This/Survivors song

If you're reading this for whatever reason, stay out of the heap. This is all just a draft, of course, but the heap is little more than a scratchpad, a random disorganised pile of scripts, notes, and miscellaneous snippets.

It would be nice if the table of contents could be broken up properly. This it all a terrible hack.

The story proper

0: The end of everything

In the end, the universe was destroyed, leaving behind two survivors surrounded by approximately 3.8 billion sphinxes.

The survivors were rather annoyed, not so much because everything they had ever known was now gone at this point, but because, as a result, they found themselves sitting in a small pocket in the middle of what was effectively a giant, moon-sized wad of winged cats. Sphinxes watched them from all sides. They were sitting on sphinxes. Bertram had a sphinx on his lap. Coraline had a sphinx on her head. Occasionally the walls would roil as the sphinxes rearranged themselves, but mostly the interior was just a solid expanse of fur and eyes and wings and whiskers and cute little cat noses crinkling softly in their general direction. And the odd butthole, doing much the same.

"Good job," Bertram said.

Coraline glowered at him from under her sphinx hat. It made her look like Batman.

"Really," Bertram said. "I'm impressed. I did not expect that when we destroyed the entire universe, this would happen."

1: A perfectly normal response

"Most people have dreams that are very simple. Family, home, food, warm water for a bath at the end of the day. Not that difficult."

~ Earthan blogger

Coraline Henderson was perfectly normal. She owned an inn and tended bar in the small town of Molstead, got out of bed in the middle of the afternoon, bought random things at market that sometimes made no sense at all, rescued passing adventurers from giants, occasionally went to temple and argued with the statuary, and was generally thoroughly badass. The only thing particularly abnormal about her was the minor detail that she was actually from another planet, in another universe, called Earth.

In Molstead she tended to go by the name Lyra Zidane. There wasn't anything particularly wrong with her real name, but she was paranoid, and Lyra was a nice name. Not that 'Coraline' was her real name either; for a native Finn, it had far too few vowels to be appropriate. But that didn't matter here. They wouldn't have been able to pronounce it no matter how many vowels it had.

Half the time people didn't even get 'Lyra' right. It would have been laughable, though in all fairness they did tend to be drunk when this happened. One of the perks of bartending.

This morning, Coraline woke up relatively early - after all, it was still morning. There was a cat on her head, which helped. It was also the middle of summer, which was probably the main reason - even downstairs the rooms tended to get quite warm in the daytime.

She pushed the cat off her head and stared at the ceiling for a moment in the stewing heat. The cat slid onto the other pillow and curled up again.

"How can you even move in this?" she asked the cat. "All the fur... so warm..."

The cat said nothing, so Coraline just lay there for a bit in extreme discomfort. Everything was warm. She felt like a puddle. The voices, though contained to a low murmur, felt like dripping, weighing down on her even more than the oppressive heat. Everything was just... heavy.

Eventually, somehow, she got out of bed, found some clothes, downed her morning 'medicine', which just happened to be a cup of brandy, and nearly fell on her face when the mysterious cat ran out after her. Then she was in the kitchen with its horrible lack of any sensible kitchen appliances. These people had magic, for crying out loud! Why hadn't anyone invented a dishwasher? Convection oven? Mixer? Refrigerator?!

All in all, it was terrible. As she threw out some mouldy bread and fried up some eggs and toast, she made a mental note to look into commissioning at least that last one the next time she stopped by Keller's place. He was, after all, a wizard. Even if he was useless, she could probably tell him enough about the basic operating principles to get something... for now, though, she filed the note away with the other perennial note to put in some proper insulation upstairs to stop the entire place from turning into a bloody oven. All it really needed was the walls filled with mud. Shouldn't be so hard. None of this should be so hard.

Grumbling, she walked into the tavern proper, and was immediately surprised to find that it was indeed a tavern and not a library. This happened from time to time, but in a way she supposed it sort of made sense. All her life she'd dreamed of being a librarian. And here one of her greatest dreams of all had come true: she had a job.

She glared at it. The stupid thing was how very similar libraries and taverns really were, in practice. Both were places where ideas converged and were communicated. Both were places where people came to self-diagnose and self-medicate, respective, and where they usually made their lives worse in the process. And this was before you added internet to the equation and wound up with bars that literally were libraries.

She sighed, grumped up to the counter, almost tripped over the cat again, realised she'd forgotten what she came in here for, went over to prop open the door to maybe get some breeze, and then, on the way back to the cat, nearly ran into a guy coming down the stairs.

She glared at him. He was a local, but he'd been too drunk to go home the previous night and had thus just gotten a room to sleep it off. Not unusual, but also normally not her job to deal with it.

He gave her a small wave and rubbed his head. Then he tripped over the cat.

Coraline just sort of stared for a moment.

Somehow she got him to the bar, and passed him a coffee. He mumbled what might have been thanks and stared glumly into the mug, disinclined to do anything with it.

"Drink it," she said. "It'll help."

The guy just sat there. The cat jumped up after him and flopped down next to his arm.

Coraline petted it angrily, and then looked back to the guy. "Seriously, drink it," she said.

He picked up the mug and stared at his coffee as though it were some strange and foreign potion. Oddly, it wasn't, though Coraline had no idea why. It was just a thing here, and they got huge shipments periodically. And it was very much coffee.

Suddenly he downed it in three solid gulps, stared at the empty mug, seemed to stop, then startled, twitched, stood up, and fell over again. The cat peered after him with absolute disinterest.

Coraline peered over the counter as well, somewhat more worried than the cat, wondering if she'd finally managed to accidentally kill a patron, but the guy was already getting up. He shrugged himself off, looked at the cat suspiciously, and then asked, quietly, "Er, how much will that be?"

"Uhnn, let's see..." she said, rummaging around for a bit under the bar. Then she found the paper pad covered in doodles, and, occasionally, billing info. "Looks like you got your tab up to five, so let's make it eight silver altogether including room and board. Includes breakfast, if you want it."

"Er," he said, passing her the coins, "What's breakfast?"

"I made toast." She'd actually made more than toast, but the toast was the only thing left that was edible.

"Okay," he said.

She got him a piece of toast, and watched as he wandered out, munching.

Later, she picked up the cat and headed out as well into the bright sunny morning. Bob, the guy down the street, was passing by with a barrow full of what were probably not coconuts. One of these days she would find out just what they were, but at the moment she was looking for someone else.

A group of women were by the Harrison place gossiping under a tree. They waved. She waved back.

Some guys were heading up the road with a bunch of saws. A gaggle of kids were playing with a dog.

There was a distinct lack of the one person who was supposed to be there.

"Cat," she said, "Where's Jess?"

The cat said nothing.

"Seriously," she said, "She should be here. She handles mornings."

The cat had nothing useful to say to this either.

"Hmph," she said.

Still carrying the cat, she wandered off to find out just what had happened to her innkeeper. Asking around yielded nothing, though one annoyingly hamstery guy kept asking her what day it was and then followed her all the way to market when she finally decided to ignore him and move on. Another asked what the deal with the cat was. She didn't know quite why she was still carrying it, but she was. She didn't know where it had even come from in the first place. It wasn't her cat.

The market was a fairly standard affair, as far as she could tell. A town this size had a pretty consistent setup, with stalls and tables around the square for when it was nice out, and shops all around that serving as backup. Outside it wasn't necessarily the same folks any given day - a town of a few hundred had a fair bit of overlap, and while the Jameses were the go-to meat sellers where everyone would drop off and/or pick up their meat supplies, they wouldn't necessarily get the same James son or daughter two days in a row.

And then there was Barney, one of the blacksmiths. He kept trying to sell her a sword. Apparently he'd made it just for her, and every time he saw her come by, he'd hurry over and insist that today was the day that she would buy this brilliant piece of moulded metal off of him.

Today was no different. "Lyra!" Barney said, hurrying over to Coraline. "I've got this sword. You know I've got this sword. It's got your name written all over it, and for the absolute steal of a price of five silver it's all yours, all yours!" He held the sword, scabbard and all, up in her face and jiggled it around.

She pushed it aside. "Look, you-" she began, but then the other guy was in her face again, the one who'd followed her all the way here, all hamstery and insistent.

"What day is it?" the guy asked for what might have been the fiftieth time.

The cat hissed at him. "The day you die," it said quietly, and settled around Coraline's shoulders.

Coraline ignored this, and then Barney pulled him aside again in order to reclaim his own rightful place in her face.

The hamstery guy, whatever his name even was, wandered off to bother the Jameses instead.

"Five silver," Barney repeated. "Once in a lifetime deal. Just five, and it's all yours!"

The thing was, five silver was a really good deal for a sword. Barney's steel was good, too, at least for steel - she'd previously bought a pickaxe off him, and it'd held up to all manner of non-warranty-covered abuse before she'd finally bent it out of shape. Not that she'd ever tell him about it. As annoying as the guy was, there was only so much soul-crushing she felt polite to inflict on him. Bending was not supposed to be easy.

A decent sword usually went for more like 50, too, even when it wasn't custom-made. The only problem was that she had absolutely no use whatsoever for a sword. The ornate golden staff she always carried (or slung over her shoulder, as it was now) was not only the only weapon she needed, it was the only one she could even properly use. At range, it shot energy bolts that seemed to vary in intensity according to whatever she felt like, and in a pinch is was also quite heavy and rather sharp, and thus highly effective when used to whack people over the head. So a sword wouldn't have added much.

But five silver was a really good deal. "Five?" she asked.

"All yours," Barney said.

"Oh, very well," Coraline said, fishing out some coins. Not only would it maybe finally get Barney out of her personal space, she'd always wanted a proper sword. Granted she'd been five, and continued to act like she was five, for a good chunk of her life. This had been perfectly fine by her brothers, of course, who had generally also acted like they were five as the entire lot of them had done vicious battle on the sofas with a set of tape measures, but a fair bit less fine by their parents, who quickly tired of things getting broken. Usually it was just tape measures, but the occasional broken chair or collarbone were no laughing matter, despite the fact that the kids had tended to laugh uproariously when it happened. While crying at the same time, in the case of the collarbone.

The sword was a strange weight on her belt. Then again, the entire belt was a strange weight on top of her light blouse and skirt, but she needed the near bottomless pocket that it held, a magic bag she'd bought the previous year and then refashioned into a purse of sorts. It was important because she especially needed the few small bottles of vodka stashed away in it in case of emergencies. Such emergencies were best avoided.

Barney looked her over and nodded. "Aye, yes, that's the look. Utterly dashing, the lady wizard."

Coraline eyed him suspiciously, then said, "You seen Jess around, by any chance?" She figured she might as well try to get something useful out of him while he was here.

"Not today, I'm afraid."

"Foo," she said. "Thanks for the sword, though. I think. And don't ever do that again." She held up a finger for emphasis.

He grinned at her and backed away with a weird swagger. This was basically his norm, though how he did that she had no idea. In another time and place, she suspected the guy would have been right at home in a used car lot.

Asking around some more (and avoiding the Jameses and their unfortunate inherited questioning baggage) revealed much the same - nobody had seen Jess today, though normally the girl did come through here on her way to mind the inn. This wasn't like her, either. From a fairly well-off family who ran one of the larger farms, Jessica Eslinger was a hard worker, and generally quite reliable. Quite consistent in her routines, too. Not at all like Coraline, who if there was one would take a different path every time just to see if there was anything there.

Janice, who sold mostly cloth and craft items, suggested she head up and check the family's farm. "Might just have taken sick or something," Janice said.

Coraline nodded. Bit odd for the summer, but it did sometimes happen.

"If not, I'd try the temple," Janice added. "It's near there, and little Jess always did like seeing the statue."

"Little?" Coraline said.

"Well, maybe not so much anymore," Janice said with a smile. "Growing up into a right lovely young lady, that one. Might even take after you some day." She waggled a finger at Coraline.

Coraline smiled and held back some snark at this, instead waving goodbye as she headed out again and Janice wished her a good day.

She had often wondered what all they thought of her, but never quite had the heart to ask. They thought she was a wizard, after all. They thought she was from Ord, too, the strange mirror-universe where magic was even weirder than here, and indeed probably thought quite a few other odd things on top of that. But that was fine. People could think what they wanted, and for her part she probably thought quite a few things they didn't care to know about either.

Coraline headed up the road to the Eslinger farm, thinking about toasters. Wonderful invention, toasters. Why was she thinking about toasters? Not that she had much insight as to why her brain did much of anything anymore, but toasters sure were random.

She thought about a bunch of other things, too. She thought about normality and how much she liked it, and how annoyingly not normal this day was being. She thought about what a hard time she was having thinking. She saw a stump that looked suspiciously like a guy in rough leathers, and thought about that, and then realised it really was a guy in rough leathers when he moved.

He stepped forward, apparently keen on addressing her, but his attention seemed to be mostly on her staff. "Fuck, that's a giant arse staff. What's the deal with that?" he said, gawping.

Coraline smiled, stopping. "I'm a wizard, mate. Can't you tell?" The staff always sold that one, even though she could hardly do much real magic herself. Big, ornate, and golden, it had a stylised phoenix on the end with wings outstretched, and a bit of an orb that just sort of hovered in place, unattached, where the head should have been. Really magical-looking, that orb. But the whole thing looked too impractical to not be magical.

"Oh. Really?" he said, looking a little worried.

She laughed, and asked, "You passing through around here? I own the Molstead Inn, if you need a room for the night." She gestured back the way she'd come. She didn't recognise him, so that might mean business. While she made most of her money by inebriating the locals, the odd outlander was always a good addition. Especially since she could usually charge them more.

"Great," he said, just sort of standing there awkwardly.

He didn't seem inclined to say anything else, so she just spun about and continued on her way.

According to her mum, Jess had left home at the usual time this morning. When Coraline explained that her daughter had apparently never made it to town, let alone work, Mrs. Eslinger was quite concerned, and probably for good reason.

Coraline was becoming rather concerned herself. People did not normally just vanish, and when they did, it was generally not a good sign at all. She supposed that that had been exactly what had happened to her in her own world, though. But she'd had warning. She had agreed to this.

Even so, she assured Mrs. Eslinger that it was probably fine, something must have come up, that's all. She'd find Jess and sort it out.

No use worrying people when they really didn't know yet if anything was amiss.

It was a long shot, but per Janice's direction, she checked the temple, too, poking her head inside while the cat on her shoulders licked its paws disinterestedly. The main room was empty, the large statue of Azorres looking down on the space surrounded by much smaller shrines to some of the other gods.

It was cool and quiet inside, and dark, despite all the windows letting down their respective sunbeams, and she let the door shut gently behind her so as to not disturb it.

"Hey, statue," she said, finally breaking the silence outright.

The voice that emanated out was long and low, but one she knew well, having spent considerable time arguing with it. "Welcome back, wayfarer," the statue said. "How are you holding up?"

And it was, specifically, the statue speaking. The local gods did at times speak through their icons, but in their stead many of the larger statues likewise had voices of their own, and, indeed, personalities. Coraline quite liked this one, though she tried not to show it ever.

"Well," she said slowly, "I'm drunk out of my skull, my life's like a bloody Monty Python skit, and my innkeeper is missing. And I've got this extra cat for some reason. I have no idea where this cat came from."

"No worse?" the statue said.

"No worse, no better, just voices, voices, voices, booze, and voices." Coraline threw her arms out in emphasis at all the voices, and sighed. "Seriously, though, have you seen Jess? It's just that her folks said she left, but noone's seen her along the way and she never showed up at work. She didn't come by here today, by any chance, did she?"

"She has not been here," the statue said in its calm low voice.

"Well, bugger," Coraline said. The cat on her shoulder stuck a paw on her cheek, and she eyeballed it out of the corner of her eye. She had two cats, Tress and Thimble. Good mousers the both of them, and also very good lap warmers, despite Thimble's perpetually angry expression. He wasn't really angry; the look was simply caused by his peculiar brow structure.

And this cat was neither Tress nor Thimble. Everything else aside, it was a lot larger, prettier, and a very fluffy tortoiseshell longhair to boot. "Oy, cat," she said. "Who are you, anyway?"

"Does it matter?" the cat said.

Coraline gave the cat a confused look, then abruptly turned back to the statue. "Statue, was I just speaking cat, or was the cat just speaking... uh... whatever the hell this is?"

"Just Soravian," the statue said. "But shouldn't you know that, if you speak it?"

"The moment I know anything about anything will be the moment there's been a massive miracle. Like, when I'm dead or something." Coraline shook her head. "Seriously, it doesn't work that way. Somehow I just talk and the language comes out, except there's some things I can't say properly at all. Usually names and perkele."

"Most interesting," the statue mused.

Coraline frowned, but before she could ask what that meant, the cat said, "You speak cat, I speak Soravian. What does it matter?"

"I could logic you down a hole where ain't nothing matters at all, cat," she said. "If nothing else, though, I need something to call you. That's not 'this cat'. You know?"

The cat purred and curled against Coraline's cheek.

"Also it'd be nice to know where you came from so I can worry less that you might be an alien or something trying to steal my brain juices," Coraline muttered.

"I'm Agata," the cat conceded. "I'm a witch's cat. I needed a witch, and you seemed witchy."

"What, did something happen to your old witch? Also, I kind of ain't a witch."

Agata eyed her for a moment, then stretched out a leg and stuck a claw up her nose.

"Ow?" Coraline said. It didn't actually hurt, but then again she had kind of busted her pain sensitivity by being always drunk, so maybe it should have. She didn't know.

"You'll do," the cat purred.

Coraline frowned at the cat. This was all very unexpected, and not what she had come here for at all. She glanced back at the statue.

The statue said nothing, and was instead, for the moment, simply very statuey.

"Witch died. Had a run-in with a witcher," Agata said under her ear. "Deathdealer, it was."

Coraline pulled the cat off her shoulders and rearranged it as a lump in her arms, which she proceeded to scratch behind the ears. "What, around here?"

"Around," Agata purred, curling into her fingers happily.

The statue's voice echoed through the room once more: "How do you know you are not a witch?"

"Er... I suppose I don't?" Coraline said. "Nevermind witches, though. If I were a 15-year-old girl on my way to work in the morning, what might stop me from getting there?"

"Everything," Agata said. "Young witches get into all the worst trouble."

"Well, this one definitely ain't a witch..." Coraline said.

"Try it the other way around," the statue said. "You are looking for Jess. Where did you lose her?"

Coraline paused and gave it a bit of a think. She wished she could still think the way she used to, carry a thought all the way through, consider every possibility, but it was so hard these days. She remembered doing it all the time. But now... her brain ran around in circles a few times before she finally managed to focus on Jess. Jess had left home and never made it to town. Jess had walked from one place toward the other. That really only left one thing, which still didn't really explain the issue.

"The road?" Coraline asked finally.

"Indeed," the statue said. "If she went missing somewhere along the road into town, look for answers there, that they may bring you to the truth."

"Right," Coraline said, then added, not sarcastically at all, "Thanks, statue. You're a wonderful replacement for a working brain."

She went back to the road, Agata now following behind her, and stopped by the bend where she'd run into that guy before. There was no sign of him now, only rocks in the unpaved road that looked suspiciously like rocks poking out of the unpaved road, and dappled sunlight bouncing out of the trees, and waves of hot air rising off the road itself.

Supposing the guy weren't staying in town, there were some old ruins off the road near here. They were a favourite locale for bandits and small children alike.

"Let's check this out," Coraline announced, after spending entirely too long just sort of staring off into space. Pulling her staff off over her head and momentarily getting her braid tangled in the strap, she headed into the trees.

Agata trotted ahead, leading her through the underbrush, away from dry patches, around soggy spots, making little noise. A spider fell on Coraline's head and tried to run down her face, but wound up toppling to the ground instead.

She stopped to scratch her nose, and Agata stopped too. Then they heard the voices, rough and raucous, drifting through the trees ahead. Coraline pushed through the twiggage with great ineptitude and peered into the quasi-clearing.

This had been a city once, a home to the ancient Torini elves, but now few buildings remained standing, let alone intact. Mostly the white stone blocks and columns lay scattered throughout the ferns and grass, with only the odd wall or pillar rising against the green, clusters of buildings tumbled down into rubble and isolate walls now almost totally reclaimed by the forest. The only thing that really stood out was the building at the far end - intact, still sealed after all these centuries, and nearly untouched by storm or moss.

The only other thing that stood out was the bandit camp flat smack in the centre of the ruins.

Of the men, Coraline counted up to about ten or so, but kept losing the exact count as she glowered in their general direction. Two of them were standing some sort of guard, though neither appeared to have noticed her despite her complete lack of care; the general attention of the entire group seemed to be on Jess, who was tied to a tentpole, and a particularly dangerous-looking bandit standing over her saying something loud and unintelligible. Jess didn't respond. She appeared to be unconscious, her dress torn conspicuously.

"Voi paska," Coraline said quietly. She could curse in the local language, of course, but this just felt better, especially when she was only talking to herself anyway.

