Previous Chapter

Andre woke up to an unfamiliar sensation, like the world was slowly moving beneath him for some reason. It wasn’t the whole world, of course, just the ship rocking beneath him as the waves lapped against it, but he had never woken up on a ship before and the experience alarmed him. Andre began to roll out of bed but stopped short with a groan when he realized he was sore all over his body, from the place where his head and neck met all the way down to the knuckles of his toes.

His side was particularly tender. It might have been his imagination but Andre felt like he could identify exactly where the goblin cat had scratched him by the burning sensation in his ribs. He probed at the injury carefully, surprised to find it had been rebandaged while he was asleep. Finally Andre opened his eyes and took stock of his situation.

There wasn’t much to see. A little light came in through a small porthole high up in the room’s wall, filling the small storage room with thin yellow light. Andre lay atop a pile of blankets that served as a makeshift bed. The rest of the room was full of barrels emitting strange, harsh scents he couldn’t identify. Behind his head was a door, which he didn’t notice until it opened and Isobela slipped in through it.

“I thought I heard you making noise in here,” she said, kneeling beside him and placing a hand on his forehead. “It’s about time you were up and about.”

“Is it?” Andre asked, trying to work out what was going on. “Did I miss call time for the show?”

“No, though that’s no credit to you.” She set a bucket of water on the floor, pulled a rag out and wrung the water from it then began gently sponging down his forehead. “We didn’t perform in the city yesterday, the whole city was a madhouse.”

“Yesterday?” Andre frowned, trying to count out the days in his head.

“You’ve been asleep for almost two days,” Isobela said, lifting up his tunic to examine the dressing on the wound in Andre’s side. “We were worried your cut was infected. It finally stopped weeping overnight so hopefully it will heal without needing any serious attention from me.”

Andre clamped his hands at his side to keep them away from his neck, which still bore the marks of the last time she’d given an injury serious attention. “How did you find me here?”

She smiled. “The captain sent a few of his men to fetch us.”

He tried to sit up again, saying, “Then we should get back to the rest of the troupe soon.”

“They’re aboard already,” Isobela said, pushing him back down. “We’ve been invited to perform in Torrence to celebrate the Prince’s upcoming wedding and the Maestro thinks it would be a good place to spend the rainy season as well.”

“Ah.” For the first time in what seemed like ages, Andre let himself relax. “Then they’re gone.”

“If you mean your friends then I haven’t seen them, although someone did leave this in the room with you.” She reached up and pulled a package wrapped in wax paper off the top of one of the barrels. “The sailor who showed us where you were said it was for you.”

He studied the thing for a moment, confused. “What is it?”

“Not my place to tamper with it, though if you want to tell us after you open it both the Maestro and I have been dying to know.”

Andre crinkled the package in his hands. It felt like cloth, which was a bit curious but maybe not surprising given how many different costumes he’d left the troupe with. Maybe Sophia had repaired the damaged ones for him. He figured it couldn’t hurt to let Isobela see what it was so he untied the twine and pulled it open. Inside he found a couple of notes on top of a small pile of fabric that unfolded into two articles of clothing.

The first was his hat. The leather hat band had been removed and placed inside it then the pointed top had been carefully folded over to fit it into the package. Its broad brim still cast an unnaturally dark shadow but the points of light beneath it had faded until they were almost impossible to make out. Andre wondered if the magic the Fair Folk had given it was fading or if he just needed to put it on again to refresh it.

He set the hat aside and examined the garment beneath it. At first glance he thought it was some kind of shirt or tunic but as he unfolded it and held it up he realized it was a long cloak with a high collar. The fabric had a smooth, satiny sheen to it. The harder he tried to study it the fewer details he could make out, the cloth turning nearly transparent in front of his eyes.

Andre set it aside before it fully vanished, picked up the notes and read the one on top.

Andre,

My mother and I made this for you. Hopefully it will be compensation for the clothes you lent us last night, some of which we could not salvage. We wove the scraps together with a bit of cat fur. Not the most refined materials but the result should be useful to you, especially if you choose to continue with your new role. If it should ever need repair, come to my shop in Torrence. I will fix it at no charge.

Sophia

He read the note twice, at once grateful for a gift far beyond anything he expected and annoyed that she hadn’t included any directions for how exactly the thing worked. Clearly it wouldn’t make him invisible all the time, which was handy, but he would have to work out how to turn it invisible when he needed it. He moved on to the next note, which was longer and written in a much bolder hand.

