Wander West, in Shadow

Martimeos did not hesitate in accepting Hadley's invitation. With a smile, he strolled towards the door of the smithy, Flit chirping happily on his shoulder. Elyse did not know what the little bird was saying, but she wondered if the wizard's familiar was beguiled, as well. He certainly seemed content enough.

"What - what do we do?" Kells asked quietly, under his breath. Hadley was busy greeting Martim, clapping the wizard on the back and laughing heartily about something. "Do we try to pull him away....? What is this?"

"Are the two of you coming?" Hadley called, from the doorway. Hands on his hips, he gave the two of them a skeptical look. "I don't know what Martimeos has told you of me, but I don't bite."

Elyse didn't know what all of this was, either. She didn't know whether this was simply some memory of Hadley, as they had seen before, or if this was Hadley, in some way. He certainly seemed...substantial, enough. Martimeos swayed as the man placed a hand on his shoulder, as if there was actual weight to his touch. The wolf-skull bogge-man had said things could be very different, in the Land of Dim...

But most of all, Bogge-King or not, Hadley was gigantic. Martimeos was tall enough to make Elyse feel small, and Hadley was as tall as the wizard was, and much wider and more well-muscled. She thought she could have easily sat on one of his forearms. Even if this was not the Bogge-King, but rather some vision of Hadley, she did not like to think what might happen should they provoke him. "I suppose we play along for now," she whispered to Kells. And then she gave a wave, hiked up her dress, and walked forth through the long grass to join Martimeos. After only a moment's pause, the soldier followed her.

As Hadley beamed and turned to disappear into the dark doorway of the colorful smithy, Elyse heard a sharp hiss behind her. She turned to see Aela and Torc staring, wide-eyed, peeking out from behind the trees that surrounded the clearing. She shrugged, and made a gesture that she hoped made clear to the Crosscraw that they should remain where they were, for now. It was all she could do.

They passed beneath the entrance to the smithy, beneath a creaking wooden sign painted with a hammer and anvil, with two red roses curling about the shaft of the hammer. And if the colorful, whimsical exterior of the smith's shop had not been what she had expected from the Bogge-King's lair, the interior was even stranger. For it was so plain.

It was not a smithy used to the demands of war. A variety of farm tools lay about; the heads of shovels not yet attached to their shafts, rakes and plows; supports for the beams of barnhouses. A rope hung from the rafters of the ceiling, from which hung a series of newly-forged tea kettles. Horseshoes of various sizes balanced on nails driven into the walls. There was, in fact, not a single weapon or piece of armor even visible. In one corner, a worn wooden handrail marked a set of stone steps descending into the earth. Motes of dust danced in soft sunlight streaming in through a window in the back of the shop.

"Flit!" Hadley called, reaching into the soot-stained apron he wore, and pulling out a small leather pouch. His gigantic fingers deftly untied its string, and plucked out a sunflower seed. The little cardinal warbled happily and fluttered away from Martim's shoulder to alight on the smith's giant hand, pecking the seed from his fingers. "As greedy as ever, I see," Hadley chuckled, as the bird swiftly dove after the pouch of seeds he held, setting it aside so Martim's familiar could feast. "Well, Martim, are you going to introduce your friends?"

"Oh, of course," Martim replied, his eyes vacant and a silly smile spread across his face. "Sorry. Slipped my mind. The witch here is Elyse; the cat is her familiar Cecil."

"Hello there, little one," Hadley cooed, holding out his fingers towards Cecil. But Elyse was glad to see that her familiar did not seem quite so enchanted with the man as Flit did; her cat hissed, arching its back and backing away from the smith. "Hmm," Hadley said, standing straight with a small frown. "Perhaps he smells another cat on me. We do have a mouser at home." And then he turned his clear blue eyes to Elyse. "Nice to meet you," he said, sticking out his hand.

Elyse tried to examine the man very closely, as she took his hand to shake it. But there seemed to be little unusual about him; nothing about his face seemed off; his grip seemed warm and human. Though there was one thing. About his thick neck, he wore what seemed to be a strange necklace, made out of black rope, and with a dangling pendant that looked like a ball of old, warped leather. "I, uh - nice to meet you, as well," she muttered, distracted, as she frowned at this.

"She's a fair one, Martim," Hadley said to the wizard, as he released her grip. "Best be careful, or you'll be making Vivian envious. Now who's the lad, here?"

"Hadley!" Martimeos snapped, glancing towards Elyse and doing his best to studiously pretend he wasn't blushing. "She's a friend, is all." Elyse felt a strange twinge of hot jealousy at this, and immediately admonished herself for it. What a stupid thing to be feeling, she thought, especially at this particular moment. "The soldier is Kells."

"Twin Lamps man, right?" Hadley gave Kells a wink as he shook the man's hand. "I can tell by the boots. Don't know any other folk who wear them knee-high. We've had a couple travelers from there, over the years."

"Right," Kells replied, though he seemed unusually unsteady and shaken as he stared back at Hadley, as if he was having trouble meeting the man's eyes. And once Hadley had turned his back, the soldier quickly leaned over to her. "Look, witch," he whispered in her ear, very, very quietly, "His shadow."

Elyse's eyes dragged slowly across the stone and dirt floor of the smithy, until they reached the shadow cast by Hadley. And then she felt her stomach tangle into a heavy knot.

It was difficult to tell at first, with how the man's shadow fell across and blurred with all the other shadows here. But there was no mistaking it. His shadow was darker than it ought to have been. Too dark, in fact, to be mere shadow. Almost like a black stain that swallowed up anything it touched. And far, far larger than it should have been, as well. She swallowed, glancing up as Hadley laughed idly over something with Martimeos. What was this?

"-Suppose I could take a bit of a break," Hadley was saying, in response to something Martimeos had murmured to him. "I am feeling a bit sore. Why don't we have a sit-down in the back."

Hadley led them through a door in the back of the smith shop, in which there was a small room, with a worn wooden table surrounded by a few stools. "Apologies," Hadley said, sweeping in before them to scoop up what seemed to be a well-marked scroll from the table. "I'm a smith, but I fancy myself a mapmaker when I have the time."

As he moved forth, his shadow passed over Elyse, and she gasped and shuddered as she was plunged into a sudden cold that felt strong enough to drive the life from her body. Neither he or Martimeos seemed to notice as she struggled to regain her breath; but Cecil by her side meowed in alarm, and Kells reached out to steady her as she stumbled. She met the soldier's concerned eyes as she drew in ragged, desperate breaths, holding a hand to her chest to feel her fluttering heart. She was more and more convinced that this was no illusion or memory. No mere vision of Hadley. That, somehow, the smith in front of them truly was the Bogge-King.

"Come now, we've got seats to spare," Hadley said to the both of them, as the large man reached into the corner of the room, where a bucket containing water and a few rags rested. He sighed contentedly as he tied one of these around his head, letting the water flow down the reddened skin of his face. "It's hot work, by the forge," he sighed, as he took a seat around the table. Behind him, his shadow climbed the wall, a dark stain that nearly touched the ceiling.

It was a difficult thing, to sit by that table, suspecting that it was some daemon they sat acros from. But they could not simply leave Martimeos there; the wizard seemed blissfully unaware that anything might be wrong, chatting nonchalantly with Hadley, seeming not to notice the large, impossibly black shadow the man cast. Flit, too, did not seem to know what was happening, either, jumping and fluttering his way across the table to chase after seeds that Hadley tossed to him. And - other than the shadow, and the strange pendant he wore - Hadley himself seemed....entirely normal. He and Martimeos engaged in idle conversation as Kells and Elyse sat down by them; what special orders Hadley had found himself this year, which neighbors would need help with farm chores, which crops they thought people were planting too much of. They spoke, for all the world, as if Martimeos had never left his village.

And the wizard seemed...happy. Perhaps happier than Elyse had ever seen him, since they had met. Worry that had seemed so natural on his face that she barely noticed it melted away; his dark green eyes twinkled with mirth. He smiled more broadly, and when he noticed her staring, gave her a mischievous wink and a flirtatious smirk. And with alarm, Elyse realized that she herself was feeling the pull of the beguilement Martim was under. Wouldn't it be so grand, a small voice whispered faintly to her, to forget the past, forget the world, and stay here in this happy place forever?

"Elyse," Hadley said suddenly, and she jumped in her seat from shock. The smith was smiling at her, drumming his fingers along the table. How normal, he seemed; how friendly. "I hear you and Martimeos have been making great strides with your studies of the Art."

"Our...studies?" Elyse glanced and Martimeos. The wizard was nodding, as if what Hadley was saying made perfect sense. True, they had studied together, but what would Hadley have known of it? Why wouldn't he have known of it? that small voice within her whispered. "I...um. Yes. Martim certainly seems to have a knack for glamour. Though he is less gifted at healing. And he has taught me much of working with flame, and sigils."

Hadley nodded, blue eyes twinkling. "If ever you need something crafted - I know little of the Art myself, but I hear some workings need a bit of ironwork to focus upon - just let me know. It is good to have a witch in Pike's Green."

"Right," Elyse mumbled, her head in a fog. Pike's Green. I've never been to Pike's Green. Have I?

"And Kells," the smith continued, "I hear you have been teaching Martim the sword. 'Tis good; his brother was always lackadaisical at learning the blade."

"We've practiced a bit," Kells replied curtly, wrinkling his nose in wary disgust. Hadley did not seem to notice his sour expression.

Elyse's head swam; something about all this was confusing her, drawing her into what felt like a dream. She shook her head to clear it; she did not know whether this was something that Hadley himself was doing, or whether it was simply the Land of Dim itself. She glanced towards Kells. Of the three of them, the soldier seemed the least affected by the glamour of this place. His gray eyes were hard and cold, his expression grim; he looked about the room they were in, as if searching for the nearest escape, and kept his hand on the hilt of the mace looped 'round his belt. "Kells," she whispered to him, leaning in as Martimeos and Hadley laughed uproariously at some joke between the two of them, "We must find a way to get Martim away from him. And fast. The longer he is ensorceled, the harder it will be to break him out of it."

"I've an idea," Kells whispered back, giving her arm a squeeze, "To get the two of you alone, at least. I will try to give you as much time as possible to bring him to his senses."

"-Old Tanner's a fool," Martimeos was saying to Hadley, toying with his scarf, giving it an odd look as if confused as to where it had come from. "Fortune loves him dear, for that barn of his not to have collapsed last winter. He ought to just tear it down; 'tis not safe."

"Well, you know he and his wife got married in that barn," Hadley replied idly, when Kells interrupted the two of them.

"Pardon," he said, leaning across the table to catch the eye of the smith and the wizard. "I hate to interrupt, but I was actually wondering if you might have any weapons for purchase. Lost my spear, you see, and I'd like another polearm to replace it; or just a sturdy blade as a backup."

Hadley stroked his chin thoughtfully, his clear blue eyes lighting up at the prospect of a sale. "Weapons, eh?" he said, giving a small frown. "Not much call for weapons to be forged very often 'round here, but I do think we have some in the cellar. You're free to take a look down there; I've a birch out back I use to test blades."

Kells and Elyse exchanged a glance. "Would you, uh, come and show them to me...?" the soldier asked, awkwardly.

"Ah, if you're a friend of Martim's, I trust you," Hadley chuckled, his massive arms folded across his barrel chest. He gave his head a small shake, sending his golden curls bouncing, and slowly leaned forth across the table, giving a prankster's grin. "Of course," he said slowly, the dark threat in his voice not matching the lighthearted expression on his face, "If I found that you had stolen from me, I'd rip the head from your shoulders."

And Hadley's face flickered, like a candle sputtering in a strong wind; one moment clear blue eyes and a friendly smile, and the next, his eyes were nothing but jagged holes carved into his skull sinking into darkness, his mouth a gash in his face that dripped black pitch. Elyse clapped her hands to her mouth to stop a scream from escaping as his face rapidly changed back and forth, almost too fast for the eye to follow.

And then Hadley sat back, his face normal once more, and frowned into the silence. Even Martimeos seemed to have noticed something was wrong; he blinked at the blacksmith as if disturbed from some dream. "Sorry," Hadley said apologetically, giving a shy, rueful grin. "A poor joke on my part." He raised his eyes to meet Kells; the soldier was breathing heavily, his hands shaking as he gripped the shaft of his mace tight. "Go ahead, and choose whatever you'd like. No charge."

Kells opened and closed his mouth, trying to formulate some plausible protest, afraid that whatever he might say might set off the daemon living in this man. Finally, he rose, catching Elyse's eyes as he did. The witch trembled, as she stared back at him with wide, dark eyes, her hands twirling anxiously in her long black hair as her familiar cowered by her feet. "I," he said hoarsely, "will be right back."

Elyse stared after Kells, as the soldier slowly walked away, her stomach gnarling and twisting as he did so. She did her best to try to stop herself from trembling, but failed. It was all she could do to keep her teeth from chattering. She closed her eyes and breathed, unwilling to turn around to look at Martimeos and Hadley; unwilling to look at the daemon she sat across from.

"Please," she heard Hadley say. "I truly do apologize. I do not not what came over me; I should not have jested so in front of a woman. Ah, here: take this by way of apology."

Opening her eyes, Elyse summoned all her willpower to force herself to turn and face Hadley once more. The smith looked...normal, still, no sign of the change on his face, though his shadow still loomed far too large and dark on the wall. He smiled at her, holding out his massive arms across the table: in his large hands, he held a strange, small object. It looked to be...some form of flower, except wrought from iron. A lotus, its petals thin scraps of thin metal, and exquisitely detailed. "I never did have much skill at making things grow," Hadley continued, "But I make these, sometimes, as a test of skill. You may have it; it costs little more than time to make."

This man, Elyse thought to herself, as she stared at the iron lotus cupped in Hadley's outstretched hands, is a daemon. A dangerous and powerful one. But does he truly even understand what is happening to him? "Thank you," she said weakly, her hands shaking as she reached out to grab the little bauble as quickly as she could. She snatched it away, half-afraid that Hadley would close his hands over hers as she did so. But no, nothing of the sort; the blacksmith merely offered her a soft, kind smile as she took it. He spared us, she thought. He spared Martimeos, when he might have easily killed us all.

She ran her fingers over the iron lotus, in her hands. It was exquisitely detailed, and beautiful, and so delicate it was almost difficult to believe that such a large man had made something so fine. And then she decided to take a chance. "I am sorry to impose," she continued, casting her eyes down towards the ground demurely - half to play the distressed woman, and half, truth be told, because she dared not look at Hadley too long - "But I find myself faint from long travels on the road. Might you have something a bit more comfortable than a stool on which to rest?"

"Oh - of course," Hadley said, rising. Elyse tried to hold in a shriek. His shadow was not only larger than it should be, but now it was not moving properly with him. It remained on the wall as he moved, only catching up with him after he had made a few steps. And when it moved, she could catch glimpses and flashes of limbs far longer and thinner than the thick forearms of the smith. But Hadley himself seemed ashamed, even embarrassed. "I'm so sorry for the poor hospitality. I was just so excited to see Martim. I'll be just a moment."

Elyse gave Hadley a wan smile as he lumbered out of the room, scraping her stood across the floorboards quickly to avoid letting his shadow touch her. She listened as his heavy steps creaked across the floorboards of the shop. And the moment she thought he was out of earshot, she leapt to her feet and grabbed Martim's hands. "Martimeos," she snapped, before the confused wizard could say anything, "Listen to me very carefully. Answer my questions. How do you think you got here?"

"Wh-what?" he laughed at her. Martimeos was so happy he seemed almost drunk. To her horror, he laced his fingers in hers; there was a heat behind his eyes, a mischievous twinkle, as he leaned in close to her. "I'm sorry," he murmured into her ear, in a tone that sent shivers down her spine. "I did not mean to say you were merely a friend. You are much more to me than that."

"Stop that!" she cried, feeling his hot breath on her neck. She pushed him away, closed her eyes, and took a deep, calming breath. "Martimeos. You need to think. None of this is real." When she opened her eyes again, the wizard was still giving her a look like he wanted to drag her to the nearest bedroom. "None of this - none of it's..."

And then as she spoke, that wave of temptation washed over her again, as Martimeos drew her close into an embrace. Somehow, the fact that the Bogge-King lived in this place dropped out of her mind, like a stone into fog. The sunlight here was so warm and inviting; the birdsong so relaxing. The Land of Dim beguiles you, fool! a small voice screamed within her mind, in panic, but it faded quickly.

It all felt so dreamlike, so pleasant. Memories that she knew were false, but which she would have found pleasing to be true, bubbled forth in her mind. She had come to Pike's Green last year, hadn't she? And she had quickly fallen in with Martimeos in studying the Art. And over long nights spent with the wizard, she had become his secret lover. Yes, that was right, and the furtive glances they shared filled her with a thrill and a guilt that felt so darkly painful and wondrous.

"What about Vivian?" she murmured, breathless, in Martim's arms.

