians, the word had definition, relentlessly branded upon scalp until it bored into skull.

To Bralston, the word had weight.

To be elite was responsibility, not privilege. To be elite was to do that which could be done by no one else. To be elite was to stand and see the heretics burned, the renegades crushed, their assets seized from wailing widows and their homes burned to set the example to those who would fall under the dominion of the Venarium and not respect its laws.

Elite, Bralston had seen many deaths, only a few of them in his home city of Cier’Djaal. Whether by fire or force or messier means, Bralston had never been fazed by death.

Not until he had seen the riots.

The Night of Hounds, some called it, the Comeuppance, the Fires; the riots had many names. It was all to describe the same thing, though: the night the Houndmistress, champion of the common people of Cier’Djaal and bane of the criminal syndicates that haunted her streets, was brutally murdered in her bed.

And the Jackals, pushed to the point of being wiped clean like the scum they were, took their vengeance. On guards, on politicians, on commoners and merchants and whores and anyone who wasn’t dressed in a hood and carrying a blade, they exacted their toll upon the city that failed to expel them.

There had been fire. There had been force. There had been mess. On such a scale that the elite could but watch the city burn.

All because of one man.

The man who sat in the clearing now, head hung low and shoulders drooped as he murmured like a common drunk. That’s what he was, Bralston reminded himself. Maybe he had been something more when he had wound his way into the Houndmistress’s confidence and slaughtered her in the night, but no longer. He was a drunk, a thug, common.

And Bralston remained elite.

He was reminded of that word’s weight as he stalked into the forest clearing.

The man’s head shifted.

“Asper?” the rogue asked, voice cracked and dry.

“No,” Bralston answered.

“Oh,” he muttered, returning to staring at the sand. “It’s you.”

Bralston stared at the back of his head. Maybe he couldn’t see the man’s face, but everything else screamed guilt: the stoop of shoulders that had been so broad when they rubbed against the Houndmistress’s, the mane of reddish hair that had been dyed time and again, the voice that had plied and charmed and tongued all the right ears to earn the role of advisor to the woman who would try to save a city infested with human gangrene.

Bralston remembered him, before he had been called Denaos.

“I don’t have the tongue for entertaining wizards,” the man said. “Not the kind that could be matched by hearing their own voice. So, if you need something-”

“Murderer.”

Denaos turned his head, just enough for Bralston to see his eyes, just enough for Bralston to know. And slowly, Denaos turned away.

“So that’s it, then? Just right out with it?” Denaos chuckled. “No talent for subtlety.”

“No subtlety is needed for this,” Bralston said. His voice came on hot breath and beating heart, no more discipline of the elite. “It has no place amongst matters of justice.”

“The only men who bring up matters of justice are those who think themselves worthy of delivering it.”

“There is no worthiness, only responsibility.” Bralston felt the blood rush in his veins, but held himself back. Eyes, shoulders, tongues; these were suspicions. Librarians needed logic, evidence to justify the kill, however worthy. “And it falls to any man who knows what you’ve done.”

“And what have I done, Librarian?”

“You killed people.”

“I’m an adventurer. I’ve killed lots of things.”

“You killed people.”

Denaos did not stir from the log he sat on. But his voice had an edge when he spoke, something crudely sharpened and dripping with rust and grime.

“The only men who tell me I’ve killed people,” he said, “don’t know how many people I’ve killed.”

“Fourteen hundred,” Bralston replied. “Fourteen hundred men, women and children with families and pets and homes that were burned to the ground the night you murdered her.”

Denaos hung his head low, rubbed the back of his neck.

“More.”

Bralston recoiled. He stared in disbelief, at the confession and the sheer disregard with which it had been offered, a sprinkling of sugar from delicate fingers over a plate of charred flesh.

The word became much heavier than any other. It and the sight of the man threatened to unhinge him, to force him to raise hand, to speak word and turn man to ashes on the breeze. He turned away to resist the urge. Heavy as the word was, another still had weight.

“How many?” he asked.

“Many,” Denaos replied, without so much as a stutter. “Mothers, whores, businessmen, politicians.” He paused. “Children. Not as many as her death caused. But these ones. . I looked into their eyes. I had chances to stop. Many chances.”

“And you did not.” Bralston removed his hat, ran a hand along his bald scalp as though trying to smooth the rogue’s words into something that didn’t cause the mind to recoil. “How many chances?”

“I’ve got one left,” Denaos replied. “One I’ve been riding for about a year now.” He sighed. “The tome. . it’s all I can hope for to balance the scales.”

“You think there are scales? There is balance for what you did?”

“I was given another chance. By the Gods.”

“There are no gods.”

“There must be a reason why you haven’t killed me yet.”

“I had to know.”

He replaced his hat on his head, drew in a breath. The power, his power came flowing back into him. It leapt to his fingers, magic hungry and railing against all the discipline his position was supposed to carry, a magic hungry for vengeance.