Andre,

My duties force me to continue on my way before I can properly offer you the thanks I owe you. Not only have you worked tirelessly to ensure the safety of my family, you have done so with very little profit in view for yourself. I am not a rich man, nor am I or my patrons in a position to make your great services to us known. My daughter assures me you have little interest in such things and, based on our own brief acquaintance, I can believe it.

That doesn’t absolve me of the necessity of offering some payment for the services you have done for me. First, I have arranged for your troupe to perform at the wedding festival of a notable figure we are both acquainted with. Hopefully this will help you travel safely, at least for the next few months, as the Captain will safely see you to Ansio and onwards to Torrence, where enthusiastic audiences will doubtless flock to you in abundance.

Beyond that, I can offer only two pieces of advice.

Avoid the Borgias. They are wealthy and powerful, to be sure, and their leader spends freely on art and performances just as much as anything else so he may seem a tempting ally for one such as yourself. But I have seen much of what he does in the shadowed corners of Nerona and I assure you, the things you have seen from him here are very tame in comparison to what he is truly capable of. Do not accept any offer he may give you.

Also, it would be best not to return to Fionni, at least not under the name you gave to Phillipe. Already the tale of what happened in the Citadel has spread. I and my patron are grateful for your work but the Magistrate and his men are unlikely to forgive the humiliation or the deaths that came with it. Until the situation changes, consider the city closed to you.

Stay well, Andre, and may we meet again.

Coraggio del Rhodes

Andre lowered the note to find Isabela studying the cloak with a critical eye. “This is very well made. Did the girl stitch it?”

“Yes, Sophia is a raveller and aspiring seamstress, hoping to open a shop in Torrence.”

“Oh?” Isobela gave him an amused look. “Her work is quite good. Is she interested in travelling? We could use a costumer and it would let her stretch her skills much further than making the same ‘fashionable’ dresses every season.”

“She seemed quite set on her own place.” He wasn’t sure why Isobela was suddenly interested in adding a seamstress to the troupe when she’d always insisted it was better if all the stagehands knew enough to keep their wardrobe intact. “Besides, she’s already left and I doubt we’re going to see each other again.”

“Ah! That’s often the way of things.” She tutted and neatly folded his cloak, setting it aside so she could sit beside him on the blanket and wrap one arm gently around his waist. She pulled his head down and rested it on her shoulder and patted his cheek softly. “It will work out.”

He wasn’t sure what brought on Isobela’s sudden burst of motherly affection but Andre decided not to question it. The last few days had been horrible. Now that Sophia, Bella, Charissa and Ragi were gone, and with no show in the near future, he felt a bit lost. After such simple, straightforward focus on a single task it was hard having nothing to direct his energy towards.

He tried to clear his mind and let his body relax. Andre really wanted to work on something but his wounds still ached and he was sure his mind was just as tired.

However, while his body was happy to sit at rest his thoughts had just woken up. Memories of his adventure in and under the fortress were beginning to stir and everything from the panic of being trapped underhill to the pain of the goblin cat’s claws clamored for his attention. Andre took deep breaths, trying to clear them away, but it didn’t work. So he focused on the gentle rocking of the boat and the reassuring touch of Isobela, fingering the rough fabric of the blanket to ground him in the here and now.

After some time, he couldn’t say how much, the memories receded one by one. He had bargained with the Fair Folk, escaped the goblin cat, left fire between himself and the guards and even escaped from the stolen sight of the Blind Man. He was safe.

Except, under it all were the parting words of the King of Scars.

Andre straightened up, pulling his head away from Isobela’s touch, and said, “Tell me about when you and the Maestro found me.”

She frowned, confused by the sudden request. “You haven’t asked about that in years, Andre.”

“I know. But now I need to hear it again.”

Her expression said she didn’t understand but she nodded anyway and began the tale.

Previous Chapter

Andre crashed and rolled across the ground, dragging Giovanni’s corpse with him a short distance before the rough ground of the cavern dragged him to a stop. A wave of revulsion pulled Andre back to his feet, backing away from the man’s body. The memories of his brief encounter with the face of death were already fading into the back of his mind. The present was more pressing.

With a quick spin Andre took in the situation and found it was shaping up in their favor, at least to an extent. Fabian still cradled his head in one hand but he looked like he was rallying. However, his surviving soldier was no longer watching the fight between Erasmus and Ragi. Instead, the man had turned around and conjured a gangplank that covered the twenty feet between the shoreline and their boat.

Securing a line of retreat might have been a sound strategy. Andre couldn’t say for sure. What he could tell was that it left one of Fabian’s sets of eyes looking in the wrong direction while the other, Erasmus, was locked in a death grip with Ragi. With one conjuror dead and the other busy with the gangplank there was no one to send out a new chain for the thin man to escape with. Andre did see one chain still running across the ground but it was too far from Erasmus to be useful.