"I feel badly," Martim whispered in her ear, "But I cannot deny how you entice me." A fire roared within her as the wizard's lips brushed against her neck. Why, why did it feel so sweet to steal him?

You have tempted and seduced him, a dark voice within her chuckled. He is yours, yours, YOURS YOURS YOURS-

And then from somewhere deep within her, a chord was struck. Something hummed through her, a strange and discordant tune; something trickled through her mind, like water down a rough rock face. A voice she had not heard there, before; one that she had not expected to hear.

wakeup

you

w

a

k

e

up

don't

wake up w a k e

have

up WAKE UP

much

WAKE

UP   WAKE  UP

wake

up

time

notrealnotrealNOTREALNOTREALNOTREAL

HE WILL KILL YOU.

And there, in the dark of her mind, Hadley's face swam up. But now his clear blue eyes were pits of black pitch, and pinpricks of flame roared deep within them. And something curled in the dark behind him; something with many flapping wings, something which glowed with a sickly orange light.

With a start, Elyse opened her eyes. The fading, tempting memories of a life in Pike's Green still fogged her mind. But no matter how enticing they were, she knew they were false. Martimeos was murmuring into her ear as she sat in his lap, her arms draped across his shoulders, her long hair falling about the both of them. With some effort, she tore her eyes away from the wizard's gaze, the dark green of his eyes that threatened to swallow her attention up. Her mind felt like it was emerging from the dim mists of a dream; a dream too pleasant for what this place truly was. "Wizard," she said softly, looking down at the ground. "How did you meet me?"

"You came here some time ago-" Martimeos began, but Elyse shook her head.

"No," she said, not lifting her gaze from the floor. "That's not right. I have never been to your village, Martimeos. Think carefully. How did we truly meet?" She finally bought herself to meet his gaze once more, feeling her heart twist as she looked at his infectious smile. His happiness was an illusion, a glamour, but damn it was going to hurt to take that away. "Remember? It was in the forest. Far from Pike's Green."

Martimeos frowned, furrowing his brow, as if retrieving an ancient memory long buried. "Why...on the road to Silverfish, wasn't it?" Flit fluttered from the table back to his shoulder, twittering something affirmatory-sounding into his ear, and he nodded. "Yes. That's right. You pretended to be an old crone, at first." He chuckled. "So that I would not agree to travel with you merely because of your enchanting beauty, or so you said."

"Yes." She leaned in so that her lips were next to the wizard's ear. "And why, Martim," she whispered hoarsely, "Were you on the road to Silverfish, to begin with? You were looking for something."

"I was....I was following my brother's trail, wasn't I?" Martim's tone had grown less playful and mischievous. Now he sounded serious, curious as he pulled at the thread of memory. Elyse drew back from his embrace to watch as he furrowed his brow, trying to remember the truth. "His trail," he muttered, "Because..."

"Because he left," Elyse said, prodding him gently.

Wicked girl, the small voice within her whispered, Do you not see how happy he is? How happy you might be? Is it so much to ask, to let him continue to dream?

That's right, Elyse thought back at it. I am wicked. Like the truth.

"He...left," Martimeos muttered. The wizard's expression was one of intense concentration; Elyse had seen it before. It was the face he wore when he was poring over his books, or focusing on the Art. "That's right. He left. Years ago. And with Hadley at his side, because...of the...White Queen...oh."

All at once, a great weight seemed to crash into Martimeos. It hurt so much to see that Elyse bit her lip and nearly looked away. His happy and carefree smile faded; his shoulders slumped, and a long, aching sadness crept in and smothered the twinkle in his eye. "Oh," he repeated again, "Oh."

"Martimeos?" Elyse asked slowly. "Do you remember?"

The wizard looked up at her. "Yes," he replied hoarsely. And for a moment, his face contorted with a rage she had never seen from him; a dark fury that seemed to tread the edge of madness. "Damn this place," he snarled, "Damn this place, for what it has shown me. I..." He blinked, rapidly, and then raised a hand to his face to hide his eyes. "Give me a moment," he said, sounding strangled. "Just a moment. Please."

Flit gave a mournful whistle from the table, and Martimeos whistled back to his familiar as Elyse climbed down from him. She busied herself, for a few moments, with stroking Cecil's fur, as her familiar padded nervously around her. That it might have been true, she thought. That I might have journeyed to Martim's village, in a world where it never burned. It seemed a happier world than the one they had been given. Her eyes strayed to the table, where the iron lotus Hadley had given her lay. And the delicate little bauble filled her with a wave of nostalgia for the man that she had barely met. She might have known him, as he was, in that world. Known him as he was before the daemon took him.

"I...thank you, Elyse," Martim said, his voice a croak, and Elyse raised her eyes to look at him. The wizard looked very, very tired. He ran a hand through his dark, shaggy hair and sighed, glancing wearily about the room with red-rimmed eyes. "It is all so much as I remember it," he murmured. "And it was...very pleasant, to think myself home once more. Who knows how long I might have been beguiled. But a fine pickle we find ourselves in, now."

Elyse opened her mouth to answer him, when a strange noise came to them. A dull thudding sound, as if something were being pounded with great force.

They glanced at each other. The sound was muffled, as if it was coming from the back of the smith's shop, outside.

A high window looked out of this room towards the back. Martimeos strode towards it, raising a hand to his eyes to block the bright sunlight so he might see; Elyse stood on her tiptoes to be able to look outwards. And when they saw what had made the noise, their hearts seized with fear.

~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~

Kells approached the stone steps down into the cellar with some trepidation. He glanced behind him, to see Hadley still seated at the table with Martimeos and Elyse, through the door of the back room of the smithy.

It was not that the stairs themselves were frightening. Like anything else here, it was plain. Too plain. In Kells' opinion, this whole place stank; it reeked of lies. Like a bed of finely-trimmed roses planted over a mass grave. It was all too cheerful, too normal. The moment he had set foot in the smithy, it had grated at him. His hands itched for a torch to light this whole sick joke on fire.

No, the stairs were not the problem. It was that he did not want to leave the wizard and the witch alone with what was clearly a daemon barely holding its disguise together. And it bought back unpleasant memories. It was the wine cellar, after all, he thought, the wine cellar in Roark's house that you descended into. Only to climb up and find Roark beheaded. His breath grew shallow, as he stared at the stairs. He did not want to rise up from them, only to find Martim and Elyse headless. But neither did he want to do anything to make the daemon suspicious. And it would be a good idea to explore what might lie below.

In the end he crept down the first few steps, and then crouched low, in the shadows of the stairwell, and peered over the edge back at the back room. He could still make out the voices of Hadley, and Martimeos, and Elyse, though he could not tell what they were saying. And then after a moment, he heard heavy footsteps; he backed further into the stairway as he saw the large, black boots of Hadley treading slowly across the floor of the smithy. The man walked across the shop, disappearing from view behind a barrel containing what looked to be old and rusted shovels. And then after a moment, he heard another door from the back of the shop close; and then the soft murmurs of Elyse speaking to Martimeos. Somehow, it seemed, the witch had found a way to get alone with Martimeos.

Kells considered returning to them. But, he thought, it might be best to take this opportunity to check the cellar while Hadley was distracted. Quickly deciding, he leapt down the rest of the steps. He could see what lay below while Hadley was off...doing whatever. As he descended, he strained his ears. If ever the gentle murmur of Elyse's voice went silent, or he heard Hadley's heavy boots crossing the floor once more, he could bolt up them.

The cellar, with little light from above filtering into it, was dim; a cave carved into the earth by hand that the smith's shop had been built over. Kells breathed in the cool, dry air as he swiftly crept forward; until he wondered why he was trying to be quiet. There was something about this cellar that felt...off. He felt as if he were being watched, somehow.

The cellar walls were lined with wooden barrels. Some contained iron scrap; old and rusted nails and stakes, others charcoal for the forge, and still others piles of dirty, oiled rags. But at the back of the cellar, there lay a door. A strange one, that seemed forged itself out of twisted black iron. Kells did not waste time on caution. He quickly flung it open.

Beyond the door there was a shimmering haze; much like the doors they had seen on their way here, that seemed to mark a passageway back to the true world. But beyond the haze there was nothing but a deep darkness, pierced only by a strange, white light somewhere far above. Kells squinted, and he thought he could make out stone steps sitting in the darkness beyond the doorway, leading up to that light, but it was hard to tell. Still, he thought, a possible escape, if necessary.

Closing the door, he turned. To the side of the doorway, there was something large, nearly as tall as he was, covered by a dusty, long-forgotten sheet that looked as if it hadn't been moved in years. Reaching out, he twitched aside the sheet, and then blinked.

Beneath the sheet lay an ornate full-length mirror. Oval in shape, it showed Kells a stark image of himself. I look tired, he thought, as he glanced the dark bags beneath his eyes, dark stains in his pale face, and rough. He ran a hand down a long scratch in the breastplate he wore, and straightened his kettle-helm on his head. Peculiarly, though, while the mirror showed a reflection of him, as he might expect, it did not seem at all to reflect the rest of the cellar. Instead, his image appeared as if floating in roiling, billowing smoke.

And what truly caught his attention was the frame the mirror was in. For it was very familiar to him. Finely-worked silver, in the intricate and jagged patterns of crystalline snowflakes, a chaotic fluttering of them, frozen in time by the hand of a craftsman very skilled indeed. He had seen silverwork like this, before. In his youth, at the White Queen's castle; silver in the shape of snowflakes was very popular amongst the nobility, and the White Queen herself and her daughters had often worn jewelry that bore this motif. He wondered how such a mirror had gotten here, but not for too long. Idle curiousity could wait.

He paused for just a moment, before covering up the mirror with the sheet again. He did not know why, but for whatever reason, the sensation of being watched was stronger when it was uncovered. Casting about, he looked for the weapons that Hadley had mentioned, though knew if the daemon was telling the truth - or if it even knew what truth was. And then he stopped in shock.

On the wall, laid across small iron hooks driven into the stone and staining it with rust, lay two weapons. The first was a halberd, though very ornate for a weapon. Its shaft was some white, smooth wood that Kells did not recognize; its blade was also large, for a halberd, as well as its point, nearly two feet in length. And etched into the blade was a design much like the silver frame of the mirror: chaotic, swirling snowflakes. Kells hesitated before picking it up. It seemed almost ceremonial, rather than something meant to be used - its white shaft was lacquered, and finely painted, in tiny, beautiful detail, with a troop of knights marching their horses through a snowstorm. But once he picked it up, he could tell that it was well-weighted and balanced; solid. The blade was sharp - and astonishingly cold, he noted, as he ran his fingers across it; almost cold enough to turn his fingers numb from a mere touch. He wondered if this, as well as the mirror, had once belonged to the White Queen or one of her nobles, and how it might have made its way here.

But again he did not wonder long. For beneath the halberd, sheathed in dark, worn leather, lay a two-handed sword larger than any Kells had ever seen; it was nearly as tall as he was. Its grip was plain, layered leather and wire. But its crossguard and pommel, Kells noted, were made of a gleaming black metal. Leaning the white halberd against the wall, he grasped the hilt of the sword, and as soon as he did, a feeling of deep disgust roiled over him. He coughed, and then spat, to remove the taste of blood from his mouth, and turned back to the blade, his nose wrinkled in disgust. Roark had told him, once, that a blade used for truly foul deeds felt foul to wield. The man had not had much superstition about him, but that one, he bought into. And touching this blade made Kells feel as if his very soul had been dirtied. With grim determination, he slid the blade from its sheath an inch.

Black, gleaming metal greeted him. Dolmec iron. The blade of the Bogge-King.

Kells slid the blade home with a sigh, and glanced around. He should not, he thought, take the blade now. Not when things were still so uncertain. Not when he did not know if Martimeos still suffered under his delusions. He strained his ears, and thought he could still just faintly hear the sounds of Elyse talking to the wizard. To have their goal in hand - or at least, on half of their goal - felt tempting, but he did not want to take the blade and have Hadley become suspicious; nor could he think of a proper place to hide it if he did take it.

In the end, he lifted the blade of the Bogge-King from its mount on the wall, and placed it by the foot of the stairs, so that it might be quickly grabbed if necessary. And then he took up the white halberd, and mounted the steps out of the cellar once more. A good thing he had checked the cellar after all, he thought; a weapon, a possible escape, and one of their targets. Now they just needed to find the forge-hammer, spirit it and the blade away, and they'd be done. "And not get torn to pieces in the process," he muttered quietly, beneath his breath. "Easy as pie."

~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~

"Naow," Torc whispered, from the dark shadows of the leaves in which he crouched hiding, "Would be a good time tae leave 'em."

Aela lay nearly flat against the ground, covered in a thin blanket of old leaves, so still that it seemed as if she was barely breathing, her eyes pinned to the strangely-colored smithy that Elyse, Martimeos and Kells had gone into. She had watched them disappear inside with mounting panic, following the strange blonde-haired giant. Martim might have said that this was where the Bogge-King would make his lair, but...that had just looked like a normal man. She didn't know why Martimeos had decided to walk into his house; she had heard Elyse say something about him being beguiled, but right now she felt left in the dark.

And her brother dared to prod her. "Keep yer cowardly mouth shut," she hissed at him, crawling on her belly through the leaves to get a better vantage point from which to view the house, trying to peer through the windows to see what was happening. It was useless. At least, she thought, there were no sounds of battle coming from within.

Torc somehow managed to follow her as she moved without making a sound, and without even becoming visible to her. How he managed to tread on dry leaves and make no noise, she would never know. He had been one of the best of the Ghostfoot, after all. "Et ent cowardly," he whispered to her, from somewhere to her right. "This - et's all madness, ye ken? We hae passage back tae Dun Cairn, do we nae? Yon doors, back tae the true world. We should go an' come back wit' a raidin' party. Come in sneak-like an' proper. We can git th' blade an' th' hammer witout needin' tae risk this insanity."

"We dinnae even ken ef we'd be able tae return here, should we step through tha' door. An' ef this Hadley truly trusts Martim, et's th' best chance we got tae steal from him anyway. Ef ye want tae leave yerself, go. Ah'd be glad tae see th' back o' ye." Aela tried to contain the rage building within her. She wished that it had not ended up like this; that she would be left alone with her brother. She should have known that he'd open his foul mouth to her the moment he had the opportunity. She knew that he would not go, though.

Torc was silent, for a moment. So silent, in fact, that it felt as if she was alone in the forest. No matter how she strained her ears, she could not even hear him breathe. When her brother spoke once more, his voice seemed to come from behind her. "Th' wizard ent gonna kill him, ye ken. Even ef he es successful. Ye saw th' look o' temptation on his face, when th' Dolmecs mentioned his bloody Hadley might be saved. He'll walk out o' here wit' th' killer o' our people."

Aela took a long, deep breath, her muscles tensing as she prepared. And then she launched herself backwards, gracefully, almost as if she were diving through the underbrush; she was proud of how little noise she made, barely a rustle. With satisfaction, she heard a grunt from Torc as she connected with him; he fell to the ground, and she rolled on top of him, pinning him. "Shut yer gob," she growled into the haggard, gaunt face of her brother. "Jest shut et. Ah will kill ye mahself. Ah'll do et."

"Then go on," Torc said to her quietly. "Do et. Fer Ah willnae stop tryin' tae talk ye out o' this."

He stared defiantly at her, gritting broken and cracked teeth, daring her to make good on her word, until Aela finally broke and sat back in the leaves that carpeted the forest floor. "Ah saw th' hope on th' wizard's face, aye," she said quietly. "But d'ye nawt realize why Ah cannae blame him...? Ah...thought o' how ye might be redeemed, after Ah learnt th' kind o' man ye were. Fer a long time. Ah looked fer any excuse fer ye." She pulled her long red hair around to hide her face, not wanting Torc to see her grief. "How could Ah blame th' wizard, when he just learnt th' truth o' his friend, when et took me so long tae accept what ye were? Let me do what must be done en peace. Leave. Leave."

Torc did not answer her for a long time. When he did, his voice was hoarse and cracked. "Ah'll go, ef ye come wit' me. Ye'll ne'er see me again." Aela ignored him, shaking her head, still hiding behind her hair. And then: "Aela, Grizel tol' me."

Aela swept back the hair from her eyes to pin her brother with a hard stare. Torc was chuckling, shaking his head, as he sat on the forest floor, but for all his mirth his shoulders slumped, his lanky and patchy hair hanging limply about his face as he stared down at the ground. "She tol' me," he murmured, "How ye'd die en th' Land o' Dim."

Aela looked down at her hands. "Then...ye ought tae be happy fer me," she replied, smiling faintly. "Ah get a noble death, savin' our people. What more could Ah ask fer?"