“I have responsibilities,” he said. “That will soon be fulfilled.”

Silence.

And then laughter; not sadistic, not conceited. Humorless. A joke that wasn’t funny and had been told far too many times.

“And you waited until now?” the rogue chuckled. “Well, that was silly of you.”

Bralston’s roar was nothing. His magic spoke for him in the crack of thunder and the shriek of lightning as he whirled about and thrust his fingers at the man. The power was reckless, a twisting serpent of electricity that leapt readily and ate hungrily, tearing up sand and splitting log and leaving scorched earth and burnt air.

And, he thought with a narrow of his eyes, no body.

The man was gone, but only from sight. The man would not leave, not after all he had told Bralston. The stink of liquor and guilt lingered, however subtle.

And Bralston had no talent nor need for subtlety.

In death, as in life, the netherling continued to hate.

It had hated the heated blade that dismembered its corpse, resisting each saw. It hated the fire that now ate at it, devouring purple flesh long since blackened with agonizing slowness. And Asper was sure, in whatever nothingness this thing’s soul now lurked, it still hated her.

Hard to blame her, Asper thought; she knew she wouldn’t have much in the way of understanding for someone who had dissected, chopped up, and burned her. And she was not sorry that she had done it to the longface, either.

She was a netherling. A brutish member of a brutish race that served blindly under a brutish, sinister, filthy, horrifying, grinning, always grinning, eyes on fire, teeth so sharp, and smile so broad as he slipped his fingers inside-

She shut her eyes.

She could never maintain that train of thought without returning to that night, to the creature known as Sheraptus, and what he had done to her. Every sense was defiled at the very thought of him: eyes were sealed shut for fear of seeing his broad grin, ears were clamped under hands for fear of hearing his purr, and no matter what she did, she could not avoid, ignore, or block out the sensation of his touch.

Of his two long fingers.

Nor could she ever forget screaming for help, for someone, for anyone. For Kataria, who had fled. For Denaos, who came too late. For the Gods, who did not answer.

Maybe the netherling had screamed out for something when she died, Asper wondered idly. Maybe she had called out for Sheraptus when Lenk cut her open with his sword.

She wasn’t sure why she was still staring at the corpse.

When she heard footsteps, she didn’t turn around. There was no man, no woman, no dragonman or lizardman she wanted to see right now. Or ever again

“Where’s Denaos?”

Lenk. Not the worst man she had expected; certainly not worth turning around to face.

“Not here,” she answered stiffly.

“Obviously,” Lenk replied. “I was hoping you’d know where he was.”

“Gariath can sniff rats out. I can’t.”

“You’re calling him a rat now, too,” Lenk observed. “I always thought you had the more affectionate names for him.”

“I called him a scum-eating vagrant who lies through teeth that should have been broken long ago.”

“Still,” Lenk said.

The silence that followed was awkward, but preferable, and all too brief as Lenk’s eyes drifted to the burning netherling.

“What did you find out?” he asked.

“Nothing useful.”

“You tear a longface open and apart and find nothing useful?”

Asper pointed to the dagger, its hilt jutting from its place wedged between the stones surrounding the fire it smoldered against. “I had to heat the damn blade to cut this one apart. They’re resilient. Amazingly so. Nothing you didn’t already know.”

“That’s it?”

She sighed. “If I had to offer any sort of advice, it would be to aim for their throat. They seemed to have the least amount of muscle there.”

“Handy. Hopefully Denaos has discovered something more useful from the big one.”

“Such as?”

“Where Jaga might be.”

“I thought Kataria had a plan for that.”

And, as a cold silence fell over them at the mention, Asper had the unique sensation that Lenk suddenly was staring intently at her throat.

“Then why,” she asked with some reluctance, “do you need Denaos?”

“Kataria’s plan might not work. Something could happen while we’re trying it.”

“Like what?”

The answer came just a moment too slow. “Something. There’s no sense in going into this without doing everything we possibly can.”

“I can agree with half of that sentence.”

“The one that means you’re going to be unbearably difficult and whiny about this?”

“You go blindly into a certain-death situation, recently wounded and not at all well, and I’m being difficult for expressing concern?” She rubbed her eyes, sighing. “This is different than before.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning I’m not just calling you insane to be charming, you stupid piece of stool.” She whirled on him, blood pumping too much to keep her mouth shut any longer. “This is not improbable, this is not even impossible-this is futile. Going completely blind into a situation where your best bets for success rely on a she-wolf who would just as soon abandon us the moment she thought our ears were too round and a cowardly, backstabbing thug who makes treachery into a hobby, searching for a stupid book to stop demons that had no interest in us until we went after the book so we could talk to a heaven that does not exist.”

He stared, blinking. His eyes widened just half a hair’s breadth, not entirely shocked. That was what made her scream.

“WHY? WHY ANY OF IT?”

It was not a voice familiar that replied to her. Too confident to be Lenk’s, too choked to be someone else’s; he spoke, he wanted to believe the words he was saying.