Just like that, Andre realized he was off stage. No one was paying attention to him, making it the perfect chance to reset for the next scene, which should probably be some kind of quick escape. In order to pull that off, he was going to have to move the players about some.

He dashed over to Fabian and grabbed the blind man by the belt, hosting the flailing man up on one shoulder. In the process he felt his side, where the goblin cat had scratched him earlier, light up in pain. Fabian generously added to it by flailing at that spot with his cane. Teeth gritted, Andre advanced a few more paces to the water’s edge and threw the other man in, though not before checking to ensure he wouldn’t land on a submerged rock. The blind man may be, as Ragi had said, a nasty one but Andre wasn’t looking to carry any more blood guilt if he could avoid it.

Fabian came up, sputtering and yelling, attracting the attention of his guard, who leapt into the water after him. With the way clear, Andre dashed out across the gangplank towards the ship. He almost made it before the other conjuror noticed and sent the board away, leaving him flailing in midair for just a second before he tumbled into the water.

Swimming was not a skill Andre had ever needed. Even though most of Nerona was within a few days of the coast, willingly entering the ocean was not safe so he’d never bothered to learn. If the boat had been more than a few feet away from him he might have been lost for good. Thankfully, between his forward momentum and a few flailing strokes as the water closed around him, Andre was able to get close enough to the ship to grab its anchor chain and use it to drag himself onto the deck.

For a moment he lay there on his back, gasping for air. Then the cavern lit up with a blinding blue light and a shrieking, crackling noise ripped through the air. Andre scrambled to his feet and peered over the rail. The center of the slope was filled with a blinding knot of surging, writhing lightning that Ragi was wrestling with. The energy lashed about, blasting stalactites and stalagmites to pieces and melting patches of the dirt, but never quite breaking free of the stout man’s grasp.

In fact, as Andre watched Ragi seemed to crush the bolt down little by little, until its entire length was trapped between his two palms. Then he took three steps down, hoisted it up over his head and flung it down into the water. There was a flash, a sharp crack, then the entire underground bay lit up with a spiderweb pattern. By instinct Andre reached up and rubbed his eyes. It might have taken a normal man minutes or even hours to get all his vision back after witnessing such a display but whatever magic the Fair Folk had put in his hat seemed to compensate for the sudden changes in light and he was still able to see what was happening.

Which wasn’t actually a great deal. Of course the lightning bolt had been Erasmus, who must have transformed in a last ditch effort to escape Ragi only to wind up thrown into the water instead. Unlike Andre, Erasmus proved able to swim, though the shock he had released into the cove had left his two allies twitching and flailing about. The thin man had grabbed hold of Fabian’s collar and looked like he was trying to drag the two of them back to land.

Sophia and Ragi were making their way down the slope at a breakneck pace. They would reach the waterline in just a few seconds which meant Andre needed some way to reach them. Conjuring a gangplank of his own was not going to work, his Gift didn’t have the stamina left for it. He cast about the deck of the ship, hoping to discover something that would help, but all he saw was rope, the anchor chain and a barrel that smelled like tar. There was also a hatch that led below decks but he didn’t have a chance to open it. He had just reached out to it when the boat rocked underfoot.

Bella pulled the invisible cloth off of her head and hopped off of Charissa’s back, bunching the fabric up and setting it to one side then setting a pair of shoes on top of it. The shoes were clearly Charissa’s because the only thing on her feet were a pair of thin socks or slippers that looked like gleaming fish scales. She grabbed one of the ropes off the deck and jumped off the boat, running back to shore on the surface of the cove, her slippers never quite touching the water. Bella grabbed the rope and helped it feed evenly.

Once he got over his surprise Andre joined her and helped her drag Ragi sputtering back through the water to the boat. Charissa hoisted her daughter on her back and carried her across in much the same way she had Bella. They hoisted Ragi up out of the water about the same time Erasmus scrambled onto shore, dragging his two companions behind him.

For a moment Andre felt like their eyes met. Erasmus drew himself up to his full height, studying the distance between the shore and the boat. Then he spat into the water and hoisted Fabian over one shoulder, beginning the long climb up the slope towards the keep. “Grab an oar,” Ragi said. “He may have retreated for now but once the garrison knows we’re here Phillipe will be down on our heads.”

Andre was no sailor or gondolier but the ship handled well enough that they were able to get it out to sea with no real issue. The channel was very short and let them out through a narrow gap between two low cliffs. Once onto the open ocean they found a current that took them away from the shore at a brisk pace. Ragi determined the tides would turn about in another hour or so, which he thought would make it easier for them to reach the docks and slip into the city quickly. So Andre hunkered down at one end of the deck and waited.