Torc glared at her, and Aela almost laughed herself. Even now, even knowing what he was and what he had done, she could not help but feel a wave of fondness wash over her at her brother's grumpy expression. "Would ye shut et with that nonsense...?" he snapped. "Ah asked her ef ye might be saved, an'...she jest said et were certain as stone that ye'd die here. Aela, Ah cannae take et. All Ah hae done already weighs heavy on me. Ah couldnae take et ef mah baby sister died fer mah sins, as well. An' so ef ye willnae listen tae anythin' else Ah say, Ah will beg ye. Ef ye willnae do et fer yerself, do et fer th' love ye once held fer me."

It was all too much. Aela could stand it no longer. How dare he, how dare he speak to her like this. "Lissen well," she said slowly, "An' look at me." Once Torc raised his eyes to meet hers, Aela grabbed him by the hides, and choking on her rage, spat at her brother. "Ah hate ye. Ah hate ye so much. Ah hate ye like I never knew Ah could hate someone." The words tumbled rapidly tumbled out of her mouth. And it was true; she did hate him. She hated him for the little black hole he had burnt in her heart that she knew, with a deep ache, would never go away; she hated him for all the memories she had of him that she could neither forget nor think of with anything but sadness anymore, and most of all she hated him because she could not stop loving him. "Ye make me sick. Ah cannae stand th' sight o' ye. Ah willnae do anythin' fer yer sake. Ef ye dinnae like th' thought o' me dyin', leave. Else, keep yer bloody, lyin', murderin' tongue silent. Or es tha' too much tae ask? Can Ah nae face mah fate en peace? Must ye torment me tae th' very end?"

Torc's eyes widened as she went on, and he shook as if every word was a blow. For one hopeful moment, Aela thought he actually was going to leave. But he shook his head, and said quietly, "Alright." His shoulders slumped, and he looked away from her, defeated. "Alright." Her words seemed to have reached him; he looked ashamed. "Ef ye are set on et, Ah'll...Ah'll nae trouble ye. Ye deserve that much."

He fell silent, and the two of them sat in the dappled shadows of the forest, looking at each other for a long moment. With a sigh, Aela turned from her brother, back to the smithy. A long, tense silence stretched as she watched, waiting for some sign from those within. Torc was so silent that she glanced behind her, wondering if he was still even there, but he had not moved.

After some time, she rose gingerly to her feet, making every effort to remain as quiet as possible. "Ah dinnae think we do any good stayin' here," she muttered, as she unslung her bow from her back.

"Mebbe best tae scout around a bit," Torc replied. Aela narrowed her eyes as she glanced back at him once more, wondering what tricks he might be up to. But all the defiance seemed to have gone out of her brother. He did not sound crafty, or tricksome, or even angry. He sounded tired. He did not even look at her as he spoke. "'Twould be best tae see th' lay o' th' land, here. Make sure nae surprises wait fer us."

Aela remained still for a moment. It had been what she was planning herself, but to hear it from Torc's mouth - and to see his demeanour - put her ill-at ease. But eventually, she nodded, and crept forth through the underbrush, bow in hand, and wary of any danger. And shortly after, her brother followed.

She kept the smithy in her sights, to her left, through a thin layer of trees. She wanted to be able to see if anyone should emerge from it. It worried her that the three had been out of her sight for this long. Who knew what might be happening to them in there, if that man was truly the Bogge-King. It was small comfort that she had not, as of yet, heard any cries of alarm or sounds of violence coming from the place.

So focused was she on keeping her attention on the smithy that Torc was the first to spot them. "Ancestor's bloody bones," he swore harshly beneath his breath.

Aela turned to see what he exclaimed at. They had crept 'round the back of the smithy, now; behind the building was a small clearing of felled trees, many of the stumps not having yet been pulled out of the ground. A particularly large and impressive stump had been smoothed down, and looked as if it served as some sort of table. A table, Aela realized, whose top was covered in thick bloodstains and buzzing flies.

And in the center of the clearing stood a rack, a great tangle of bent and twisted black iron, and hanging from it by their wrists were half a dozen Crosscraw men.

They were naked, and their bodies were a horror; where they were not covered in blood, their flesh was mottled deep purple with bruises. Thin, almost brutally so, as if they had not eaten in weeks; so light that they swayed in the breeze. Aela thought they were corpses, at first, until she saw one struggle weakly to raise his head, and saw another's chest rising and falling with breath.

She almost didn't believe what she was seeing at first. It just seemed so...strange, to see something so brutal and cruel, next to such a brightly painted building, beneath the happy sunlight. But once the sight had sunk in, she felt her stomach churn. "Oh," she said, clasping a hand to her mouth to stop herself from crying out, "Oh - they - they're so young. They dinnae even hae their beards yet. They're barely more'n boys...."

"Sunhammer clan," Torc whispered, from somewhere close behind her. "Ye can tell - see th' hair?" Aela had never heard of the Sunhammer clan, but it was true that the boys did have unusual hair color for a Crosscraw. Where it was not matted down with blood, their long, wild hair was red, streaked through with gold. It was beautiful, really. Like little broken birds, Aela thought, blinking away a tear. "They live as far north as any clan Ah know of," her brother went on. "Ef th' Bogge-King's got tae them, he's got tae us all."

Aela felt a great throbbing pain in her head, and she had to take deep breaths to stop the world from seeming to float about her. It was hardly the first atrocity she had seen the bogge-men commit. She had seen more death at their hands than she could even remember. But she had never grown numb to it, like some of her folk seemed to have. It angered her, every time; and all the more so now because these Crosscraw here so vulnerable. Boys their age, they should be just first learning to use their weapons; going out on their first hunts, not strung up to die like this. "Ah cannae leave 'em here like-" she began.

Suddenly, the back door to the smithy slammed open.

Aela's words froze in her throat, as she crouched behind branches and leaves that suddenly seemed far too inadequate for cover. For standing at the back door of the smithy was Hadley.

The man's broad shoulders filled the door frame as he stepped out into the shadows of a small overhang in the back of the shop, letting the door slowly swing shut behind him. Except...something was off about him. He stood perfectly still for a long while, his face hidden; so still that it seemed as if he did not even breathe.

And then he stepped out into the light, and where his face should have been, there was nothing but a jagged hole, a dark pit deeper than what his skull should have been able to contain. And his head shook - no, not just shook, it buzzed, like the wings of a bee, moving so rapidly that it nearly became a blur.

Aela felt her teeth grinding against each other so hard that it seemed as if they might crack, her jaw clenched like stone. This was the Bogge-King, wasn't it. This was the thing that had slain and tormented her folk; this thing that had taken the freedom of the open sky from her.

"Dinnae do et," Torc whispered sharply, and Aela realized that she held an arrow nocked to her bow, in trembling hands, aimed straight at Hadley. "An arrow willnae kill tha' daemon."

She choked back a snarl of rage. Her muscles felt knotted; it was difficult to get her arms to lower the bow. For one terrifying moment, it seemed as if her own body would not obey her. Torc is right, she thought furiously to herself. An arrow will be useless. All you'll earn yourself is a useless death. Put it down. And slowly, her muscles relaxed, the trembling point of the arrow lowering to point towards the ground.

Hadley remained in the sunlight, standing still for a moment, his head jerking sharply about so swiftly that it was a wonder that they could not hear the bones in his neck breaking. He moved with short, jerky movements, like a spider scrambling across a rock wall; sudden bursts of speed, only to stop and freeze completely, before rushing forth again. Something about him was profoundly wrong. For some reason, it bought back a memory, for Aela - a memory, as a child, of coming across a deer that had been caught in a rockslide in the midst of the woods. It had been the first time she had seen a creature so large killed so violently, amd its splayed, off-angle limbs and misshapen, crushed head had always stuck with her. And for some reason, looking at Hadley, she could not help but think of that deer. His body was whole, but something about him was mutilated.

He moved in this odd fashion across the yard, and for one chilling moment Aela thought this broken, warped thing had spotted her. But instead, it stopped in front of the rack from which the young Sunhammer men hung. It froze there, for a moment, its head cocking back and forth, from side to side, as if it could see the men with the hole where its face should be. And then, Hadley reached out and lifted one of the young men from the rack, carrying the Sunhammer over his broad shoulders as easily as if he were lifting a sack of grain.

"Nae," Aela hissed beneath her breath, feeling the muscles in her legs tense, watching as Hadley carried the boy across the yard. "Dinnae touch him." She knew, with a creeping sense of dread, that something awful was going to happen. But still, she prayed to the Ancestors that Hadley might leave the boy alone. Please, she pleaded, please dinnae make me watch this.

But the Ancestors weren't listening, today.

Hadley shuffled across the yard, towards the bloodstained stump, and roughly tossed the Sunhammer boy down onto it. As he did, a great black cloud of flies lifted off from it, buzzing about the smith's head in a vile swarm.

No, Aela thought to herself. No, no, no. She felt hot tears streaming down her cheeks. Please, no.

"We cannae do anythin'," Torc whispered to her, very, very quietly, his lips close to her ear. Aela turned to find her brother crouched next to her, t he shadows of the leaves playing across his face. Tears ran down his cheeks as well. "Ye cannae help him. Turn away, if ye cannae stand et. But ye must nae make a move."

The Sunhammer boy stirred, as he lay upon the stump, jolted out of unconsciousness. And then, seeing where he was, he began to panic. Muffled screams made their way past the gag in his mouth; his limbs moved weakly as he tried to get up, to roll off the bloody table, anything he could do to get away from there. Give him a miracle, Aela begged the Ancestors. Please, let there be just a little justice in this world. Just a little mercy. Please.

And then Hadley balled his massive fists together, and slammed them down upon the Sunhammer's chest. Once. Twice. Aela shuddered with each blow. Three times. Something cracked. The Sunhammer went still, his head lolling limply to the side. Blood bubbled from the corner of his mouth. He still breathed, though his chest seemed horribly uneven as it rose and fell.

But Hadley was not done yet. He stooped to the ground, to a small chest that lay beside the stump. And from it he drew out something black and chattering, something that writhed and squirmed in his hand.

A bogge-helm.

Aela clapped both hands over her mouth to stifle a sob. "Dinnae look," Torc whispered to her. "Ye willnae be able tae take et. Ye were always tae soft-hearted fer yer own good, Aela. Tae kind. Look away, tae yon window. Yer lowlander friends are en et. See? They're alright."

Aela dragged her eyes away from what was happening on the stump, to look through the window. It was true. Elyse and Martimeos were there, looking on with horror. They live. That's good, she thought wildly.

"Cover yer ears," Torc whispered gently. "Quickly, naow. Dinnae take yer eyes off 'em. Or stare at th' ground. Jest dinnae watch."

Aela covered her face with her hair and covered her ears. She tried not to think about the muffled noises she was hearing. She tried to control her panicked, sharp breaths. She tried not to think about what was happening to a young, innocent lad, a stone's throw from her, while she was powerless to stop it. She stayed like this, trying to keep her mind empty, for what seemed like a very long time.

"He's gone," Torc said into her ear. "Back inside. Ah made sure yer friends saw we were here."

Aela brushed her hair away from her face. Hadley was nowhere to be seen. On the black iron rack, the Sunhammer boys still hung. One, now, wore a bogge-helm, its long dark cloak falling down around his shoulders. "We cannae leave 'em," she murmured.

"Aela...."

"Nae!" she whispered furiously, whipping her head around to glare at Torc. "Ah'll nae leave 'em tae die. Nae witout at least tryin' tae help 'em."

Torc stared at her, and for a moment Aela thought her brother was going to argue. But then he sighed, and an odd affection entered his voice. "Alright," he replied quietly. "Aye. Let's see what can be done."

~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~

When Kells returned from the cellar of the smithy, he walked back into the room he had left Martimeos and Elyse in, relieved to see that Hadley had not yet returned. But he frowned, curiously, at what greeted him: The wizard was standing on his tiptoes, peering out a window, and the witch stood on a stool by his side, doing the same.

"What are you two doing?" he asked.

The wizard and the witch both yelped in shock; Elyse would have fallen off the stool had Martimeos not caught her. "Serpent's tits," she swore, glaring at Kells, "Did you need to surprise us like that?"

Kells ignored her, leaning on the halberd he had bought up from the cellar. He nodded toward Martim. "Am I to assume you have your wits about you once more?"

Martimeos scowled, his expression dark, a wrathful fire behind his dark green eyes. "Yes," he muttered, glancing at Elyse. Then he looked Kells up and down, frowning. "From where did you get the halberd?"

"There were a few interesting things in the cellar," Kells replied, and told the two of them of what he had found; the mirror, the door, and most importantly, the dark blade of the Bogge-King. "And what were the two of you looking at?"

Martimeos and Elyse glanced at each other. "Hadley...has some Crosscraw prisoner, out back," the wizard replied, his voice a hushed whisper, as if he were afraid the daemon might overhear. "Young men, barely old enough to hold a blade. We spotted Torc, hiding in the forest back there, as well; I assume Aela has seen them too. We must do what we can for them. If indeed we can do anything at all."

Kells nodded, drumming his fingers along his breastplate, considering this. And then he said, delicately, "Must we?" He held up his hands in a warding gesture as Elyse's eyes grew wide with shock and her face twisted with the curse that perched on her lips. "I would save them, if I could, but - isn't the important thing, here, to get the Bogge-King's blade and hammer? Would they not also be saved, if we did that?"

Elyse swallowed her rage with some effort. "I do not think," she said, her voice thick, "that they will last much longer. And who knows what might be done to them, if...when, we make our way from this place and leave them behind." She lowered her eyes to the ground, and her voice seemed strangely gentle. It was, Kells thought, an odd look for her.

She might have a point, but still he did not like it. When first they came across the smithy, he had wanted to take time in approaching it. Being thrust into this without a plan and making one on the fly felt dangerous, to him. Too much here could go terribly wrong. "Very well," he began, "But-"

From somewhere within the shop, a door slammed. "Sorry!" Hadley's voice called. "Sorry for taking so long. I noticed I had left some tools out."

"I can keep him distracted," Martimeos whispered quickly, as the sounds of Hadley dragging something across the shop floor approached. "Whilst the two of you go and meet with Aela. If you can find the hammer while I keep him here, as well, all the better."

"Not alone," Elyse snapped at him.

But Martimeos did not answer her. Instead, he straightened, and flashed a strained smile. "Hello, Hadley."

Kells turned, to find the smith standing in the doorway, a cushioned chair with curling iron legs held in his arms. Something about the man had changed. Whereas before, he had seemed almost shockingly normal, other than the darkness of his shadow, now something was...off. He seemed paler; his friendly smile more unnatural. His blonde hair was unkempt and mussed, and his eyes seemed unfocused, blinking owlishly. "Sorry to bother you for the chair," Martimeos went on quickly, before anyone else could continue. "But it seems we will not need it after all. I have convinced Elyse to go see my father for a new pair of boots. Kells, would you escort her...? I will send Flit along to guide you."

Elyse's mouth opened and closed like a gasping fish as she stared at the wizard, her dark blue eyes flashing and her hands twisting and knotting in her long hair. A storm of rage seemed barely contained on her face. But Hadley spoke before she could. Swaying side to side, Hadley squinted at her, as if not quite sure she was there. "Boots," the smith said softly. "Yes. A fine idea." He frowned, furrowing his brow, but then nodded. "No worries. But you will not go with them, Martim?"

"I," Martimeos replied, "Have some words I would speak with you. Alone." The wizard whistled to his familiar. Flit cocked his head to the side and then fluttered up from the table, alighting on Elyse's hat. "I will probably still be here when you are done finding some new boots," he said idly, his voice light and carefree. "Perhaps you can bring some wine over for us to share, and we can all have a proper sitdown with Hadley after he is done with his tasks for the day. Hmm?"

Elyse looked as if she dearly wished to argue the point, her fists clenched and trembling slightly. But seeing Hadley smiling expectantly at her, she drew a deep breath. "Yes," she replied, her tone ice-cold, as she glared daggers at Martimeos. "Yes. Wine. Certainly. We will not be gone long, I am sure. We will be right back." She said this last as if biting off every word.

And with that, she strode furiously from the shop, Cecil trailing after her. After an awkward moment, Kells followed; he glanced back over his shoulder as he walked away, the last thing he saw before he exited the shop being Martimeos and Hadley sitting down at the table together.

"Stubborn idiot!" Elyse hissed, once Kells had joined her in the bright sunshine in front of the smithy. She glared down at her shoulder, where Flit was preening himself. "You have an utter fool for a master. Did you know that?" Flit let out an offended-sounding chirp and took off, a small red dot against the clear blue sky. She turned to Kells, then, jabbing her finger at him accusingly. "He should not be in there alone. What was he thinking?"

Kells blinked. It almost felt as if the witch was blaming him. "Very likely, he was thinking that as long as he keeps Hadley occupied, it is best to have as many others at work as possible," he replied. "For his sake, let us make haste."