“Because the alternative is still death,” he said.

And Asper wasn’t quite sure who he was, who he was talking to or who he was trying to convince. It wasn’t Lenk, not the man who spoke with certainty and didn’t flinch. Not the man she had followed into this mess, not the man who had led her to that night and into those teeth. That man, for all she knew, was still back on that boat at the bottom of the ocean.

This man could only walk, and he didn’t even do that well. He turned around and clutched at his shoulder, at the sutured wound beneath his shirt. This man was weak. This man made her call out after him.

“Wait,” she said. She turned to a nearby rock, plucked up her medicine bag and walked to him. “At least let me make sure you won’t be blaming my stitching when you die.”

“You killed her.”

Bralston spoke once, then again, and the tree above Denaos’s head exploded. Lightning sheared the trunk apart and sent smoldering shards raining down upon him.

“You killed her,” Bralston insisted.

Hardly necessary, Denaos thought; it was hard to argue with a man in the right, even if that man could make trees explode with a wave and a word.

Another word, another clap of thunder, another explosion. This one farther away. A different tree. The Librarian, at the very least, did not know where he was. Small comfort. It was a small clearing on a small island and there was only so much vegetation to hide behind.

“You killed them all.”

He half expected the wizard to finish that train of thought that had been so frequent. He waited for the wizard to use his magic to open his skull up, read his mind, and tell him he was going to hell.

Well, that’s just ridiculous, he told himself. Wizards don’t believe in hell. And they can’t read thoughts, either. That’d be silly. Now, they might make your head explode and then read whatever’s splattered on the-

Another word came from the clearing.

Oh, right. He’s still there.

And fast on the word’s trail was the end of the forest. Everything to the man’s right, all the browns and greens and soft earth was eaten alive in a roar of flame. It cheered in a smoldering tongue, urging Denaos to be sporting and run.

Denaos obliged, scrambling on hands and knees as the fire raked the world behind him. The sundered tree groaned, split, and crashed behind him in a spray of cinders as the fire put it out of its misery. Smoke rose up in choking gouts.

He’s burning the whole damn thing down, Denaos thought. Absently, he wished he was more of a nature lover so he could fault this strategy, if only on ethical grounds.

Perhaps Bralston was more of a nature lover than he, or perhaps he could read minds, for in that instant, the fire stopped, sliding back into whatever orifice the wizard had spewed it from and leaving only a sky choked with smoke and an earth seared with ash.

Neither of which did anything to stifle the words Denaos could understand. “I didn’t know you well when you were posing as the Houndmistress’s advisor,” Bralston said, his voice sweeping the clearing. “I saw you, certainly, even met your gaze when she reached out to the Venarium for help. I didn’t know what you were, then, what you would do to the city and its people.”

He wants you to answer, Denaos thought as he slithered beneath a bush and peered out from the foliage. The wizard slowly scanned the forest line. He wants you to succumb to his taunts. A little insulting that he thinks you’ll fall for it, isn’t it? You should go out there right now and show him what you do to-

Oh, that is pretty clever of him, isn’t it?

“But I know you now,” Bralston continued, “under whatever name you pretend to have and whatever person you pretend to be. I’ve seen you. I know you’re smart enough to know that you won’t escape me. You and I both know that if you flee now I’ll hunt you down and your companions will join me, once they know.

“But more importantly,” he said, “I know you’re a man who prays. I don’t know to what gods and I won’t lie to you by saying I know what they’d say. I don’t know if they’ll ever forgive you.” He drew in a sharp breath, lowered his gaze. “But whatever you’re hoping for, wherever it is you think you’re going to go. .”

His eyes rose again, drifted over Denaos. Their eyes met.

“Your best chance lies with answering for what you’ve done. Here. By my hand.”

The wizard’s eyes lingered for only a moment before passing on. He hadn’t seen the rogue. Denaos wished he had.

And still, he found himself wondering if it was too late.

Reasonable men were driven by logic. The same logic that kept him alive all these years since he had opened her throat and killed the fourteen hundred and more. The same logic that stated that he could find salvation in doing good deeds, as good as adventurers could manage.

The same logic that said, eventually, he would die, and no matter how much good he did, he would face those people and her on equal footing.

Denaos was a reasonable man.

He closed his eyes and clambered to his feet. He felt the wizard’s eyes upon him, the approving nod, the hand that was raised, palm open and steaming with warmth yet waiting to be released into a fire. One that purified, removed a human stain and left the earth cleaner.

Something final was in order. Good deaths had those. Final words, maybe, whispered in the hopes that they would linger on the wind and find the way. Final prayers to Silf, a last-minute bargain to get whatever lay beyond his flesh to whatever lay beyond the sky.

Something solid, he thought as he opened his eyes and heard the wizard speak a word. Something dignified, he thought as he watched the fire born in Bralston’s palm.

“OH, GODS, NO!”

Not that.

