her stare and ward her from the question he had posed. It had not been the first time he had seen that stare, but it had been the first time he had seen it in her eyes.
And that was when everything went wrong.
Like any man who had the right to call himself scum, Denaos was religious by necessity. He was an ardent follower of Silf, the Severer of Nooses, the Sermon in Shadows, the Patron. Denaos, like all of His followers, lived and died by the flip of His coin. And being a God of fortune, Silf’s omens were as much a surprise to Him as to His followers. Any man who had a right to call himself one of the faithful would be canny enough to recognise those omens when they came.
Denaos, being a reasonable and religious man, had.
And he had acted, running the moment her back was turned, never stopping until the forest had given way to a sheer stone wall, too finely carved to be natural. He hadn’t cared about that; he followed it as it stretched down a long shore, where it crumbled in places to allow the lonely whistle wind through its cracks.
Perhaps, he wondered, it would lead to some form of civilisation. Perhaps there were people on this island. And if they had the intellect needed to construct needlessly long walls, they would certainly have figured out how to carve boats. He could go to them then, Denaos resolved, tell them that he was shipwrecked and that he was the only survivor. He could barter his way off.
He glanced down at the bottle of liquor, its fine, clear amber swirling about inside a very well-crafted, very expensive glass coffin. He smacked his lips a little.
Or, he considered, maybe he would just die out here. That could work, too. He’d be devoured by dredgespiders, drown in a sudden tide, get hit on the head with a falling coconut and quietly bleed out of his skull, or just walk until starvation killed him.
All decent options, he thought, so long as he would never have to see her again.
‘Do you remember how we met?’ she had asked, staring at him.
He had nodded. He remembered it.
Theirs had been an encounter of mutual necessity: hers one of tradition, his one of practicality. She was beginning her pilgrimage, to spread her knowledge of medicine to those in need. He was looking to avoid parties interested in mutilating him. Their motives seemed complementary enough.
It wasn’t unheard-of for people with either problem to hang on to an adventuring party to get the job done. Though, it had to be said there were a fair bit more adventurers suffering his problem than hers.
They had met Lenk and the creatures he called companions: a hulking dragonman, a feral shict. They had looked strong, capable and in no shortage of wounds to inflict or mend, and so the man and the woman had left the city with them that same day. They had gone out the gate, trailing behind a man with blue eyes, a bipedal reptile and a she-wolf.
She had smiled nervously at him.
He had smiled back.
‘We met Dread not long after,’ she said. He had thought he could make out traces of nostalgia in her smile … or violent nausea. Either way, she was fighting it down. ‘And suddenly I was in the middle of a pack consisting of a wizard, a monster, a savage and Lenk. I wanted to run.’
So had he. He hadn’t been planning on staying with them longer than it took to escape the noose, let alone a year. But he had found something in the companions and their goals that, occasionally, helped people.
Opportunity, however minuscule, for redemption, however insignificant.
‘And I couldn’t help but think, through it all,’ she had sighed, looking up at the moon, ‘“Thank you, Talanas, for sending me another normal human.”’ Her frown was subtle, all the more painful for it. ‘Back when I had no idea who you were, you seemed to be the only familiar thing I could count on. We were the same, both from the cities, believed in the Gods, knew that, no matter what happened, we had each other to fall back on. So I stayed with them, no matter how much I wanted to run, because I thought you were …’
‘But you are what you are.’ She had looked up to him, something pitiful in her right eye, something desperate in her left. ‘Aren’t you?’
‘No,’ he had said.
‘What?’ she had asked.
‘Hot, hot, hot …’ Dreadaeleon had whispered.
And she had turned to the wizard.
And Denaos had dropped the torch and run.
It was a sloppy escape, he knew. She might come looking for him. He hoped she wouldn’t, what with him having threatened to cut her open, but there was always the possibility. He knew that the moment he had looked into her eyes and she had looked past his, into something deeper.
She had seen the face he showed her and realised it wasn’t his. And in her eyes, the quaver of her voice, he knew she would want to know. She would want to know … everything.
And he had worked too hard for her to know. Things had become sloppy even before he beat his retreat. She had heard him whisper over her. She had seen his face slip off. She had seen something in him that didn’t make her turn away.
He couldn’t have that.
Better for it to end this way, he thought as he rested against the wall and took a long, slow sip from the bottle. Better for her to never know anything. If he had stayed, she would keep pushing. If she kept pushing, he would eventually break. He would come to trust her.
And she … she would begin to relax around him, a man that no one should relax around. She would sigh with contentment instead of frustration. She would stop twitching when she heard him approach. She would give him coy smiles, demure giggles and all the things ladies weren’t supposed to give men like him.
She would come to trust him.
He blinked. Red and black flashed behind his eyelids. A woman lay beside him and smiled at him, twice: once with her lips, once through her throat.
He shook his head, pulled the bottle to his lips and drank deeply.
It was all very philosophically sound. It was better for her, he thought, that he leave. That was a lie, he knew, but it was a good lie, a sacred lie blessed by Silf. The Patron would be pleased at such a reasonable, philosophical man.
But philosophy, too, required honesty. And like any philosophical man without honesty, Denaos turned once more to drinking.
He was in a haze, but a pleasant one. The lies were making sense now. The logic was clear and, most importantly, he could close his eyes and see only darkness. The drink did that for him. It made everything quiet.
And everything was quiet. The mutter of the ocean was distant and faint. The sound of stone was earth- silent. The clouds moved across the moon without any fuss from the wind that gently hurried them along. Everything was quiet.
So quiet that he heard the whispers with painful clarity.
They began formlessly, babble rising over the grey stone without words. But as they hung over him, they coalesced, formed a spear that plunged into his head with a shriek. Accusations lanced his mind, condemnations tore at his brain, pleas punched a hole in his skull for so much hateful, violent screaming to pour. It was enough to make him drop his bottle and torch alike and fall to his knees.
His dagger was out and the whispering faded. His head pounded, his eyes sought to seal themselves shut. He strained to keep them open as he looked up and caught a glance at the far end of the wall.
And his blood went cold.
Slender fingers gripped the edge. Half a face peered from behind, locks of long and dark hair framing pale cheeks with a broad and horrifically unpleasant smile. An immense eye, round, white and knowing stared at him.