Elyse's face contorted with a snarl, and for a moment Kells thought the witch was going to continue her tirade. But then an odd look crossed her face, and she clutched at her robes, breathing deeply as if to calm herself. "You're right," she muttered, her dark blue eyes staring at the ground. "He is right. Best...best to have as many on the hunt while Hadley is distracted." As Kells turned, she added in a voice so low that he assumed he was not meant to hear, "You're as much of a stubborn fool as he."

They passed around the front of the smithy, and stopped by the forge. Here, perhaps, they could find the hammer. But it was a chaos of smith's tools and supplies; by the stone-stacked forge itself, a workbench sat piled with tongs and chisels and an entire set of hammers, each with slightly different shaped heads. Kells knew little of smith work himself, and Elyse knew none of it; none of these hammers seemed to have anything unusual about them that would indicate it would be the hammer of the Bogge-King. "I assume," Elyse said, frowning as she picked up a hammer with an oddly sharp face, "That what we seek would be something made of dolmec iron."

"I would hope so, lest we plan on carrying every hammer from this place," Kells muttered. He sighed, glancing towards the window of the shop. "We will have to come back. We've lingered too long. Let us speak with Aela first."

His mind whirled with plans for what they might do. How long could Martimeos keep Hadley distracted? He did not have high hopes, given that the smith's daemon already seemed to be leaking out. So long as they were careful, though, perhaps this could be done. If they could sneak away from Hadley without the man noticing that his blade and hammer were gone, how long would it be before he noticed they were missing? But when they rounded the back of the shop, he could not help but mutter a curse beneath his breath.

Torc and Aela were already there, in the small stump-filled yard in the back. Torc kept a lookout around the corner of the house; Flit perched in a nearby tree that allowed the cardinal to peek into the window into the smith, keeping an eye out. And Aela - Aela already stood by a large, black iron rack in the midst of the yard, from which young, tortured Crosscraw men hung by their arms.

They were in as bad a shape as anyone Kells had ever seen. Starven, clearly; their ribs poked through their chests, and their elbows and knees looked knobbly. And they seemed to have been severely tortured as well; bruises and cuts covered their bodies. And one of them wore a bogge-helm. He covered his nose as he approached; there was the unmistakable stench of death, here.

"Oh," Aela said, her voice trembling, as she spotted him. She licked her lips and glanced towards the window, and dropped her voice to a whisper. "Ah...Ah'm glad tae....tae see ye well," she continued. The woman was staring in wide-eyed shock. She herself did not seem very well. "How...how goes things, within?"

"Martimeos is going to keep Hadley distracted. The man does not seem to know who or what he is, here." Kells kept his voice low as well, and leaned on his halberd as he looked up at the men on the rack. "I...we'll do what we can for them, Aela."

"Three o' em are already dead." This was Torc, who had joined them. Kells gave the man an odd glance, but Aela seemed fine with her brother speaking for her on this subject. "O' th' three livin, they're barely conscious. And one o' em es th' one wit' the bogge-helm."

Elyse approached the rack cautiously, nearly retching at the stench. Covering her nose and her mouth with the hem of her robe, she reached out and cautiously placed her hand on the Sunhammer that wore the bogge-helm. She glanced at the bogge-helm as if afraid it might snap at her, but perhaps the transformation was not yet complete, or even started; its eyes did not burn with any light, and it seemed limp and dead. "I am surprised he lives at all," she mumured. "He is...he is crushed. Perhaps it is the helm that keeps him alive."

Kells scratched his chin, pondering for a moment. "Alright," he said. "Let us take the two who still live and are whole." He sighed, glancing around. "Perhaps we can hide them in the forest, and set a guard while we look for the hammer. Or perhaps it would be best to take them back to the door we passed on the way in; the one in the mouth of the statue. Send someone through with them."

"But...the one wit' th' helm still lives," Aela said. "Are we jest gonna leave him...?"

"Yes," Kells replied, his tone carrying an air of finality. He would do what he could, but it would be foolish to risk their lives for someone as good as dead. "He's already gone."

Aela searched Kell's face, and then swallowed, nodding, and looked towards the ground. "Aye. Alright."

With some effort, they removed the two men still living from the rack. They hung only by iron manacles that bound their wrists together, their arms held up painfully by the chains; their mouths were gagged. Kells felt a pit in his stomach form as he lifted one of them. They were so young. And so light. Even if they were rescued, he knew, they may very well die from their wounds, even with care.

Aela carried one in her arms; and Torc offered to carry one around his back, with the boy's manacled arms draped around his shoulders. "Et'll be best, Queensman," the Crosscraw man said, "Ef ye hae yer hands free tae wield tha' halberd ye nicked. This place seems peaceful, but Ah dinnae trust tha' we will nae hae to fight."

Under Torc's direction, Kells shuffled the corpses on the rack, rearranging them, so that one could not tell from a glance that two were missing. From the right angle, at least. He gagged as he lifted one, and a cloud of flies lifted from the boy's hair. Vile, he thought to himself, so vile to do such to one so young. I hope Hadley gets his just desserts, for this. I hope he burns in the Hells. "Alright," he whispered, taking up his halberd once more, "Let's get them to the forest first, and then we can decide-"

Before he could finish, the world rang like a gong.

~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~

Martimeos stared silently at Hadley, as the blacksmith took a seat across from him, the man's too-dark shadow crawling up the wall as he did so.

He shook his head, trying to clear it. He could still feel the alluring pull of this place; the promise of a world where the attack on Pike's Green had never happened, and he had never left. A world that he so dearly wished to be true that it ached not to believe in it; a world that seemed like a happy, foggy dream that he could drown in forever. But there was no forgetting the truth, not now that Elyse had reminded him of it. And he would not want to forget the truth, but even so, he could not help but feel a small, irrational resentment towards the witch for pulling him back toward it. That he might have dreamt forever, here.

But still. Now that he had seen its falsehoods, something seemed...wrong, here. It was difficult to put his finger on. The sun seemed a little too bright; the grass a little too green, the colors just a little too vivid. And Hadley....

Something was wrong with Hadley. He was not as cheerful and plain-seeming as before. He looked ill-at-ease, his clear blue eyes unfocused. His thick fingers scrabbled at the strange, black pendant he wore about his neck, and he muttered to himself, glancing furtively about the room. The man had grown more and more agitated, as Martimeos had engaged him in trivial talk; more and more unwell. "Is...is something the matter?" Martimeos asked.

Sweat ran down the smith's forehead. He blinked, frowning. "Yes," he said simply, and then fell silent.

Martimeos felt a nervous knot beginning to form in his stomach. The long, shrill buzz of a cicada sounded outside, as they stared at each other in silence. He thought of what he had seen Hadley do, outside. A daemon lived inside this man, and he did not know what might cause it to come out. He suddenly felt as if he were walking on glass, barefoot. Keep him in idle conversation. Keep him talking. "So," he said, forcing cheer into his voice, "How many horses have you shod so far this year-"

"Martim," Hadley interrupted him. "When did you grow so old?"

Martimeos felt his hands grow cold. "I - I am not so old yet," he laughed nervously.

"But you are." Hadley was shaking his head, rocking back and forth in his chair, frowning as he stared down at the table. "You are. Last I saw you, you were a child. How is it you are full grown now?"

"You...have not seen me in some time," Martimeos offered weakly. "That's all."

"No," said Hadley. The wood of his chair creaked and groaned as he rocked back and forth, back and forth. The motes of dust dancing in the warm light of the sun streaming in through the window swirled, as if a strong, unfelt breeze blew through them. "No. No, that doesn't make sense. Something's wrong. Are..." Hadley looked up sharply, his eyes wild with panic. "Are you really Martimeos?"

Martim's hand strayed to the hilt of his sword. He had wanted to keep Hadley bound and distracted in pleasant, meaningless conversation, true. But another part of him had wanted to push the man, to see what memories lay buried within; to see how much of Hadley remained within the Bogge-King. And if the man had begun to suspect that what lay about him was false..."I am," he answered. "Yes. I am. But you are right. Something is wrong. You have forgotten something."

"Forgotten?" Hadley asked, confused. He closed his eyes and continued rocking, his hands tangling in his golden hair. Martimeos felt his heart breaking, watching the man. Hadley was sick. Hadley was very, very sick. "I...that's right. Isn't it? I remember a war. Martim, I - I was in a war."

"Yes, that's right," Martimeos replied softly. "A very terrible war. You were very brave."

Hadley laughed, hoarsely. "No I wasn't. I...I remember, now. I remember, oh....Martim, I was scared all the time." The smith's giant hands trembled, as he set them down on the table. "I...remember most of all, the horses. How they screamed when they died. It gave me horrible nightmares. Every night."

As he spoke, something caught Martim's eye. The strange, corded black rope that Hadley wore around his wide neck, with its odd pendant of wrinkled leather. It stirred. It moved on its own. It was not, he realized, a decoration at all. It was something living. Something with many, many legs. He licked his lips; his eyes darted up to Hadley's face as the smith spoke once more. "Martim," he asked, "Why was I in a war...?"

"You fought," Martimeos answered hoarsely, "To protect the people you loved. That's all."

The pendant Hadley wore uncurled itself from about his neck. Like a large, black centipede, with a strange ball of leather for a neck, it scuttled across the smith's chest, chittering, winding itself about the thick biceps of the man's arm. "No," Hadley said, as the...thing laid its head on his shoulder. It seemed he did not notice this at all. "No, that's...something happened. Didn't it. Something...." His head shot up. All the warmth had fled from his eyes. They were like chips of blue ice, now. "I remember," he said quietly. "They burnt Pike's Green down."

Martimeos did not say a word.

Hadley raised his head to the ceiling, and opened his mouth.

A strange sound erupted from his throat, like heavy iron bells ringing; like the screech of a fiddle's strings raked with a nail, like metal scraping against stone. He flickered; his whole body flickered, winking in and out, changing. Martimeos jumped backwards, his stool clattering to the floor. He watched, in shock, as a wave of change washed over the smithy.

Colorful paint peeled and flaked away; the kettles and horseshoes and shovel blades shriveled and rusted. Char crawled along the wooden walls of the shop, creaking and groaning, like the tendrils of something living. A part of the roof caved in with a crash as the beams of the roof blackened and weakened. Until, in the end, all that was left of the smith was a long-abandoned ruin; a shop that had been burnt long ago, neglected and forlorn.

A cry went up from outside, starting dimly at first, but soon rising to an unbearable din. The clash of steel on steel; the screams of dying men, as if a great battle surrounded them. With a crash that sent wood and rust bursting forth across the smithy, one of the walls collapsed as a flaming ball of pitch-covered branches burst through it, scattering flames across the shop; Martimeos shouted in alarm as smoke flooded into the shop and filled his lungs. Through burning eyes, he could see that beyond the walls of the shop, the world had changed as well. No more the sunlit comfort of Pike's Green; instead it was a snow-covered battlefield, where knights in gleaming silver armor and farmers in patchwork mail slaughtered each other like animals.

The wind was driven out of him as he was tackled to the ground; panic shot through him. But he was not harmed. Instead, he found himself wrapped in the strong, protective embrace of Hadley, who hunched over him, clear blue eyes full of concern. "Martim, lad," the man whispered furiously, "What in the world are you doing here...? How did you get here? 'Tis not safe!"

He was changed now; no longer the mirthful, jolly blacksmith of Pike's Green, the Hadley that Martimeos remembered from his childhood. Now, he was Hadley the soldier; a chain hauberk draped across his shoulders, its coif drawn about his blonde hair, now cut very short. A wooden targe was strapped to his back, and by his belt he wore a wicked bearded axe. His face was crisscrossed with scars, and all the cheer had drained out of it. And around his right arm was still wound the strange, centipede-like creature."Black fortunes, you should not be here," Hadley continued mournfully. "This is no place you should be." He glanced over his shoulder, staring grimly out across the battlefield. "Come. We'll see to you."

Martimeos tried to protest, but the black smoke filling his lungs turned his words into little more than a hacking cough. He stumbled to his feet as Hadley tugged him by the arm, and led him out of the shop.

~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~

This is madness, Kells thought.

With a flickering, moaning groan, the world about them had changed. No more were they surrounded by the pleant idyll of Pike's Green. Where once was grass was now thick, bloodstained snow. Where once was a lush summer forest now stood nothing but the blackened trunks of dead, burnt trees. And what raged around them now was the horror of war.

War as seen through the eyes of a madman. For these were no normal soldiers. The white halberd whirled in Kell's hands as he bought its blade crashing down upon the face of a man whose head seemed to be nothing but a mouth full of broad, flat teeth. The - spirit, vision, daemon, whatever it was - it did not fall normally. No, instead it flickered as blood spurted from its ruined mouth; it flickered wildly, on the ground one moment, in the air the next, its chain-clad limbs contorted at odd angles, before with a clap like thunder it simply disappeared, it was gone.

The battlefield in which they stood was full of soldiers like this; men who were monsters. Too-long faces, wide, gaping mouths. Eyes that were nothing but hollow pits. Hands with too many fingers. Crooked skulls that looked as if they had been beaten into odd shapes by a mace. Merciful fortune that many of these things fought with one another, tearing each other apart like savage animals. There seemed to be two factions of them; one of men dressed in patchwork armor, and the other of men and knights in fine silver mail. He did not need to see the banners whipping in the wind to know who these last were meant to be. Queensmen.

A loud crack rang out against the slate-grey sky, and from somewhere behind him he heard Elyse scream out in panic. "Kells!"

He whirled in a panic, and cursed. To top it all off, the smithy, which was now nothing but a burnt husk, seemed to be sinking into the ground. Dark cracks in the earth spread out around it, like shattered glass; a viscous black liquid, like pitch, bubbled up from these. The rack on which the Crosscraw men hung had toppled over, sending the corpses to splay on the ground, where they began to sink into the muck. So much for all that effort rearranging the corpses. Aela, with her unconscious Sunhammer boy in her arms, was struggling forth. But Torc, with the lad laid across his back, and armless, had tripped as the ground beneath him broke.

And Elyse - Elyse struggled to bring up her crossbow as a hunchbacked solder in silver mail, with one arm much longer than the other, bore down on her. The witch screamed as the creature tore her bow from her hands, shattering it to pieces.

Told you there'd be days like this, boy, Kells heard Roark chuckle in his head.

The panic and fear within him seemed to shrink into small, negligible things as his mind retreated to a cold, hard place; the knot of unbreakable iron that lay within. Time to deal death, Kells thought as he lunged forward.

The spearpoint of the white halberd slid neatly between joints of armor, and bright red blood bubbled out. The monstrous soldier threatening Elyse let out a thin, wheedling scream; it seemed to balloon in size as it faded away and winked out into nothing.

"Thank you," Elyse muttered, her voice shaking. Her dark blue eyes were wide with shock as she watched the afterimage of the soldier burn away into thin air. "This world truly is broken."

Kells did not answer her. Wordlessly, in one graceful movement, he spun and bowed, seizing Torc by the stump of the man's one remaining good arm, and tugged the Crosscraw to his feet. He pointed with the bloody blade of his halberd to the trees. "There!" he shouted, over the din of the battle surrounding them. "Take shelter in the forest!"

And with that, he charged into the fray.

Kells led them on a circuitous route through the battle. He had no desire to fight these things if he did not need to; he was glad to let them battle each other. Still, their passage did not go unnoticed. He laid about him with the white halberd as monstrous, twisted soldiers stalked after them, swinging it so hard that the wood hummed in his hands. The weapon was well balanced, and the blade terribly sharp; it cleaved through mail and bit into plate as he desperately fended off those who approached them. He did not bother to try and move in for a kill; only to ward away and then flee. What use killing these things that were not even real, anyway? Elyse did what she could to keep them safe as well; the witch conjured glamours of flashing curtains of flame that roared up from the ground. The monsters might not be real, but they still feared fire.

Wizard, Kells thought grimly, as they neared the dead trees of the forest, if you can't find the hammer yourself, we may just be at the end of our luck.

~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~

It was all too much.

Hadley had pulled Martimeos through the flaming remains of the smithy, through choking smoke and flame, and out into the fresh, cold air at the front of the shop. Twisted, monstrous soldiers battled and died all around them, but Hadley paid these no mind. To the forge he bought Martimeos, instead; to the small overhang in front of the shop in whose shade it lay, and there, a swirling cloud of fog in the shape of a man awaited them.

"Sir!" Hadley cried, saluting the mist sharply. "Permission to enter the tent!"

A pair of wormlike, fleshy lips emerged from the cloud where a man's head would be. They opened, revealing black, rotted teeth, and a sound like a river of flowing sand issued forth from them.

"Yes sir!" Hadley cried, sweeping Martimeos past the fog, and into the forge.

This is madness, Martimeos thought to himself, as Hadley sat him down at a well-worn bench, broken madness. What took place around them, now? Hadley's rotted memories of war? The wood of the remaining walls of the smithy creaked and groaned as the ground cracked beneath them. Martimeos found his boots sitting in a pile of black, sticky ooze that bubbled up from the ground.

"Martim, lad," Hadley said to him, patting him down, "Where are you injured? We can have you looked after. How did you get here?"