"I count thirty-seven," Agata said. "Most in the camp, two more in the trees." The cat motioned with its head the general direction of the more in the trees.

"Um," Coraline said. Apparently she couldn't even count anymore. Great. And there was also this problem of thirty-odd bandits in a camp who had apparently stolen her employee. She kind of needed that employee.

After a few minutes just sort of standing there failing to make any progress at all thinking things through, Coraline realised the voices in her head were getting louder again. She fished a bottle of vodka out of her nearly bottomless bag, downed a couple gulps, nearly fell over when the world gave her a massive spin, and then noticed Agata had fallen asleep on her feet.

How long had she been standing there? The lighting looked different now. But everything also just looked darker. It always did this, though, when she started to sober up. The key was to not ever completely sober up. She didn't know what would happen exactly if she did, but from how bad things had gotten before she'd started self-medicating, she doubted it would go any better now.

And for now she had bandits to worry about. They seemed to be eating lunch.

She supposed she could just shoot the lot of them. Only problem there was she didn't know where the other two were. And they also had a hostage. And her reflexes were kind of not good. And they had a hostage. And there were a lot of them. She had vodka, though. She could throw vodka at them. Flaming vodka. That might distract them. Except no, no, that wouldn't work. Thinking was definitely not her strong suit these days, especially after adding vodka. She wished she had brought the statue.

Perhaps she could go for help. Call the council, get the militia involved, come in with a whole lot of crossbows and corner and arrest the whole lot of the bandits. Except these guys were pretty heavily armed, and would likely fight back and then some if anyone tried that, so odds were even if the militia did win, it wouldn't be without cost.

Maybe she could try talking to them. Because that totally wouldn't get her captured and killed as well. Or would it? She was a wizard, after all. Or looked like one, anyway. And she could totally shoot anyone who tried anything. Probably.

"Right!" Coraline announced quietly, "Let's get killed!" She stuffed the bottle back in her bag, hefted her staff, and strolled into the ruins with what she hoped was the confident sort of stride that someone with every right to be there would use. Because, like, confidence and stuff. People with confidence could be dangerous. She was dangerous. Yes.

Agata gave her a dubious look but followed closely. One of the watchers said something as she approached.

"That's her," the guy she'd run into before said, standing up. A few backed away as she walked past, but the dangerous-looking bandit rose to meet her; the others simply sat and stood and watched, leaving the matter to their leader. And he was their leader - this was clear not just from his posture and regard, but also his hat. It was an extraordinarily fluffy hat, faded blue, knitted with considerable care. It had what might have been cat ears poking up on top. It was all in all quite ridiculous. None but the leader could have pulled off such a ridiculous hat.

Coraline stopped a few metres away, and he smiled slowly. "You in charge?" she demanded flatly.

He regarded her for a moment, then said softly, "Bold move, coming alone." He seemed to disregard the cat.

They weren't doing anything about it, however. Just waiting. Seeing what she would do first. She had been counting on this. Or she would have been had she been counting on anything.

"I thought perhaps we could resolve this matter with civility," she said. "Before anyone should..." she glanced to where one of the bandits was trying to inconspicuously load a crossbow, "...get hurt." She hadn't actually noticed the guy before she'd said that; glancing over had simply seemed the thing to do, and then he'd just sort of been there, cranking.

The crossbow guy laughed nervously.

Coraline levelled her gaze on the leader again. Her staff was pointed in his general direction, though not directly, and he cocked his head at it before returning the gaze.

"Well, I reckon we could come to an arrangement," he said. "Such don't come cheaply, though."

Coraline eyeballed him, then abruptly turned and walked over to where Jess was tied. Only the girl's hands were bound, and loosely; it was clear they didn't expect her to be able to do much. And indeed, the girl was rather bruised, with a black eye, and breathing raggedly. "For damaged goods?" Coraline said, glancing back.

The bandit leader faltered a moment. He looked disappointed, like he'd been hoping she wouldn't notice, then a bit worried - perhaps not in the least because Coraline now had her staff pointed directly at Jess's head. "Ransom's five thousand," he said, recovering himself. "And we'll be all out of your hair. Water under the bridge, as it were."

She smiled slightly. "I'll give you five hundred," she said, slipping a coinpurse out of her bag with her free hand. She pulled a few coins out and then tossed the rest of the bag to the bandit leader. Then she pointed at another bandit, this one a lanky bald guy. "You. Bring her for me."

For a moment nothing happened. Agata put her ears back, and indeed the cat was a her, Coraline realised. Calicos usually were, since it took a particularly odd genetic fluke for a male to get calico fur, and this was also a witch's cat. It was only fitting.

She looked back to the bandit with the hat. The leader, on whom everyone here was waiting. It was a tense situation, but her mind just wanted to wander.

Finally he nodded, but motioned for two other bandits to go with as well. The one she'd picked out picked up Jess, and then she was headed back out of the camp, out of the ruins, onto the road, the bandits following behind her with Jess, Agata following them.

The walk back to the Eslinger farm was quick, or so it felt to Coraline.

With pursed lips, Mrs. Eslinger quickly ushered Coraline and the lanky bandit inside, directing them toward a room in back with a bed. Then she abruptly turned about and informed the other two in no uncertain terms that they would need to wait outside, daring them to disagree, blocking the entire doorway with her plump frame.

Coraline didn't stick around to see how that turned out, and instead continued in, watching as the lanky bandit set Jess down on the bed with considerable care. He backed out quickly as she took a seat next to Jess.

The girl was in poor shape, and while Coraline wasn't a doctor, Agata's comments about her being a witch hadn't been entirely wrong. Not that she was a witch, of course, but she did have a little magic to her name: the thing with understanding languages, the ability to occasionally set things on fire, the ability to heal with a touch. To do so was draining, of course, and it made the voices worse, so she usually tried to avoid it, but in this case it looked to be necessary.

She finished off the bottle from before in the hopes of staving off the voices ahead of time, then placed her hands on Jess's chest, feeling for damage, and concentrating on fixing it. Ribs, organs, bruises, more organs. Fear. So much fear and confusion. She didn't know how to fix the fear, though, and let it be for now. In the back of Coraline's mind, voices mumbled incoherently, rising to the fore.

The girl's eyes fluttered open, then she saw Coraline. "Lyra?" she said, sitting up. "Where am I?"

With some effort, Coraline pushed the voices back, and glanced momentarily back to the door. Mrs. Eslinger and the bandits were nowhere to be seen. "You're home, dear. You're safe," she heard herself say, and after a moment of hesitation, took Jess's hand, adding, "Can you tell me what happened?"

Jess's grip tightened, but she just looked away.

"It's all right," Coraline said. "None of this is your fault. What they did says nothing about you. It happened, and you're still here, and you're going to be fine. We just need to go through it so you can begin to heal, and put it behind you."

"I can't," Jess said quietly. "I just see them... and I can't. I can't. I can't."

"It's all right," Coraline repeated. "Tell me what you see."

After much wheedling, Coraline got the story out of Jess in pieces, doing everything she could to reassure the girl along the way. When it was done, Jess seemed calmer, though she wouldn't quite let go of Coraline's hand just yet; Coraline eventually used this to drag her into the kitchen and 'borrow' a late lunch for the both of them in the form of some fruit, sandwiches, and wine.

While they were eating, Mrs. Eslinger ran in with a large knife and dropped it on the table. She looked exhausted, and she had blood on her clothes. Their eyes met, and the mingled rage and fear were palpable. Suddenly Coraline realised what must have happened, started to run for the door, then stopped and picked up Agata and stuffed the cat into Jess's arms.

"This is Agata," Coraline said. "Hold onto her for a bit. She likes her ears scratched."

Then she ran outside, grabbing her staff on the way.

"Er..." Jess said.

Agata purred.

Coraline spotted the two bandits immediately. They were hard to miss. They were running right at her, with swords. She walked toward them, then gave her staff a mighty swing and drove a bladed wing into the nearer one's side as she skirted past him, yanking it out and around as he fell, shooting the other in the face.

The one she'd chopped at tried to get up, but she just shot him too, this time requiring significantly less luck because this time she had time to actually stop and aim.

When she looked up, Mrs. Eslinger was in the doorway, smiling coldly.

It turned out Mrs. Eslinger had stabbed the other bandit to death near the road before running away from the other two with her deceptively long legs. He lay there, in a pool of his own blood, several holes in his chest and abdomen.

"They deserved worse," Mrs. Eslinger said.

Coraline just nodded. Considering what the bandits had done, she couldn't really argue. "When they found out she wasn't likely worth ransom, they... well, I've healed her physical wounds," she said, "but her mind will take more. You're going need to be there for her. Be supportive."

"I know how to take care of my own daughter," Mrs. Eslinger said darkly.

Coraline nodded again. "Of course. This sort of trauma can be difficult, however, for everyone involved. To come to terms with what has happened, she'll need your help in order to heal and move on. Whatever you do, don't judge her for it, but especially don't let anyone else." She hoped this was the right approach. She wasn't sure. Her classes on psychology had only fleetingly touched on this sort of thing, and quite frankly she hadn't actually been paying attention in the first place for most of it. She wished she had been. She wished she'd not spent most of the lectures playing videogames. She wished she could focus better now, too.

"You seen a lot of this?" Mrs. Eslinger asked, interrupting her mental tangent.

"Some." While she hadn't exactly, trying to explain the internet didn't seem like the best idea at the moment. She indicated the dead bandit in front of them instead and asked, "What do you want to do about him?"

"Burn it. Burn them all."

Coraline obliged with a quick staff blast to the body, then headed back for the other two. The staff could fire in a lot of different ways, from pinpoint shots to explosive bursts; these one set the bodies on fire and burned quite thoroughly.

Jess stood nearby, watching, with Agata still in her arms.

Coraline hurried into town again, the afternoon sun pushing down on her neck and shoulders. Her head was pounding, voices rattling around almost as chaotically as her scattered thoughts. She was too drunk, too warm, and as she pulled her white-blonde braid loose for a little more shade, she glanced to the woods again. The trees looked quite odd at this level of inebriation, and it was also only a matter of time before the bandits caught on and did something about it, especially when the three failed to return.

But she couldn't deal with that just yet. First she needed help. Or something. She was a little fuzzy what the hell was going on at all anymore, quite frankly, and realised vaguely that all the extra vodka and wine must have finally hit her head.

Keller's place was on the outskirts of the town proper. Coraline didn't bother to knock, just pushed inside and slammed the door behind her, then stood there blankly while she tried to figure out what she was even doing there.

Finally she realised she had no idea. And Kit, Keller's apprentice, was staring at her from the table, where he'd apparently been researching some spell or other, books and papers all over. And there was a stuffed moose hanging from the ceiling in the corner. That hadn't been there before.

"Need something?" Kit asked.

"Is that a moose?" Coraline asked.

"I have no idea," Kit said. "Not a sheep, though. Nolan checked."

"Why?" Coraline said.

Kit shrugged. Nolan was the town's resident insane sheep-obsessed kid. Everything was either sheep or irrelevant to him. Nobody knew why, and as a result nobody tended to know why he did much of anything, either.

Keller bustled into the room, and upon seeing Coraline, exclaimed, "Miss Zidane! So good to see you again!" As usual, his fancy wizard robes were flowing hugely around his ageing frame, and she got the impression his bustle was primarily in effect in order to take full advantage of that. "You've finally come to your senses, yes?" he said, continuing to bustle around. "Of course I can only help you so much so far out here, but-"

Coraline interrupted him by putting two fingers over his mouth when he got too close. "I think I need to use your alchemy lab," she said, and then went in without waiting for a response.

"What?" He hurried in after her, but she was already going through the compounds.

She selected a shell for a bomb, lined it with some red stuff, lined that with a tissue, and then mixed in a few more substances intended for the actual reaction. She wasn't sure, but if the things she had mixed turned out to be what she thought they might be, the result was probably going to be incredibly toxic.

"Wait, that's dangerous!" he insisted. "You shouldn't just be mixing things like that!"

She finished closing the thing, then turned and gave him a rather sceptical look. "You don't even know," she said flatly, and then stopped, brightening. "And neither do I!"

He gave her a worried look, but she just dropped some coins in his hand.

"For the supplies," she said. "I... think."

"Look, this isn't that simple, Miss Zidane," Keller said, pushing the money back at her.

She ignored it and brushed past him, and the money just wound up on the floor as a result.

He hurried after her. "You should be learning proper magic," he insisted, "not... barging in here and mixing gods know what."

"Yeah, that's my job," Kit pointed out.

"I don't have time for that," she said vaguely, then muttered again, "Time."

"Well, yes, but..." he sighed. "Well at least take a mask, if you're seriously planning to detonate that thing," he said, throwing a gas mask after her.

Somehow, she actually caught it.

She headed back up the road, passing some kids along the way. They were chucking pinecones at each other. One of them chucked a cone at Coraline and it bounced off her head. Someone who might have been their mum yelled something unintelligible.

She tossed the bomb into the air as she went. Toss, catch. Toss, catch. One-handed one ball juggling, the simplest form, not even juggling at all. Instant death if she dropped it, probably.

Everything was fuzzy. The previously oppressive heat just felt like butterflies, now.

She ran into two more bandits on the the road. One of them pointed at her and said something. The other drew his sword. Coraline swung her staff around its strap with her free hand and shot him, and the first started to run at her and she shot him too.

She stared at them as they lay on the ground, collapsed, smoking, lifeless. She was too drunk. She had thought she was too drunk before, but now it was really sinking in. She was too drunk now. This was dangerous. She glanced at her hand. She was still holding the bomb, though she couldn't quite feel it anymore. She gave it an experimental squeeze and watched her hand as it squeezed the bomb slightly.

Then she was walking again.

She pulled on the gas mask as she came out into the ruins. The bandits spotted her quickly. There were a lot of them. Several were pointing crossbows. Others had swords and axes. She was too drunk for crossbows. Swords and axes too, but especially crossbows. She threw the bomb at the lot of them and then dropped behind a section of wall.

Crossbow bolts whizzed overhead and thunked and plinged around her. The bomb exploded on impact with a hissy flpomph.

There was yelling, coughing, footsteps coming toward her. She sat, back to the wall, clutching her head, until the last bandit stopped rolling around behind her.

She poked her head over the wall for a look. None of them were moving, just collapsed bandits all over, with a particularly large swath of them where they'd fallen coming at her.

The bomb radius had been huge, the effects rapid and potent. All because of a little extra magic. The implications would have terrified her, had she been thinking straight. Instead she tried to count the bodies.

She counted... she couldn't count. She got up to one. Then she lost count.

Some part of her brain knew it wasn't necessarily safe to take the mask off, however, as she walked slowly between the bodies, fists raised, deliberately extending a finger for each one she passed. She ended up with all fingers up before even reaching the camp itself, and cursed a bit upon realising she didn't have enough fingers. Then she fished a pen out of her bag and just wrote all the numbers on her arm, going back through from the start, a new number for each one she passed, forgetting whether or not she'd already the fifth one, and then subsequently lost count again.

She tried again, this time shooting each one in the head as she went, small-calibre, adding tick marks next to the first five and then resuming the main count.

She ended up in the ruins on the other side of the camp, her arm covered in numbers. It was a lot of numbers. It was only twenty-nine. That wasn't good.

But there had also been three more that had died at the farm. And the two on the road. She added a few more numbers to her arm. That meant more than one bandit not accounted for.

She looked around, swinging her head left and right as she tried to focus on the ruins and surrounding trees. Her field of view was... not good. Everything was swimming a bit. She had no idea where they might be. Unless the guy was in a tent. She was standing next to a tent.

She pushed her way inside.

Robert Earnsworth, more commonly known as Huge Bob, was not just a bandit, but a very successful bandit. This, he believed, was because he understood finer points of how the world worked - namely that pretty much every point was based on magnitude. Thus he made a point of being bigger, meaner, and scarier than everyone else. And richer. And fluffier. And warmer. Generally just more of everything.

It was for this that people called him Huge Bob.

Huge Bob was too warm.

He pulled his hat off with a sigh of relief, the sweat rolling down his brow. The woods were otherwise pleasant enough, but this was just uncomfortable.

There was yelling from the direction of the camp, and his hands clenched around the hat. Something was going on back there. His axe was a few paces away, but he couldn't get up just yet.

"Always when I'm taking a shit!" he yelled to no-one in particular. He hoped no-one was around, anyway. His pants were literally down, and he'd gone this far out precisely to avoid having anyone around.

"Fucking shit," he added for emphasis.

The shit took its own time, in absolutely no hurry at all, despite all of Huge Bob's efforts.

Finally he finished up his business, pulled up his pants, grabbed his axe, and hurried back toward the ruins, only hoping his men hadn't screwed things up too much this time.

He got back to find the camp silent, everyone on the ground, no explanation why. Aside from a couple, they all had holes in their head. Some were lying in pools of their own vomit. It looked as though many of them had been hurrying toward something in the direction of the main road, but whatever had taken them out had stopped them in their tracks.

"The fuck...?" he said, looking around, and coughed. In all his years of banditry, he had been up against many things - men, monsters, magic, more monsters - but never had he seen anything quite like this. Poison, maybe? Some sort of disease? But how could it have been so quick?

He backed away, and nearly tripped over a man. This wasn't right. Nothing about this was right.

The tent proved to be unoccupied, though a lumpy pile of bedding had required closer inspection, which is to say Coraline went and poked it a bunch of times before it finally sunk in that it indeed wasn't a body at all and was instead just a lumpy pile of bedding. That was a bit disappointing.

Finally she pulled the tent flap open, managed to leave slightly more gracefully than she'd entered, and proceeded to attempt to look around. This attempt was almost immediately interrupted by an unusually upright, large, and hatted bandit nearly backing into her.

"Agh!" she yelped, jumping back.

He spun about in surprise, taking his axe with him in what turned into an enormous cleave that she only barely managed to dodge, rolling away, landing on her back. She was definitely too drunk for giant bandits with huge axes and fuzzy hats.

"What the fuck?!" he yelled, advancing on her, though it sounded muffled. He raised the axe for another swing, swinging, bringing it down.

Coraline had no time to get up and run, no space to dodge, only enough to block with the staff at the very last second. The rod bounced against her breast, the force of the blow resonating through the bones of her arms. He pulled his blade down further, trying to slide it to her unprotected stomach, and she pushed it away enough that it sank into the ground by her crotch instead, pinning down her skirt.

She realised he was screaming at her, mostly insults, instructions to die, things he would do to her. It lost coherence as the dregs of her consciousness wondered why the hell she felt so cold.

Then she pulled away, ripping her skirt, kicking the axe back, out of his hands, out of her way. She rose and spun, swinging around the staff like an axe of her own, the sharpened edges of the phoenix' wings singing through the air. The bandit jumped back, avoiding the swing, but overbalanced in the process, and the second upward swing caught him right in the throat, knocking his head back, knocking him over, knocking Coraline over too in the opposite direction.

Coraline awoke to crickets. It was evening, that crazy time of day when things had finally cooled down, but the sun was still hovering a couple hours from nightfall proper.

She was still alive.

Suddenly she sat up, looking around quickly. Had she missed any? But from the look of it everything was just bodies. She pulled off the mask and took in the sweet, cool, strangely foetid air. Her head was clearer now, and as she got up entirely, using the staff as a crutch, she realised she was splattered with dried blood, and almost fell over again. She had to do something about all this. These bodies. So many bodies. Best not to feed the bears, or whatever, and she didn't want to waste anything the bandits might have stocked up, either. Weapons, supplies... she went over each corpse, as well as the tents and containers, gathering up any decent armour and weapons she could find, as well as trinkets, coins, knick-knacks.

She grabbed the bandit leader's hat, too, while she was at it.

It could sell for a lot, and her bag, much larger on the inside than it was on the outside, held it all quite easily.

Then she burned them all, a single staff blast each, the stench of flesh rotting in the summer heat mingling with the stench of burning.

When she got to the road, she did the same thing with the two bodies there, though someone had already helpfully pulled those to the side.

She needed to get back to town, to her inn. It was already late, and while her staff could generally manage just fine without her, she still preferred to be around, especially when they were already down one employee. But she also needed get back to the Eslingers as to what had happened. And she needed dinner. And a bath. And a new skirt.

Coraline headed back to the Eslinger farm first. It was closest. Mrs. Eslinger hugged her and thanked her and invited her to dinner, but Coraline just waved at the assorted kids and extended family and excused herself and her stink. Several of the younger ones giggled at that, which, though she couldn't actually smell herself at this point, confirmed her suspicions that there was basically no way that she could possibly not stink after everything that had apparently happened.

She got to the temple a few minutes later, finding Davis, one of the priests, lighting the candles at the various shrines.

He looked up and smiled at her as she entered, then looked a bit confused, his nose crinkling, as she made a bee-line for the statue.