As he sat there his mind wandered and a thick blanket of exhaustion settled over him, like a physical object that pressed him down to the deck. His vision went fuzzy and he began to drift away from the world. A moment later a hand lightly touched him on the arm and he jerked upright, looking around in confusion. Sophia knelt on one side of him, Bella on the other, both looking concerned.

Andre started to get to his feet, saying, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, nothing,” Bella said hastily, gently pushing him back down as the two joined him on the deck. “I wasn’t sure if you were all right.”

“Just tired.” Andre settled back in, rubbing absently at his aching side.

Bella took a deep breath, studying the deck in front of her with an intensity that seemed unnecessary. “Andre, I’ve been thinking about what you said after you found us in the keep. It seems you don’t care why the Magistrate and the Borgias were looking for us or why we were trying so hard to avoid them. You don’t care who I am. You spent half of the money Ragi gave you on that fire jar you made to distract the guards and you never asked for any more payment…” She fidgeted with the hem of her skirt for a moment, clearly looking for words. “What… Why did you…”

“It’s my part.” Andre knew it was true as the words left his mouth. “The Maestro and his wife found me in a gutter and gave me everything they could and in turn I’ve never felt like I fit with them. Not quite. Not really. I didn’t have a part to play until today.”

She gave him a look he didn’t quite understand, a kind of measuring look that made it seem like she had finally figured out how he fit into the world. “If that’s the case, Andre, then may you play your part for as long as you can. We’ll do what we can to help you.”

“We?” Andre smiled a thin little smile. “Who’s we?”

Bella matched his expression. “Torrence.”

She got up and moved over to Charissa, the two women beginning a whispered conversation he couldn’t follow. He looked over at Sophia. “What was that about?”

“I think they’re just making sure you’ll look the part in the future,” she said with a sly look. “Don’t worry about it. She’s always had a strong sense of accountability when it comes to things like this.”

Andre nodded absently, his mind offering him a new question. “Sophia, where is Rhodes? I’ve seen two thirds of Nerona and heard stories about the rest but I’ve never heard of a place by that name.”

“Oh, it’s at the bottom of the Gulf of Lum. My family hasn’t held title to any meaningful bit of land since the Tide Caller drowned it centuries ago.” She gave a helpless shrug. “We took refuge with the Vinoverdes and they’ve been good to us ever since so maybe it wasn’t a total loss.”

“I’ve visited Vinoverde county once,” he mused. “It didn’t strike me as a place that had a huge need for tailors or seamstresses.”

For some reason that made Sophia smile, saying, “No, it really doesn’t. That’s why I’ll be staying in Torrence, with Bella, once she’s married. At least for a little while.”

“I see.”

“Where will you be going next, Andre?”

He shrugged. “The Maestro keeps his own council on such things. The troupe is doing well enough for now, though the seasons will turn soon and we’ll probably have to find a larger town or city to wait out the rains in another month or so. We’ll have to wait and see.”

“Andre,” Ragi called from the prow of the boat. “It’s time to start for shore.”

He nodded and grabbed his oar.

None of them understood sails so they had to row in by hand, which meant another half hour of sweaty work, followed by a quick hop onto an empty dock. They lost themselves in the streets for a time, weaving in and out of alleys seemingly at random. Eventually Ragi brought them to another set of docks in another part of the city, by which point Andre was so lost he wasn’t even sure which direction the keep was in anymore. A large, two masted ship waited there.

The crew seemed to recognize Ragi because they let him on without question and ushered the five of them down below decks. A fast, quiet conversation began between Ragi and a member of the crew who seemed important. Andre tried to follow it for a few seconds but couldn’t quite keep up so he found a place to sit atop a large pile of rope, leaned against the side of the hull and immediately fell asleep.

Previous Chapter

Something was very wrong.

The moment Andre felt the impact with the ground things changed. At first he thought the change in color resulted from his seeing stars, a side effect of his collision with the archer and subsequent fall. But the reddish brown glow did not flicker or spark the way one might expect from a hand hit. It shone out as steady as the sun, a constant presence casting the whole cavern in its dull, unnatural hue.

The light was coming from a place just over Andre’s left shoulder. Positioned as he was, tangled with the soldier, he had no view of what the new source of illumination in the grotto was and he couldn’t quite extract himself to look. He felt rigid. So did the conjuror he’d just tackled to the ground, as if his limbs had all seized and would never move again.

Andre, isn’t it? I did not expect we would meet again.