But that was what came out. Of his mouth, anyway. What came out of the wizard’s palm was something distinctly bigger and red.

Not that he lingered to study it in any great detail. He was already darting under it as it howled in outrage, chewing empty air and stray leaves.

Self-preservation was a strong instinct. Terror was, too. Too strong for reasonable men to ignore.

Denaos would wonder which it was that made him dart under and away from the fire, that made him charge toward the wizard. Later. Right now, he didn’t care. Neither did his knife; it was an agreeable sort, leaping immediately to his hand as one eye narrowed on the wizard’s tender throat and the other glanced at his dangerous, fiery hands.

Who would have even thought to look at a wizard’s feet?

That no one ever would was small comfort to Denaos. Comfort that grew smaller as the wizard raised a foot and brought it down firmly upon sand that didn’t remain as such for long. The moment his sole struck, the earth rolled, rising up like a shaken rug. And like a leather-clad speck of dust, Denaos was hurled into the air.

Where he lingered.

Whatever force that had shook the earth slid effortlessly through the Librarian’s body, from foot to hand. One palm extended, the air rippling in a sightless line between it and Denaos, floating haplessly in the grip of it. The other clenched into a fist, withdrawing the fire that licked from it.

Only when Denaos felt the sensation of the sky turning against him, holding him suspended in insubstantial fingers, did he begin to think this was a little unfair.

“I offered you a chance,” Bralston said. “Something clean and quick that you didn’t deserve.”

“Clean and quick?” Denaos scoffed, not quite grasping the futility of it. “What is it about fire that suggests either to you, you bald little p-”

He didn’t feel bad about losing the insult. It was hard to hold onto when insubstantial fingers wrapped around his body and slammed him bodily into earth that quickly filled his mouth. The grip of unseen force tightened, raised him again. He hovered for a moment before it smashed him once more, earth coming undone beneath him, reshaping itself and crawling into every orifice.

Except the important ones, he thought, small pleasure in that.

Smaller still after he was smashed again and again. Each time, the earth ate the sound of screaming and of impact, rendering the sound of a man being killed into something quieter.

But the moment he thought he was going to choke on dirt, which came after the moment he thought was going to be crushed by the invisible hands, he was hauled into the sky. He stared down at an indentation of his body, noted that the nose looked a little squashed, before the wizard spoke a word.

He was twisted in the air. One hand turned into a fist. . or maybe it was a foot all along. Hard to tell with the invisible and insubstantial. Hard to think on it when whatever invisible limb slammed into his chest and slammed him against a tree. It seized his head-a hand, then, good to know-and smashed it against the tree. He came back dizzy, winded, fragments of bark stuck in his hair. . probably blood, too. Hard to think, hard to hear.

That must be why Bralston spoke so loud and clear as he approached to ten paces away from Denaos, holding one hand out, the air rippling before it.

“I don’t enjoy it, no,” the Librarian said, answering some unspoken question. “Because I can’t do this without looking at your face. And every time I see it, I see when it used to be tanned and your hair was dyed black, when you pretended to be a Djaalman and you looped your arm around the Houndmistress’s and pretended you were someone she could trust.”

“No,” Denaos groaned, “she wasn’t-”

“She was,” Bralston interrupted. “Everything you think she might have been, she was. She was the one who took our city away from criminals and who didn’t look at the people like commodities. She was going to end the vice dens and the gambling halls and the. . the whorehouses. They were all going to be people again.”

“Maybe we don’t get to choose to be that,” Denaos said, flashing a bloodied grin. “Maybe they would have found something else you hated. Maybe there’s no pleasing you.”

“Maybe. Maybe people are the way they are. And people who are the way you are exist.”

Bralston’s free hand went to his head, removed the wide-brimmed hat from it. He pressed his thumb against it, spoke a word, ran it along the steel ringing its interior. Like a hound stirred, the hat twitched. Toothy spikes grew in the wake of his digit, crinkling, growling in a way that only a man-eating hat could.

“This is going to be messy,” Bralston said.

Well, obviously, Denaos thought.

“I won’t apologize.”

Probably smart.

“You deserve this.”

Denaos looked up to heaven. And this is who you send to tell me that? I suppose you don’t mess around.

He looked back at the Librarian, who drew his hand back. He tossed the hat lazily at Denaos. It opened wide, teeth glistening, leather and steel jaws gaping.

And the rogue’s hand snapped. Before either man knew it, the dagger flew from his fingers and pierced the hat with a shriek of metal and pinned it to the earth. They looked down at the hat, writhing with whatever power animated it, and then up at each other.

And in that instant, Denaos knew the Gods loathed a heathen more than a sinner.

Maybe he would think about that later, when a knife didn’t leap so readily to his hand and fly from his fingertips like an angel.

It flew straight enough to be blessed, even if it didn’t strike. Bralston’s word was sloppy, the wave of his hand undisciplined as it formed force from air to send the dagger spiraling away. He raised his hand, pointed two fingers forward, the electricity eagerly crackling upon their tips.