"Oy, statue," Coraline said, her hands on her hips. "So I just slaughtered a bunch of bandits. Remind me, why are you helping me, again?"

"What?" Davis said, behind her.

The long, low voice of the statue echoed throughout the chamber. "And what would have happened had you not?"

"I don't know," Coraline said blankly, in what was mostly not a GIR voice, though only mostly.

"It is likely that they would have come after you and Jessica both," the statue said, each word slow and precise, "on the way, laying waste to the outer farms, and even perhaps burning down the entire village. Then they would only have continued - onto other towns and other innocent souls. But you stopped them. You did the only thing that was certain, though you cannot know the price."

Coraline glared at the statue, but then Davis put a comforting hand on her shoulder, startling her. In return she glanced back and gave him a freezing eyeful of death.

Davis laughed nervously, backing away.

Then she admitted, "Okay, I guess I mostly just came here because you lot have the only decent baths in town."

"Blood washes off, but the memory of what you have done will not," the statue said, though the voice had changed, taking on a heavier tone. This was the god himself, it seemed. "You carry the deathgod's coin for a reason. These are the decisions you make; I can only give you the truth you already know."

Coraline smiled humourlessly, and said, "Well, that's what sleep is for." She waggled a finger at her ear. "Brain washes itself out right proper if you just let it."

The bath was absolutely wonderful, though it didn't quite get the numbers off her arm, and she also wound up a bit disappointed that she hadn't thought to bring any clean clothes. Or even a spare skirt without massive rips in it.

Ultimately she wound up just washing the clothes too and putting them on wet, enjoying the cool as they dried in the evening breeze on the way back into town.

Kit was outside Keller's place telling some of his friends some plan or other of his. He was always doing that, it seemed, and Jora, of course, as the oldest one there, was sceptical. "I dunno," she was saying. "I don't think it's such a good idea."

"It's a totally good idea!" Kit insisted.

"Will there be sheep?" Nolan asked.

"Yeah, maybe," Kit said, and threw his arms out. "There could be anything!"

"That's the spirit," Coraline said as she passed, despite having absolutely no idea what they were talking about.

Kit nodded in agreement.

She got a few comments from the townsfolk for her clothes - not just for the ripped skirt, but also the bloodstains. But it didn't even matter; something had happened, and she'd taken care of it. They weren't worried.

"You don't mess with our wizards," Alec James said proudly, slapping her on the back. The other Jameses agreed, and some other folk nodded too.

And that was it, basically. The exact word would get out later, and it didn't even matter, at least not to them.

Jess was tending bar when Coraline finally got back to the inn, Agata sitting on a shelf behind her. The place was fairly busy, so the girl had her hands full, but she came over as Coraline took a seat on a spare stool.

"You a customer now?" Jess said, smiling.

Coraline put the bandit's hat on the bar in front of her, and Jess picked it up, staring at it.

"Did you..." the girl began, then tried again. "Are they..." She looked at Coraline hopefully.

"Yeah, all dead," Coraline said tiredly. Then she added under her breath, "I think." Not that it would likely matter much - after what had happened, she rather doubted any survivors would try to come back.

Jess just stared at her, lost for words.

Coraline gave her a moment, then just said, "Since you're there, pour me a shalott, will you?" While Jess hurried to fetch up a mug and bottle, she added, "I didn't expect you to come in."

"You know, it's weird, but I just feel safe here," Jess responded, pouring out a very small amount of the bizarre oniony liquor.

"How's that weird? We've got Dors." Dors was the bouncer. He was an orcan, a native of Ord, and quite large, and the one thing he never did was quite fit in. At the moment he was striking poses at one of the patrons.

"Well, there is that," Jess said.

Dors gave them a big smile from across the room.

"Will you be all right handling for the night?" Coraline asked. "I think I... kind of need to pass out now."

Jess picked up the suddenly empty mug and gave it a dubious look, but nodded.

"Great," Coraline said, and wobbled her way into the kitchen, nearly ran over Malla, the cook, and with great care, stumbled out the other side, making her way to her room in what was probably the most roundabout way possible.

2: Hunter and prey

"Events do not occur apart and singly. Anything worth the hunting has a cost."

~ Sandman

The hunter stopped amidst the white stone ruins and looked around carefully. People came here often - to camp, to play, to study - and he noted the signs disinterestedly. The norm was not his concern. If everything were normal, he would not have been here.

He nudged the ashes of an old fire and kicked aside some empty bottles, and then he saw the marks. Scorched earth, the scars of intense, localised heat, always so precise, so distinct, the same here as it had been in Seras and Telegrin, and in Kalona before that. He had not expected this. Not here.

He stopped in town in the late afternoon. It was autumn, so the day was cool, and the night would come soon now. The market bustled as townsfolk prepared for the annual Harvest Festival, but he merely waited in a corner and observed, out of the way.

Laughter and conversation drifted throughout the square. Bright leaves blew past. Brown leaves scurried across the ground.

Passerby greeted the hunter cheerfully. A few asked what brought him to town. A few others avoided him, concerned by his aspect and appearance - dangerous and out of place, much like the inverse of a high-class picnic on a battlefield - moving away in hushed conversation. He paid it all little mind, watching instead for the signs he knew well. A little madness. A little fear. Eyes not quite right.

One man was going from stall to stall, poking his head at the other folks, asking questions. Insistent, pressing, catching the hunter's eye as he did the rounds. Then the man noticed the hunter, too, and hurried over.

"What time is it?" the man asked. He was slightly dirty, and for all the world resembled an emaciated hamster that had suddenly gotten up and decided to be human.

The hunter checked the sky. "Quarter to five, I s'pose?"

"What time is it?" he asked again, more insistently this time, and this time the hunter didn't answer, merely waited.

After about an hour, the man narrowed his eyes, made an angry noise, and headed off to the next person to pester.

The Molstead Inn had twelve tables, but one was missing a leg and as a result some drunks had gotten the bright idea to nail it to the ceiling at some point, so in practice the inn really only had eleven usable tables and a hazard sticking out of the ceiling. Coraline wasn't entirely sure, but she suspected that one of the drunks in question might have been her.

Nobody ever mentioned it unless they ran into it.

For now, three of the tables were occupied - two by locals enjoying their evenings with pitchers of ale, and one by three cats sitting on it, with Coraline in one of the chairs. The cats were all staring at Coraline, who was for her part taking a drink every time one of them blinked.

It was a very slow game, and she had been at it for most of the afternoon, though she had originally sat down to draw. Then Tress had sat on her drawing, Thimble had slid off Agata, and the entire plan had been ruined. So instead she simply watched them.

Cal, the new waiter, never commented, instead keeping her properly supplied for the duration and tending to everyone else who came in in the meantime - clearly he was a keeper.

These were the days she lived for, long and lazy, no worries, no concerns.

More townsfolk came in, as well as a few outskirts folks in for the festival, and by the time the evening had settled over the area, the place was full and bustling, leaving many folks standing between the tables, laughing, chattering, no room to sit. It was quite loud. Food and drink were bussed around. Jess was tending bar - the girl had recovered quite well over the past couple months, as it turned out - and Dors was at the door.

Nobody took the other seats at the cats' table.

Thimble blinked.

Coraline took a drink.

Tress yawned.

Someone splashed their drink on Agata and she put an ear back in discontent. Coraline scratched her own ear absent-mindedly.

Tress yawned some more.

Over the noise, someone yelled at Coraline asking what was up with the cats.

She held up a hand signaling for them to wait.

Tress continued to yawn.

Tress finally finished yawning and blinked.

Coraline took a drink, then yelled back, "What?"

"I said what are you doing?" the guy said. He was an out-of-towner, but she didn't recognise him as anyone from even the surrounding townships. His attire marked him as a fighter, of sorts - light armour, well-made - but his swords drew the eye - one steel, one silver. A hunter.

"Drinking," Coraline told him over the roar.

He raised an eyebrow, then asked, "Mind if I sit?"

She gestured for him to go ahead, then took another drink when Thimble blinked again. She was finally starting to get a bit drunker; while it was only plum wine, the cats were getting a bit blinky amidst all the ruckus and smoke. Aside from Agata, who had only blinked once since the morning.

"You look like you own the place," the guy said. "Table to yourself, only some cats on it..."

"I do own the place," Coraline said. "Aside from the cats. The cats own me."

"Oh," he said. Then he added, "The name's Dalric. Dalric of Forst. You?"

"Lyra," she said.

A waitress set a pitcher of ale and mug on the table in front of the hunter, carefully avoiding the cats. While the gal was there, he ordered himself some dinner.

"Got any rooms, then?" he asked a bit later.

"Should be one left. Twenty silver a night," she said, watching Agata carefully. The tortoiseshell seemed to be closing her eyes very, very slowly.

Then, against all expectation, Tress blinked. Surprised, Coraline looked back to Agata, but the cat's eyes were normal again. She'd missed the blink, if there had even been one.

Just to be safe, she took two drinks and twitched an eye at Agata.

The guy waited until she seemed to be done, then asked, "Why so much?"

"Festival," Coraline explained. Everyone from the outlying farms came in, and space just went too quickly if it was cheaper. This way folks who actually needed it had a better chance of getting something.

"Oh," he said.

She explained that Jess could actually get him set up with a room, and the game continued while he finished his dinner. Tress blinked twice. Thimble just glared with his perpetually angry face. Agata stuck out her tongue and then forgot to pull it the entire way back in.

Finally, the hunter said, "So I see what you're doing. Why are you doing it?"

Coraline glanced up. "Why not?" she said, then took another drink as Thimble closed his eyes and rolled over.

He gave her a sceptical look.

She shrugged, indicating the half-finished sketch of a very angry-looking Thimble-atop-Agata. "I was waiting for a shipment. And they were there." She paused, then added, "Guess it'll be in tomorrow, from the look of it."

He nodded, sort of satisfied, then asked her about the town, how things were, what people tended to do around the place, how the preparations for the festival were going. She told him this and that, things were good though the threat of the war loomed overhead even now, place was largely farmsteads and tradesmen, preparations were going. Lots to do.

In turn, she asked him what brought him here, a professional monster hunter into the peaceful lands away from the fields of ruin.

He asked how she'd known.

"Silver sword," she said. She considered making a joke about similar-looking metals, but couldn't think of anything funny that wasn't a pun on the word 'zinc'. Which wouldn't have been funny to anyone else.

He nodded again, and said, "Towns got bounties, too. Oughtn't neglect them when there's lives at stake here same as everywhere else."

"Well, we ain't got any," Coraline said, then took another drink when Thimble slid off the table. Then she realised that that hadn't been a blink at all. She frowned and looked to see where the cat had gone, but he was already lost in a sea of legs.

"None at all?"

"Naw," she said. "We had some lurkers a few weeks back, but the kids took care of those."

"Really."

She shrugged slightly. "What they lack in organisation they make up for in enthusiasm, excessive research, and hitting things with sharp objects. And occasionally screaming. I hear Erry actually out-wailed a banshee one time."

"Don't their parents mind?" He asked.

She shook her head, but was watching Tress suspiciously. "They're pretty responsible about it. Jora looks after them, and they've also got Nolan," she said. "If there is anything out there that is scarier than Nolan, we have yet to see it."

"Sounds like quite the fellow."

"He's completely obsessed with sheep," Coraline said.

To say that Nolan was obsessed with sheep was an understatement. He was not obsessed with sheep. It went deeper. Sheep were simply everything to him, his entire life, his calling, his purpose. Everything about them made him happy. His parents had no idea what to make of this, of course, but they were not sheep. Nolan understood. Only sheep could understand. Only sheep could provide.

There was a noise below him, and Nolan yawned and looked down at the noise that was not a sheep. It was instead Jora, a girl who probably would have qualified as a friend to someone who entirely comprehended the concept of friends, but that would have been someone else who was not Nolan. To Nolan, Jora was sword-person. The avenger. The guardian. Of not sheep.

"Nolan," Jora was saying, "Please come down. I know you have your reasons for being up there, but your parents are worried about you. Just come down, eat dinner with them, sleep in your bed for a night, and come back in the morning."

Nolan frowned at her. There was a logic to it, he supposed. Bed was warm. He was hungry. He couldn't see much anyway. Tomorrow would be better. "Okay," he said, and dropped out of the tree.

He landed right next to Jora, his nose about two inches away from her elbow. She didn't even flinch.

Jora escorted Nolan back as the stars twinkled overhead, and wondered if this had anything to do with the riddle that Kit had unearthed the other day. It had translated to something about 'the oldest key' for 'checking signs', and Nolan had just yelled "Boom" and run off. And then she'd found him in this tree. And then he'd remained in the tree the entire time since.

Nolan, meanwhile, thought about sheep. And a few other things too, but mostly sheep.

Dalric stood when the innkeeper did, receiving a suspicious look for his trouble.

"Don't," she said.

It was an odd response, but he just nodded as she left. He wasn't sure what it was she didn't want him to do, of course, but perhaps this was a local thing. For now he didn't worry about it - he was here for a job, a standing bounty that spanned several holds, and it occupied his whole attention.

The Carrier could be anyone.

The place was a bit quieter now, so he asked around, standard questions, getting a feel for the matter. His focus, for now, was on the hamstery guy in the market. The way he had asked the time, persistent and repetitive, was suspicious; they did that sometimes, when they slowly went mad. Became fixated in their terror, and there was always terror as the hunger ate at their souls. First the terror, then the loss, then the devolution into utter mindless thing, devouring and spreading, a plague like none other.

"Oh, Yink?" a bearded guy answered. "Yeah, I know him. Good lad until he went on that logging trip. Just hasn't been the same since."

"He's always asking," another said. "Always asking, never likes the answer."

"Asks a bunch of things, doesn't he? Like he just picks something at random for the day every morning."

"I don't think he sleeps at all."

"Been going on a few months now."

"Something happened up there, I'm telling you," a curly-haired fellow insisted. "Others didn't even come back at all, and Yink... he just came back trembling, and he wouldn't speak of it. For the longest time he wouldn't even say anything. But this is worse, if anything."

"Oh, leave him alone. He's harmless. Just a nuisance, really," another said.

But Dalric wasn't so sure. He wasn't sure at all, but indeed it looked likely, especially if he really wasn't sleeping. Odd that a Carrier might last so long - usually it was a couple weeks at most - but if the suspicion that had brought him here in the first place were true, it could be possible that one had lasted far longer. Years, even, potentially.

Dalric did not like the implications of that one bit.

Morning came quickly, a damp chill seeping through the leaves and across the grass. Everything was wet, including Nolan, perched in his tree once more. There, he watched and waited.

Dalric was also up, though not up a tree, watching the buildings, noting the paths, looking again for anything odd or hamstery. Only a few folk were out this early, and in the wet and cold, their breath formed mist that lingered in place, leaving strange trails to mark their passing.

He found Yink crouching behind the blacksmithy, muttering to himself.

The hamster man stood suddenly, and looked around, quickly spotting Dalric. "What time is it?" he asked, advancing slowly.

Dalric backed away, hand to his sword, but Yink just bounded forward, right into his face, and very nearly his sword as well, stopping only just before he impaled himself. But that was it, nothing more threatening, just a mild invasion of personal space, and that question, again.

"What time is it?" Yink stared into Dalric's eyes insistently. "What time is it?"

Dalric nudged him away with the tip of his sword, and the madman backed off easily enough, though he went no further. Just stayed as close as he could get, and Dalric noted his eyes looked relatively normal. Dark, perhaps, but that could be natural. Some people here did have dark eyes.

Dalric backed away a bit, but the guy just followed.

He pushed past him and still Yink followed.

"What time is it?" Yink asked.

There was a dripping. Coraline awoke slowly, each drip cutting into the dream like a big cutty thing, unexpected, unremembered shortly after, until finally she realised what it was. It was still quite early, at least for her, and it occurred to her that, in the future, she should really stick to harder liquors. Nice safe things like vodka and shalott. And even brandy, for that matter - as bad as it tasted, it was a marked improvement washing the horrible taste out of her mouth. Now if only she could wash away the dripping so easily.

She groaned and went back to sleep.

The dripping continued in the background.

The day pulled itself up by the elbows and, with great effort, turned bright and sunny. Clouds pulled themselves across the bright sky. Townsfolk busied themselves with stuff and things, while the children ran about eating random things, getting in the way, and occasionally helping amidst an air of anticipation. Nolan pulled a twig across the bark of his tree.

Amidst this, Dalric had intended to tail Yink about his normal day, see what he did, what oddities arose, and generally just observe. Given that Yink was still following him around, this was rendered somewhat more difficult, though it did afford a few other opportunities. He could lead the guy various different places, for one. It would potentially make the guy quite easy to isolate, for another, decreasing the risk to the townsfolk.

Most people afflicted with the Death of Souls simply died. It was sad, but not terribly interesting, aside from the minor concern that their souls were also apparently lost in the process. Depending on their religious beliefs, this may or may not have been a big deal.

It was the people who didn't just die right off the bat who were the problem: the Carriers. For these, the first stage of affliction tended to have three main symptoms: a hunger, a general restlessness, and an generalised fear or nervousness. Given that most people had some level of all of these at any given time in the first place, these were not a particularly useful metric and were often simply ignored by anyone not researching the topic for the purpose of researching the topic. It was only in stage two that anything potentially useful arose, but even then it was generally not conclusive.

Unfortunately by the time it reached stage three it was also generally too late: at this stage the Carriers would devolve into utter madness and try to eat the souls of everyone and everything with which they came in contact, infecting some, killing the rest. And after a bit of that, they, too, would die.

Stage three was, all in all, a horrible mess, and as a result it usually paid to err on the side of maybe and just kill anyone too suspicious at stage two.

Yink was suspicious, but not too suspicious at this point. Right now he was chewing on his thumb. He made no indication of hearing voices.

"Oy," Dalric said, beckoning the guy over. "You hungry?"

Yink approached carefully, then asked, much less carefully, "What time is it?"

"You don't give a fuck what bloody time it is," Dalric said. "Just answer the damn question. Are you hungry?"

Yink stared at the hunter for a moment, struggled internally, then asked, "What time is it?"

Dalric glared at him.

Yink stared back, then finally nodded, very, very slowly.

"Great," Dalric said, and stuffed a rather large meat pie into the madman's hands.

Yink clutched it in a hamstery fashion. Then he nibbled it. Then he continued to nibble it. Then he nibbled it some more. All the while he stared at Dalric with buggy eyes, not even blinking.

Dalric had stared down all manner of creatures over the years - monsters of the night, undead, rabid bears, cranky old ladies, even a dragon - but this was just unsettling. Even so, he stared into those buggy eyes and was unsettled. Very unsettled.

Yink nibbled.

Dalric's eye twitched.

Much, much later, the entire pie was finally all nibbled up, Yink was sidling closer and closer, and Dalric was certain of only one thing: he needed a drink.

But first he had to ask: "Do you still feel hungry?"

Yink shrugged, staring up at him, buggy-eyed and hamstery.

"Well?" Dalric insisted.

"What time is it?" Yink said.

Dalric winced, took a deep breath, and then asked instead, "Do you ever hear voices?"

"Yes," Yink said.

"You do?"

"Yes," Yink repeated, and pointed to the hunter. Then he asked again, sticking his face right under Dalric's, "What time is it?"

Dalric took another deep breath, and then slowly, very slowly, turned Yink around and made his way out of the town centre. Yink, of course, followed.

In the dream, the world was a forest of legs: human legs, table legs, elven and orcan legs, ox and dolyak legs. Skirts and leggings rustled in the breeze. Leaves drifted limply about. The sun was high, but the air was cool. The forest was dead, dormant, waiting.

She stalked through the legs, looking for something but not knowing what it was. Then she caught the scent - or perhaps simply a feeling - and broke into a run, bounding on all fours, wind streaming through her luxurious fur. The forest thinned, but the leaves were swirling about and now she was fighting to keep going, fighting to stay on her feet, the leaves pushing and jostling, picking her up off the ground, floating, floating.

It all fell away, but really she was falling, falling through the sky, away from the world, everything fading into blackness.

There was a flash of space, of an alien terrain that had become all too familiar, and then in a sudden rush of voices, Coraline awoke.

She found herself staring up at Malla's worried face. Said face was worryingly close to her own. Said face was saying something. Something worried. Something about something upstairs. Something come look. You said to tell you if we ever saw something odd, and there's something odd in one of the rooms, and I'm afraid, milady. Please, you need to deal with it.

"What?" Coraline said groggily. She still felt a bit like she was falling, though the feeling was fading.

"There's something in one of the rooms, milady Zidane," Malla repeated. "You need to come look, please. I don't know what it is, but there's just something not right about it."

"So what is it?" Coraline asked, pulling herself out of bed and into some actual clothes.

"I..." Malla shook her head. "It's black. Shiny. Feels like the whole world gone wrong."

Coraline frowned, but gestured for the woman to lead on. She grabbed a bottle of whiskey on her way out.