It was all too much. Seeing Hadley so concerned for him, even now; seeing the man on the verge of tears; it was all too much. "Hadley," Martim said pleadingly, "Please. I'm not injured. Please listen."

The sound of a trumpet split the sky, and Hadley looked up sharply, his scarred face contorting in fury. "It's too late," he snarled. "They're here."

And there, rising from the snow, marching towards the forge, came a troop of Crosscraw. No, not Crosscraw, Martimeos thought; monsters in the shape of Crosscraw. Their long red hair crackled and smoked on their skulls like real flame; their eyes were small, beady pinpricks in their faces above slavering maws full of needle-sharp teeth and red with fresh blood. They carried torches and stone axes in crooked, knottted fingers, and where they stepped the ground burst into flame. Thick black smoke drifted into the sky as they advanced on the forge, and as they did, the sound of screams filled the air. All-too-familiar screams.

I'm in Hell, Martimeos thought wildly.

Hadley rose, and unbuckled his wooden targe from his back and drew out his bearded axe from his belt. With a howl of rage, he waded forth into the Crosscraw, and blood flew in scarlet arcs as he laid into them. Hacking. Hacking. Hacking. And with every bite of steel into flesh, there came the sound of shattering glass, as if the world itself were breaking.

The others. Get up. Martimeos rose to his feet, and slid his sword from his sheath. What of the others? How do they fare in all this? This must stop. It cannot continue. And he followed Hadley into the bloody hole the man had carved into the ranks of the Crosscraw fiends. I have to reach him.

Claw and tooth reached out towards him. Stone axe bit into him, and torches seared him. The Crosscraw opened their needled mouths wide, and screamed at him in the voices of his burning neighbours. And as Martimeos lay about him with his blade, he felt maddening hatred burning in his heart. These foul and wretched things, less than human, less than animal, deserved no mercy. They should be wiped clean; nothing so wicked should touch the world.

And the hotter the hatred burned within him, the more easily the Crosscraw fell. They fell, weeping and screaming; his blade cut through their flesh as if it were made of air. Heads flew from shoulders, and it felt so good to see them suffer. He called upon the Art, and turned their own flames against them; they withered like leaves in a bonfire. Something bubbled with dark laughter in his blood; something within him found it all very, very funny. He slew until his sword arm grew tired; until he lost track of where he was. All thought flew from his mind. He could not even see the smithy any longer.

Until, finally, he found Hadley.

The smith stood in the midst of a field of dead of dead Crosscraw that stretched as far as the eye could see; twisted and broken bodies, each shorn of a head. His shoulders heaved with exertion, and every inch of him seemed spattered with blood. He stood very still, axe in one hand, splintered shield in the other, his shoulders slumped. He seemed very tired. The only thing on him that was not red was his wide, staring, staring blue eyes.

"Hadley," Martimeos said, stepping through the carnage. He panted, catching his breath, and glanced behind him. A trail of blackened ruin lay from where he came; all burnt. How? he thought. How did I do that...? He turned back to the smith, wiping his bloody sword on his cloak and sheating it. "Hadley," he said again, "This needs to end. The war is over."

"Yes," Hadley said quietly, "I know."

Suddenly, the din of battle was quieted. There was no noise whatsoever, in this bloody, snow-covered battlefield. Only the sound of their breathing.

"I never liked it, you know." Hadley let his bloodsoaked axe drop to the ground. He wiped the blood from his face, and looked out across the slaughter with disgust. "The killing, that is. Even when I knew it was right. Even when I knew they deserved it. Even when I knew it had to be done. I could never bring myself to enjoy it. Sometimes, anger will overtake me, and I kill. Damn me, do I kill. But I'm no killer." Hadley was quiet for a long moment. And then he looked at Martimeos, as if seeing him for the first time. "Not like your brother." He paused, then gave a weak smile. "Not like you."

The world shivered and hummed. And then the bloody battlefield was gone.

They stood once more beneath the overhang, by the shadow of the forge. No longer did battle rage about them. All was quiet snow, and bare black tree, and flat, gray sky. Martimeos looked down at himself in wonder. The blood that had stained his clothes was gone; the smell of burning flesh was gone. Was any of it ever real?

Hadley had changed once more. He wore a smith's leather apron once again, and thick, protective gloves. But his face still bore the scars of war, scars that had carved out whatever kindness had once found a home on his face. His eyes were gone, now, nothing but dark pits bored into his skull. In his hands he held a hammer of ebony metal. The light glittered off it as if the hammerhead flowed like water, alive.

And on his shoulder, the centipede-like creature chittered and hissed, and then its head bloomed, like a flower. The crumpled leather unfolded into six batlike wings arranged in a circle, skin stretched taut as they flexed. And in the center of the wings lay a pulsing, sickly orange light. It hummed and throbbed with a eery wail that seemed to pour into Martim's mind from the bottom of his skull.

"I am no killer," Hadley repeated, looking down at the hammer in his hands. "Which is why I was so glad to be back to smithing, once the war was done. So I would not have to kill so often. To find a way to work my craft, and also do what must be done. Though there is no joy in working with this." He lifted the hammer to point it at a barrel, in which a freshly-forged iron shovel lay. The metal of the shovel blade twisted, hummed, darkened; it flowed like water, until what remained was one of the cruelly curved blades of the bogge-men, which clattered to the ground. "What skill is there in that?" the smith asked softly.

Hadley seemed, for the first time since they had come here, lucid. Clear-eyed. Like he knew who he was, and where he was. And there was something Martim had to know.

"Hadley," Martimeos said, "Do you...do you know what you've done? To the Crosscraw. Do you understand what you've been doing to them."

Hadley did not look back at him. He remained staring at the black blade on the ground, hammer held loosely in his hand. "Yes," he said quietly.

"To the innocent. To those who did not attack us at all. To their children."

"Yes."

Martimeos was quiet for a very long time. When he spoke, he could not stop his voice from cracking. "Why."

Hadley did not answer him, at first. He remained standing with his back to Martimeos, his shoulders slumped, arms folded behind his back. And then he asked, "Do you like rabbits, Martimeos?"

The wind howled, sending Martim's cloak flapping behind him. He didn't say a word. Hadley waited for an answer, but when he received nothing but silence, he continued. "I did, when I was a boy. My mother used to read me the story of clever Jack Rabbit to put me to sleep at night. You know it?"

"I...I do," Martimeos replied slowly. "I remember it. The rabbit that jumped to the moon and tricked the king there into giving up his crown."

"Aye. That's the one." Hadley turned, a faint smile on his scarred lips. Martimeos could not wrench his gaze away from the nothing that was the man's eyes. "Well. One year when I was very young - before you were born. Pike's Green had a terrible infestation of rabbits. Destroyed entire fields of crops. Rabbits can be quite voracious, when there's enough of them. We were running low on food to eat, let alone sell. Young as I was, though, I didn't understand. I loved it, you see. Rabbits everywhere, whenever I walked the village. I didn't understand that they were the cause of my empty stomach."

"Father has spoken to me of that year, once or twice," Martimeos said softly. What was the point of this...?

Hadley nodded. "Nothing seemed to work to control them. Traps, poisons, nothing. So do you know what we had to do?" He fiddled with his hands for a moment, frowning grimly. "We had to round up all able hands in the village. Go field by field. Every inch of them, and burn the rabbits out. And we knew we could not leave any behind. So we dug up their burrows, and smashed their young. All that we could find." He shook his head, chuckling. "I wept for weeks. I thought everyone around me was a monster. But I understood, when I was older."

Martimeos felt sick. How much of this is Hadley, and how much of this is the daemon? It had to be the daemon. It had to be. "Understood what?"

"Why they had to die," Hadley said simply. He smiled sympathetically at Martim. It looked so odd, to see that kind expression on his face, beneath those black pits of eyes. "It's not that all rabbits are bad. But when they get destructive, you must purge them. It must be done. Do you understand?"

"The Crosscraw," Martimeos said hoarsely, "Are people. Not rabbits."

"All that means," Hadley replied, "Is that they can destroy so much more than crops."

Martim's head throbbed. His heart felt like a twisted knot in his chest. It's not him. It's the daemon. It's not him saying this. Slowly, he drew his blade from it's sheath. "Hadley, look," he said quietly. He trembled as the smith approached him. Those dead pits for eyes; that orange hell-light on his shoulder, like a profane flower. "You forged this blade. Your father gave it to me. He bid me show it to you, should I find you. To show it to you, and ask you to come home. Your family believes you dead. They miss you dearly. Vivian misses you dearly."

Hadley considered the blade for a moment. Martimeos watched very, very carefully as the smith set aside his hammer, laying it upon a workbench, and took up the sword. "Aye," Hadley said, with a fond smile, as he ran his fingers over the blade. "I remember forging this. Finely crafted, if I do say so. I am glad it is seeing some use. I hope you wield it well." With a grateful nod, he handed the sword back to Martimeos, hilt first. "I miss them, as well. But there is still work to be done."

Martimeos stared into the black voids of Hadley's eyes. He forced himself to stare into them. There was so much more he wanted to ask. So much more he wanted to say. He opened his mouth to speak.

And then it all went wrong.

~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~

"What in the black hells is happening around here," Kells muttered, gripping the white halberd tight as he looked about.

They stood among the bare and blackened trees of the forest surrounding the smithy. Where only moments before there had been the din of battle, now there was nothing. No mark that there had even been a battle at all, here. No blood in the snow, no footprints. Not a trace of violence. Not a sound other than the whispering wind.

Aela shifted the Sunhamer that she carried over one of her shoulders, gently. "Ah...Ah s'pose et's a good sign that they're gone? Ah..." She swallowed, jerking her head to the forest around her. "Hae ye noticed," she said softly, "That all th' trees are th' same? Jest spun around, a bit. Look, see there? They all hae th' same branch tha' dips in th' middle like that. En exactly th' same spot."

"'Twas not so, earlier," Elyse muttered. The witch stooped to keep a hand on her familiar's back, as if afraid she might lose the cat. "I pay attention to trees. This place - it is getting more broken the longer we stay here, I think." She paused for a moment, then declared, "We should find Martim. I want to make sure the wizard didn't get his fool head smashed open when those soldiers appeared." From a branch above, Flit chirped in agreement.

"I still think 'tis best if we make our way back to the doorway we saw on our way in here," Kells muttered, "The one in the statue's mouth? We can set these - Sunhammer, down there. Set a guard if we need to, and come back. I - get down."

They had been trudging through the forest, making their way 'round the smithy. And as they came abreast of the front of the shop, Kells spotted Martimeos and Hadley conversing by the forge. They were far too visible, through these bare trees and withered underbrush.

They dove behind a small embankment; decent cover afforded by earth pushed up by tree roots, and a pile of snow and dead leaves. "Well," Kells whispered quietly, "At least we know the wizard is safe. For now."

"As long as we're stopping," Torc whispered, in a choked voice, "Perhaps ye can help me out, here."

Kells glanced towards the Crosscraw man. In order to carry the Sunhammer, the boy's manacles had been slipped over Torc's shoulders, but in the course of walking they had shifted upwards and were now wrapped 'round the man's neck. Torc was looking decidedly purple. "Right," Kells said, moving over delicately to make as little noise as possible. He set his halberd down upon the ground, and reached out to slip the manacles back over Torc's head. As he did so, he noticed that this Sunhammer boy was actually awake. From beneath a tangle of red-gold hair, he stared up at Kells frightfully, with bright, green eyes. "Shhhh," Kells told him. "We're here to help. Would you like some water?" When the boy nodded, Kells took a waterskin from Elyse and removed the gag that still filled the lad's mouth.

The boy drank greedlly from the waterskin, wetting his lips, seeming greatly soothed by it.

And then he closed his eyes, drew a deep breath, and screamed, "MASTER! MASTER, THEY'RE TRYIN' TAE TAKE ME AWAY FROM YE!"

~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~

Hadley's head shot up as the cries echoed across the snow. "What," he snapped.

"MASTER HELP-" Whoever was shouting managed to get this last out before they were muffled. It was obvious where the shouts were coming from, though. Very nearby, in the surrounding dead woods; not very far in at all.

And the sound of these shouts seemed to have especially aroused the strange centipede creature that sat perched on Hadley's shoulder. The bat-wings of its head flexed and flapped; the orange light that pulsed in the center grew brighter, the hum it emitted louder. With a clicking, irritated chatter, it pressed itself into the side of Hadley's head, until that orange glow sank within his skull and shone from the empty pits of the man's eyes. "Ah," Hadley said, his voice seeming to echo over and over again upon itself. "I see. Your friends, they are trying to steal my children. My tools. Aren't they?"

"Your children?" Martimeos said, quickly moving back from the man. Fear made his legs feel light. He eyed the black hammer set on the workbench nearby regretfully. He dearly wished he could snatch it, but the moment he had heard the shouts, Hadley's entire demeanour had changed. He looked angry. And what was more terrible was that it was a very human anger. A creaking, rumbling sound came from underfoot, and the cracks in the earth grew larger. He stumbled, as the smithy sank another foot down. "Hadley, they aren't your children."

"What will become my children, then." Hadley shook his head in disappointment. That orange light pouring from his eyes was a constant buzzing in Martim's skull. "Really, Martimeos. I invited you here because I missed you, and you abuse my hospitality like this?" Through the echoes of his voice, something new was entering. Something dry and dusty, something inhuman and unreal.

Martimeos tried to dash away, but Hadley moved swiftly for a man of his size. He found himself lifted by the front of his tunic into the air, kicking, held by just one of the smith's massive arms.

"You can understand why I do this," Hadley said, bringing his face very close. The orange light pouring from his eyes filled Martim's vision. Even when he closed his eyes, that light cut through, soaking into his skull. "I think you're old enough by now. The world is not a simple, happy place. You might not like it, but it is what it is. You do what must be done."

The buzzing hum in Martim's skull grew to a fevered pitch. The sickly orange light filled his head. And in it, he could see. The shadows silhouettes of men standing in blazing fields, sharp shovels held in their hands. Digging up the dirt. Bringing the sharp edges of their shovel blades down on smalled, furred creatures that squealed and bleated and screamed.

"You are blind," Hadley's voice echoed through his head. "I will make you see. Time to grow up, Martim. Time to stop weeping over rabbits."

~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~

It was time to die.

Aela could feel it in her bones. This was it. This was where she would be slain.

Everything seemed so slow; every sound seemed to come from such a great distance. There was no fear in her, now. Just a quiet, tranquil calm. She saw Kells clapping a hand over the mouth of the shouting Sunhammer boy, muffling him. The soldier had a strange, calm look on his face as well. It made sense, she thought. Kells was a good man; he understood. Born to Die.

Overhead, she saw a streak of red blur through the sky. Flit, flying back to his master. A brave little bird. He wanted to save the wizard. But it would take more than a cardinal to do that.

She set down the Sunhammer boy she held in her own arms, laying the poor, battered lad gently in the snow. She rose to her feet, stepping forward, strangely aware of the crunch of her boots in the snow. Elyse was trying to say something to her, but the words just didn't seem to matter. They slipped right through Aela's mind. The witch looked so frightened, frightened and furious. A distant pang of sadness rolled through the inner calm in Aela's mind. She liked the witch. Aela could tell that Elyse had a sweetness to her, beneath that sharp tongue and forcefulness. It saddened her to think she'd never see the woman again.

She turned her head, looking out towards the smithy, and unslung her bow. There they were. Martimeos and Hadley. The Bogge-King. The wizard thrashed, held in the air by the daemon's grip. Even from this distance, she could see the throbbing orange lights in the Bogge-King's eyes. And the whites of Martim's, as the wizard's eyes rolled into the back of his skull. And her sharp eyes saw something else. A large, black hammer that lay on a workbench beside the two.

"Et's alright," she said softly to herself, as she nocked an arrow to her bow, hearing the creak of the wood as she drew it back. Her long red hair streamed out behind her wildly in the wind, as she closed one eye and aimed. "Et's alright. Et's all gonna end." Grizel had said so. It would end. Martimeos was a good man, as well. He'd put an end to the Bogge-King, and the Crosscraw would take back the mountains. They would rebuild. This would all have a happy ending. She wouldn't be there to see it, but that was alright.

She let loose with the arrow.

Hadley flinched, and grunted, as the arrow struck him square in the back. He frowned, looking down at the arrowhead now protruding from his barrel-like chest, dripping with black blood. He growled in irritation as another struck him, and dropped Martimeos to the ground, where the wizard lay gasping for breath. And then he turned.

Aela walked forward as she fired arrow after arrow at the Bogge-King, turning his chest into a pincushion. She knew that this would not kill him. Perhaps it wasn't even hurting him at all. But that was fine, so long as it got the daemon away from Martimeos. The orange lights of his eyes bored into her, and somewhere within the glasslike sea of her mind, something terrible hummed and moaned. But he would have no more fear from her.