And Denaos was already there, ducking under to seize the Librarian’s hand and thrust it upward. The rogue felt his arm shake as lightning flew into the sky, felt the stray current shoot down his arm as another whip of electricity shot off into nothingness. It throbbed angrily, shook muscle and bone, but he didn’t let go. The Gods had sent him a message.

He was determined to fulfill it. Or defy it. Whatever.

Bralston’s hand shot out, pressed against Denaos’s chest. That force that had hurled him into the air and slammed him into the earth now reached inside him, those intangible fingers slipping past his skin and through his ribs. They searched for something important enough, poking and probing before they found it.

And then they squeezed.

His lungs, maybe. Or his heart. He couldn’t afford to be choosy, not with the sensation of the air being wrung from him like dirty water from a rag. Bralston did not smile, did not give the slightest impression he was enjoying this.

A good man, one who should survive this fight. Wouldn’t be the first one who didn’t.

Denaos’s right hand jerked, his grip upon Bralston’s wrist shifting as the blade hidden in his glove came on spring and a bloody song. It shot through Bralston’s wrist in a single red note, accompanied by the Librarian’s howl.

The fingers inside Denaos retreated just enough to grip him by something more exterior and hurl him away. A ripping sound joined him as he did, like very fresh paper tearing.

Bralston was bleeding. Bralston was angry. He reached down, seized his bloodied wrist, fought to keep the blood inside him. He looked up as Denaos sprang to his feet, raised the blade over his head. Bralston narrowed his eyes upon the rogue.

And spoke a word.

Lenk felt no lighter as he peeled off his tunic, nor the shirt of mail that lay under it. When the coarse undershirt had been stripped and he sat, half-naked in the breeze, he didn’t feel cold. That should be odd to any other man.

“No room for that,” the voice answered his thoughts.

He didn’t answer.

“For cold, for pain, for anything. We have duty. We have things to kill. First her, then them, then them.”

He closed his eyes, listened to Asper’s footsteps as she came up behind him and set her medicine bag on the log beside him. She gave a cursory probe to the bandage covering his shoulder, gently eased it back to inspect the sutures. He should feel that.

“It speaks. The tome. It calls. To anything that will listen. But they can’t hear it. The demons can’t hear it. I can. Listen closely, you can, too. It calls us to the island, it-”

What if she’s right?

He hadn’t meant to think it, hadn’t meant for the voice to hear it, certainly hadn’t meant to interrupt it. The voice remained silent.

Where is the evidence? Where is heaven? Where do the demons even come from? The voice was not speaking. He was not speaking to the voice. But he felt its presence, something narrowing unseen eyes into a glare.

Ulbecetonth spoke of them as children. She begged me not to kill them. She wept for them. He rubbed his temple. She offered me escape. . to let me go in exchange for sparing her children. What kind of demon does that?

“You’re doubting.”

I’m wondering.

“There is no difference.”

That’s the problem, isn’t it? Everything seems different since last night.

“Last night?”

My sword feels too heavy. Everything does. Maybe it is doubt. . but uncertainty is difference enough, isn’t it?

“Nothing has changed,” the voice insisted with crystalline clarity. “Remove doubt. I will remove everything else. I will move you through pain, through fear. Your duty cannot be performed without me. I cannot fulfill my duty without you. Neither of us exist. Only we do.”

You say that, but if I don’t feel pain-

“You don’t.”

But-

“You aren’t.”

He wasn’t.

The netherling’s knife had struck hard. The wound was not light. The suturing had been painful and the blood had been copious. He had received such wounds before. He knew it should hurt now as Asper probed, touched, eased the red and irritated flesh around his sutures.

It didn’t.

“Well?” he asked, the voice matching wound in ire.

“You’re healing,” Asper said. “Some salve, regular poultices and keeping it covered and you’ll be all right.”

“Outstanding,” he said, reaching for his shirt. “See you when I get back.”

“Check that.” She placed a hand on his unmarred shoulder and pulled him back. “You need salve, poultice, bandage, and an understanding of past and progressive tense. You’re healing, not healed.”

“Then I will continue healing on the way to Jaga,” he growled.

“I know I’ve never really bothered to explain the intricacies of my craft, but medicine doesn’t quite work that way, stupid.” He heard her rustling about in her medicine bag. “You’re not going to be healing when you’re being eaten alive by snakes. . or lizards.”

“The Shen don’t eat people.” Lenk cast a glower over his back as she pressed a ripe-smelling poultice against his stitches. “We think, anyway. I mean, they’re reptiles and all, but so is Gariath and he’s never eaten someone. . all the way, anyway.”

“You’re being intentionally stupid now.” Her sigh was familiar, less tired and more frustrated. “Look, I don’t want you to die. This wound was tricky to stitch up and if you go around swinging your sword, it’ll eventually pop open and you’ll bleed out without me to help you.”