The room in question was the hunter's room. Though Jess had been the one to actually assign the guy, Coraline was still reasonably sure of this because there were leathers all over and the table was covered in weapons, mostly knives. It looked like he hadn't actually slept in the bed, either, but simply on.

Staying as far back from the doorway as she could, Malla pointed to the small-table by the bed. On it was a book, and next to that, three shiny stones, two an off white, one black, the size of golfballs. Coraline had seen similar once before. She remembered the cold feeling as the spell had settled over her, like water dripping down under her skin, and shivered.

Then she pushed it aside and smiled reassuringly back at Malla. "Just stay here," she said, and headed over to the table. As she got closer, she could feel the voices getting louder in her head, and it seemed almost as though she were pushing against a current, and yet at the same time, she was drawn through it, to the black. That black stone. So familiar. So inviting. Safe. Necessary. Needed. The voices rose to a scream.

Her finger touched the stone and everything fell away. Voices, floor, gravity, all the light and sound in the world.

It all just fell away.

Somehow Coraline managed to avoid falling over herself, and a moment later everything was back to normal - the floor where it should be, gravity doing what it was supposed to, the voices just a murmur in the back of her mind. She was holding the black stone clutched in front of her, its cold surface unrelenting in her grip. She forced her hand to relax a bit and gave it an annoyed look.

"Milady?" Malla said uncertainly from the doorway.

"This is a soul gem," Coraline said, turning, holding up the black stone. "Except this isn't a soul in it. Souls are... well, they're not really anything, normally. Just memories, resonance. They might glow a bit." She wasn't sure how she knew this, but she did.

Malla nodded, confused.

"I need you to go call on the Mayers. Tell Edine I need the council," Coraline said gravely, forcing herself to put the stone back down on the small-table. She knew what... whatever the hunter's name was... was really hunting.

Her.

And a moment later the realisation hit her.

She had just fallen into his trap.

Coraline glanced back to the doorway, but Malla had already gone.

She proceeded to panic for a bit, realised she was still holding whiskey in her other hand, drank a bunch of whiskey, panicked some more, and then finally calmed down a bit. She needed to think, not... make it even harder to think.

She gave the bottle of whiskey a disappointed look, gave the black soul gem another irritated look so it wouldn't feel left out, and shuffled back downstairs.

Jess was dozing off at the counter, though there were folks in the tavern already, so Coraline busied herself with a bit of bartending and whatnot for a bit as well. Normal stuff. It occurred to her that this was all pretty much exactly what she should have done as Lyra Zidane, perfectly normal (but slightly badass) innkeeper, regardless. Being a wizard, it only made sense she might recognise some of the tools of the trade, and a hunter seeking the Death of Souls was indeed a matter of town concern - if they had a Carrier, the potential devastation could be huge, and if not, it was quite likely more than a few folks would get caught and killed in the ensuing inquisition before such was proven. They had all heard the stories of places hit by groundless paranoia.

So yes, this was very much something the town council should discuss, and determine for themselves what they thought of the matter, and subsequently what to do about it. The usual works.

The Molstead town council was not so much a council, exactly, as it was a tea party that happened occasionally, usually whenever one of the members/members' wives/members' sons/random people staying with a member felt like it. Or, in that last case, wanted said member out of the house so they could throw a sort of party of their own. Although that had only happened that one time and the man in question had later been forced to marry his 'party' and settle down with a nice herd of goats. They now had a baby on the way.

The members of the council either showed up because they had power, or had power because they showed up. Either way, it all worked out, because it was a relatively subtle sort of power - the power that keeps things moving, that resolves disputes, that brings down your scary aunt Edna on you should you step out of line.

Coraline was on the council because as innkeeper, she knew most everyone, and most everyone knew her... and also, of course, because she was a wizard - or possibly a witch - whereas Keller, despite being a wizard as well, wasn't on the council because he never actually showed up. The others were generally representatives of powerful or large families, or elders with a lot of sway, or Nolan's mum, who came mostly just because she needed to be sure Nolan wasn't disturbing anyone too much. Merlijn, the leader of the militia, tended to come as well, for obvious reasons, along with Davis, who purportedly represented the interests of the temple, though if this were really true it would have meant that the temple's primary interest was in cakes.

Edine Mayer was hosting.

Davis was eating a cake.

Coraline was mixing the Cerrisian equivalent of Irish coffee. Some of the wives didn't appreciate this. Some of them did.

Agata was under the coffee table.

Folks were shuffling around and sitting down.

Merlijn's hair was sticking almost straight up. He looked decidedly frazzled, though the rest of him not nearly so much as his hair. "What was so important we all needed to come today of all days?" he asked.

"A hunter," Coraline said, with as much eloquence as she could through a mouthful of highly alcoholic coffee. "Dalric of Forst." She was momentarily surprised at having remembered his name, but just went with it. Or tried to.

"So?" Edine said. "We've seen him around."

Coraline took a minute to choke on her coffee, then another to stop choking, before following up. "He's hunting the Death of Souls."

There was a stir around the living room, which was saying something because a good chunk of the folks were already still shuffling about for unrelated reasons.

"Are you sure?" This was Naran, one of the elders. He was leaning over his coffee unconcerned, but he generally always seemed unconcerned about generally everything. He was like a Finn in that, and Coraline rather approved.

"Quite," Coraline said. "Malla was cleaning the rooms and found something that put her on edge, poor dear. Turned out to be a black soul gem, just lying out on the end-table with a bunch of empty ones. Hunters use these to prevent the Death from jumping hosts by trapping it instead," she explained, "which is also how you get the black ones."

"But if he just left it there," Moira, another elder, began, "How can you be sure he's hunting now? Doesn't that mean he'd already be done?"

Coraline shook her head. "Carriers are attracted to other Carriers, so it's possible that the gem, too, was intended to draw any out." They seemed to buy this, so she went on: "And why come here, otherwise? We have no bounties. And if he has soul gems, why leave them out? They're expensive, and black ones exponentially so. He's been watching the town, asking around, looking." She looked around at the assorted folks. "It's a challenge. A trap."

The others glanced around too. They all knew what this meant, or at least pretended to in order to not look stupid.

It was Nolan's mum, Gwynne, who finally broke the silence. "We don't have any Carriers," she said. "Do we?"

"Unlikely," Coraline said. "We'd know if there was an outbreak. Generally Carriers only survive a few days at most, so the only way it travels is by folks coming in and passing it on. And even then the voices they'd hear would make them incapable of functioning."

Gwynne frowned. "Nobody's come in from out excepting this Dalric himself," she said. "And nobody's been hearing voices what hasn't been for years already. It's a dead end."

"It'll be a mess," Merlijn said dejectedly. "He'll go around trying to figure who it is when he doesn't know a thing! And now of all the damn times?" He looked up, mostly at Edine. "Pardon my language."

Edine waved it away, opening her mouth to speak, but Everton James interrupted her.

"He was asking about Yink," Everton said. "Last night in the inn." Coraline glanced over, so he added, "It was after you'd took over the bar for the night."

"Huh," she said, then she remembered. "Yink, that the guy who keeps asking what day it is?"

"That's the one," Everton said.

Gwynne sniffed. "Been like that for years, Yink has."

"Does he know that?" Edine asked. "Does he care?"

"Do we care?" Naran asked.

The others looked at him.

Naran shrugged slightly. "What? Might as well put it out there. The guy's nuts. Useless. Can't even help himself. We don't even know if he'd be happier dead."

"That shouldn't be our decision," Davis said, though his graveness was undermined by his also choosing that moment to try to surreptitiously nab another cake.

"Doesn't matter," Merlijn said. "Yink isn't a Carrier, so this Dalric'll just have to keep looking. The more goes on, the more'll die."

"But what if he is?" Naran asked. "Or what if someone else is, and we just don't know it?"

"We'd be fucked," Merlijn said. He didn't even bother excusing himself this time.

"No, Naran's right," Coraline said. "Why is he here, of all places? And is there anything we can do at this point, or should we just wait and see what happens?"

Davis shook his head warningly. "See what, if people start dying?"

Coraline looked him straight in the eye, and said, "I don't know."

He sighed and ate his cake unhappily.

Granny Höhrmann, an elder sitting in a rocking chair in the corner with a cup of tea, belched. She rarely said anything, but when she did it was well worth hearing, so this drew most of the eyes in the room.

She continued to say nothing and just sat there rocking, looking at her tea.

The eyes in the room slowly drifted back to Coraline. She grimaced. She had nothing, at least not that she wanted to share.

"Lyra," Moira began, addressing Coraline, "What did you do before you came to Molstead?"

"Not much," she said. Oddly this was the first time anyone in town had directly asked. "I used to travel a lot, and before that I studied at university."

"Azorres said you carry the Deathgod's coin." Davis said. "For what did Kyrule grant his boon?"

They were all too focussed on her. She needed a way to deflect. They couldn't know what had happened, what she had done, how when she'd taken the coin in that desecrated temple, the voices had begun.

She had tried to use a knife instead of her staff. Like she had thought it'd work better to kill a person hands-on, or something. It hadn't. There'd been blood everywhere, on her hands, her hair, her coat. Black was the best colour, but it dried brown and flaked off for days...

"Lyra?" Davis said, startling her.

She jumped. "I... I don't know," she said finally. "I wish I could say it was relevant, or it was something that could help us here, but I don't even know what happened."

Davis frowned over another cake, considering.

"It's been two years," Gwynne said, looking at Davis. "And she's done nothing but good for the town. Let her alone, she probably came here to get away from all that."

Coraline nodded, staring at her feet.

"Okay," Moira said. "So what have we got, then?"

"Um, excuse me." Erik, one of Edine's sons, was standing in the doorway. "There's been a murder," he said.

"Yink?" Gwynne asked suspiciously.

"Yeah," Erik said.

Gwynne winced. "Well, that was quick."

Erik frowned.

"What happened?" Merlijn asked, standing.

Erik shook his head. "Feldman found him in his shed." Feldman's shed was generally empty and unused, probably due to the vaguely cow-shaped hole in the roof that made it slightly less than useful as a storage shed. Even on a day like this, it would have been a good isolated place to take someone out of sight.

"Was Dalric there?" Moira asked. "The hunter."

Erik shook his head. "No sign of him, though I don't doubt he did it. Yink's throat was slit and this was... there." He held out a soul gem. It was glowing slightly.

"That's not a Carrier," Granny Höhrmann said from her rocker. "The soul gem's white. And your boy wants us to know."

"What, that he messed up?" Everton said.

"That there will be more," Coraline corrected. "He's going to find it whether it exists or not."

"Okay!" Merlijn announced, raising his hand. "Who all thinks we have a Carrier here?"

Everyone looked around. Nobody raised their hand.

Merlijn nodded. "Yeah," he said, putting his hand back down. "So. Not knowing the first thing about any of us, who do we expect this guy is going to go after next?"

"Oh gods," Gwynne said, horrified. "Nolan!"

Davis put down his cake.

Nolan was still in his tree. He had a stick in his hand, a thin branch whittled down to its core, straight and even. After watching the town carefully, he was reasonably sure his hypothesis was correct. This was exactly what Kit needed. A stick.

He poked the stick in the direction of several random passerby. It needed runes. He was no good at runes. Runes weren't sheep.

Nolan slid out of the tree and scampered off.

The council spent the next two hours arguing. First it was about how to protect Nolan, then what to do about the hunter in general, and what even had brought him here in the first place. Then there was the trouble of what to do about Yink, and then Davis found a tooth in one of the cakes, and a fair bit of yelling ensued.

Amidst this, Merlijn gave up and left to go put some kind of protective detail on Nolan, assuming Nolan could even be found. They had, at least, established than Nolan was basically the only other Molsteader not in this room who was all that likely to be mistaken for a Carrier, so there was that.

Gwynne went with him.

At some point Coraline also just gave up and had at the whiskey and proceeded to pay no attention whatsoever.

Granny Höhrmann rocked idly, knitting.

Edine yelled stuff.

Davis yelled stuff.

Naran said something in a completely normal tone of voice which was quickly drowned out by Everton yelling stuff.

Moira looked irked.

Coraline offered her some whiskey.

A bit later, Moira was a bit less irked.

Coraline sat back in a happy drunken buzz and petted Agata.

Edine yelled some more.

Everton yelled at her.

Davis and Edine yelled right back.

There was more yelling.

Coraline got up, set her whiskey on fire, and dropped it on the coffee table.

The yelling stopped.

"Oops," Coraline said.

The coffee table was now on fire too, the flames licking off the surface, spreading with the whiskey.

Everyone just stared for a moment, then Everton grabbed a blanket. Coraline held out a hand and the fire went out almost immediately. She had no idea how she'd done it, but it'd done the trick.

"So Dalric," Coraline said slowly. "Is he under arrest, or are we just going to ignore this, or what?"

"He murdered someone," Edine said darkly.

"Yink," Naran corrected. "Thought he was a Carrier, got it wrong. That's what happened."

"And it's okay because it's Yink?" Edine asked. "Because nobody'll miss him anyhow?"

"Nobody said that," Evertone said.

"It's sort of true," Naran said placidly.

Clearly they were just about to break out into argument again, so Coraline said, "Yeah, I'ma go talk to him. Sort something out." And left.

Coraline didn't actually have any plans to track down Dalric. Her main plan, at this moment, was just to get back to the inn and possibly fall over. And find a toilet. She needed a toilet. Toilet, then fall over. Priorities.

Whatever happened, Dalric would probably show up there again sooner or later. He'd left his stuff there, after all. And his trap. And his stuff.

Agata jumped up and climbed onto her shoulders. "It's not going to matter tomorrow, you know," the cat said.

"Why, what's so special about tomorrow?" Coraline asked.

"Or the next day," Agata supposed. "But it'll be a mess when it happens."

"Always is," Coraline mumbled.

The shipment had come in when she'd been out. The inn's staff and some other folks had already mostly finished stowing it, so she just waved as she headed past, found her bed, fell over into her bed, and then nearly rolled off the other side.

The general background noise of the inn and town lulled her quickly into sleep.

An hour later the remainder of the council had finally agreed on something. The tooth in Davis' cake had probably come from Edine's granddaughter Suzy.

One of the problems with going to sleep drunk is that the sleep in question tends to not be particularly effective. It is deep and restful right up until the point where it stops being at all deep or restful, at which point the sleeper suddenly wakes up feeling absolutely miserable.

Coraline suddenly woke up feeling absolutely miserable. She was too warm. Her head hurt. Something was dripping upstairs. All in all, it was awful.

She drank a glass of water, almost immediately felt less miserable, rolled over, and went back to sleep.

Drip.

Coraline woke up less suddenly this time, and felt less miserable, but the voices were getting a bit louder. She drank some brandy and went back to sleep.

Drip.

She awoke partially, drifting out of a listless dream into a room in darkness. Something warm and catlike was curled up next to her.

Then sleep was reaching up and reclaiming her once more.

Drip.

The warm and catlike thing was Tress.

Drip.

The dripping wasn't stopping.

Coraline rolled over, dislodging a cat. The cat flopped over. Another cat stared her in the face. A third was sprawled next to her.

"Nrrrgh, cats," Coraline mumbled.

"Yes, hello," Agata responded from the other side of Tress. Apparently Thimble had been the one she'd dislodged from on top of her. At least she hoped it was Thimble. She suspected she actually had enough cats at this point.

"What the hell is even up there?" Coraline asked. "Dripping."

Agata rumbled. Tress stuck up a paw. Coraline stared at the ceiling. Bloody ceiling. Why was she even in bed? Oh, whatever.

"You all are useless, you know," she told the cats.

"At least we're not drunk," Agata said.

Coraline went to investigate with a torch and staff weapon. She wasn't expecting anything dangerous, but sometimes they did get bogeythings and other weird crap, especially where it tended to be dark. And indeed, the whole place was dark. They'd closed up without her, which was fine, if a little unusual, but they all knew Coraline was good for it. She paid folks fair for what they did, unless it was completely ridiculous and uncalled for, but that particular incident didn't bear mentioning.

Agata followed her as she made her way upstairs.

Drip.

The sound seemed to be coming from one of the guest rooms. It was probably occupied - they all were - but she poked her head in and shone her torch around regardless. Indeed, there was a guy asleep in his bed, and on the floor next to it, a bowl partially filled with water. The ceiling above it was wet, preparing another drip.

Coraline eyeballed it for a moment and then pulled out of the room. Attic it was.

She poked her way into the attic staff-first, holding the torch to its shaft such that she could aim them both about as one.

All in all, the attic seemed to be an attic. Nothing moved besides Agata, who trotted inside and poked about, investigating this and that. Coraline stepped inside and checked the objects in corners, but it all just seemed to be boxes, dust, bits of insulation. Some logs. A random pile of shoes, almost as tall as she was, that made no sense but had come with the place when she'd bought it.

The dripping would have been coming from the far end, so she headed over thataway, in the meantime advancing slowly, checking behind boxes as she went, listening for anything unusual. A spent mousetrap here. Shadows that jumped away when she pointed at them. Decorations for Wintersday, leering from the wall, sparkly and bright, but coated in dust and gloom. A broken walking chair. A well.

There was some shouting from outside, but in here the voices were muffled and indistinct. She ignored them and focussed on the well.

It looked like a well, at least. Traditional style water well, circular, about a metre across, stone walls rising about half a metre up out of the attic floor, a bucket with a whole lot of rope tied to it sitting on the floor nearby in a small puddle. Except this was an attic.

This made no sense whatsoever.

Agata hopped onto the edge and peered down, and for lack of any better idea, Coraline leaned over and did the same, shining down her torch into its depths.

It was deep. Very deep. Far deeper than the room below it, and yet the room below had shown no indication of having had a well dug through it in the slightest.

They couldn't see the bottom even with the torch.

Coraline and Agata exchanged glances, and even Agata looked confused.

Finally, Coraline said, "It's a well."

Agata sat down and said, "Apparently."

"In the attic," Coraline added.

"Yes," Agata agreed.

"What," Coraline said.

She looked down the well again, but it just looked like a deep well. Deep, round, and fairly tubular.

This called for fire. She looked around, grabbed a random piece of wood, stared at it in general annoyance, stared at it some more, smacked it on the edge of the well a few times and then gave it a grumpy look.

The piece of wood resolutely refrained from bursting into flame.

Coraline continued to look at it grumpily for a bit, then said, "Phbbt."

A merry flame danced out of the wood.

Sometimes Coraline really, really wished she knew how she did this, and this was one of those times.

She gave the wood a moment to get more thoroughly on fire, then leaned over the well again and dropped it in. It fell a few dozen metres, illuminating the walls as it went, then hit water and went out with a dull, echoey splash.

"Huh," Coraline said.

Agata's ears perked up. "Someone's coming," she whispered.

Coraline pointed the torch and staff back toward the doorway. It was Dalric. He had a sword out, but reached up to shade his eyes from the beam with his other hand.

"Lyra?" he called out. "Is that you?"

"Stay put and don't you try anything," Coraline said warningly.

Dalric smiled. "It's just me, relax" he said, putting his sword away. For the moment he stayed put. "Is there something the matter?"

She eyed him suspiciously, then asked Agata, much more quietly, "Did the council ever get anyone to talk to him?"

"Nope," the cat said. "It's still all on you to sort this out."

"Buggrit," Coraline muttered. Then she addressed the hunter again: "You have some answering to do, and it may as well be here as anywhere. Why did you come to Molstead?"

"You know why I'm here." His eyes seemed to linger on her staff entirely too long.

"No, I really don't," Coraline said. "You seem to think there is a Carrier here, but why? You've already found Yink wasn't, and the same would go for any of us. We've had no contact at all. So what led you here?"

"There was a foretelling," he said, "that Molstead would be Taken and destroyed. You must know how quickly the Death passes through, how important it is to act."

"Sure," she said. "When you've actually got something to act on."

Dalric nodded. "I know that now. But the worst will come, I assure you, and you will need me here when it does."

Coraline eyed him dubiously, but asked, "How many did you kill?"

"Here?" he asked. "It was only one, and you have my sincere apologies."

"And what are you doing up here?" she asked.

"Heard a dripping." He said. "That's quite the staff."

Coraline sighed and finally lowered the staff. She could hardly argue about the dripping. "Turns out we've got a well in the attic." She said, shining the torch back at it. Then she eyed the puddle irritably. From the look of it, the well was mostly just sort of there for no apparent reason, and the dripping was just a side effect of the bucket. All she really needed to do to stop it was clean up the puddle. But that didn't make a whole lot of sense either.

Dalric came over and poked the wall of the well experimentally, then looked inside. "How far down does it go?" he asked.

"About 300 feet," Agata said.

Dalric looked at the cat in surprise, then back in the well. "Anything in it?"

"Water," Agata said.

Coraline ignored them and kicked the bucket aside, sticking the head of her staff in the puddle. A moment later, it flash-evaporated into steam.