The sound that filled the cavern formed words but didn’t have the pitch or tamber of a human voice. It screamed and groaned like a dying man. It was punctuated by the clash of swords, the shriek of metal on metal, the crunch of horrible impacts and the tears of the wounded. It came from the source of the unnatural light. That much Andre knew with certainty. Other memories floated up, images and whispers long forgotten, things his own mind may never have really registered when they happened. He knew what he would see before the thing stepped in front of him.

It was a towering figure, shaped like a man but filling the grotto from top to bottom, shedding rusty illumination as if lit from within. Within the figure there were no distinct features like a face, clothes or jewelry. Instead it swirled with chaotic images that shifted faster than human eyes could follow, though they left Andre with a sinking impression of violence and death. Over the figure’s head the light seemed arranged in a great crown, except the points drifted lazily back and forth. It looked more like ribbons or hair than a true crown.

As if recognition changed something Andre found he could move again. Scrambling to his feet he squared up against the creature and said, “Have you come for me, King of Scars?”

The figure raised one hand and waved it in front of its chest, unfurling a long scroll that hung in the air in front of it. Your name is not on my list today, Andre.

It was true, from what he could see. The names on the scroll were plain to see, though there were dozens if not hundreds of them and most were written in languages he’d never seen before. “Then why are you here?”

Why do you think?

The King of Scars traditionally came to guide souls that died of violence, at least by Neronan reckoning. So the answer to the question should be obvious. “What I mean is, why can I see you? The Kings at the Corners appear to those on the edge of Eternity, to usher their subjects into the beyond. If I’m not on your list there’s no reason for us to meet.”

The figure rolled the scroll in its hands until it reached an empty spot just below a name. It’s in my nature, Andre. I made a promise the last time we met and I’m here to keep it.

“Promise?” Another wave of familiarity washed over him, a sensation that he knew something about what the King spoke of but couldn’t place why. Andre rubbed his face in his hands, trying to clear his head. Instead he found he could see through his hands.

He jerked upright and stared about, finding that no one in the grotto was moving. Fabian was mid stagger, his hands cradling his head, while his other guard was still in the process of heaving. Up slope, Erasmus and Ragi were in the middle of some kind of exchange of blows. Electricity arced from Ragi’s hand towards the thin man’s arm, reaching out with bright, blinding tendrils that should have finished their journey in the blink of an eye. Instead they hung in the air as if waiting. Within all of the people was a dimly glowing essence, almost impossible to see in the brighter light shed by the King of Scars but still there, if he looked.

Andre looked down at his hands again and understood it was the light of the soul. His own body was a few feet behind him, on the ground with the archer he had just bowled over, but it didn’t glow because Andre’s soul had risen up to meet the King.

The archer’s body didn’t glow either.

His voice a whisper, Andre asked, “What promise are you here to keep?”

The figure held the scroll out for him to read the name written just above the open spot. Giovanni Conjure. It was written in a firm, precise hand with Neronan letters. I promised that, so long as it was in my power, I would allow you to live a life free of violence and blood guilt.

Andre turned his attention to the place where the King’s face would have been, had he been a normal person, and immediately regretted it. For a brief second he thought he saw the moment Giovanni’s head struck the cave floor. His stomach clenched and Andre had to take a few deep breaths before he could speak again. “So long as it was in your power. But you can only touch the lives of men at the moment of death. The omens, the incense, the prayers of the Heralds… those are just us begging for your attention or imagining we’ve found it. This is the first time you’ve been able to keep that promise.”

The figure cocked its head to one side, as if studying something it hadn’t expected to find. Strange that you remember that detail but not so many others. Still, you are correct. I am here because you have killed a man, Andre, and that put him on my doorstep, under my jurisdiction.

“So what?” Andre yanked his gaze away from the creature before him, turned his attention back to Ragi’s duel, as if the blinding lightning could purge the figure from his vision. “Are you saying I’m guilty of that man’s death?”

Of course.

It was such a blunt, direct answer Andre nearly laughed at it. Nearly. His stomach clenched, the air came up his throat, but somehow the sound emerged in a groan instead. “Then you can’t do much to keep me from blood guilt, can you?”

On the contrary, it is a simple thing to do. You remember much of my nature, don’t you? Every soul that is ready to pass beyond must go through one of four gates and I guard the gate of Scars. When their time comes I send them through… or return them to life, if their reasons to remain are just.

“Odd that the four of you return so few, then.”

Is it? There are vanishingly few just things in this, or any world, Andre.

“I suppose you’ve already heard Giovanni’s reasons to live?”

I have.

“Then it seems he was lacking as well.”