“There’s no telling what’s going to happen, and if the wound does open, Kataria can-”

“No,” the voice interrupted him before Asper could. “She cannot. We will not let her near us again.”

“She can’t,” Asper said. “I don’t care what she says, and I don’t care what you say, either. You’re going there to fight and, thusly, you’re going to die.” She cast a disparaging glance at the mail shirt lying in a heap with his other garments. “It’s stupid enough that you’re wearing that kind of weight, anyway.”

“It’s better to get used to carrying it now,” he said, “so I don’t get a wound like this again.”

“You know, another great way to avoid getting wounds would be to go back to that one plan you had,” she muttered. “The one where we don’t go chasing after books and return to the mainland and never see each other again. I liked that one.”

“That’s not going to happen.” The ire in Lenk’s voice rose, cold and clear. “And watch your mouth. Denaos will be upset if he finds out you’re trying to usurp his position as cynical worthless complainer.”

She tore the poultice away suddenly. Her hand came down in a swift, firm slap against his shoulder. He felt it sting, felt himself wince, knew it should have hurt a lot more. The trembling anger in Asper’s voice suggested she wholly expected it to.

“Don’t you dare compare me to him,” she whispered sharply. “He is a worthless, weeping coward who hides in the filth. I am trying to do what anyone with a conscience would, and offer you the intelligence that would save your life.”

“Coward,” the voice whispered.

“Coward,” he echoed.

“We don’t need her.”

“Don’t need anyone.”

“Pain is nothing to us. We will not be stopped by pain, nor blood, nor cowards.”

“We will not,” he said, “be stopped.”

He felt her eyes boring into the back of his skull, he felt her tremble. He felt her whisper something to herself, something that would make her hard. Something she didn’t believe.

“Do whatever you want, then,” she said, grabbing her medicine bag.

He felt her leave. She looked back, he was certain. She wanted to say something else.

“She won’t.”

“I know,” he said. “She’s harder these days, quieter. Like a rock.”

“Only pretending to be. She’s still as weak and decrepit as the rest. That is her betrayal.”

“Wait. . she betrays us because she’s weak?”

“A subtle sin, no less deadly. She wishes us to fail because she wants to fail. She refuses to mend our flesh. She tries to hold us back. She tries to infect us with doubt. This is her betrayal. This is what she dies for.”

“Dies. .” His voice rang with a painful echo, like it was speaking to itself.

“For betraying us,” it snarled. “They all die for that.”

“Yes, they die,” he said. “They all. . wait, why do they die? They. . they abandoned us, but-” He winced. “My head hurts. Like it did last night.”

“You speak of it again. Last night was dreamless, dark, restful.”

“No, it wasn’t. . it was. .”

“Enough,” it said fiercely. “Ignore it. Ignore them. Listen to us. Listen to what we do. We serve our duty. We find the tome.”

“But my head. .”

“Pain is nothing to us. Whatever happens, we will persevere. We will harden in ways that she cannot.”

Lenk found his eyes drifting to the fire, to the smoldering remains of the dismembered netherling, to the hilt of the dagger jutting out from the stones surrounding it. He saw it, glowing white with heat.

“Pain is nothing,” he whispered.

“Pain is nothing,” the voice agreed.

“There is no pain,” he said, rising up. “There will be no pain.”

“I did not say that.”

“And if you’re not lying, if there is no pain. .” He walked toward the fire, hand extended.

“I didn’t-” For the first time, the voice stammered. “What are you doing?”

His fingers wrapped around the hilt, felt the heat. He pressed it to his shoulder, and felt it burn.

“STOP!”

Bralston never heard the sound of his word.

He saw it instead.

He watched his word leave his throat. He watched his voice fly out on a gurgle and a thick red splash. He watched his life spatter softly upon the earth and settle in quivering beads.

He watched the blade, never having seen it as it struck. He watched as it glistened with his life. He watched as the murderer wiped it clean, pulled it back into its hiding place in his glove.

Like it was just another murder. Common.

And the murderer stood before him, already dusting off the earth from his body, the dark blood indistinguishable upon his black leathers. He looked at Bralston, weaponless, clean, as though he had never added another body to his debt.

All that remained to speak against him was Bralston. And Bralston’s voice lay in a thick puddle on the sand.

No.

He collapsed to his knees.

No, damn it.

He swayed, vision darkening.

Not like this.

He felt himself teeter forward.

Anacha, we were going to-

“Imone.”

He heard the word as he felt the hands steady him. He looked up, saw the murderer’s clean face, saw the murderer’s dead stare. The man removed his glove, pressing it against the bright red smile in Bralston’s throat. Not enough to save him, just enough for him to listen.

“Say it,” the murderer said.

Bralston gurgled.

“She wasn’t the Houndmistress. She had a name. Imone. Say it.”

“Im. . Ihmooghnay,” Bralston croaked.

The murderer stared at him. Almost insulted that a man with a cut throat should slur.