She gave Dalric a moment to investigate the well as well, just in case he had any ideas. He didn't, so she gestured with her staff and said, "Ah, go on, shoo. Authorised personnel only, and all."

Dalric smirked, then asked, "So we're good?"

"For now," Coraline said. "But if you get the urge to kill anyone else, it'd better not be without a really good reason. Are we clear on this?"

"Of course."

"Seriously, no killing," Coraline said.

3: The price of a chicken

"You are standing between two mirrors. Your reflection smiles, so you smile. Your reflection moves its hand, so you move yours. It takes a very long while for you to realise that this is the wrong way round."

~ Fallen London

The important thing about Molstead's Harvest Festival, above all else, was that it made no practical sense. That the point. They were done with the harvests, winter was coming, and all that was left was to wait it out, so they started the season off with a massive party, building up an enormous bonfire in the middle of town to light the way. And then they kept partying for as long as they could keep the bonfire going.

Eventually the momentum wore off, the fire went out, and things went back to quasi-normal, and the townsfolk tended to spend a few weeks going around repairing everything before the snows arrived.

Then Wintersday happened and the party started up again, this time decorating everything with ridiculous colours and ribbons and bells, and putting up a massive painted sparkly tree in the middle of town.

The Wintersday festivities lasted until the tree fell down under the weight of the snow. In the two winters Coraline had been here, it had lasted thirteen days one year, and an entire two days the second.

After that there were inevitably another few weeks of downtime, punctuated by annoying amounts of snow falling out of the sky.

When the snow melted, it was time for the Festival of Renewal. This, too, was a massive party, and for this they built another bonfire, mostly because they could, and partly because it was usually still quite nippy and this generally kept any new snow out of the square.

Then the party ended and it was planting time.

They had a Midsummer's Day festival too.

Basically they just really liked to party, and since they could, they did.

The first day of any festival was always the loudest, and today was no different. The daytime belonged primarily to the children, and to those who acted like children, and they ran around shooting off rockets, doing scavenger hunts, dressing up as monsters, and eating everything in sight.

While this was going on, the town council held a small funeral for Yink, mostly because this resulted in everyone else leaving them alone for the duration, which gave them a chance to talk in momentary peace.

Since they were there, Coraline said some words: "He was really annoying and we never even found out what happened to him. That's kind of sad." She looked around. "What, it is."

"Yes," Edine said.

"What about Dalric?" Everton asked.

Coraline shrugged. "Apparently there was some sort of foretelling that led him here, and he just acted too soon. Meantime he's promised not to kill anyone else, and I'm inclined to buy it for now, though we probably still want to try to keep eyes on him."

They all supposed that made sense for the time being. While they were at it, they agreed on some other things, too. Best keep the militia alert (or at least not totally drunk, if they were going to be reasonable here). Don't alarm the townsfolk. Don't over-inebriate anyone. Keep the bonfire from getting too big. Avoid flinging cows. Anyone setting off really big fireworks should remain conscious while setting off really big fireworks.

For some reason they all looked pointedly at Coraline for the last few of these.

Meanwhile, in the woods, a bear was eating grass. It was good grass, and these were good woods, and all in all, the bear, assuming it even was a bear, was quite content to keep at it all day.

Cerrisian bears, or at least the Cerrisian equivalent of bears, were large, fat, and antlered, with enormous claws and alarming teeth. Like any bear, they ate passing fauna. Like a moose, they ate various flora. Like a goat, they ate just about anything else, too. They were, all in all, quite dangerous, and they filled the deep, dark woods north of Molstead like the dragons out of a bedtime story, though in reality the dragons tended to be more to the east, in the mountains.

There was a noise behind it. The bear looked about, peering into the nearby gloom with its beady eyes. One of them suddenly had an arrow in it.

The bear stood there for a bit. Then it fell over. Then it died. Then it got dragged back to camp, skinned, gutted, butchered, and hung.

Soldiers were all about, waiting around, horses set to graze, equipment dropped to the ground. Even so, the camp was very temporary, ready to pick up and move at a moment's notice. The men spoke in hushed voices, gambled, traded stories. No fires were lit. The food was all eaten cold.

The bear meat was simply stowed for later.

Amidst this, two priests were arguing. Doranis was saying, "This is a bad idea. Have I mentioned that?"

His companion, Edric, answered, "Yes. You've mentioned that."

"Well, this is a bad idea," Doranis went on.

"Okay," Edric said tiredly.

"Seriously, this is a bad idea," Doranis insisted.

"Yes," Edric said again. "You've said."

"Well, it is," Doranis said.

Another guy came up behind them, saying brusquely, "Will you shut up?" This was Nurunn, the Deathdealer leading the operation.

"Sure," Doranis said amiably, and, for the time being, shut up.

Nurunn nodded. He was tall and muscular, and an experienced warrior, but he knew well the importance in what they were doing, and like the priests, he too was concerned. One slip could mean disaster, but if they did succeed, it would take them one step closer to fighting the Death of Souls. And some day even, perhaps, to finding a cure and ending it outright.

"We're up," he told the others, and a moment later a scout rode into camp.

The scout said pulled up, confirming, "It's a go."

Immediately the soldiers burst into activity, picking everything up, mounting their own horses, and readying to head out in the space of a couple minutes.

Nurunn and the two priests led the advance, following the scout closely behind. Unlike the majority, they remained on foot.

It was about ten minutes to the site, easy going, little foliage in the way. Several other scouting parties rejoined them as they went.

The ring of soldiers parted to allow Nurunn and the priests in. Everyone else spread out around them. They could allow no chance of escape.

The Carrier was pinned down by several layers of netting, staked to the ground and several trees, with a pair of soldiers sitting on top of it with crossbows to the guy's head. His hands and feet were tied, too, but even so he struggled mightily, twisting against the rope, pulling at the netting, hissing and spitting. His wild eyes were pure black, and they bulged as he strained against the netting, but for all his efforts he could achieve nothing. Every soldier here carried a soulstone next to his heart.

"Huh," Edric said.

"Well, he's really far gone," Doranis pointed out, then tapped his own soulstone just to be sure it was still there.

Edric scowled. "Will this even work at this point?" he asked.

"That's what we're here to find out," Nurunn said.

Doranis nodded and cast a soulbinding on the Carrier, his fingers weaving the motions of the spell. It was normally wizard magic, but the gods could grant their priests many things, and when he was done he gestured to Nurunn that the guy in the netting was all his.

Nurunn gave him an unamused look, then practically sat on the Carrier in an effort to pin him down, winding up with an arm across the chest, and the maddened face mere inches from his own. The two soldiers shuffled a bit to help, but didn't get any closer, nor did they relax their aim.

"Edric," Nurunn commanded.

The priest passed him a small pendant, and Nurunn pressed its amulet to the Carrier's neck. Immediately the guy stopped struggling, collapsing back to the forest floor, and the Deathdealer took this opportunity to slip the chain through the netting and firmly clasp around around the guy's neck.

For a moment the Carrier simply lay there. Then his eyes began to clear, not entirely, not enough for colour to reappear, but enough that whites were showing, at least, and he stared vaguely upward, not really at Nurunn nor apparently at anything.

"Is it working?" Doranis asked.

Nurunn lightly slapped the Carrier's face. "Hey," he said. "Anyone in there?"

The Carrier startled, then his eyes focussed on Nuruun. "What? Where am I?" he asked.

"You're safe," Nurunn said, relaxing his hold. "Can you tell me your name?"

"Kessel," he said, looking around. "Kessel of Trom." He pressed against the net. "Why am I... I'm so hungry."

Nurunn nodded back to the others. "It's progress," he said, getting up. He gestured Edric forward. "You'll be wanting to record the details-"

Something clinked behind him, and the Deathdealer was interrupted by an explosion of sorts, black and shadowy, full of hunger and voices. It sent him flying, swallowing up several of the nearer soldiers outright, bringing Edric to his knees, clutching his head. Doranis threw up a ward, and though it wavered, it held as the shadow subsided. Many of the surrounding soldiers fell over as well, their soulstones black, every one of them, filled and black, but a few just stood there, staring, their eyes turning colour, their minds filling with hunger and voices.

Nurunn picked himself up quickly, drawing his sword, but everything was still. The captured Carrier was gone, exploded through bindings and netting alike. And now the inner-most soldiers were taken as well, those few of whom even remained standing... Nurunn dispatched them quickly, not even bothering to soulbind them, just praying it would be enough.

"You know," Doranis said, looking at his soulstone. It was empty. "I don't think that quite worked." He was wobbling a bit, but he seemed largely unaffected otherwise.

Nurunn checked his own, and while it was dark, it only repulsed him. It seemed he was clean as well, protected, for now, by his god-given resistance.

"Soldiers, reassemble!" Nurunn called out to the ones in the surrounding woods. They needed to find this Kessel of Trom again, and quickly. But now he wasn't the only one, either. They had too many casualties, dead, and worse.

The festival was getting weird. This wasn't surprising - it was the middle of the afternoon and anyone with a talent was running around showing off all the random things they could do - but this time, for whatever reason, the bonfire in the middle of the market square had gotten several metres high and turned bright purple, and things were getting even weirder than usual.

Coraline made a point to be somewhere else during the majority of this. She wound up sitting on a fence near one of the outlying farms, with Agata perched on a nearby post.

It was particularly uninteresting out here, and she rather liked it that way.

A small group of kids were also elsewhere. As much fun as the festival was, and as much talent as they had, today was the end of a long process of preparation, and thus Kit and Nolan were heading up an expedition into the elven ruins outside of town. It wasn't much of an expedition, as it was only four, but 'expedition' was a good word, so Kit went with it anyway, and Nolan wasn't about to argue on account of not actually caring in the first place. With them they also had Jora, who tended to act as bodyguard for their little party, and Erry, Kit's annoying little sister who just sort of followed them everywhere in spite of everything they did to try to dissuade her. Or, sometimes, precisely because of what they did to try to dissuade her.

Their interest for the day was in the Edifice, the mysterious solitary building still standing, untouched by time and weather, at the far end of the ruins, and so they made their way there through the dry grass and shrubbery. Erry kicked at some stones. Nolan was holding his stick from the tree, and as they made their way, he examined the white stone blocks of the rest of the ruins to ensure that none of them were really sheep.

"It's the centerfold," Kit said. "The last mystery. This time it will be mine."

"How nice," Jora said. They were all used to Kit's monologuing. He was a wizardling, so seemed normal enough, and they didn't really care.

"Wallets," Erry agreed.

They walked on.

Jora said, idly, "They say ain't nobody's been able to open the Edifice since the Exodus."

"We'll be the first," Kit said. "And we have it. A mystery to unlock the mystery within."

"We have a stick," Nolan said. He held up the stick for emphasis. "It needs runes."

"It's a mysterious stick," Kit said. "A symbol of something old. Older than anything. The Torini were architects, mathematicians. They valued symbols over form, so we enter with a symbol."

"Runes," Nolan said.

Erry looked at the stick carefully, and said, "It doesn't look old."

"It's not," Nolan said.

And then they were there. The Edifice, big as life, almost bigger, tall and white and gleaming, carved and adorned with flowing motifs, though the basic architecture was remarkably simple. Even the door was impressive. It seemed almost to sparkle in the shadows.

They stopped, looked at it, looked some more, looked around, looked at it some more, and then looked at each other.

"Well?" Jora said. She was the oldest, and thus entitled to a little impatience. Unless that went the other way around, but as the youngest Erry was always impatient about everything anyway, so she wasn't sure that counted.

"What is it? What is it?" Erry insisted, bouncing around the front of the building.

"It's a stick," Nolan said again, and poked the door with it.

Nothing happened.

"Here," Kit said, motioning for Nolan to hand over the stick. He did.

Kit held it aloft like a wand and pointed it about in various arcane-looking motions, generally directed at the door.

Nothing continued to happen.

He then poked the door with the stick as well, to similarly little effect.

The others just sort of went along with this, watching the door with interest, aside from Erry. Erry made a face and started picking her nose.

"Boom," Nolan said. "I told you, you need runes."

"On the stick?" Kit said sceptically.

"Yes?" Nolan said.

"What did it say in the book?" Jora asked.

Kit shook his head. "Didn't. It's secrets. Things in books aren't secrets, or they wouldn't be secrets anymore."

"Runes," Nolan repeated, ignoring the tangent entirely.

"All right, which ones?" Kit asked, giving up.

Nolan counted off on his fingers, remembering. "Fish. Tree. Hunger. Chaos. Hazard."

"Seriously?" Kit said. That combination actually made sense. But how had Nolan figured that out? That kid didn't know the first thing about magic - everything about sheep, and nothing about magic.

Nolan just stared at him intently, and so instead of asking, Kit quickly looked away and hastily scribbled the runes down the length of the stick.

"Poke it," Nolan commanded when the wizardling was done. "Poke the mysterious mystery with the stick."

Kit gave him a sarcastic look, but complied, and this time the magic sealing the entryway burst into brilliant sparkles before fading away once more. With a click, the door unlatched and opened slightly.

"Woah," he said.

Then Erry ran up, pushed the door open a little more, revealing an extensive mass of darkness, and very nearly ran inside before Jora grabbed her by the hood of her jacket.

"Hold up," Jora said. "Let your brother put a light on you first."

Erry pouted and held up, mostly because Jora still had a very solid grip on her jacket and it was about all she could do, while Kit cast some magelights on everyone. Then Jora let go, Erry ran inside for real this time, Kit gave Jora a worried look, and Jora simply drew her sword and marched in after.

The two boys exchanged looks and headed in as well.

The entryway was grand but simple, with a high ceiling and staircases going up and down, a pile of bones against one wall, and dust everywhere, fine, deep, and drifting. Jora was standing at the landing of the stairs up, but she glanced back when they entered, unconcerned, only snapping to alertness when the door thudded shut behind them with a dull boom, resealing itself and sparking vaguely once more. The only light now came from the orbs over their heads, filling the space with their odd glow, casting fuzzy shadows in the dust.

Aside from the bones, there were no signs of life, or even any light sources; where there should have been windows there was only stone, and where a lamp should have hung, only a chain dangled down, lonely and useless.

"Erry?" Kit called.

With a squeal, Erry slid down the banister and landed in a heap in from of him.

"Oh," Kit said disappointedly.

"Keep an eye on her," Jora told him. "Everyone stay together. We don't know what we'll find, or if the place might try to fall down on us now that we're inside."

"Where are the sheep?" Nolan asked.

Jora looked at him oddly, and said, "Why would there be sheep?"

"Kit said there might be sheep," Nolan said.

"There might have been a lot of things," Kit said, looking about. "That was sort of the point."

Nolan frowned, looking about, and then fixated on the pile of bones. "Maybe," he said slowly, "there are sheep in there."

By the time Nolan had finished sorting through every single bone in the pile, the others had long since given up and gone exploring without him.

He turned the one sheep bone he had encountered over in his hands. It was a rib, and it had been the only sheep bone in the entire pile. This was rather strange.

He wandered vaguely down the stairs to find the others.

Darkness. Everything was darkness. Shapes looming, careening, drifting in and about, but still, only darkness. He didn't know what they were. He didn't know where he was going. It didn't matter. It was only darkness, only everything, black and close, enveloping, consuming.

Sometimes there would be lights, and he would go to them and put them out, inviting them into the darkness, bringing them home.

Sometimes the shapes would fade away. Movement would stop, and he would be alone, entirely alone in the quiet, the black, the whispers tickling the edges of the void. Then the shapes would be back, and the lights would beckon, beckon, begging him onward.

Shapes.

Darkness.

Hunger.

Everything was hunger. The darkness was hunger, empty, necessary, comforting.

Sometimes the darkness was full of lights. Usually it was only black. Black against the dark. Dark against the black.

He felt it, calling to him with its silent delirious voice, so cold, so empty, so sweet and comforting, so hungry. It was so dark, so far, but so close, and his hunger paled in comparison. His darkness was so bright. He had to make it, had to get there, to join with it, before the darkness went entirely...

White.

In his single-minded purpose, the Carrier ran onward through the woods, hungering, unseeing.

Coraline was now sitting on a stump. She was completely drunk. Unfortunately, she was also running out. Fortunately it was evening, so she could easily get more, since this was about the time when everyone broke out the booze anyway. The day belonged to the children, but that was mostly just to tire them out for when everyone else got utterly sloshed at night.

She pulled herself up, nearly fell over, and was very surprised to see Agata then fall over entirely.

"Agata?" Coraline said.

Agata picked herself up very carefully before glancing over with a look of utter disbelief. "How," the cat asked, "do you even function being this drunk? How are you alive?"

"Uh..." Coraline said. Frankly, she wasn't entirely sure. It was... well, she didn't really know.

Agata put her ears back, and said, "I don't get it."

"Yeah?" Coraline said. "So?" She rubbed her head. Then she looked about. "I'm standing. Okay. Huh."

Agata grumbled and headed off, weaving along the way, nearly falling over, and Coraline followed.

They wound up back in town, amidst the festivities.

Town was utterly town-like. Coraline realised she couldn't entirely feel her fingers. They were burning.

In the meantime, madness ensued. Alcohol was rampant. Here, her own stores, among others, were let loose among the townsfolk - the key, at this point, was to inebriate all, regardless of fare, station, or anything at all. In her current state, Coraline couldn't entirely make heads or tails of it, but she got the gist, and she went along with it, partaking with the best of them.

Later, she'd lost track entirely. Jess had taken over the main, though it was all outdoors tonight. Cal and others had taken over the general distribution.

Coraline was so utterly out of it she didn't even know what to make of things. She couldn't focus one eye without covering the other. She nearly fell over, and wound up leaning against a patio pole.

The rest was a blur.

At some point she giggled and commented on the state of her own inebriation. Others did much the same. It was a terrible, glorious mess. She was an idiot, a moron, and wilfully so, and as much as this scared her, she didn't care. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered.

Time was lost, forgotten. Perception drifted in and out of focus.

She stood back and remembered, vaguely, what it was to live. Here, she was a moron going through her own life, but she still remembered what it is to not be a moron. She was going through the motions, but half the time the motions fail because she'd flat-out miss, so she had to keep trying until they did work... but when she eventually did get them, she just kept going, and pretended everything was normal. Except it wasn't normal, not really. It was all different, and she couldn't even handle it, and in a way, it was utterly terrifying, but even so she pretended it's fine, because that was all she had. It had to be fine, because if it wasn't, she had nothing. Nothing at all.

So she drank. Drank to forget, drank to ignore, drank not just to silence the voices, but to get away from what she'd lost in the doing, to forget it all. To be free.

It didn't work. She lost only herself, everything she had, but she still cried out with joy, cheered on the folks, yelled for another round. There was no escape.

Things happened. She didn't even know. She was sure it'd be fine. It didn't matter. She did some stuff and things and didn't know what they were, but they were totally good ideas and she was sure she'd approve later, too, after she'd sobered up a bit.

A chicken walked through at one point. People placed bets on something or other. Some folks won. Others lost. Meanwhile, the party soared on. Foreground and background became interchangeable because that was what happened when folks were utterly drunk.

At another point, Coraline said, "There is no chicken." It made perfect sense. Perfectly sensible, utterly logical. No sadness, no voices.

Someone else said, "It's over there. We need to eat the rest of it."

Something caught fire.

People ran about. Some of them were alarmingly short.

Coraline ate various things. Other people ate various things. Some were delicious. Others weren't. One wound up covered in slugs. Coraline wore one on her head, and she smiled with the sheer joy of the night.

Agata sat in a corner in the hopes of sleeping it all off. So long as Coraline kept drinking, this achieved nothing.

Coraline kept drinking.

Then everything went horribly wrong.

They didn't even realise it at first, as the yells turned to screams, but then time went on and the people who fell ceased moving.

The thing was, time passed weirdly when folks were drunk. It wore off weirdly. Slowly. Imperceptibly. One moment utterly out of it, the next fairly normal. It was an oddity, really... it made no sense...

Coraline poked the guy next to her, confused. Why was he just lying there? Why was he so still? What had happened? This wasn't supposed to happen. She closed an eye and looked at him carefully, but even that didn't entirely work.

She looked around. Everything was too quiet. The voices, nearly silent. The screams in the background hardly registering. It was like she was wading through darkness, only trying to see the pieces. She couldn't do it. It was all too much.

What was happening?

It was later.

Her head was working, at least a little bit better. There were folks on the ground, lying, not moving. The bonfire was low. Several buildings were burning, much higher than the bonfire. Coraline picked herself up slowly, swaying. The world was spinning. Agata walked over and leaned against her legs.

She breathed carefully, in and out, in and out. She was still drunk. Not as, but still. The screams. The voices. They sounded almost the same, distant, unimportant, all consuming. She didn't know where they were coming from, just there. Somewhere.

This was wrong. So wrong... so many voices...