No more so than anyone else who has died today, or most days.

“Then what is there for -”

I made a promise, Andre. It is within my power to allow a trade, one for one. It’s a rare gift, you know, and an opportunity that most people will never see in their lives. The King of Scars tapped one finger on the scroll. For a brief moment it looked like a human hand, old and weathered and wrapped in bandages, the finger trembling with age and exhaustion, before it returned to its luminous form. This is the only avenue I can offer you to escape blood guilt. Write your name here and I will return him, then you will be free of guilt and we will depart for Eternity.

Andre stared at the figure in horror. “How?”

It is within my power.

“How can it be in your power?” Andre demanded, a familiar warmth building up within him until it overwhelmed the guilt in his stomach. “How can it be just? How can you so casually offer to trade lives like they are coins, fit to be swapped back and forth for favors or promises?”

Does it make a difference?

“Of course it does! How are you any different from him?” He jabbed a finger at Fabian. “He dragged Giovanni here so he could drag Charissa off to.. I don’t know where they were going but he plans to keep her from her family! Plus whatever the Borgias are planning to do with Belladonna! You cannot treat lives so cheaply!”

You think I find them cheap?

“They don’t seem to be any more than names on a list to you! How is that any different from the way Conte Vallemarmo treated Oliviamonde?”

He did not know their names, for one thing. He did not speak to them before they passed to Eternity, as I do. In truth, he was much like you.

The wrath building in Andre’s gut was snuffed out in an instant. “What do you mean?”

Why does Grigori Borgia desire Belladonna Vinoverde and Charissa de la Rhodes?

“I…” Andre cast his gaze about the cavern, hoping to catch a glimpse of the women in question and gain a burst of insight. Yet even in his current state he couldn’t see them. “I don’t know.”

Why does the Magistrate of Fionni tolerate the Borgias working against the interests of his liege, the Prince of Torrence?

“How could I possibly guess?”

Why did Giovanni Conjure choose to fight on behalf of the Blind Man, rather than employ his talents in much safer ways?

Andre reluctantly turned to look at the man he’d just slammed to the ground. He looked shockingly normal, frozen in the moment of his death. His mouth was slightly open, perhaps still gasping with the force of Andre slamming into him, and his eyes were wide in surprise. But the back of his skull was pressed against a stalagmite that Andre hadn’t noticed behind him. There could be no doubt about how he died.

Or who had done it.

“I don’t know. How could I know?”

Then you know even less than the Conte knew when he put Oliviamonde to the torch. I know this. Vinchezo Vallemarmo has long since passed through my gate into Eternity.

Andre looked back at the King of Scars. “Then what should I do?”

I cannot tell you what you should do. I can only offer you the choice of whether you wish to ransom the life of Giovanni Conjure or live with his blood guilt. You chose the actions that brought you here. You must choose how you will go forward. That simply is. Whether men should or should not be burdened with such choices is not for me to say.

Andre considered the man he had just killed. Then he looked up at Ragi, still fighting for his duty to his family and Bella, and Sophia, struggling to remain upright against the debilitating power emanating from Fabian. He never meant to hurt anyone when he decided to help them. Certainly he had no desire to bear the guilt of killing anyone.

Yet he couldn’t leave them to finish their task alone, either.

“I cannot take his place.” Andre took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “So I will have to bear the guilt.”

Good. The King of Scars rolled up the scroll and it vanished.

Andre goggled at the figure, trying to find something to say.

I made a promise, Andre, and I have kept it. I have done all in my power to keep you from blood guilt but now that you bear it the thing cannot be undone. That does not mean I believe the I was asked to do was wise. I have brought countless people into Eternity and I believe there are worse things they can bear into the beyond than blood guilt. I hope that when your next time comes you will not be burdened with one of them.

The figure turned to go but, before it could vanish Andre said, “What kind of promise is it that made you do all this?”

Any promise would have been enough. Yet it is rare for a person to be given the chance to trade their life for another’s and even rarer for the person to accept that offer. When a promise is made as part of that trade it is all the more important to uphold it.

The unnatural reddish light dimmed, then vanished as the towering figure of the King of Scars faded from view. For a heartbeat Andre caught sight of a man within it. Then the King was gone, its voice calling one last message back to him.

I will tell your mother you are living well.

Previous Chapter

There were many kinds of Gifts that fate bestowed to the people of Nerona. Some were beautiful, some were practical and some, like the Gifts of the Thunder Hand and Thunder Heart, were incredibly dangerous. One thing true of all of them was that the Gifts themselves made very little sense to people who didn’t have them. You could explain them with words, certainly, but those words meant nothing to people who lacked actual experience with the Gift in question.