“She had a city,” the murderer said. “She had a name.” He stood up, let Bralston topple to the earth and splash in his own life. “One that should be spoken on the lips of dying men.”

He winced, as though he only now became aware of what he had done, as he stared at the just and moral choice leaking out onto the sand. He turned away, the sight too much to bear.

“Sorry,” he said.

He turned and walked into the forest, stopping only to pluck up his dagger and the hat, pitifully still, that had been pinned beneath its blade. Bralston raised his hand, trying to summon thought from a head draining, trying to summon voice from the earth. Enough for a spell, enough for a curse, enough for anything.

“You. .” he rasped, “you. . you. .”

“I know,” Denaos said.

The man ducked, vanishing into the underbrush. He was gone long before Bralston clutched at the spellbook at his hip. Long before Bralston cried out as he grasped at his leaking life.

Long before Bralston could see nothing but darkness.

The smell of ripe flesh cooking cloyed her nostrils.

One breath later, she heard him scream.

She whirled about. Through the smoke and the scent of char, she could see him. Bits of him.

His eyes were wide and yellow with the reflection of the heat. His face was stretched with agony, looking as though it might snap off and fly into the underbrush at any moment.

She rushed toward him, fist up and slamming against his jaw. The knife came off with pink strips of flesh curling into thin, gray wisps as it fell to the ground and sizzled into the sand.

Of all the oaths she had taken and hymns she had recited to Talanas, she was fairly certain she had, at one point or another, sworn not to do what she just did. But the Healer would have to understand, if He existed at all.

That worry would have to wait. Prayers and whatever other blows she had to complement the last, too. She made a point not to forget to deliver them, though.

Right now, her eyes were on the mass of molten flesh that bubbled like an undercooked pastry with a viscous, red-tinged filling. The sutures of gut were seared into his flesh, veining his shoulder in a tangled mass of black atop a cherry red and visibly throbbing skin. A parasite would have been a more accurate description, a fleshy tick gorged with blood that twitched as it drank deeply.

Proper metaphors were hard to come up with as he writhed in her grip and screamed in her ears.

“That hurt,” he gasped. Tears fled from the corners of his eyes, seeped into the twisted contours of his grimace. He reached up to grab his shoulder, fought to rise to his feet. “That really hurt.”

“You’re kidding,” she muttered. One hand came down firmly upon his bare chest, sending him to the earth and holding him there. The other wrenched his hand away from the wound. “Hold still.”

Closer up, it ceased to be a metaphor and she saw it for what it was: sealed up in a mass of ugly melted flesh, a seeping, weeping pustule begging for any number of infections dying to come in. The fury with which she sighed would have been better expended on cursing or punching.

“Should I even ask?” she snarled.

“Why didn’t you stop me?” he replied, eyes shut tight. “You should have stopped me.”

“What was I supposed to do?” She recoiled from the accusation, and not just because of the oddity of it all.

“You said there would be no pain.” His shrieking died, consumed in an angry growl. “You said there would be nothing.”

“I. . I never did!”

“Oh, you didn’t expect that?” His laugh was a black thing that crawled up her spine and made itself cozy at the base of her neck. “So, you don’t know everything?”

“Who are you talking to?” she pressed, her voice fervent. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Is it not yet obvious?”

A man’s voice came from behind her. Not the voice she wanted to hear. Not the man she wanted standing over her.

“He’s done something amazingly stupid again,” Denaos muttered. With a rather insulting lack of immediacy, he leaned over her shoulder, gingerly holding a broad-rimmed leather hat in his hands. “So, Lenk. .” He paused, smacking his lips. “Why?”

“Not important,” Lenk muttered. “Just fix it.”

He glanced from the knife, thin blobs of flesh still cooking on its blade, to Lenk. “Friend, considering what you’ve just done, I don’t think there is a way to fix you.”

“Shut up, shut up,” Asper growled. She frowned at the wound. “Just. . just get me my bag. Hurry.”

To his credit, Denaos did snatch up her bag with haste. It was a credit squandered, as ever, by what came out of his mouth next.

“It seems as though haste is kind of self-defeating, really,” he said, holding it out to her. “I mean, he’s never going to learn if you just keep fixing him up.”

She couldn’t spare a glare for him, nor anything more than an outstretched hand. “Charbalm.”

“What’s that?”

“The goopy gray stuff. I’ve got a little bit left.”

“A little bit doesn’t sound like enough,” Denaos said, rooting around in the bag haphazardly.

“It won’t be,” she snapped. “But it doesn’t matter. We’re in the middle of a Gods damned jungle. It’ll be a miracle if he isn’t already infected.”

He pulled a small wooden jar from the bag, flipping the latch on its lid and handing it to her. She poured some of the thick, syrupy liquid into her hand before snarling and hurling the jar at him.

“I said charbalm, moron! This is mutterbye! A digestive.”

“They’re not labeled!” the rogue protested, ably sidestepping the projectile.