On the lower level, they found an obelisk, about the height of a man, with a small hole through the top third of the obelisk. It was like another in town, except unlike the other, this one had a small orb, floating unsuspended within the hole.

Nolan walked in on the others, still holding the sheep rib, with, as it turned out, almost as much of an idea as any of them, aside from Kit. Kit was just staring.

Finally, Kit asked, "Is it real?"

"What is it?" Jora asked.

Erry ran up to it and poked the orb.

"Erry!" Kit yelled, and the orb pulsed slightly, an odd flare of light in this peculiar gloom, but nothing else really happened.

She gave it a pouty look in disappointment. "Aww, I wanted it to go shiny," she said.

Jora steered her away from the thing, leaving Kit and Nolan on the centre stage. Nolan gave Kit a quizzical look.

Kit looked it over, confused, surprised, and, even, a wee bit impressed. "It's just like the one in town," he said finally. "Except this one, I think it's one of the real ones. Active, even." He looked back to the others, and noting their confused and/or blank expressions, explained, "They were objects of power, beacons to magic users. The Torini could use them for all sorts of things, like travel to away places, because they put them up everywhere. I suppose a lot of the major cults kept up the tradition, though what we've got now are just a pale imitation."

"So could we use this?" Jora asked. "To travel, for instance?"

Kit nodded. "Aye, I think so. I'd want master Keller to look at it, of course."

"Boom," Nolan said.

"Something to come back to, then," Jora said, smiling. Kit looked confused, so she gestured upwards. "It's late. We should get back anyhow."

The door gave them no resistance from the inside, simply opening at a touch and allowing them out.

"Look," Jora said, pointing. The fire was tall, and they could see its glare easily over the trees. But it wasn't right, she realised. It was too big, from here. Too wide. Too much of a glow, like the glow of her own village had been, so long ago, and she put a restraining hand on Nolan, mostly because he'd wound up right in front of her.

He looked back, confused, and then, seeing her expression, poked Kit.

"It's too much fire," Jora said vacantly. "Too much."

"Erry," Kit said, "Let's play a game. Let's go back inside." He glanced back to Jora, who finally snapped out of it and nodded, and then guided Erry back into the ancient elven building. Nolan, meanwhile, headed back toward town, toward that horrible glow, and Jora followed, the dread filling her like a terrible fish, swimming upward and upward, drowning her, almost, in its foreboding.

They heard the sounds before they actually saw what had happened.

Heap of disorganised pieces

Don't read this.

Seriously, don't read it.

Part 4 holding cell

Something about boiling water

VARDAMAN

Do you boil your water?

Coraline looks surprised, then nods.

VARDAMAN

Most folks here don't know to do that. And those that do, they don't know why.

CORALINE

People don't know a lot of things. Even the ones who think they do. Especially the ones who think they do.

(she takes a long drink)

At best people only know some of what they don't know. The more they do know, the more they know they don't. It's one thing to know the ground is there and that that's how it is, and another to have an idea of why, that the objects have mass, and that mass draws them together into shapes and forms and holds the pieces down on this thing we call ground... that's a why, but then why the way?

VARDAMAN

Does it matter?

CORALINE

Does if you're making a hovercraft. Otherwise? Probably not.

VARDAMAN

World you're from, is it still there?

CORALINE

Aye.

VARDAMAN

I'm sorry.

Final onset of overwhelming whispering voices

It began as a whispering. Something almost, but not entirely, out of sight, out of sound, and out of mind. A shadow of a shadow, except heard, not seen. Whispers at the edge of hearing, and even, as it were, the edge of thought.

She did not even notice them at first. Occasionally they would sneak in even without her noticing, but then as the hours and days went on, they became more insistent, more pressing, until there was nothing to do but listen.

Then they came as an onslaught. When she noticed, she noticed, and then there was simply nothing to do but notice. The voices poured in, beckoning, begging, screaming, asking, crying, shouting, an endless roar of a whisper, the torment of a thousand waves all crashing at once. And she heard them all so clearly, so plainly,

There was no escape, no solace from the torment, simply more, and more, and more. She lost herself in it, lost track of her surroundings, her intent, and everything she was after and was. There was only room for voices, voices, voices. Speaking out of the shadows, never-ending.

She stumbled and continued, lost in the depths of her mind, reeling in the voices never-ending.

If only there were silence amidst the madness. But there was none; there was only madness and more madness, voices, and no silence.

Only voices, and shouting, and clamouring, and no silence amidst the voices, only more shouting and crying and pleading.

There was only the din, the overbearing loudness, the reverberation and roar and the place, the place that was all the same, the place that was all sound and no silence.

If there were sound and also silence, a respite, a sanctuary against the sound.

If there were the silence only distance, alone, without the sound, the sound of the voices, thousands, tens of thousands, never stopping, never ending...

But there was no silence.

Coraline wandered on, lost amidst the madness of the roar within her mind.

She knew nothing. She was no-one. The wind. A whisper and a shadow.

The world was not real.

Others passed her by, but they paid no heed. They were not real, and nor was she. Only the voices stood out, in their shout and their roar and their reverberation against the shadowy, flimsy backdrop of the world she saw with eyes. It was nothing.

Only the rock and the shadow, washed by the whirl of voices, so many souls that passed through, so many voices, shouting, shouting, always shouting and never heard. They were meaningless, and still they shouted, because they did not know, they could never know, but they were only the cicada, they were only the whisper, and yet they whispered on.

Whisper and whisper, shout and shout, question and question. The cacophony was never-ending, and yet all were lost within. No single soul stood out, no single voice was heard, only the masses, the unending masses, coming and coming. It was all. It was everything. Voices.

Only voices. No end to the voices, just voices shouting, voices pleading, voices lost without even hope to carry them on, but still echoing even now, for there was no hope here, only nothing, only echos, always echoes. This was the place of echoes, where echoes were only all. Only echos. Nelanor. Echos.

They pleaded, the echos. They called. They whispered secrets and shouted legends, for it was all they knew, and amongst the echos there was nothing, only nothing. If only there were something amidst the nothing, no abyss, no great shadow, no deep darkness that loiters below, only something, a shadow of the world, but something, then. Something to support the voices, the echos the shadows.

But there is only nothing.

She realised she was in a place. She didn't know how she had gotten there, or what she was doing there, or even, for that matter, much of anything at all, but this was a place. Some of the whispers had mentioned places, but as they whispered on, the places faded.

Everything faded. Everything was lost in the whispers, in the shouting, in the din.

There was a cup in front of her. Someone said, quieter and yet somehow louder than all of the others, "You look like you could use some shalott."

She looked at it. Rock, part of her thought, staring at it, and then, before she knew what she was doing, that part of her drank it. Amidst the voices she didn't really notice. There was nothing to notice.

It was later. It was clearly later.

And there was only silence.

Nelanor looked up. "It is what the thunder said," she said.

"Sorry?" the barkeep asked.

She was in a bar. It was clearly a bar, though like none she had ever seen before. There were no taps and no vast assortment of myriad bottles such as marked the bars she knew, but there was the bar itself. It was very clearly a bar, long and wodden and polished, and the barman behind with apron and bottles and barrels, ready to pour whatever, so long as he had it, to whoever, so long as he could pay for it.

There was also no lighting in the rest of the room, as far as she could tell, The patrons drank in smoke and gloom, coming forth, perhaps, only as often as they had to. And here, at the bar, there were only the three lanterns. Kerosene, if she had to guess, and no apperture for anything better. This was all they had. They made do, though. People did, when it was as far as they had come, and indeed they were proud of it. They had come this far, after all. They had achieved real lanterns, right?

Or something along those lines. She wasn't sure what was going on, or how she had gotten here. There was, however, another mug in front of her. Had she already had one? It was hard to say.

For lack of a better idea she drank it.

For the first time in she didn't know how long, Coraline Henderson was thinking clearly. At least relatively so. She was also, from the feel of it, pretty decently drunk.

Strange mask: Kyrule

The mask was almost identical to the one she had in her notebook. Hers was a modern excuse for filigree: laser-cut aluminium. Here, intricate swirls and elaborate patterns arose out of the stone, mathematics of chaos that mostly worked out shifting in and out of focus. Only the circle at the top was empty, where the emblem should have been. The trinity.

"Who the hell are you?" she said.

Impromptu barkeep

"Then we'll have to come by later, get to know this new barkeep of yours." The officer nodded, tipped his hat at Coraline, and turned about and left, soldiers at his heels.

Delaroy just stared after them, panicked. "I... fuck!" He turned to Coraline, and said, "You need to get out of here. I can make up a yarn about how you fled, but you need to leave now if you're going to have any chance!"

"Wait," Coraline said, placing a hand on his arm. "Why not play it through?"

"What?"

She smiled disarmingly. "What's where, what do people usually get, what sort of cocktails are popular in the area? Tell me what I need to know, and I will be your barkeep."

He looked at her incredulously. "Do you know anything about bartending at all?"

"I know how to mix flavours so they work well together. I know a good barkeep judges the appropriate shalott based on body weight and height with some sort of scaling for apparent base tolerance." He looked sceptical, so she added, "I've seen it done a few times."

Delaroy sighed. "Look, I appreciate the offer, but I can't risk it. If it doesn't work, it'd be both our heads for sure."

"I wouldn't suggest it if I didn't think it entirely doable," Coraline said. "Remember, it's both our heads on the line, mine too. And even if they buy your story otherwise, that'd still be a mark, whereas this way you come clean and get a barkeep on top. You do seem to have been looking for one for quite some time, after all."

"But..." Delaroy started, then he seemed to change his mind and shrugged. "You know what? Fine. Come on."

Shalott

He saw her as soon as he entered: she was seated at the bar, hunched over a mug of shalott, her coat over her chair and staff and bag on the floor. Loose blonde hair shrouded her face as he took the seat next to her, but her clothing stood out - fine but worn, colourful but simple, in patterns that would have looked at almost at home anywhere. Almost.

Vardaman ordered a mug of the same, as well a couple bottles of vodka for the road. She ignored him, and he ignored her right back; they were both there for the shalott, not the company, and the barkeep likewise left them to it. It had been a long day, and to be able to put everything else aside for that bitter, sweet warmth was worth the world. Losing the mind in a controlled manner. An addiction that lasted a lifetime.

7-foot tall purple guy

I dunno what I expected. It doesn't matter now.

He showed up on my doorstep one evening. Rang the doorbell. When I opened the door, stood there like it was perfectly normal for a 7-foot-tall purple guy to be ringing up a flat in the middle of Turku. I joked about this, and he joked about something else and invited me to tea. I asked whereabouts that might be. He smiled and told me to take his hand.

Then we were somewhere else.

He told me his name was Sherandris, but people usually called him Grom. I asked what kind of name that was, and he said, "Short."

Random

"When next you call me a monster, remember - you have a sword, and I am a collector of words."

False memory of a murder

"I killed her."

He sputtered. "And that was why..." He stopped. "Er, wait, why?"

"She asked me to. Said she'd 'been taken'." Coraline took a long drink and shook her head. "The whole area had been decimated."

"What... by the Death of Souls?"

She shrugged. "Dunno. The elves called it the 'scourge'?"

"Yeah, that's the Death of Souls." He looked at her. "Fuck, woman, that... you did good."

"Did I?"

"Yes."

"Doesn't feel like it."

"Never does."

Drinking and storytelling: Francis Door

"Francis Door," she said.

He took a long drink. "Yeah?"

"You know the story?"

"Yeah."

She downed her shalott and pushed the mug forward for a refill. "What do you make of it?"

He took a long breath. "Crazy shit," he said. "Damn crazy shit."

"How so?"

"Well," he paused, thinking. "You got this guy. A fuckin' normal guy. He loves a few things in life, his god, his work, his woman, and for them he'd give up anything. For any one of them he'd give up the others, if it came to it."

"Is that what happened?"

"Near enough. It was his wife's sister, if you can believe that. All the stories say it was his wife, what say it at all, but it was her fucking sister."

"What..."

"Right?"

They minded their drinks. Things swam swimmily around them, objects in space. They watched, and listened, and drank.

"Some folks would do anything for family," Coraline said. "Is that so wrong?"

He stared at his shalott and tipped it randomly. "'Snothing wrong or right about it. That's just it. Just shit what happens, an' choices what don't work out. Swhat makes it all so fucked up."

Trusted

"What do you think," Coraline began slowly. "Can Kyrule be trusted?"

"Trusted?" Vardaman asked.

Coraline shook her head. "Suppose someone gave him the worlds. All the worlds, to do with whatever he pleased, no other gods or obstacles in his way. What would he do with them?"

He looked at her skeptically for a moment, then shrugged. "Not much, I guess. Let things play out. Keep them from getting too out of control, if it comes to it."

She nodded, but then pressed, "Why do you say that?"

"Because I have a secret portal into the depths of his mind," Vardaman said sarcastically. "It's something all priests get, and it tells us what our gods will do in any given situation."

"I'm serious," Coraline said. "I'd just like to know your reasoning."

"Why? So you can tell all your grandkids?"

"Because I need to name a King," Coraline said, then immediately wondered why the hell she'd said it. A King?

"A King?" Vardaman said.

She didn't answer. They sat in silence. Vardaman went back to his shalott.

Coraline thought it over. It made a strange sort of sense, whatever it was. These worlds needed a King. They needed someone who could be trusted, and who could watch them over. They needed... something. She didn't know quite what, but it didn't matter now.

Take 1: Beginning

There are consequences to every choice.

There is sacrifice in every promise.

There are toasters in the cat.

The story starts here, in the middle, not because the middle is more important or more interesting than the beginning or end, but simply because it is the only piece left that is not missing. It is the only piece that has been found, and the only piece that is safe to share. The rest is holes.

0: Forward and on

Begin

Coraline awoke face-down in the dirt. Not sure where she was, what was real, or even, for that matter, what had happened, she rolled over and peered into the early-dawn light.

It looked like winter probably looked in a much more moderate climate - namely in pretty much anywhere on her world further south than where she was from. But this wasn't her world, was it? If it were, why would she be further south?

Even so, the dreary light looked dreadfully normal, and the pain in her head and general whingeing of her sore muscles seemed pretty insistent that there was absolutely nothing supernatural going on here - probably just a particularly bad hangover or something? Not that she drank, but a bad bowl of noodles could do much the same. Or so she imagined. She didn't drink, after all.

And the whole conversation, the whole night and day before that she remembered, why, that was probably just a dream...

Probably? So where the hell was she, then?

She sat up and looked around more carefully. She was sitting by a small creek, almost frozen over, with leafless trees lining the banks, and brown grass and curled leaves all around. A light frost glittered on the edges. Her staff - the staff Sherandris had given her - was a couple metres away in some dead-looking shrubs, so clearly that much wasn't a dream. And dead-looking... the proliferation of twiggage suggested that it was definitely not actually dead, just waiting. So yes. Winter. Probably.

So it was real. This wasn't her world. She didn't know what it was, or if it even had winters, but supposing it did, this would probably be it. Right? Maybe. Sure. Why not.

She got up, despite the protestations of her stiff limbs, and picked up the staff. Here she was, then, wherever here was.

There didn't appear to be any signs of civilisation in any direction, though the trees made it somewhat more ambiguous. She pushed through the shrubbery to get a better look away from the creek - it appeared to be only grassland beyond, not even cultivated fields, just hills and grass and the bones of trees, and some low mountains in the far distance. Same in the other direction? Seemed to be.

But there was, of course, a very good chance she was missing something obvious. Where was a ranger when she needed one? Or a sandwich?

She checked her bag, but all it had for food was half a box of crackers she'd grabbed for breakfast the previous morning. She pulled out a handful anyway and stuffed the box back into the abyss of her bag. Breakfast of lunatics.

The sun was higher. The frost was gone. Twiggage rustled in the breeze. There was nothing here but loneliness, and it seemed there would continue to be nothing so long as she remained.

"You're out of your mind, girl," she said to herself. She had wound up on this world, alone in the wilderness with nothing but her wits, a staff, and a bag full of random stuff, no idea where this was, how it was, or really anything at all about it, simply... because of a promise? She shook her head bemusedly.

Lost it or not, however, it was time to move. So she followed the creek, because as much as the videogames she had grown up on tended not to adhere to this, in real life water always leads somewhere.

River and road

Days passed and turned into weeks.

She encountered the usual problems, of course - what to eat, where to sleep, how to boil the water so it was actually safe to drink, but she used what she had and it worked. She tested the staff and it blasted a hole in a nearby tree, smoldering on the edges. She tested it again and achieved far more precise results - good for hunting, it seemed, but also good for starting fires. Her metal water bottle worked as a makeshift pot. Her coat was thick, probably more than needed here, and though she heard murmurs from time to time, it seemed she was indeed alone. Just the birds and the gophers. Some deer on the prairie. A huge winged creature soaring overhead, neither dinosaur nor bird.

She was out of crackers. It would be all gopher meat from there; though she realised the danger in that, she also realised she knew nothing of the local plantlife, and thus nothing of what would be safe to eat or otherwise.

She considered a deer, but had no idea what she would have done with it all.

The landscape changed. Hills gave way to valleys, plains gave way to forests. The days were long and the nights were cold, and though she sometimes heard shrieks in the distance, they could have been anything. Valley cats. Mountain cats. Not cats. Moose. Who knows. Doesn't matter. Snow fell. Winds blew. At night she stirred the fire. Sparks rose and joined the stars when they came out, but she recognised none, so she gave the constellations names of her own. The Blob. Mr. Scruffy. Thing That Looks Almost Like The Pleiades But Isn't. She wished she were home, but at the same time she was glad she wasn't.

Come day, she walked. Down, down, down, out of the highlands, out to the sea. Or that was the direction, at least. There was always a sea if you went down far enough.

The creek became a river. Tributaries flowed in, little and big, and the crossings took time, slowing her progress between nowhere and nowhere in particular. The hills around had risen into sheer cliffs; the valley was a gorge. Birds sang like voices in her head. Shielded from the wind, it was much warmer down here, and the plants much lusher, though many were still without leaves, merely mossed twiggage reaching for the clouds. Some of it almost looked familiar. Almost.

And then she found the road, a high bridge crossing her river like a figure out of legend, an elegant contraption of stone and more stone rising out of and over the trees.

She climbed to its start, up the hill and through the shrubbery, pulling on vines like guide ropes. It was a road, and it seemed maintained, but not like any she had seen in years. Cobbled, brick foundation with stones on a layer of sand, she found, and put the cobble back. Like the roads in ancient Rome, perhaps? And narrow. Road and bridge might suffer a single vehicle, but poorly. A bug perhaps would have managed, but with nothing on either side. But this wasn't a world of vehicles. Even now, she knew it. This road was made for walking - and possibly for riding. But riding what? And what...

And then she realised. This was another planet in another universe - he had been very clear on this. Roads, of course, were probably a fairly universal concept, but what of the builders? What would they be? Would there even be a way to communicate, any common ground at all? And what would they make of her, in her jeans and t-shirt and big fluffy coat?

But as ever, there was nothing for it but to walk. Pick a direction and move forward. Follow the road and find out, see where her story went. There was always a story, even if it was just pictures.

So she headed north, across the bridge, away from the path of the sun, not because north seemed like the best direction to go, but simply because of the bridge. A bridge like that clamoured to be crossed.

The road cut around hills, up and out of the gorge, back to the plains, though these were different from before. Rockier. Hills and ridges. Smoke in the distance, but it could have been anything. Stay on the road. The road was safer. She had what she needed right there; in the cold, water lasts, and saved meat lasts longer.

Stone piles marked offshoots, smaller paths heading away into the grass. They didn't look recently travelled, but finally she followed one for the hell of it, breaking through patches of old snow untouched but for rabbits and game.

It led to a husk of a village, years gone, or perhaps weeks, burned out and empty. Stone walls jostled with charred logs, crumbling into rubble. She touched one of the more intact buildings and it toppled around her.

Old bones poked from the snow. In the centre of the village, in the square, or perhaps what they would have called the green, dessicated bodies were piled around a stone obelisk. There were no scorch marks here, and no scavengers had touched them, but the elements had worn the bodies down to bone, skeletons mummified in their clothes.

They looked human, the dead.

It was unclear why or how, but the air felt strange. It was wrong, here, in this place, and she knew it. Where buildings once shielded the green from the wind, it should now tear through their ruins, but everything was still and silent, simply her and the dead and the obelisk, unmarked. There was nothing to be done. She turned back to the road. Even if she should find something left to scavenge, she would not have trusted it, not from this place.

At the outskirts the wind hit her suddenly, tearing with abandon and screaming in her ears, screaming, screaming. She turned her head against it and it almost stole her beanie, but at least the screaming stopped.

What had happened? What was wrong with the place? Was it wrong with the world? But there were no answers.

She strayed no more from the road.