Her next arrow took him in the forehead.

Hadley's head snapped back as the arrow lodged in his skull. He remained staring at the sky. And then, he raised his arms.

His too-dark shadow whirled and pooled about him. He flickered, and the world shook with a great pounding, like something beyond it was trying to break through. The ground rumbled and cracked; the smithy sank yet another foot into the ground, its windows shattering, and another of its walls collapsing as the charred, fractured wood was pushed to the point of breaking. The last of the color in this place faded away to gray, and in the sky, the sun shook and trembled as it grew black.

And then where Hadley had stood was now the Bogge-King. That gigantic, man-shaped hole in the world, darker than night, with the cracked and ancient aurochs skull where a head should be. Black tears rolled from its eye sockets and stained bone, and teeth clattered as it stepped towards her. Aela felt as if she was floating above her own already-dead body, watching her corpse walk towards its fate. There et es, she thought, There's mah death. She loosed another arrow, and it simply sank into the black nothing of the daemon's body.

The ground cracked and shattered, black pitch oozing up from it, as the Bogge-King took a step toward her. And then a voice cried out.

"HEY!" Torc screamed. He paced around the edge of the forest, the wind whipping through his burnt, patchy hair, his eyes burning with a feverish intensity. "HEY! LOOKIT ME, YE GREAT FOUL DAEMON! OVER HERE!"

The Bogge-King ignored him, at first, paying him no mind as it bore down on Aela. Until he screamed, "YE WANT ME, YE IDIOT! AH WAS THERE! AH BURNT YER STINKIN' VILLAGE!"

Time seemed to slow, and all sound seemed to stop, as the Bogge-King froze, and then turned toward Torc.

"Thas' right," he cried, still pacing around the edge of the blackened trees, as far away from Aela as he could while still keeping the Bogge-King in sight. "Ah was there! Ah burnt 'em. Ah locked yer folk in a great big barn an' set th' torch to 'em." Torc licked his lips, and for just a moment, his eyes darted to where Martimeos still lay beneath the forge, struggling to his feet. Fergive me, wizard, he thought. He turned his eyes back to the Bogge-King, and grinned wickedly. "An ye wanna know somethin? They screamed like dyin' pigs! Thas' right, and sizzled like 'em too! Ah laughed mah arse off. Ah'd do et agin ef Ah could. What sort o' folk are stupid enough tae get intae a barn when they're attacked, anyway? They deserved et!"

The Bogge-King shook with fury; the edges of him seemed to blur and hum. The ground screamed and groaned as great shelfs of rock shot up, toppling trees and ripping through their roots. The daemon raised its head to the sky, and crooned with the sound of dozens of screams, the screams of burning and dying folk.

Aela fell to her knees in the snow and clapped her hands over her ears, screaming herself as loud as she could, loud enough to make her throat bleed, trying to drown out that song, to keep it from clawing its way into her mind.

But Torc didn't do anything at all. He stood, staring defiantly at the Bogge-King, as the song echoed around him. "Ye think tha' es gonna do anythin' tae me?" he laughed, a mad desperation in his voice. "Ah've bin' hearin' those screams en mah head fer years naow."

With a howl of rage that seemed to split the sky apart, the Bogge-King tore after Torc.

Aela watched as her brother sprinted, faster than she ever knew he could run. The Bogge-King followed him like a flood of shadow, long, dark claws tearing up the earth as it did so.

And then the clear gray eyes of Kells filled her vision. "Get up," the soldier said to her, hauling her roughly to her feet. "Get up. We must move. Don't watch, Aela. Don't look."

She didn't. She turned and fled. But that did not stop the sounds of Torc's last, gurgling screams from reaching her ears.

~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~

Flit came fluttering back to Martimeos as he lay upon the ground, twittering in panic. His familiar alighted upon his arm, delivering sharp, painful pecks to the exposed skin of his hand, trying to force him to move.

Get up, Martimeos thought to himself. Get up, damn you. You have no time left.

He struggled to his feet, and Flit perched once more upon his shoulder, urging him with his birdsong to run. Dim fury skittered at the corners of his mind; he had heard what Torc had shouted, but he shoved this away. Faintly, he could hear pained screams, sharply cut off by a wet, ripping sound. Don't think about it. Move.

Leaping forward, he grabbed the hammer of the Bogge-King from where Hadley had left it on the workbench. Despite its size, it was surprisingly light; and cold, very cold to the touch. He stumbled as the earth groaned again; rock squealed and screamed as the smithy sank yet further.

He looked around. He was surrounded now by ledges slick with black liquid; the smithy lay now in a depression in the middle of the clearing, as if something beneath the earth was pulling it down. No time to climb out of here. And besides, I still need the blade. In the cellar. Kells said it was in the cellar. Along with an exit. Maybe. Fortune, please let there be an escape for me there.

He struggled, turning back to the entrance of the smithy, even as the ground shuffled beneath his feet. The stone forge crumbled; the smith tools clattered and rang as they tumbled against each other. Shame stopped him. What of the others? Would they be able to make their escape? But what could he do to help them?

"MARRRRRTIMMMEEEEOOOOSSS!"

Hadley's voice seemed to come from all around him; from the earth, from the sky, from the stone, thick with dark fury and rage. Without wanting to, he turned.

The Bogge-King stood at the edge of the dead forest, teeth clattering, holding a bloody, unrecognizable head in one of its raised claws. The edges of it seemed to throb with some monstrous heartbeat. "YOU MAKE ALLIES OF....THIS?!" Hadley's voice boomed from the sky. "OF ONE OF THE VERY ONES WHO KILLED US?! YOU DARE?"

The Bogge-King raised its skull to the sky and roared, and a crack ran through the sky, as if it were made of glass. In the woods behind him, Martimeos could see dark shapes moving. Bogge-men. Many of them. He forced his legs to move as Hadley began to tear his way through the snow, back towards him.

~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~

The calm within Aela had turned into a shocked numbness. Torc is dead, she thought, but it didn't seem quite right. She was supposed to die.

But maybe she would anyway. The ground beneath her kept splintering and falling apart, crashing into dark fissures. Trees about her crashed and fell. And through the woods, they came. Bogge-men, flickering between the trees like shadows, with burning hell-lights in their eyes.

Though they hardly seemed to care about her. She watched as a horse-skulled bogge-man passed by her, mere feet away, close enough for her to feel the cold breeze cast by its dark cloak. No, they were streaming out of the forest and into the clearing; down towards the smithy. Towards Martimeos.

Kells was shouting something at her, but his words barely seemed to reach her. The soldier was leaning on his white halberd, and carrying one of the Sunhammer lads over his other shoulder. Just one? Aela thought. Where is the other?

And then she spotted him. The Sunhammer boy staggered across the snowy field even as it cracked and fell apart on weak and trembling legs. Towards the Bogge-King, as he stampeded across the snow. No, she thought, raising her bow, as the lad raised his manacled arms as if reaching out to embrace the daemon. No, no, no -

The Bogge-King lashed out with dark and bloody claws, and the boy flew to pieces.

Something red and wet landed mere feet from her in a twisted heap. Something that stared at her with a bright green eye from the midst of the bloody ruin. Something that still drew thin, gurgling breaths.

"MOVE," Kells shouted at her, as splinters raced across the sky.

"He's still breathin'," Aela muttered numbly. The world seemed to spin around her. She could not look away. "We...we can..."

"He's dead," the soldier snapped harshly. He hefted the Sunhammer boy that he still carried on his shoulder. "Do you wish to save this one? I cannot do it alone. Move."

Something inside of Aela snapped and fell away. Her mind shrank into a cold, dark place. There was nothing to do now but survive. Tearing her gaze away from the bloody remains of the Sunhammer, she staggered after Kells.

And then, all at once, the shadows of the forest seemed to come alive.

They danced along the ground; the shadows of the stone, the long shadows of the trees and their gnarled branches, twisting into the shaped of thin, grasping hands. They grasped at the bogge-men as they flowed forth through the forest, and the daemons screeched as they were pulled to the ground and drowned in shadow. Others drew their blades, and suddenly the forest and the clearing was a battlefield between the bogge-men and the shadows that ripped and tore at them.

And she could see, riding between the trees on a black bogge-horse, the wolf-skulled bogge-man. His arms seemed to bleed darkness as he raised them above his head in his working of the Art. He shivered, and rose his skull to the sky in a screech of pain, as if the very act of what he was doing was torture.

The ground cracked beneath them, and Aela stumbled. She did not know how Kells managed to stay on his feet. She clawed her way out of the snow, rising to her feet on trembling legs, only to find that they now stood at the top of a small cliff that looked down onto the clearing.

And at the edge of the cliff stood Elyse, her tattered robes whipping about her in the wild winds, Cecil by her side, pale skin and ragged black dress silhouetted against a shattered sky.

"We have to help him," the witch shouted, pointing down into the clearing. "We have to help Martimeos!"

Even as she spoke, there came a resounding crash; the sound of splintering wood and twisting metal. In the clearing below, the Bogge-King had ripped himself free of the shadows that clung to him, and with a shriek of awful triumph, crashed into the smithy, tearing what remained of it to smithereens.

"Elyse," Kells said, "What can we do?"

But the witch did not wait for them. Without another word, she leapt from the cliff and disappeared, chasing after Martimeos.

~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~

Martimeos had no sooner descended the stairs of the smithy when he heard the shop explode above him.

"WHERE ARE YOU, MARTIM," Hadley screamed in a voice like nails across the back of Martim's mind, and splinters of charred wood tumbled down the stairs as he tore the smtih above apart. "WHERE ARE YOU?! TRAITOR!"

There was no time to waste. Flit flew from his shoulder to alight upon the blade of the Bogge-King, which lay leaning against the cellar wall at the bottom of the stairs. Martimeos grabbed it, scabbard and all, and dashed towards the black iron doorway at the other end of the cellar. I have them both now, he thought wildly. I can do it. I can save Hadley. Rid him of the daemon. It can be done.

As he yanked the door open, revealing the shimmering haze and the darkness beyond, something came crashing down the stairs behind him. He glanced over his shoulder to see the Bogge-King clawing its way through the tight passage. The daemon saw him; saw that he held the blade in one hand and the hammer in the other, and howled in outrage.

Martimeos leapt through the doorway, slamming the door shut behind him. There was a slight sense of resistance as he passed through the haze; as if a small breeze pushed back at him, and then he was through. This place was utterly dark except for a single point of white light above. He was blind here, but Flit could still see a bit; his familiar guided him to a set of stone stairs that rose upward. As he began to ascend them, Martim quickly whispered under his breath, and cast a glamour that wrapped him in shadow. Hiding with the Art was going to be his only hope.

Moments later, the door burst open. The shimmering haze stretched and strained as Hadley forced himself through, as if it did not want to let him into this world, until it tore like cloth stretched too thin. The Bogge-King surged forth, blacker than the blackness that surrounded it.

And then the door slammed shut, trapping Martimeos in this place with it.

~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~

Kells panted, leaning on his halberd, sweat dripping from his nose as he leaned forward, gasping for breath. His shoulder burned and ached from the effort of carrying the Sunhammer boy over it. Light and starved as the lad was, he was a heavy burden to sprint through the snow with. Almost there, he thought, almost there. Keep going. He looked up, and gave Aela a grim smile. The Crosscraw woman did not return it. She simply nocked another arrow to her bow. Well, what did you expect, he thought to himself, You want her to smile at a time like this? Bloody idiot.

The clearing behind them, and the woods along with it, had seemed to collapse beneath their very feet as they ran, almost as if the land itself were trying to funnel them back to the smithy. It had been an exhausting, uphill climb, through ground that split open beneath them, through bogge-men and shadows that battled each other. And he had worried, the whole way, that the land behind them may have changed and taken away their escape. But no, it was still there; the giant stone head of a Crosscraw chieftain, with the door between the teeth of his open, screaming mouth.

But they had not managed to flee undetected. Though many of the bogge-men - he did not know how many there were, too many, he thought - though many of them had been pinned by shadow, they had picked up pursuers of their own. Two bogge-men, one horse-skulled and one with the skull of a reindeer, staggered up the slopes behind them. Aela had slowed them with her arrows, putting out one of each of their eyes, and the collapsing ground had aided them as well. But still they came on.

Sorry, Martimeos, Kells thought as he approached the doorway, and it slid open before him. Sorry, Elyse. See you in another life, I suppose. It rankled at him to leave the wizard and the witch behind, but what else could he have done? Certainly nothing without sacrificng the Sunhammer boy, at least, and most likely nothing besides. Perhaps they would survive. He did not count on it, though. "Alright," he panted, as he saw the snowy mountains of the Witch-Queen's range through the shimmer haze of the door, "Let's go. Once we're on the other side-"

"Ah ent goin'," Aela said. He turned to face her, and she smiled beatifically at him, her green eyes foggy, as if they stared at something distant. "Ah'll stay here," she said gently, "And hold off yon bogge-men, while ye make yer escape. 'Tis how et es meant tae be. Ah am meant tae die, here. Ye ken how it is." The wind whipped her red hair out behind her in a long stream, as she turned to fire another arrow. "Born tae die."

Kells nodded grimly at this, tucking his halberd under the crook of his arm as she spoke. "Horseshit," he snapped, and with his free hand yanked her through the door.

They toppled forth through the doorway, out into the snowy floor of a shallow cave, pushing back against the resistance the haze offered them until they were through with a slight popping sound. He spun as soon as he had his footing, looking back at where they had come, but it was as if they had burst forth from thin air. No doorway led back to the Land of Dim.

"What are ye doin?!" Aela shouted at him, outraged, but before she could say any more, Kells unceremoniously dumped the Sunhammer boy into her arms.

"You carry him," he told the furious Crosscraw woman, "So I can wield this halberd. Do you want to stay and argue? They'll be through and after us in a moment."

Aela's bright green eyes blinked at him, and her mouth opened and closed. And then she ran.

They fled from the cave out into the cold snow of the mountains. It turned out to not be a cave at all, but a mouth; the mouth of a giant statue, a twin to the one they had seen in the Land of Dim, at the base of a high, rocky cliff. Snow battered them as they exited; wherever they were now, it was in the grips of an icy storm.

They had not gotten far, though, when the bogge-men came streaming out of the cave as well, like twin shadows, their teeth clattering and their blades drawn. We're not going to be able to outrun them, Kells thought, bringing a hand to his eyes to shield it from the stinging snow. He cast about for anything that might save them. All he found was a small crevice, between two boulders in the cliffside. A man with a halberd could hold for a while, there. At least, against a normal foe. "There!" he shouted to Aela, pointing. "We make our stand there!"

As they sprinted through the snow, Kells could not help but chuckle to himself. Aela would probably get her death wish, after all. But what did it really matter, if she died here or there?

~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~

Down craggy rock face slick with chilling dark Elyse scrambled, even as they seemed to grow beneath her as the ruins of the smithy sank lower, ever lower into the earth; down paths that stretched and changed beneath her very feet even as she walked them. She jumped, the breath driven out of her as she landed in a pile of snow, and tore towards the splintered timbers where Martimeos and the Bogge-King had disappeared. Martimeos was a fool, she thought to herself as she ran, Cecil nimbly following her, and aren't I a fool for chasing after him now, as well. Chasing after a daemon. The memory of the Bogge-King's blood-soaked, terrible claws, easily tearing apart Torc and the Sunhammer, filled her memory and made her sick.

Those claws have probably already claimed him, a voice inside her spoke. Her mother's voice. I warned you what would happen to men you cared for.

"No," Elyse snarled to herself, through ragged breaths, as she clambered through the thick snow. "He'll live, or I'll kill him." She truly was a fool. What could she even do to help the wizard, should she catch up with him? What was she doing except racing towards her death? But despite these thoughts, her feet still moved forward.

The ground beneath her groaned and shifted and threatened to throw her off her balance, but on unsteady legs, she eventually made her way to the smithy. Little enough of it was left, now; it looked as if it had been burnt down and then torn apart by a tornado. She stepped among shattered, charred timbers and rusted, torn scraps of metal. The cellar. The Bogge-King looked as if he disappeared into the ground, when chasing Martim. Both he and the wizard likely went into the cellar.

The cellar stairs were still there, though buried now beneath rubble. Splinters tore open her hands as she struggled to climb over the jagged wood that blocked them off. Cecil snaked forth through the ruin to guide her, and for once, she was grateful to be so small. She wriggled through gaps in the rubble that most others would not have been able to make their way through, following her familiar, and bounded down the cellar steps when she came to them.

The cellar itself was a ruin, as well; long scratch marks scored the stone walls, as the Bogge-King's claws had torn through the rock as easily as a hot knife through butter in the rage of his passing. There was no blade of the Bogge-King here - she wondered who had managed to take it, Martim or Hadley - but she did spot the black iron door Kells had spoken of, as well as the silver-framed long mirror, a dirty sheet hanging off it, mostly collapsed to the floor.