“I said gray and goopy. How much more description do you need, you imbecile?” The insult was punctuated with a frustrated slap on Lenk’s shoulder and, a breath later, the scream that followed and sent her wincing at him. “Sorry.”

Denaos muttered something under his breath as he rooted through the jars, swabs, and vials, tossing each one upon the ground before producing something and thrusting it at her. Satisfied, she scraped out a thick paste and rubbed it upon the burn wound. Lenk eased into her arms, the salve apparently soothing some of the pain.

“Not enough,” she muttered.

“Why not?” Lenk asked.

“Possibly because I used it all trying to fix another idiot’s mistake weeks ago.” She sighed, spreading the salve with delicate precision. “Still, assuming bedrest and coverage, I can probably keep the infection down until we reach the mainland.”

“Can’t you use something local?” Denaos asked. “A root? An herb?”

“Charbalm requires more refinery than I can do with a mortar and pestle. You don’t find it outside of apothecaries.”

“Surely, there’s something. .”

“If I say there isn’t, then there isn’t.” Each word was spat between clenched teeth at the rogue. “You need tools to make charbalm: distillation, mincing, rare herbs and roots. . other healy stuff.”

“Healy stuff,” Denaos said flatly. “You know, between that and your enlightened description of the stuff as gray and goopy, I’m not sure I feel-”

“I don’t give a winged turd what you think,” she roared at him. “I am a PRIESTESS of TALANAS, you ASS. I know what I’m doing. Now give me a Gods damned bandage and then hurl yourself off a cliff.”

A man, quite possibly insane, lay burned and wounded in her arms. Another man, quite possibly dangerous, scowled at her with suspiciously dark stains on his tunic and another man’s hat in his hands. It was not, in any sense, the sort of situation where she should allow herself a smug, proud smile.

But, then again, she had just rendered Denaos speechless.

“What did you learn?” Lenk asked from Asper’s arms, voice rasping.

“About what?” Denaos growled, rifling through the bag, all humor vanished.

“You’ve had a day with the netherling. What did you find out about them? Jaga? Anything?”

“Not a lot, thanks for asking,” Denaos replied. “She’s as helpful as you’d expect a woman capable of reversing the positions of your head and your scrotum to be.”

“You’ve gotten better out of worse.” Lenk’s voice was strained with distant agony as he shrugged off Asper and staggered to his feet.

“I’ve had time to do that. Time and tools.”

“You’ve got a knife and you’ve had a day. What you got from Rashodd-”

“It’s not that simple.”

“And yet you-”

“It’s not that simple.” The narrow of his eye left nothing so light as a suggestion that not talking about it would be wise. A threat would be more accurate. “We won’t find anything useful from her.”

There had been times when Lenk’s voice commanded, times when his gaze intimidated. Despite size, despite injury, Asper knew both she and Denaos looked to him for reasons beyond those. But never did his voice inspire cringe and never did his gaze cause skin to crawl than when he spoke as he did now.

“Kill her.”

Denaos sighed, rubbed his eyes. “Is that necessary?”

“Well, I don’t know, Denaos. When it comes to killing women who are capable of reversing the positions of your head and your scrotum, is it more necessary or practical?”

“What, exactly, makes this one any different from the others you’ve killed?” Asper asked, rising up and dusting off her robes. The gaze she fixed on Denaos was less scornful than he deserved; perhaps she simply had to know.

“It’s complicated,” the rogue offered, not bothering to look at either of them.

“It is not,” Lenk insisted, his voice cold. “We get the tome. We kill anyone who is in our way.”

“She’s tied to a chair in a hut.”

“She’s dangerous.”

“She’s not going anywhere.”

“Not yet. Not ever.” Lenk narrowed his eyes. “No loose ends. Our duty depends on it.”

When Denaos looked up into the man’s stare, his own was weary. His voice dribbled out of his mouth on a sigh.

“Yeah. Fine. What’s one more, right?”

He flipped the wide-brimmed hat in his fingers, tossed it to Lenk. The young man caught it, looked it over, furrowed his brow.

“This is Bralston’s,” he noted.

“And now it’s yours.” He slipped on a smile. “It’s just that easy.”

He turned, disappeared into the forest. Lenk stared at the hat in his hands for a moment before turning to Asper.

“Fix whatever else you need to fix with my shoulder,” he said. “I leave in an hour.”

“And Denaos?”

“Stays here with you and Dread. We have a better chance of slipping in with fewer people.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

Lenk didn’t seem to hear. Or care. She told herself that was rather a wise attitude to have for the rogue. The less she cared, the better. Less chance of him failing, then.

That was a wise attitude. Reasonable.

She tried to convince herself of it as she plucked up her bag and produced a bandage and swab. She looked at Lenk as he knelt down to collect his shirts and the agitated red mass upon his shoulder, glistening with too little salve.

“Why?” she asked.

“Because,” his voice was gentle, “I wanted to see if it would hurt.”