Mountains

The road led on. Up again, towards mountains and trees, ever rockier. There was nobody else around, nobody else travelling the path but ghosts. They drifted out of long shadows and dissipated in the light as she passed, uncertain in their very presence. Carrion birds circled above, cutting crisply through the icy air. Day and night. On and on. The cold bit in the night. Water ran low, but dirty snow boiled and separated same as river water.

Shapes flickered and danced in the fire, babbling to themselves, as she watched and drifted into sleep, into Nightmare.

Elves

In the foothills, the trees closed around like an enveloping cloak, roaring whispers in the pines, and it felt like home, recalling winters in the mountains, skiing, sleighing, laughing in the twilight. Always surrounded by the roaring whisper. It was the sound of the forest, the life in the cold.

But there was another sound, too, further on. Voices? She walked faster, rounded the bend, and yes, others, other people, the first in... she didn't even know. Weeks? Months? How long had it been? But it didn't matter; in the now these figures were here. Wrapped in thick cloaks, two huddled around a third lying against a rock. Something had gone amiss, and the worry in their voices and movements was obvious, though she couldn't make out the words over the whispers of the trees.

Then one noticed her and stood.

"Can you help?" he said. "Adaerivyn has fallen." His features were pointed, his eyes precise. There was no age to the face, but there was fear. The situation stank of it, and she didn't know why.

"What's wrong? What happened?" Coraline asked as she approached and got a better look at the fallen man, Adaerivyn. He was pale, sweating, even in the cold. The other, a woman, looked up with concern.

"He was hit by an arrow when we tried to escape. Neaya managed to close the wound, but without a healer to tend to him properly, it's gone bad and just gotten worse."

"Where was this?" she asked as the woman pulled back layers of clothing to show Coraline the wound, even without waiting for any indication if she could help. It was a small, stitched hole under the collarbone, clearly infected, with strange colours and pus oozing from the stitches, but though Coraline knew nothing of medicine, the despair in the air pushed her to at least try something. She looked through her bag. Perhaps... yes. A tube of antiseptic ointment? Probably a terrible idea at this point, but what had he got to lose?

Behind her, the man sighed hopelessly. "Kalona. Eight days back. Utter madness up there. The scourge has come, and it is as though the world has fallen. Survivors ratted down, and those who try to escape shot, but it's all for nothing. The taken are taken. The rest can only flee."

Coraline looked back as she unscrewed the cap. "Taken?" she asked, trying to keep them talking. She fumbled in the process and dropped the cap on the cobbles.

He just shook his head.

She rubbed a small amount of ointment onto her fingers in the vague hope that maybe it would serve as a substitute for washing, then pulled out the stitches with a few choice tugs. The hole came open surprisingly easily and a rush of foul liquid oozed down the man's chest, and a foul stench quickly followed. The woman turned away. The other knelt again beside them.

She gave the reddened skin next to the hole a quick jab. The man moaned as a smaller amount of pus came out.

"Just for the record," she said, stuffing a glob of ointment into the hole, "I have no idea if this will actually help. But it... might?" The one that had greeted her gave her a worried look, but she wiped her hands and went back into her bag. Did she have needles? Yes, and even curved ones, at that. Perfect. She threaded one with some floss, and reclosed the wound.

The woman was kneading his other shoulder with worry. "We will pray," she said.

"Thank you," the other said, handing Coraline the cap. "Not many would stop and help elves."

Coraline half-shrugged. She hadn't even realised they were elves, though that wouldn't have affected much regardless. "I hope it works out," she said. "So about Kalona, what, exactly...?"

The elf looked away, unable to meet her eyes. "You're headed that way, then?"

"Looks like."

"You'll only find death. The madness we fled will have died, for the scourge leaves nothing but ashes in its wake, but whatever brought you this way will leave you wanting in the days to get there."

She wanted to ask what it was, this 'scourge', but despite all the questions brimming on her mind, somehow it felt like a bad idea to voice any. These were things she should just know, things everyone knew, something that would immediately mark her as an outsider if she didn't, and... that would be bad. She didn't know why, just that it would be. "Maybe," she said instead.

"Don't go," the woman said. "A kind heart does not bear to witness."

"I've got to," Coraline said, moving away. She'd come this far, and when the only other direction was back the way she had come, the idea of turning back just didn't sit right. And something about elves. "Good luck to you," she said over her shoulder.

Eight days to Kalona. A name. A destination. Something. Finally. The whispers of the pines ushered her on, long and low, rising and falling. Despite the obvious alarm and poor state of the elves and the apparent horrors ahead, Coraline felt her excitement rising. It was starting.

What was, though?

1: Kalona

Empty town

Kalona was a cliché. The size of shopping centre, perhaps, or an apartment complex, but it was the entire town, walled about in stone and eerily silent, an oasis of silence cradled amidst the trees. Not even cawing disturbed the whispers.

And there should have been cawing. The heavy gate was ajar, but before it were bodies: three of them, collapsed in the road, discoloured corpses chilled but not quite frozen, arrows protruding from their backs. No sign of the shooters on the walls. No sign why the gate would still be open, if it were so imperative that nobody get out. But that would had been almost two weeks ago now. Now there was only silence.

As she approached, Coraline gripped her staff. She felt strangely vulnerable. This wasn't like the games, where one hit never kills and the player character could always be sure of a quick way out in case of danger - be it a powerful spell or simply running away. She had been good at running away.

This was much more interesting, she realised, skirting around the nearest body.

She ducked through the partially open gate and tried to take in everything at once, staff at the ready. It didn't work; instead she nearly hit herself on the head with the staff and got her foot stuck in an upturned wicker basket she'd failed to spot on the ground. She stopped and tried again.

There wasn't anyone about. No movement amidst the houses and workshops, though something creaked somewhere. Within the walls, the streets widened considerably, but they were strewn with objects that didn't make much sense, out of context and unrecognisable. A pile of sheets? Half a cart? A kitchen chair, a shovel, some rocks, a doll. A foot.

She heard a creak again, but nothing of the view had changed. Above her a flag flapped half-heartedly. She pulled the basket off her own foot.

The buildings were empty, at least of people. Not knowing what to look for, she searched for books, but found none. No people, no books, not even any bodies within the walls. Nothing besides the foot that had been lying so lonesomely in the street, in that graveyard of misplaced objects and empty houses. In some, it appeared as though the occupants had tried to pack up and leave, with shelves bare and tables cleared quickly, while others... in others, it was as though the occupants had simply vanished without warning. Fires burned down to ash, tables set, food out, tools in their places, houses only of ghosts.

There was little of use, but she pocketed a few things nonetheless - a bar of soap, some clean clothes (apparently just made; very little else was entirely clean here), a spoon, a bristle comb, a strip of what might have been aluminium but probably wasn't, a set of small pots, some dried food - and stared longingly at some of the other commodities that had once been employed by the people who had lived here not so long ago. How she missed pillows, and beds, and blankets. And heating! And a roof. And proper food. And people. Cats. Books. Comfy chairs. Moomin. Home.

All these homes, but nobody here would ever come back.

Leaving one of the last ones, she was startled by a creak again behind her, much louder, and then realised it was the door closing behind her, simply reminding the world that it was still there. It was still a door. It still functioned.

Again she looked around. Still nothing. Detritus and nothing. Dead objects littering the cobblestones, buildings gaping at the wind. Shutters hanging open, but doors shut tight, guarding the possessions of the dead. Because they were all dead. That much was clear, even if the bodies themselves were simply... missing.

Then movement caught her eye. Something around the corner over there. She moved towards it and a sheet billowed into view, carried by the wind. It caught on the ground.

And then, rounding the corner proper, she saw him. He had been an elf, but now he was simply mad, crazed, a hunched figure not aware of his surroundings, scrabbling at the ground as though chasing something that was not there, all the while jerking to the voices that existed only in his own head.

She could almost hear them as she watched. She had an idea or two exactly what that might be like, to completely lose it, but she also knew there was more to this. He hadn't just 'lost it'; he was no simple schizophrenic. Those often managed to function just fine even without medication, at least until they stabbed the neighbour's kid, screaming about the alien infestation and how he was an agent and had to be purged. Or at least that was what had happened down the road. But this was... different. This was a madness so complete it devoured everything, and yet he was still alive.

Surely normally they just died at that point?

She wished he would speak. She wished she could hear the Mad Words, to really hear them for what they were, but instead the elf said nothing, simply jerked and darted around, picking up objects and tossing them aside, moving from place to place as though oblivious of what were real and what were not.

He hadn't noticed her. She moved closer, but pointed the staff at him all the same.

"Hello?" she called to him. "Can you hear me?"

And he just stopped. It was as though the world had stopped with him, until he turned, slowly, oh so slowly, and stared at her with gleaming, hungry black eyes. He said nothing, simply stared, and she knew there was nothing left for him. He was dead. Whoever he was or had been was gone, replaced only by the hunger.

She took a step backwards, but somehow kept the staff level.

He leapt.

Coraline panicked and ducked, firing blindly and hoping, hoping, hoping a shot would actually hit, before finally just covering her head and rolling aside in the sudden silence.

The silence persisted. Finally she looked up, then around, and found the elf-creature dead less than a metre away, claw-like hands still reaching toward where she'd been standing. One of her shots had clipped the side of its head, enough to kill it outright.

She let out a long breath and got up shakily. Was this it, then? Or were there others, too? Ruined survivors bereft of all self, scrounging in the rubble? Was this what the 'scourge' was?

She checked the body and found nothing but rags and dirt. No indication of who he had been. No real indication of anything at all, just questions without answers. She felt a shiver go down her body, and looked back to the rest of the town. This wasn't happening.

This was happening.

She had already checked most of the buildings. There was nothing here. Nothing at all. Just death, and a solitary building remaining, higher than the others, with another one of those obelisks behind it. Whatever it was, it had been important - governance, a centre of commerce, perhaps a temple - but now it just looked empty same as everything else.

For whatever reason, it made her nervous - more than she already was.

She pulled the door open quickly, propping it with a foot and shining staff and torch into the gloom in one decisive motion.

Temple

It was a temple.

Nothing moved. The space was still, all still, a shine of dust illuminated by colourful windows and torchlight alike. In it were shapes, forms not quite right. Shapes of pews, lined up and proper. Shape of an alter up front. Shape of a statue behind it, bathed in light, drawing the eye away from the death. A female figure, solitary, one arm forward and one arm back, a look of joy on her face. She didn't fit.

Coraline walked slowly down the aisle, shining her light into the gloom, but passing the faces by. The statue was the important thing.

Then movement drew her eye. A woman by the alter, watching, confused. The woman shook her head, and said, "You... you're alive. What are you doing here?"

Coraline hesitated, and stopped in the aisle. "I... I don't know. What happened here? Is everyone...?" She trailed off. The words felt odd, as though they were the wrong ones, as lost as she was. As lost as this whole place was. And there were so many questions, and yet she didn't even know enough to ask.

"Dead?" The woman finished. "Aye. The scourge has taken... we are all..." She gestured hopelessly. Her clothes were dirty and torn, but from her attire, she seemed to be some sort of priestess.

"What?" Coraline said.

The priestess gestured for Coraline to come closer. "Come. I haven't..." she sighed weakly. "It's too late. Where do you come from, the outliers?"

Coraline shook her head. "Further off. Everything's just smoke, ashes, there..."

"So it is. The lands have fallen," the priestess said. "It's the world's end, and nobody will remember. Just the end."

"What happened?" Coraline asked again.

For a moment the priestess said nothing. "He came one day, asked for shelter, for aid, and we took him in as one of our own," she said bitterly. "He kept talking about hunger, about voices eating at him. And the eyes... the eyes were odd. And then it spread. Some began to turn, feeling the hunger, the need, while others... others just never woke up. And it spread, until there was noone left." She stared at Coraline desperately. "We didn't know what he was, and this proved our downfall. We should have known."

"But how could you have?" Coraline asked.

The priestess ignored her and looked away into the gloom. Coraline watched her carefully. The place was warm and dark and there was something wrong, horribly wrong, but she couldn't quite place it.

Finally, the priestess turned back to her and said quietly, "I would ask something of you. A favour."

"What?"

"Kill me," the priestess said.

Coraline stared at her. "But... why?"

"I'm turning. I can feel it, even now, changing me, eating who I am," she pleaded. "I can't stop it! I can't."

"But..." Coraline protested protestingly.

The priestess turned away. "I'm sorry. It was too much to ask."

And then somehow Coraline did. She wasn't sure how. She just realised she was breathing heavily. Her knife was in her hand. The priestess was dead on the ground, and there was blood everywhere. So much blood. Where had it all come from?

For a moment she just stared in shock. Had she seriously just done that? What had she even done? Why didn't she remember it?

Then she heard voices rising around her, whispering, taunting, cajoling, a roar of echoes rising into a cacophony before suddenly dying out all at once. In the same instant, there was a flash of light in front of her, and priestess's body was reduced to ash.

When Coraline knelt down to retrieve her knife, she saw something else glinting in the ash, and picked that up as well: it was a golden coin, intricately detailed on one side with a skull and mask, and on the other with a set of scales.

She pocketed it quickly and backed away.

This was not somewhere she wanted to be. Though night was coming, the idea of spending it within any of these walls seemed appalling. By the time she reached the north gate, she was practically running.

2: The Light and the Dark

Aeries

The road out headed on up the mountain and back into the whispering pines, leaving the town behind around the bends. The incline quickly forced Coraline to slow back to a walk, but the sound of the wind comforted her even as the snow began to settle on her hair. She pulled her coat tighter, not thinking about what had happened, not thinking about anything at all, just looking at the trees and the road and the snowflakes and suddenly wondering what kind of stupid she really was to be heading up a mountain in the snow in the afternoon in the middle of winter.

She couldn't go back, however, so on she went.

The wind died down slowly, ushering in a dusk that settled like a useless cloak amidst silent snowfall. It was still getting colder, but even now she would have described it more as nippy than anything else - a sort of freeze-your-boogers cold, but not freeze-your-entire-nose-off cold.

Finally the road levelled out, passing into the questionable shelter between mountains, and it was here that she came to an old guard tower, or whatever it was. Some sort of stone structure, at any rate; the important thing was that it looked insulatable, so there she set up camp: a fire in the doorway, and warmth within. No smell of death. No vacant homes. No haunting memories. Just lonely wind as she scrubbed the blood out of her coat, and empty dreams.

Come morning, the snow was done, simply loitering on every available surface, and everything was brilliant white. The effect was knocked into compliance by her sunglasses, but still disturbingly blinding.

She grumbled and headed on, but now everything was simply down once more. Down, down, and around, stopping again before getting out of the foothills, then onto rolling hills, lakes in the distance. Lands more lush than before, grasses sighing in the wind. Life once more. Trails of smoke marked the odd farmhouse; wisps of cloud marked the spring. Cattle-like animals grazed in herds. There was the odd whisper, but nothing more.

Another few days brought her, amidst clammy mugginess, to a village much smaller than Kalona, but much more alive, consisting of a few buildings clustered around the road. A mill, an apothecary, a general shop and feed store, an inn. Some others she didn't recognise as anything in particular.

A man ducked out of one building and into another. He nodded at Coraline as he passed, but in this weather there wasn't much desire to stay out of doors and dally.

Coraline went for the shop. The inside was full of odds and ends, cans, bags, clothes, utensils, items for all pieces of life, though some of the shelves were getting a bit on the barer side. Two men stood by the stove, but they looked up when she entered.

"Heya!" the older one called.

"Hey," Coraline said, pulling off her hat and unzipping her coat. It was quite warm in here.

The older man nudged the younger, who looked confused for a moment, then said, "Oh, right." He walked to the counter. "Whaddya need, m'lady wizard?"

She looked at them askance. "Wizard?"

"You gots a staff," he said. "And you ain't from around here. Ain't ye a wizard?"

"Mayhap." Coraline said. "You take trades?"

The young man glanced toward the other, who nodded. "Sure," he said.

Coraline suddenly realised they were probably father and son. "Excellent," she said.

They gave her weird looks at the sudden avalanche of receipts when she dug beyond the food and clothes, of course, and even weirder upon her pulling out her cuddly sea-anemone toy, though this apparently also cemented the idea in their minds that she was indeed a wizard, for why would anyone who wasn't one have such a thing? But she also made some coin selling odds and ends - a few furs she'd managed to salvage over the past few weeks, her keychain, a wad of foil she'd not even realised she still had, that strange strip of metal she'd picked up in Kalona, a single glove without a match, even the receipts themselves since, "sure, these could be useful to someone", the father said - and picked up some supplies on the side. She still didn't know where she was going, of course, but doubted she'd be staying here very long either.

"Thanks for yer... er... what?" the son said.

"Custom, son," the father said.

He turned red and tried to back away through the wall, which didn't actually work. "Right," he said, looking pointedly away.

Coraline bowed slightly at them as she headed out the door, trying to cover her grin.

The inn was like something out of the old west - dark and smoky and full of tough-looking men bored out of their skulls - and all in all, not actually all that interesting. She hrmphed slightly to herself, not really sure what she had been expecting. But it was an inn, bar and restaurant at the base, rooms above, catering to travellers and townsfolk both. Now it seemed there were mostly the latter about, chatting amongst themselves and eyeing her as though they'd expected someone else entirely to walk in the front door.

They probably had. People had rarely seen Coraline coming even in her own world.

There seemed to be something going on in the corner, so Coraline went to look. Seeing this, everyone else put their attention back there as well.

It turned out to be a card game of sorts. She couldn't really make sense of it. One would deal a card, and the other would turn it over, and that seemed to be about it.

After a few anticlimactic rounds of ducks, frogs in dresses, and some impossibly-coloured seasons, the other said, "Play me," and the dealer dealt another card as though this were the most important one of all.

"Death," the dealer said. The card had a fairly traditional, though masked, Grim Reaper on it.

"Good," the other said.

"No," the dealer said. "That's not good." One of the on-lookers put his head in his hands.

"Why not?" Coraline asked. "The Death card needn't necessarily mean 'death' at all, simply change and possibility, a transition from one state to another. The end of how things were, but a new beginning, of how things are and shall yet be."

Everyone just sort of stared at her, and suddenly she realised this probably was not actually Tarot-related.

"But that's just one interpretation, of course..." she said quickly.

"Death is death," the dealer said.

"We who were living are now dying, with a little patience?" Coraline suggested.

"Yes," the player said, staring at the card.

"No," someone in the audience said, much more forcefully.

"Oh." Coraline looked around. "So... what, then?"

"You know what?" someone else said behind them. It turned out to be the guy at the bar who had had his head in his hands, a robed fellow with wild hair. He walked up and pulled the Death-dealt player up out of his seat. "We were just leaving."

"No, I don't think so," the dealer said.

"No?" the robed man said.

The dealer stood, and gave the player a long look. The player just sort of stared off into space. "No," the dealer repeated. "This man is condemned. Whatever his crime, we should see the sentence through." He started to reach into his pocket, but before he could do anything else, Coraline hit him with her staff.

It was mostly a reflex, but for an instant it had seemed like a good idea in light of the apparent nonsense. It was also, she realised in the immediately following instant, probably just about the stupidest thing she could have done in this situation.

Oops.

"Yeah, okay, that's enough of that," the robed man said, and, grabbing Coraline as well, dragged her and the player both back out into the cold while the rest of the inn suddenly exploded in an uproar.

"This way," the man said, pushing her towards the stables behind the inn, still pulling the other fellow along as well, though the fellow in question didn't appear to care one way or another. He seemed to just be going along at present because it was less effort than not going along.

The robed fellow saddled the horses, leaving Coraline and the other, who promptly started to turn away in a random direction, by the door. She reached out and grabbed his arm before he could wander off entirely and stared at him suspiciously - he reminded her, in a way, of small child, except he looked to be in his 30s or 40s. And he had funny eyes, as though slightly mirrored, though for all she knew that was entirely normal around here.

Then the robed fellow was leading three horses back, shoving the listless other onto one, shoving Coraline's bag onto another, and then lifting her on as well before she could respond. Then he was in the saddle of the third, and, holding onto the leads of the other two, he brought the three horses out of the stable door and to a gallop down a muddy track out.

Coraline wasn't entirely sure how to feel about this, but on the other hand, hey, free horse. Or something along those lines; she wasn't entirely sure how to feel about that, either.

In the meantime, the path beckoned, hooves clomped, and distance passed as Coraline jumped and fell into the rhythms of the saddle.

Party

"You were right, you know," the robed man yelled to her once they'd slowed down a good distance from the village.

"What?"

He nudged his horse back towards her, and said more normally, "The Death card does mean change."

"So why didn't they know that, then?" she shouted back.

"Oh, you know," he said. "It's practically the end of the world out here. Folks have their superstitions and paranoias. Makes them happy."

"Happy?" Suddenly she realised the other fellow had drawn ahead and was meandering off into a stand of trees. "Oy!" she yelled after him and tried to urge the horse along faster, though it would have nothing of it.

The robed man, however, got the message and caught up with the other fellow's horse and pulled it back onto the path.