As she sprinted towards the door, a random thought floated across her mind. There was a man in the mirror.

"Stop, witch," a voice commanded her, as she reached for the door's handle. When she ignored it, the voice continued, with an edge of anger, "I said, stop."

This last word seemed to carry the weight of an undeniable command; and Elyse found that suddenly her limbs her not her own.

She let out a howl of frustration as her arms and legs froze mere inches from the doorway; no matter how much she struggled, they would not move. And then, to her horror, they began to move on their own; pulling her back from the doorway, while Cecil yowled and hissed and tried to tug at the hem of her robes. She fought against it, tried to pull back against her own body. But inexorably, her legs frog-marched her, until she stood before the mirror.

It was not her reflection that greeted her. Instead, a man stood in the mirror, looking her up and down, curious, with intense, green eyes. He was tall; his hair a wild, dark mane, almost impossibly long, coming down well past his waist. Broad-shouldered, he wore a strange jacket that came down to the edges of his travelworn, dusty boots, one that seemed woven from red autumn leaves. And when she saw his face, Elyse gasped.

For the man looked so much like Martimeos. Martimeos, if he were older and wilder. Olive-skinned and handsome, sharp-nosed, the man regarded her with feral curiousity, his dark green eyes seeming to cut through her down to her very bones.

And from the sides of his head grew a pair of black, curling stag horns, with points like bramble thorns. Tiny silver bells were tied to these as decoration with red thread; they tinkled softly as the man regarded her languidly. But perhaps the oddest thing about the man was that something seemed simply....off, about him. Like simply looking at him put a dull ache behind the eyes; a confusion in the mind. Like watching water flow upward, or a boulder float like a cloud. Something about him was wrong.

"Well," spoke the horned man, "I never expected to see anything from this mirror again. Who are you, witch, to be where you are?" Cecil hissed at the man, and slunk back into the shadows of the cellar as he spoke.

This, Elyse thought, had to be Martim's brother. It simply had to be. She might have thought their similar appearance just a coincidence, but the resemblance was just too uncanny. He even wore a red scarf, like Martimeos did; though his was longer, and seemed to be more decorative, woven from silk and tightly wound about his neck. A part of her wanted to scream at him; to scream that she was trying to save his brother.

But the moment she had seen the man, something dark had awoken within her. A black fire within her blood; something living that spoke to her through the beating of her heart. The same voice that had awoken her from the enchantment of the Land of Dim, a susurrous cascade of whispers within her mind.

he

the

is

Black

do

dangerous

Stag

not

take

tell

caution

be

him

do

clever

not

of

be

provoke

his

careful

him

brother

He

will

kill

you

if

he

knows,

dearest

daughter

Father? Elyse thought, shocked. Father, please, you must help me!

But there was no answer. The whispers in her mind had receded, and were silent. The horned man was watching her curiously, waiting for her answer. She licked her lips, a bead of sweat rolling down her forehead. "I-I am Elyse," she stammered. She hated herself for the fear in her voice; something about this man made her feel like a mouse in a trap. Steeling herself, she forced herself to ask, "And who are you?"

"Elyse," the horned man replied, ignoring her question, rolling her name lazily about his tongue. A small smile twitched up at the corner of his mouth. He placed a hand on the hilt of a sword by his belt. His buckle, she noticed, bore a familiar mark. Tarnished silver stamped with a stag's head, much like she had seen on the pommel of the dagger Martimeos had taken from Silverfish. "A pretty name." He gave a small bow that had just the slightest touch of mockery to it, the bells on his horns chiming as he dipped his head low. "I am called many things, these days. But you may call me Amalciano." He rose, and as he did, Elyse noticed that there seemed to be a scar about his neck; nasty withered flesh covered by the scarf he wore. "And tell me, witchling, what you are doing here?"

Elyse never ceased struggling against her own disobedient body, but still it would not listen to her. She had to get away; she had to find Martimeos; tell this man what he wanted to hear so that he would let her go. Perhaps, if he knew that she was trying to save his brother, she thought, he would free her. Wouldn't he? But simply the thought of that sent a surge of fear running through her blood from the dark voice within her. But why would he kill me for that?

There was no time to wonder why. But neither could she lie to him; a wizard such as he might be able to tell. "I - I came here because we had heard of the Crosscraw being tormented and hunted by a creature known as the Bogge-King, and we resolved to hunt him. You must free me - one of my companions is pursued by the creature even now - I must help him -"

"Ah," Amalciano said, cutting her short. "Well. Your companion is most likely already dead. And you will be as well, soon enough." He said this with all the emotion of a man who had discovered he had accidentally trod on a bug. "Still. I find it curious that you have made it to where you are. Either you are very clever, or Hadley has become careless." He paused for a moment, raising a hand to scratch at his chin as he pondered her, and when he spoke next, his voice was so cold that it sent shivers down Elyse's spine. "Or, perhaps, there is something you are not telling me. It would be very strange for one as young as you to trouble the Bogge-King."

Elyse felt yet more sweat pouring down her face as the horned man contemplated her. She had to distract him from the subject. "Who is this...Hadley, you speak of?" she asked, trying to hide the desperation in her voice. Martimeos, please hold on. Damn your brother, wizard.

To her surprise, a wave of sadness passed over the horned man's face. "An old friend," he said quietly, waving his hand idly. " Who made some poor choices. It is of no consequence to you." His gaze grew sharp and probing once more, and he smiled like a wolf cornering its prey. "Tell me, Elyse. Who were your companions?"

"A wizard, a man from Twin Lamps, and a couple of Crosscraw," she replied hastily, "Please - you must let me go-"

"Is that all?" Amalciano interrupted her, clearly skeptical. "Isn't that odd." Elyse trembled as he looked over her, eyes darting, probing for any hint of who she was. Something about his stare felt like being stuck with a pin. He gave her a smile sharp enough to cut, one that did not touch his eyes. "Well. Do you want to know what I think, witch?" All the mirth fled from his face, leaving nothing but a cold anger. "I think you hide something from me." He raised a hand, and his long, thin fingers danced in a strange pattern. "That's fine. I'll have the truth from you yet."

And all at once, Elyse felt something slither into her mind. A thousand sharp tendrils cutting through her skull, burrowing deep, probing and searching. She heard herself scream, as if from a great distance, as she struggled against them; she tried to raise a wall in her mind, feeling herself grow faint, her vision went black as she closed her eyes-

And when she opened them again, she found herself in a familiar place.

She was within her mother's yurt, laying on the intricately patterned rugs that covered the floor. The scent of spices washed over her; the dried cloves and fruits hanging from the thatched roof swung gently. She got to her feet and looked about. The comfortable, fur-covered chairs, the tables covered in notes and apothecary's tools, mortar and pestle; the half melted black candles. All as she had known them in her bitter childhood. "Wh-what?" she muttered to herself, confused.

Elyse, a voice whispered.

She spun around. There, at the back door of the yurt, were the three doors she remembered so well from her youth; the door to her room on the left, and the door to her mother's room on the right. And the door in the middle, the one that her mother had never let her into, the one that had always seemed to lead to a new room every time she saw it open...

The door in the middle was wide open, but no room lay beyond. Instead, there was a deep, blue light that poured forth from it; a light like no color she had ever seen, a blue that was somehow black at the same time. And there, in the midst of the light, was something - something made of a thousand shivering black strings, writhing and snapping, all drawn taut, constantly rotating into new, complex shapes that made her head hurt just to look at.

Elyse, the strings whispered to her as they vibrated.

Fight.

fight

FIGHT

You

he

must

I

will

fight

love

kill

you

if

you

you

if

wish

he

FIGHT

finds

to

me

live

here

you

must

fight

fight

fight

FIGHT

FIGHT

FIGHT

FIGHT.

"Father?" she gasped. But the door shut with a resounding slam that made her jump; the blue dark-light winked out of existence; there was the sound of a hundred locks and bolts slamming home. She was left alone. The only sound that filled her ears was that of a growing storm, outside, the peal of thunder and crash of lightning.

Until a knock came at the door that served as the entrance to the yurt. "Hello?" called the horned man's voice, muffled, over the din of the storm. He sounded amused. "Anyone home?"

Elyse backed away from the door, cowering, as the pounding grew louder and louder; until she thought that the brittle wooden door must certainly fly to pieces under the force of the blows. Laughter, wild laughter, rang throughout the yurt. "I know you're here, witch. Answer the door."

Fight, Elyse thought, eyes darting about the yurt, How in the world am I to fight? What can I do? What can I-

But there was no time left for her to think.

With a roar and a crash, the entire front wall of her yurt burst into pieces as lightning struck it, shattered wood showering her as she cried out and covered her face. And beyond stood the horned man, laughing, as all around him howled a storm far too wild to be natural; winds whipping the long mane of his hair, black clouds pregnant with rain and lightning swirling above.

"Well done," he cried in mocking good cheer, stepping across the rubble, his voice somehow carrying perfectly clear above the howling wind, "You have certainly resisted more than I thought you'd be able." He raised a hand, and a blast of wind whipped the remaining ruin that blocked his path off into the sky.

I have to fight, Elyse thought, shielding her eyes against the wind that tore at her. Anything. I must do anything. Desperately, she plucked up a beam of splintered wood and threw it at him. It glanced harmlessly off his chest. Amalciano gave a thin-lipped smile, and lifted a single finger. Elyse suddenly found herself picked up by some invisible force. She writhed as it lifted her high into the air, kicking and thrashing.

And then, it slammed her down. Elyse screamed as the ground rushed up to meet her with incredible speed. Pain roared through her body as she bounced off the floor; a great, dull ache immediately settled into her very bones. She did not know how she was not dead. She gasped for breath, and then sobbed. Even breathing hurt.

"Now," Amalciano said as he stepped over her, close enough that she could see the mud spattered on his boots, "Let's see what we have here." He paused to contemplate the three doors at the back of the yurt, where the walls still stood. Nothing seemed to touch him. Though Elyse could feel rain pelting her face from the collapsed roof and the storm outside, he remained perfectly dry. "Let's try this one, shall we," he remarked to her, as if he were having a simple conversation.

The horned man pointed towards the door on the left; the one that had led into Elyse's room as a child. It immediately exploded into fine splinters with a resounding crack.

And suddenly, Elyse could feel her memories being pored through, pulled to the forefront of her mind by force. Memories of herself, embarassing, intimate ones; the memory of the day she had first met Cecil and felt so much joy she thought she might die; the memory of a fever that had laid her up for weeks as a child, too weak to stop from soiling herself; memories of swimming in the swampwaters and lying in the sun afterward to dry, looking up at the sky and imagining what else the world might hold; the memory of the first time she had touched her own body in lust.

Even through all the pain, humiliation burned through her; humiliation, fear, and white-hot rage. He was in her mind without her permission; how dare he, how dare he treat her memories like a book to leaf through? "Stop," she hissed at him, reaching out for the hem of his long jacket, her arm shaking with the pain of movement. "I'll kill you. I'll kill you for this."

Amalciano, however, ignored her, taking but a small step to be out of her reach. He seemed bored with what he had found. He frowned, tsking in annoyance as he glanced down at her. "You could have simply told me the truth," he chided her. He raised a hand as Elyse reached out towards him once more, and she found herself rolled away from him until she slumped against a wall, pain screaming through her all the way. "You chose instead to hide from me. You chose this."

And then he turned back to the doors, and pointed towards the middle one.

Time seemed to slow. I'm going to die, Elyse thought, watching as the horned man raised a hand to point at the door. He's going to open the door, and then snuff me out as easily as a storm snuffs out a candle. Father, can't you help?

And then, something sang to her. Something that felt soothing, and comforting, and familiar; something that hummed and gave off a gentle warmth from within the folds of her tattered robes. The reaping-hook. The sickle, she realized; the one Vincent had given her back in Twin Lamps. Much as it had when the strange grave-mimics had attacked them in the Killing Grounds, it gave off an incredible heat. But one that seemed to dull her pain, now.

She winced as she reached within her robes and gripped the handle. It was warm, as if someone had just recently held it. And the moment she did, she realized, she could see something. A tangled web of black roots, growing from the crown of Amalciano's head, between his curling horns. She could see it, and not see it. It wasn't really there, but it was. The roots grew from his skull, writhing and curling, and led...to her, she realized. To her own head, growing in through her temples. She was connected to the horned man by these blackened, wicked roots.

She did not know what it meant. But she did know that she did not want to be connected to this man. Gasping with pain, she drew out the sickle. It's all in your head, she thought. The pain isn't real. Fight through it. Be rid of him.

"What is that you hold?" the horned man asked sharply.

With a cry, Elyse bought the reaping-hook down upon the roots that grew out from her head. It cut through them with ease, and they snapped and crackled, whipping back as they were severed. And the moment she did, the world shattered like glass around her; shattered into a dark, black void into which she and Amalciano fell.

He looked up at her with surprise in his dark green eyes as they hurtled downward through nothing, his long hair whipping wildly about him, and with a shriek of triumphant fury Elyse lashed out at him with the reaping-hook, bringing it down upon his face-

With a jolt, she opened her eyes yet again.

She was back in the cellar of the Bogge-King's smithy once more; back in darkened cave, with its stone walls scored by long claw marks. The pain in her body was gone. The yurt was gone. And most importantly, she could no longer feel the touch of the horned man within her mind.

Amalciano still stood in the mirror before her, arms folded. Blood from a long gash in his cheek carved a red curtain down his face. He raised his fingers to touch the wound, then stared at the blood on his hand for a long moment. Before her eyes, the cut closed up, leaving behind not even the hint of a scar. "Now," the horned man said, wiping the blood from his face, "Now that is interesting. That should not be possible." He raised his eyes to look at her once more. He did not seem angry. No, what was written on his face was worse. He was curious. He was hungry. "Well," he went on, raising a hand to point at her once more, "There's more than one way to skin a hare. So to speak."

And Elyse collapsed as pain more intense than anything she had ever felt tore through her body. It traveled from the bottom of her skull, radiating through her spine, torturing every part of her. It felt as if her bones were splitting open; like her blood was on fire; like her skin was being peeled from her flesh. She choked; she couldn't breathe for the pain. Her feet drummed against the floor; her nails cracked as she clawed against the stone. Desperately, she tried to raise her hands to scratch at her neck, trying to rip it open. She wanted to die. Anything to be away from this torment.

Amalciano's voice bored into her skull. "You," he said coldly, as she writhed and screamed, "Are going to tell me exactly who you are. Who your companions are. How you came to be where you are. How you forced me from your mind. How you managed to make me bleed. You are going to tell me everything, Elyse. Or this will last forever."

Elyse couldn't take it. She could feel her mind beginning to shatter. Looming above her in the mirror, Amalciano did not smile; did not frown, did not laugh, did not sneer. No. The only thing written on his face was an intense, feverish curiousity. A hunger to know.

He looked so, so much like Martimeos, in that moment.

And then there came a long yowl. A flash of fur, as Cecil leapt over her to crash into the mirror, trying to attack the horned man who tormented his mistress.

Amalciano watched with amusement as the cat bounced off the smooth glass. But Cecil was just large enough to throw the mirror off-balance. His eyes widened as the mirror pitched forward. "Damn it-" he snarled.

The mirror crashed to the ground, shattering, and he was gone. Just like that; in an instant, it was over.

Elyse cried out as the pain ebbed from her body, so great was the relief. Cecil mewed with concern and padded over to her, licking at her face, and she embraced him, holding him tight in her arms, curling about him. Her tears stained his fur as he purred comfortingly against her chest. "Thank you," she whispered to him. "Oh, Cecil, thank you. Thank you. My hero." She could not help but laugh in relief as his rough tongue ran across her cheeks. "I love you so much."

Her body shuddered as a memory of the pain crashed over her in a wave. But she knew she could not linger here long. Though her body wanted nothing more than to lay down and rest, she forced herself to her feet, trembling and shaking as she did so. She shuddered as she picked her way across the shards of glass on the floor; fearful that Amalciano's face would appear in one of the jagged little pieces. Her arms and legs protested as she forced herself across the room, but she could not afford to stop now. She was free, and Martimeos might still be in danger. He needed her help.

He needed her.

"You've made such a fool of me, wizard," Elyse whispered hoarsely to herself, as she pushed open the black iron door at the far end of the cellar. Please, let him prove mother wrong. Let him live.

~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~

Martimeos was alone in the darkness.

Alone with the Bogge-King.

He dared not move. He dared not even draw breath. He offered a silent thanks to Elyse, for the glamour the witch had taught him was surely protecting him in this moment. From his perch on the stone stairs, he could hear Hadley down below. Hear the whisper of his movements; the crackling, tearing sound the Bogge-King made as he moved about this world. But he could not see a thing. Only blackness, there.

And then a long, whispering voice drifted up from the darkness, like the rustle of spiderwebs on his skull; like the slither of a snake against cold stone; like a blade sawing through bone. And beneath it all, Hadley.