Hannibal Fulminate, the most famous Thunder Hand in Neronan history, once explained the nature of his Gift by saying, “For everything that falls there is a climb, just as for lightning there is thunder.”

It sounded very pithy but didn’t mean a lot to a poor conjuror like Andre. 

That said, it made a kind of intuitive sense that Ragi could somehow catch Erasmus, even when he was a lightning bolt, but that didn’t guarantee he could do it every time any more than Gianni could catch a club every time while juggling. That meant the older man was going to need help before he missed a catch. So Andre sucked in a deep breath and tried to follow what was going on, figure out some way to help.

His first thought, as Ragi collided with Erasmus’ lighting bolt form a second time, was to make a shield of some kind to keep Fabian’s soldiers from shooting them. He’d fixed or built plenty of prop shields over the years. Making one should have been easy enough but as soon as Andre began to build the picture of one in his mind he realized it wasn’t going to work. He’d never exhausted his Gift before but he could still tell it wasn’t up to making something that big now.

It was a strange sensation, a kind of bone deep exhaustion that turned the picture he was trying to hold in his mind into a blur. It was like getting so tired his eyes blurred, except with his mind’s eye rather than his normal ones. 

Andre also knew enough about conjuring to know he couldn’t really do anything about the soldiers’ conjured weapons. He’d met a lot of others with his Gift working in other troupes. Comparing tricks of the trade was a common way to pass the time when walking from town to town or when camped at large festivals outside the major cities. Over the years he’d never heard of a way for one conjuror to effect another’s conjurations.

Aside from the normal ways, of course.

Bella and Charissa had vanished from view, which was a small consolation, but Erasmus seemed to think he could gain something by slipping past Ragi anyway. At least he spent a few seconds trying to wriggle free of Ragi’s grasp once they collided. Now that he was ready for the thin man’s attacks Ragi had managed hold on to him after the collided. The big man got one arm wrapped around Erasmus’ back and was trying to lock him in some kind of wrestling hold. Although he was taller, Erasmus seemed unable to turn that leverage into any kind of advantage. Unsurprising given Ragi’s manifestly superior strength.

It seemed winning the contest wasn’t necessary, however, as another crankbow bolt from the conjuring soldiers came skipping along the stone ground towards them. It struck Erasmus on the calf and he vanished again. Once again he became a bolt of lightning travelling along the thin chain that returned him to the base of the slope in a thunderclap. This time he paused to rub his ribs, obviously discomforted by Ragi’s grasp.

Andre grabbed Sophia by the arm and pulled her down into a crouch halfway behind one of the many stalagmites in the chamber. He dumped his pack out and gestured to the pile of old clothes that resulted. “Could you turn this into a net? Something to catch those arrows so they don’t reach?”

“It will take a second,” she replied, already starting to unravel the tunic on top. “But there’s nothing to say he can’t run along the net just as well as those chains.”

Andre grimaced but knew she was right. Still, it was the only thing he could think of at the moment. He grabbed a cloak and wrapped it around himself, pulling the collar up over his mouth and nose, then said, “It’s worth a shot. I’m going to try something else.”

After which he got to his feet and sprung up on top of the stalagmite.

A lifetime of running the posts on to and off of stages had made him confident in his footing and what was a stalagmite but a post made of stone? What was a slope full of such stones but a set of stairs made for a stagehand?

Well, nature had not built the cavern with Andre in mind, that was certain. Even as he dashed down the slope, skipping from one stone protrusion to the next, he was forced to move side to side far more than he would like. He’d hoped his mad run would bring him down to the docks before Fabian and his men could react. No such luck was with him.

He’d barely gone a quarter of the distance before one of Fabian’s soldiers pointed him out to the others. Andre immediately jumped back towards the path, leaping off the jagged stones and keeping as low to the ground as he could for the few seconds he needed. A shield may be too big to conjure but a cloud of smoke… well, it looked big but really wasn’t. After a lifetime of conjuring it for one scene or another he was pretty sure he could envision it in his sleep, no matter how smudgy his mind’s eye was becoming.

This time proved to be no exception. After conjuring into his clenched hands for a few seconds Andre spread them to release a huge plume of light gray smoke. Then he clapped one hand over his nose to hold the cloak in place and started forward again. The cloth kept the worst of the smoke out of his lungs but he couldn’t see through it any better than Fabian’s men could. Sadly, it seemed his magical hat didn’t do anything to help in that regard.