"Where...are you....Traitor," the Bogge-King whispered up from the dark. "Traitor....Liar....False...."

And then Martimeos felt it. Like his soul had been nailed to the stone, torn from his body, draining out of him, and he was nothing but cold flesh. He was nothing but a corpse. How was he even thinking? Was he even thinking? A great void opened up within him. All the world seemed as but a thin film on an endless nothing, larger than he could possibly imagine. Everything seemd so dim, so small.

The tearing, ripping sound grew closer, from the darkness. The sounds of something massive, making its way up the steps. "Did...you ever...love your folk?" came the whispers once more. And then, Hadley's voice seemed to grow stronger within the Bogge-King's. "I...can make...you see. Make...you...understand. This...is the way...of the world."

Still he could see nothing. But the Bogge-King must be less than a dozen feet from him now, still hidden in the darkness. He could feel the long exhale of its breath; frigidly cold. Gravedirt cold.

And then Flit, who had remained perched silently, on his shoulder, fluttered away. His birdsong filled the cave, echoing and sweet and full of life. The little cardinal trilled his heart out, as loud as any salutation he had ever made to the dawn, and with all the echoes it seemd for moment as if this dark place was filled with an entire chorus of birds.

There was a pause. And then something gigantic tore past Martimeos in the darkness; something so cold that it drove the feeling from his toes and fingers as it passed. Something screaming in the voices of his dead neighbors and friends. It howled in fury as it chased down dark corridors after the source of the birdsong, and Martim could hear it tearing apart the stone as its claws lashed out blindly in the darkness.

Flit was leading the Bogge-King away, he realized. And his familiar was speaking to him through the birdsong, as well. Telling him to fly. As fast as he could, to fly.

Martimeos forced himself to his feet, shifting the blade of the Bogge-King against his shoulder; the hammer hung heavy in his right hand. There is still life in me, he thought, listening to the trills of his familiar echoing all around him. The song made him feel more alive, more warm, as if Flit was summoning spring itself. There is still life in the world. This can be done. You are close, now. You can save Hadley.

Placing a hand on the stone wall to guide him, he raced up the stone steps. He sprinted as fast as he could, careless of the noise he made. Hadley was making so much sound tearing apart stone in his pursuit of Flit; Martimeos hoped, prayed that it would cover the sound of his footsteps.

This place was enormous; countless halls led away from the staircase upwards, gaps in the stone that he nearly stumbled into as his hand suddenly traced its way onto thin air. One of those halls, he thought, might very well hold his salvation as well. But he pinned all his hope on the cold, white light above.

But when he reached it, he nearly cried out in frustration. For the white light came frrom nothing but a small hole in a wall of rubble; giant boulders and loose dirt. Curiously, some of the boulders were already scored with claw marks, as if the Bogge-King had, at one point, tried to force its way out of here. He could feel a blast of cold air coming from beyond it, and looking through, he could see nothing but pelting snow. He tried to calm himself. You can squeeze through that, he thought. You can. With a little Art, you can. No matter how much he told himself this, it seemed dubious. But it would be such a good escape; if he could fit through here, Hadley certainly would not be able to follow him through. Freedom was so close. It will be this. It will be this or nothing.

He could still hear the sounds of the Bogge-King screaming its rage from somewhere down below; and Flit's birdsong still echoed throughout the cavern. Steeling himself, Martimeos tossed the hammer of the Bogge-King through the small hole, doing his best to make sure the dark metal did not strike the rock as it passed through. His aim was true, and he was rewarded with the sound of a faint thud on the other side. At least now I know that no drop down a cliff face awaits me, he thought wryly. Next, he slid the scabbarded blade of the Bogge-King through the gap as well, and then his pack and cloak. Anything that might catch on his way through.

He paused to listen once more. Though Flit's birdsong still echoed throughout the cavern, he could no longer hear the Bogge-King. He stood in the shadows by the entrance, that the light cast through the gap might not reveal him should someone glance this way. The trick, it seemed, had run its course. Though perhaps, he thought, it could still serve a last purpose; if Hadley now believed that wherever birdsong was, he would not be. Steeling himself, he whistled for Flit.

His familiar's trills and calls stopped; after a moment, a quiet, rustling flutter made its way towards him in the darkness.

Martimeos pointed Flit to the small gap in the boulders. His familiar cocked its small head, giving him a disapproving look with its beady black eyes, refusing to leave Martim behind at first. But Martimeos insisted; if he was to crawl through this gap and, fortune forbid, become irretrievably stuck, it would be much better for Flit to be on the other side than trapped within the cavern. Then, at least, his familiar could go try to find help. Though how much time he might have before Hadley found him in that situation seemed awfully slim. Finally, the stubborn little bird listened to him, and hopped its way through the gap, into the snow beyond.

Now Martimeos was completely alone.

Not for long. Just a small crawl and we are as good as done. Fortune, please be kind. Please do not let me become stuck. Let the Art clear my way. Let the others survive, as well. Let us all make it out of this.

And then, as if in answer to his prayer, Hadley's voice floated out from the dark.

Not the Bogge-King's. There was nothing of the daemon's whisper in his voice. This was all Hadley, though he spoke haltingly.

"Martim," he called, from somewhere down below. "Please. It...knows. It...knows...what you do. What...you plan."

Martimeos froze completely, holding his breath within his chest.

"It...is...eating me," Hadley sobbed. His voice echoed off the walls; it was impossible to tell just from where it came. "It...eats...my mind. It...will eat...me whole. Come back. Don't...let it...eat me."

Don't listen, Martimeos thought. He inched his way towards the gap. Whatever is done to him, the Dolmecs can undo it. They said so.

"Please," Hadley begged. "It hurts...so much. Can feel....it chewing...through my thoughts. My memories. Why...don't...you help me? Come...back. Or it...will kill...me."

Martimeos stood on the edge of the circle of light cast by the small gap in the boulders. I will, he thought. I am trying. Oh, Hadley. He bit his lip, eyeing the crevice. He did not want to step into the light while Hadley might be watching. Perhaps if he kept perfectly quiet, the Bogge-King would go look somewhere else within this cavern of halls.

"All...I did...was for you." An edge of anger entered Hadley's voice, now. It seemed to be drawing closer. "For....Vivian. I...wanted...you...to be happy. Safe. Gave up....so much...for you. And you....don't care." His voice grew harder, colder, closer. "You...never cared. Did....you? All I...sacrificed...and you don't care. Don't care. DON'T CARE. DON'T CARRRRRRRRRRRRE-"

His voice grew into a wild howl; a hundred screams, a keening shriek of rage. Martimeos could hear something coming up the stone steps. It sounded like a stampede of horse's hooves. There was nothing for it. He dove into the gap. As he did, his heart froze. For he heard the Bogge-King's scream grow triumphant.

He pressed himself forward through the rock, not caring how tight it became. He could feel it tearing at the skin of his face and arms; feel the blood beginning to pour from a dozen wounds. The scar on his back screamed with pain as it scraped, painfully tight, against the stone. It opened, and he could feel blood pooling around his sides. Perhaps it will make things easier by making my exit more slick, he thought wildly.

Hadley's scream grew louder, and louder, and still he could not force himself through the gap quicky enough. The Bogge-King must be almost upon him by now. He reached out with the Art to sing to the earth; to make the loose dirt between the boulders hum; he tried to make the stone itself sing. It might do nothing. It might even make things worse. But he did not see that he had a choice.

Dirt crumbled around him. He focused with the Art as he never had before, ignoring the pain in his body; ignoring Hadley's shriek behind him, ignoring the franting chirping of Flit on the other side; ignoring the blood he felt pooling around his stomach. Stubborn stone and earth, irritated at being made to move, pushed back at him. But he hummed a song to them; he bid the rocks dance.

And they moved. Slightly.

There was a sharp crack; something behind him, pinning him down, broke loose, and suddenly he found he could move more freely. With a gasp of triumph, he pulled himself forward desperately. He could feel the cold air on his face, now. Feel the sting of snowflakes falling against his fingers. He was almost there.

And just as he pulled himself free, a cold claw raked across his back.

He fell to the snow with a scream as pain tore through him. But despite it all; despite the blood pouring from him, soaking his pants, despite the cold, numbing sting of the snow, despite the outraged howls of the Bogge-King trapped behind the stone, he could not help but laugh wildly. A moment later, and that claw might have pulled out his guts, but whatever the pain he felt now, he could at least walk. He had done it.

He glanced behind himself, to see where he had come from. He recognized it; a cave in a bleak, towering cliffside, blocked off with a stacked wall of gigantic boulders, each one emblazoned with the likeness of the Bogge-King, a dark shadow in scribbled charcoal and a skull-helm of chalk. It was the cave the ogres had blocked off, because the Bogge-King came through it too often. No wonder, Martim thought. The entrance was in his damn cellar. Behind the stones, Hadley screamed and wailed; the Bogge-King trapped behind a wall of his own effigies.

The world around him was colorless, and not just because he was in the midst of a freezing blizzard. Flit's normally briliant scarlet plumage was gray; the blood that flowed from his own wounds was black, as if Hadley had dragged the Land of Dim her with him. And Martimeos could already feel the strange sensation of being dead beginning to settle into his bones once more. He quickly gathered his things, wrapping his black-furred cloak tight around him against the blizzard, though he kept his pack slung over one shoulder instead of pressing it against his brutalized back. And then, taking the blade of the Bogge-King and the hammer, he fled, as Hadley roared and pounded against the stone.

He whistled to Flit to go find help, and watched as the cardinal took off through the storm. He did not know what kind of help his familiar might find. Ogres? Perhaps Mors? How long had it been since they had descended into the earth? Time had seemed to pass so strangely in the Land of Dim that Martimeos could not know. Had it been days? Weeks?

It didn't matter. Though he felt weak from the loss of blood, it didn't matter. Though his arms and legs grew numb with the cold as her marched through the snow, though his pants grew stiff as they froze with his own blood, it didn't matter. He could still hear the outraged howls of Hadley, but all that remained now was to return the blade and the hammer to the Dolmecs.

He felt the dim mists of unconsciousness pulling at the edges of his mind. Not now. Not when he was so close. He thought of his companions. "Fortune, let them live," he muttered numbly to himself, to keep himself awake. "Kells. I will share a drink with you again. Elyse, I will steal a kiss from you again. A hundred kisses. And you can steal them back tenfold. Aela, I..." But Aela would hate him for what he was doing. "It doesn't matter." It was so, so cold. And he was so, so tired. "Hadley, I will take you home. Return you to Vivian. I-"

And then he heard a sound that choked all his thoughts of triumph.

A loud crack that echoed against the hillside.

He turned, looking up the hill he was walking down, back up to the cave of the Bogge-King. One of the larger boulders had split in two beneath the force of Hadley's blows. Even as he watched, it crumbled and fell. And even from this distance, he could see an aurochs skull floating in the darkness beyond.

And Hadley could see him. The Bogge-King gave a howl of wild, mad hunger. His claws pried at the widened gap, tearing loose humongous chunks of stone.

Martimeos did not stay to watch. He turned and ran. With the last ounce of strength he had, he pushed forward though high drifts of snow.

He did not know where he was going. His body screamed out in pain, where it was not numb beyond all feeling. Stinging ice whipped into his eyes from the blizzard. A loud, rumbling crash rang out from behind him, and then a triumphant howl. He glanced over his shoulder. Like a river of smoke, like a tide of pitch, the Bogge-King surged forth from the cave and down the hillside. The ancient aurochs skull opened at it lifted its head, and the roar it let out sounded as if the sky itself was being torn in two. The pines themselves bent away from the Bogge-King as he passed, as if they did not wish to be near him. The air crackled and screamed in torment as he tore after Martimeos.

"Damn you," Martimeos snarled, as he forced himself forward, knowing there was no way he could outrun Hadley. He had been so close. All this for nothing. The sound of Hadley's approach was like the thundering hammer of dozens of hooves; the howling torment of a world offended at his very presence. "Damn you! Lock! Key! I have your damn blade and hammer, daemons!" Let him just kill me, please. Don't let him turn me into a bogge-man. "Come and take them, while you can!"

Out of the blurry whiteness before him, a large, dark shape loomed. For one wild moment, he thought his plea had been answered. And then he thought that he had somehow become turned around in the blizzard, and was running straight into the Bogge-King, and he collapsed in surrender. But it was neither.

Through the storm walked Mors Rothach, the giant black bear, his half-dead face a grinning, feral snarl. Flit perched upon his head, nestled into the crook of one of his ears.

"MARTIMEOS," he growled, his one good eye staring wild and fierce. "FORTUNE SMILES ON YOU THAT I WAS CLOSEBY, WIZARD. YOUR FAMILIAR TOLD ME YOU NEEDED HELP. BUT HE DID NOT MENTION THIS."

Mors raised his snout and gave a snort. Martimeos turned, as the bear's massive bulk trotted out before him.

For Hadley had stopped. Stopped his screaming, stopped his pursuit. He stood, now, like a giant, man-shaped hole in the world, the dark eyes of his aurochs-skull helm simply staring. His claws were shattered from tearing at the stone, dripping black blood into the snow. The blizzard howled around him as he trembled and shook in inhuman fury. But he did not move.

"WELL, WELL," Mors said, with an unpleasant, growling laugh. "LOOK WHO IT IS. THE TWISTED KING. WITHOUT HIS BLADE. AND WITH HIS CLAWS BROKEN." Mors padded forward a few steps, his black lips curling back in a nightmarish snarl. "YOU HAVE USURPED MY REPUTATION AS KING OF THE MOUNTAIN. I TOLERATED IT, BECAUSE I RESPECTED YOUR STRENGTH. LOOK AT YOU NOW, THOUGH. SOFT. VULNERABLE. ALONE." The bear's tongue lolled out of his mouth. "PREY."

Hadley stepped forth, the teeth of his aurochs-skull helm clattering wildly. Long, thin arms curled menacingly, but there was no hiding that the jet-black claws at the end of them were bleeding profusely, black blood steaming as it hit the snow.

Mors Rothach merely laughed once more. A hungry, wicked laugh. "NO USE DENYING IT, DAEMON," he growled, a feral wildness entering his voice. "I CAN SMELL YOUR FEAR."

The Bogge-King leapt towards Martimeos, claws outstretched, but Mors batted him down with one giant paw. Flit took off into the sky as the two giants crashed into each other, daemon and bear thrashing in the snow, claws flashing and tearing, blood flying in high arcs to spatter against the white blanket that coated the ground. Hadley's inhuman roars were matched by Mors' own.

Martimeos dragged himself through the snow as the two titans battled, until he reached a pine tree. His back felt like it was on fire as he slumped against it. Get up. I have to get up. Get. Up. But his legs did not want to obey him. Bring the blade and the hammer to those wretched daemons. Hadley can still be saved. Get up, damn you.

He simply did not have the strength. He drew sharp, shallow, ragged breaths as he listened to the sounds of the horrific battle behind him. The tearing of flesh and the cracking of bone, and the awful, wild howls that echoed out against the sky.

There came a cracking, ripping sound. A sharp gasp.

A then a voice; human, all too human, cried out. Hadley's voice.

"Martimeos - Martimeos!" he screamed desperately. He gasped once more, as Mors let out a short, bellowing growl, and there was the sound of crunching bone. "HELP! MARTIMEOOOOOOOSSSS!"

And then silence.

Martimeos forced himself to his feet, and staggered out from behind the pine tree.

Hadley and Mors both lay in blood-soaked snow. More blood than he thought even their gigantic forms could have contained. The Bogge-King's head had been ripped from his shoulders; the aurochs-skull helm was cracked and broken, misshapen, as it stared blankly up at the sky.

As he watched, a black flame burst forth from the Bogge-King's body, quickly becoming an inferno that leapt dozens of feet into the air. It burned with the sound of the daemon's crooning song; the screams of dozens of voices crying out in pain and terror, voices Martimeos recognized. The flame burnt through the snow, melting it, and then through the ground beneath, as well, as if it were being pulled into the very earth. Until all that remained of Hadley was a charred, man-shaped hole in the stone.

And Mors Rothach lay on his side, panting, bright red blood pouring from countless holes torn in his thick hide. He raised his head as Martimeos approached. He had lost his other eye, now, and much of the rest of his face; the gleam of white bone peered through a mass of bloody wounds. He was barely recognizable as a bear anymore. "WIZARD," he gasped, voice still booming, even weak as he was. "IS THAT YOU?" Without waiting for an answer, he lay his head back down upon the snow. "HE WAS...STRONGER THAN I THOUGHT. EVEN...WITHOUT HIS...BLADE. OR PERHAPS....I....AM GETTING WEAK. STILL. MY...MY DEBT...IS PAID. I...AM THE KING....OF THE MOUNTAIN. THE KING. THE....KING...."

He drew one last great, shuddering breath. His great claws flexed and raked through the snow. And then he was still.

Mors Rothach, and Hadley, were dead.