Andre couldn’t really say he was surprised at that and he’d anticipated having to move about with his vision impaired. Moving to the left, downslope along the path, made the most sense. It made so much sense the archers probably realized it as well so Andre decided not to go that way. Instead he moved to the right, staying on the path until he emerged from the smoke and leapt up onto the stalagmites again.

He scampered over another few stone protrusions before his skin prickled and Erasmus blazed past once more. The resulting thunderclap threw off Andre’s timing and his boot slipped off the next stalagmite. He jackknifed, twisting to get his hands under him and break his fall. The stone ground was much harder than the grass he was used to landing on and a dozen small protrusions and loose rocks prodded him uncomfortably as he rolled but on the whole Andre thought it was a good landing. Then he slammed into one of the taller stalagmites and changed his mind.

Winded, he scrambled to his feet again and threw a look towards Fabian and his men, wondering if he needed another smoke screen to keep from getting shot. Their attention was still focused on Ragi and Erasmus. The clash of lighting wielders had followed Andre down the slope, albeit at a slower pace due to keeping to the path, and Ragi was now backing the thin man through the remains of Andre’s smoke cloud.

The soldiers were conjuring and releasing bolts as as quickly as they could but so far Erasmus hadn’t reached one yet. That was because Sophia trailed a few steps behind the two. Rather than completely reweaving the clothes he gave her she had simply stitched them together at the corners, creating a checkerboard of cloth that waved over the three of them in a loose dome. From the slow, lethargic moves of the cloth it was proving more than she could easily manipulate with her Gift. It was still enough to throw off the archers’ aim.

Satisfied things hadn’t turned into a disaster yet, Andre started down slope once more, looking for another pattern of stalagmites he could use. He had just worked out a path that would let him move faster than walking when Fabian raised his voice and called, “Ipecac.”

Andre’s head whipped around to watch the blind man drink whatever it was in the bottle he was holding. A moment later a violent wave of nausea washed over him. Andre abandoned all thoughts of jumping, much less jumping on top of anything, and did his best not to vomit. 

He’d met a carnival Sensate once, who tickled himself with feathers and shared the sensation with others, calling it, “Sharing the mirth.” When Fabian introduced himself Andre had wondered why a man with such a Gift would lead soldiers. The Sensate Gift supposedly went both ways, meaning Fabian would feel everything his men felt as well. But, as Andre watched the blind man stand there, one hand resting on his stomach, otherwise unperturbed by the nausea he was sharing with the room, it did make a kind of sense. If Fabian could endure that level of discomfort so easily and his enemies couldn’t…

Well, the results were obvious. Andre could barely walk, Sophia’s net had collapsed as she heaved her stomach’s contents onto the ground and Ragi was swaying lightly on his feet. The only consolation was that Fabian’s side wasn’t much better. Erasmus looked almost unaffected, though whether that was because of his own fortitude, some quirk of his Gift or just because he was familiar with this particular trick was impossible to tell. Whatever it was, it didn’t give him the confidence to try to overpower Ragi, weakened though he was. The archers fared much worse.

One had dropped to his knees and was vomiting on the floor. The other clutched his midsection, face contorted in discomfort, but hadn’t entirely lost his composure yet.

Fabian twisted his head about, one way, then the other, looking suddenly annoyed. His cane reached out, sweeping back and forth until it tapped the standing archer in one leg, then the blind man rapped the soldier’s shins with it smartly, snapping, “Open your eyes, fool. I can’t see.”

Andre had never once heard of a Sensate seeing through the eyes of another person. Then again, he’d also never heard of a blind Sensate before. Either way, he finally had an idea of what he could do to help Ragi and the others escape.

Isobela told all the new actors to crouch down and put their head between their knees, then take three deep breaths to get rid of nausea from stage fright. Andre tried it and found it worked almost as well with the phantom nausea he was feeling. Steadied, he leaped up and across the stalagmites once more, adjusting his path a few steps towards the archer Fabian was scolding. The blind man had drawn another bottle from his waist pouch but not yet removed the stopper. Whatever that bottle did, Fabian seemed unwilling to drink it before he knew the situation and his vicarious vision still didn’t have a point of view it could work with yet.

With time dwindling, Andre threw all caution to the wind. He sprinted down the slope, leaping and tumbling across every obstacle, ignoring every bump and prod as he advanced. Looking back, the run took him five seconds, maybe six. As he ran it he thought it would never end, each protrusion or divot in the floor seeming to add hours to the time it took to reach the bottom.

Then, in the blink of an eye, Andre went from vaulting off a low rock to skidding along the grotto’s shoreline. The archer had recovered just enough that he had opened his eyes and seen him coming before they collided. Then Andre wrapped his arms around the other man and carried them both to the ground with a sickening thud.