Oh blimey, Coraline thought to herself.

They continued until around nightfall, stopping in a small hollow as the fogs set in.

The robed man gathered logs from some nearby trees. The horses were tethered nearby. Coraline was left to mind the other fellow, which was to say to keep him from wandering off. Apparently he did that a lot, and in the fog it could have been particularly problematic.

And it was all fogs this side of the mountains, it seemed - it didn't even freeze, just fogged and mugged, making everything damp and then, once they'd all sat down, ruining the robed fellow's attempts to start a fire.

Coraline watched him try a few more times and then just stood up and shot the kindling with her staff.

He looked at her consideringly as she sat back down before the now roaring fire. The other fellow didn't seem to notice at all.

"So," she said.

"So," he said.

"Who, exactly, are you people?" she asked.

The man smiled nervously. "Well, I'm Darren Costa." He gestured toward the other fellow. "This is Merrs."

Coraline said, "Hi."

"Hi," Costa said.

Merrs said nothing, and simply stared into the fire, or possibly through it. It was hard to tell.

"I'm Gloria," Coraline said. It was a name that meant nothing, simply there for the taking and leaving, one she used from time to time for lack of any better. At the moment, she realised she was more interested in watching Merrs. She got the strange feeling that the fellow didn't necessarily live in quite the same world as anyone else. He was almost like a trainwreck, but without the train. Or possibly the wreck.

Costa nodded. "You're free to go your own way from here, of course," he said. "I didn't feel proper letting anything happen there, but... well, this wasn't a kidnapping, I assure you. I mean..." he looked flustered. "It was for your own good."

"Right..." Coraline said, and laughed. He looked more worried than threatening, so she said, "It's fine. I'm headed this way anyhow, and a horse makes it a lot faster."

"Erm." Now he looked really flustered.

She looked at him with growing amusement. She couldn't help it. "You stole the horse, didn't you?"

"I didn't know what else to do!" Costa said. "It was entirely improper, heat of the moment, but... but... I didn't know what to do!"

"Yeah, whatever," Coraline said. "So you stole a horse. Not exactly a mortal sin, is it?"

"Well..."

"No," Merrs said. "To save an innocent, a theft is hardly mortal sin."

"Innocent, are you?" Coraline said.

Merrs simply stared at her, or possibly through her.

Costa looked away, but all the same he nodded. He looked relieved.

Strange people, Coraline thought to herself as they sorted out dinner. Gnawing on some dried fruit, she poked for stories.

She didn't get a whole lot. The town they'd just passed through was called Aeries. It turned out Costa was some sort of priest, hence the robes, and Merrs some sort of holy man whom Costa was trying to escort to... somewhere. Costa didn't seem particularly inclined to go into details, skirting around further questions like a glob of butter in a particularly problematic batch of cake, and Merrs just didn't seem particularly inclined to say much of anything.

They didn't seem averse to her travelling with them for a time, however; Costa even seemed glad of it when she asked. Whatever the details were, there would be time yet for her to find out.

The night settled like velvet.

Costa watched the east, back the way they had come, though in the fog there was nothing to see.

Merrs twirled a knife. It glinted in the light from the fire, but the effect was dulled by the fog.

The flames danced and cackled, ushering Coraline into Nightmare.

Cross-country

The days passed with the horses comfortably clomping along through hills and valleys, leafless trees scattered throughout the land almost at random. It was very green.

The cold continued to manifest as an insidious wetness that seeped into the bones as they rode through clouds and rain alike. Coraline's thick coat had not been made for this, but her new companions fared no better with their layers and cloaks.

There was little to say, and less energy with which to say it. Merrs tried to wander off a few more times.

Coraline asked Costa why he didn't just tie the guy down. Put him on a leash or something.

"It would be wrong," he said. "There has been too much of that already."

He would say no more on it.

Simply riding and stopping. Stopping and riding. Setting the horses to graze, hunting in the meantime. Flames to suck the moisture out of the air, flames that roared and whispered, hissing secrets that nobody heard. Stars that tried to come out but quickly retreated when they did. The odd comment about ferns. Merrs saying something about how unnecessary this was, really, Costa could just leave him. An exasperated explanation from Coraline why it was so important to boil creekwater before drinking it that wound up completely lost on them.

Once Coraline heard a sort of thimphk sound off the road, but there was no indication what might have caused it. The others never even looked up.

The rain erased all.

Another night Merrs asked Coraline just where it was she had come from. She was different, he said, not like anyone he'd ever seen.

She shook her head and made an excuse. Later, she said. She was trying to dry her coat.

Later came, and as the others slept - Costa by the fire, Merrs sprawled half over one of the horses as it slept, and the other two horses standing nearby - Coraline wondered just what she could say. To anyone. Though these didn't want to trust her for whatever reason, she doubted she could trust them either. She doubted she could trust anyone in this world, really, and that was a problem. Worlds this backwater were dangerous. She wasn't sure how she knew that, but the certainty was clear in her mind. She tended to trust her mind. It was smarter than it looked.

And yet here she had the entire world to work with, and she didn't even know it enough to make something up that would fit. She might as well say she was from somewhere in the vicinity of Betelgeuse.

Perhaps she would say she was from somewhere in the vicinity of Betelgeuse.

She flipped the unusual coin and caught it on her hand. Skull side up, masked like the Reaper. It felt like death.

In the morning she fried some potatoes and onions in fat, mixed in some dried meat and a bit of salt, and declared it breakfast. It was strange, not just because because the end result actually looked edible, but also because it was also the first whole meal anyone in the party had offered to share.

Merrs tried it first. He said nothing, and simply passed the pan to Costa, who tasted a tentative spoonful and then looked really surprised. "This actually tastes good," he said.

"Gee, thanks," Coraline said, but despite her tone, she found herself smiling, and noticed Merrs was as well.

Costa looked embarrassed. "Er," he said, "I didn't mean it like that."

Coraline just shrugged, and they passed the pan around a few more times until it was all gone. Coraline told them a bit about what she'd had growing up, where she was from, the food, the lifestyle. But she was also vague, leaving out names and other details about the world itself, as well as the specifics of how she had gotten where she had, only implying that there had been some sort of magical accident.

"You're not from the outer planes, are you?" Costa asked as he gave the now empty pan back to Coraline.

Scraping out a few burnt bits, she laughed and said no, she didn't think so, and started banging the pan on a rock in lieu of a real cleaning.

Costa went to pack up and ready the horses, and Coraline realised that Merrs' was staring at her.

"Something on my nose?" she asked it. It looked away.

They were soon on the move once more.

Bandits

The day decided to be weird. The clouds largely cleared up and the sun came out and shone like anything, come afternoon. The others remarked at her sunglasses, which probably were a wee bit out of place, but she didn't care.

It was almost warm. Merrs drew well ahead, but Costa let him; he was headed in the right direction and the visibility was excellent.

"So Costa," Coraline said, "what's your story, anyhow?"

He gave her a calculating look, then said, "Buh."

Nargle

"I'm a priest of Azorres."

She almost asked if Azorres was a god, but then said more vaguely, "Tell me about Azorres." No point coming across as that clueless, even if she really was.

He looked at her sceptically. "You'd ask a priest about a god? That's pretty much the only sure way to get a completely biased response."

Well, that answered the first question, at least. "Why not?" she asked. "Biased or not, you'd probably know more than most, at least."

"Well," he said, "let's just say I'm not the sort of priest who goes out preaching to the masses."

"So what do you do?"

He hesitated, then shrugged and said, "It has been my life's work to seek out and, if possible, bring forth the Light of Azorres," Costa said. "A chosen one who would lead the faithful, acting as a guiding star in the world of the living, out of their suffering."

They rode in silence for a moment, then it hit her like a brick through mud, which is to say very, very slowly. "Merrs?"

"So it would seem."

"So what exactly..." she trailed off as they topped a small hilly thing. Merrs had stopped ahead, held up by a group of what appeared to be bandits of some sort. "...do they want?"

"Agh!" Costa yelled, and drove his horse forward.

There were four of them. They seemed to be telling Merrs to get off his horse, or something along those lines. Whatever it was, he wasn't doing it, instead just sitting there, apathetically ignoring them as they shoved swords at him and yelled crudely.

Costa, of course, was yelling at the top of his lungs as well as he approached, trying to get their attention. Finally he got it and they turned toward him instead.

"Oh, look what we have here, gents!" one of them said, probably the leader. The bandit swaggered forward as Merrs slid sideways off his horse behind him. "Reinforcements!"

"You rat bastards!" Costa screamed. Suddenly the sky was full of lightning, cracking and thundering even without couds. Then it struck, shaking the very ground and obliterating three of the four bandits in an instant. The last bandit, who had escaped through some stroke of luck, fled. The horses bolted, at least the ones with riders, leaving Costa clinging for dear life in an attempt to get his back under control, and Coraline on the ground not far away where hers had thrown her.

For some reason Merrs' was still just standing there.

Coraline dusted herself off as she got up, but she seemed to be fine, nothing broken. Merrs, on the other hand, wasn't moving. As she walked toward him, she raised the staff and fired, hitting the fleeing bandit in the back. She watched the man fall without expression, and only as she dropped to her knees beside him did a look of concern cross her face.

"Merrs?" she said, rolling him over.

He groaned. There was blood on his jacket. It seemed one of the bandits had thought it funny to poke him when he didn't cooperate.

"You idiot." She said, pushing aside a few layers of shirts and jackets to find the wound in his gut, still bleeding. It looked deep, but she didn't know how deep especially with all the blood. Whatever the case, she also had absolutely no idea what to do about it - even if she could stop the bleeding, there were probably some important organs in there, and such.

So she put her hand on it, instead, because that totally made sense, feeling the blood and the heat and the sense of pain and hurt, and then there were voices rising all around her, a strange sensation of drowning in nothing, and after the screaming, only blackness.

Hurk

Coraline woke to the cackle of flames: hissing, spitting, the fire babbled to itself in its own strange secret language. Twilight glowed off the broken clouds, mirroring the colours of the flames across the landscape.

She sat up, rubbing her head.

"Darren's still trying to find your horse," Merrs said beside her. She started; she hadn't realised he was there.

"What..." she began, then stopped. "Oh. Are you okay?"

"No worse for wear," he said, closing his eyes. "It is a rare gift you have."

"Gift?"

"The ability to heal with a touch is not one the gods easily bestow. Tell me, which has touched you..." He paused, almost, but not quite, imperceptibly. "Gloria?"

"No gods," Coraline said wearily, then stopped. "Unless you mean... literally?"

He raised an eyebrow.

"Er," she said. "Nevermind."

He smiled. "Oh, but you are a mystery."

"I could say the same of you," Coraline muttered.

Merrs said nothing, and simply looked away.

She didn't feel quite right. In fact she felt kind of terrible, with everything just sort of blah, and no hope of anything ever not being blah. Why was she even here? There never had been many folks around who had been inclined to put up with her long-term. Was that why?

And what had she done since she'd wound up here, Coraline wondered. Walked a lot. Wound up nowhere. Killed some folks, at least one of whom she couldn't even recall for some reason. Probably killed an elf. Caused someone to steal a horse.

Then her mental defenses kicked in and she found herself thinking about bunnies. Cute, fluffy, village-eating bunnies. Because bunnies were nice and scary.

She realised the coin was in her hand, so she flipped it. Skull-side up. Death. Like what happens around bunnies.

They looked up as they heard Costa return, noticeably without a second horse. He waved, dismounted, tripped on a rock, and fell on his face.

Coraline stared for a moment in surprise. She realised Merrs, too, was staring, and snapped out of it, going to help Costa up.

"I'm fine," he said, shoing her away tiredly. "We're all fine. Thanks to you."

"Erm," Coraline said. Was it thanks to her? She sort of doubted that, since she'd been the one who'd distracted him in the first place.

He didn't seem to notice. "Anyway, I found your bag, at least. Here." He passed it over and sat by the fire. "No dinner, then?"

"Hah!" Coraline laughed. "I haven't really been conscious long enough to do anything, and Merrs... well, you know Merrs," Coraline sat back down as well between them. Merrs never had been one to bother cooking. She had this nagging feeling he would have probably just let himself slowly starve if she and Costa hadn't specifically been giving him food on a fairly regular basis.

"I'm kidding," Costa said. "That's fine. Travel food doesn't really need... ungh." He slumped forward.

Coraline shook her head bemusedly. "Damn, man, you really are tired, aren't you."

"My own fault," he said. "Channelling that kind of energy takes its toll, but I didn't really stop to think about it at all, you know? Gods, if they'd really killed him..."

Merrs looked at Costa with that same unreadable expression. He seemed almost concerned, however. Almost.

"Yeah, I know," Coraline said. "It's fine. I'll find everyone something to eat, just pass me your bag or something. And then we can all just sleep. No problem. Tomorrow'll be better."

He nodded gratefully and did as she said. Didn't think, just passed the bag and stared into the fire.

Coraline took the opportunity to check out what else he had in there as she fetched some food for everyone, of course, but there didn't seem to be anything particularly interesting. Just the usual travel stuff, from the look of it. Some holy symbols. A book in a script that seemed to shimmer before her eyes, sending whispers through her mind.

She realised Merrs was watching her again, and passed out dinner.

Costa ate without paying much attention at all and fell asleep almost immediately. Merrs drifted off pretty quickly too, but Coraline wasn't really tired. Probably something about having already spent most of the afternoon unconscious - maybe she had just been asleep? It was hard to say. And what had been that screaming? It had sounded so familiar, as though it were something she knew well, something that had always been there.

Coraline stared into the flames, but they were just flames. They weren't even talking, just curling around the settling coals as the night wore on and the stars come out. She saw the Thing That Looks Almost Like The Pleiades But Isn't, now near the horizon, and the Ravenous Thing That Hates Eyeballs over there, and they gave her comfort of a sort. At least there were some things about this place that made sense. Some that tied it to home, any home at all. Even if she had just named them herself after she'd arrived.

And there was the coin. She wasn't at all sure where it had come from, either - had it belonged to the priestess? Had it just been there before? Or something else? Why couldn't she remember? There was something about it that just seemed important for some reason, but whatever it was eluded her. Perhaps that had also been why she had picked it up in the first place.

She looked at it in the light of the fire. The mask was very much like the one she had in her notebook, really, and the scales... she felt like she'd seen those somewhere too. But flipping it, it always fell skull-side up. Mask-side up. Death-side.

She flipped it. Death.

Flipped it again. Death.

Again. Death.

Death.

Death.

Might as well be jelly and ice cream, she supposed.

Come morning, the question, of course, was now what? They were down a horse. Would they all just walk? Share horses? Leave Coraline behind? But despite her suggesting that last one herself, the others wouldn't hear of it.

But she felt kind of bad about all this, really - they really hadn't needed her along, or to have had to deal with her. It had just sort of happened. And now she slowing them down.

"Gloria," Costa said when she brought this up, "Shut up."

She didn't have a counterpoint prepared for such a sophisticated argument.

"Let's walk," Merrs said. "It's nice enough. Might as well."

And that was that. They walked toward the west, toward the sea, however far it was. The river way back where she'd begun had seemed to think there was one, at any rate. So she asked about the geography - what country was this? What else was around? She explained that she'd come up through... well, she wasn't really sure, frankly. She had been heading north toward Aeries, but there had been a river along the way...?

"Verash. And that would have been the Ekreath," Costa said. "Heads west and south until it hits the Deerid Sea. So you would have been coming up the East Road through Hadrin, then? You must have passed through Kalona..."

"Dead," she said. "All dead."

He sighed, but looked concerned. "Then the rumours are true. The madness came and went?"

Coraline nodded. She couldn't really bring herself to say anything.

Merrs said nothing as well.

"What did you see?" Costa asked.

"Nothing to see. There was only death."

It was much easier to converse on foot, leading the remaining horses. Finding things to converse about was another matter.

Descent

Later, there was another thumphk behind them.

"Anvils," one of the horses said. At least Coraline thought it had, though in all likelihood she had simply imagined it. It was easy to conjure up words in the voices of her mind, after all. Unless she suddenly understood horse speak too.

She didn't go back to investigate.

Later in the day they took to the horses again. Coraline now rode with Merrs; despite concerns of overburdening, both of were fairly small and it seemed to work just fine.

Even concerns of awkwardness were allayed when it was discovered that two people zoning out on one horse was pretty much the same as two people zoning out on two horses, though it did mean Costa didn't have to worry about Merrs wandering off anymore. Now he had to worry about both of them wandering off instead, because for whatever reason, Coraline wasn't really paying attention anymore.

She fiddled with her coin from time to time. Untended fields drifted in and out of view. Birds shrieked as they passed.

The day settled in silence and died as they made camp. Shadows painted the night amidst a chittering of insects. It sounded like spring.

They continued on. Mornings, evenings, afternoons.

A deer, or something deer-like, darted in front of them and Coraline pulled her staff free from the saddle straps and shot it. Her aim was getting good, even from horseback, though she accidentally smacked Merrs with the butt of the staff in the process.

"Sorry," she said. "Reflex."

He said nothing.

Costa dismounted and gave the deer a poke. "Well," he said, "that's a kill."

They made camp then and there. Costa showed Coraline how to properly butcher a large animal, since she'd only ever fudged the smaller ones, and while he set up a smoker, she and Merrs went about getting the rest of the meat off the bones.

"All this meat," Coraline said. "Just imagine if it were to sprout fangs and start squelching around."

"Um... what?" Costa looked back at her, confused.

"Nevermind," she said with a smile. Fanged hams were probably not something that they would understand as a general concept.

Piles of meat grew around them. They ate a fair bit of it as they went as well, roasting it in the flames.

"You're not going home, are you?" Merrs said quietly.

Coraline shook her head. "I don't know. I really don't." She decided to try shifting the subject. "Where are you guys headed?"

"Telegrin."

"Whatsit?"

"It's a port town. Costa thinks to purchase passage by ship from there, but it won't work."

"Oh," she said. "Why not?"

"I don't know."

They hung the strips over the smoky fire, with the hide serving as a partial enclosure to keep more of the smoke in.

"Nice," Coraline said when it was all set up.

"Leave it overnight and it should all be done come morning," Costa said. "Need to keep it going, though." It was getting late already, and chilly, but after all the smoke and meat, being near the fire was now proving a bit much for them.

"Right, stay put," Coraline said. "I'ma get some wood for another fire."

"Always burning. Everything is always burning," Merrs said as she headed off into the fading light.

But she grinned to herself as she headed toward the trees. Though she'd kept it to herself as they'd ridden, she was feeling strangely happy. This, these people, they reminded her of a mystery, and they didn't even mind having her around. And there were words. Words that meant more than words.

And there was magic! She practically bounced at that. This world had magic. It very definitely had magic. And gods. And magic. And horrible curse-like plagues.

And magic.

Coraline had always wanted magic. Through her entire life, it had been a bit of a dream, a longing, a need for something more beyond the bland, bland world to which she belonged. Eventually she'd grown up a bit and her focus had shifted to words, which were their own sort of magic - the only magic her world had - and to dreams, where it didn't matter what was real and what wasn't. But dreams ended. Worlds faded as she always awoke, and after that there were only words. Sweet, sweet, tantalising words that still left her wanting at the end, because they, too, were never enough.

So she had pushed it away, that want, that need, and she had dreamed amidst her hoarded words.

But now she was here. And here there was magic. And it was real.

She wanted to be excited. She was excited. She wanted to sing and dance and shout into the wind, but the wind was elsewhere, taking the evening off. Something about it felt off.

And that's where the uncertainty crept in. Something wasn't right, because it couldn't be.

It couldn't be real. There was no way it could be real. It hadn't happened. None of it had happened.

Had she simply hit her head, lost her mind, fallen into a fugue? Was she simply sitting in some white cell back in that world she had 'left', blind to the walls around her? Dreaming up a new life? A new reality? A new world with simple answers and big dreams and strange magics... and escape.

A way out.

She was a coward. After everything, she had proven a coward. All the dreams of being strong. All the daydreams and the nightmares and the playing with swords, after the chainmail shirts and the trebuchets and the illusions of power. Even when her parents had told her, no, no, little girls are not Roman soldiers, little girls are not alien commanders, they're... princesses or something, she had still wanted to fight, to take on the world, to be that elf on the elephant, leading the army into the light. And a princess too, of course, but not just any princess. But then the brick of real life had hit her, and after everything she wasn't a princess at all. Not any princess. And she couldn't handle it.

And now here she was. Playing the hero, the strong, the gal who had everything in order save for a place to belong, because in this place that she had escaped to, she could never belong. There was no way. No way at all.

It wasn't real.

Some day she would awaken only to suffer for this silly dream, as she had suffered for all the others. As everyone had always said she would, from all of those that had come before. There would be no option to simply 'show them', for there was never anything to show.

The realisation hit her like real life all over again. That horrible search for a job. That wave of despair, those months teetering on the edge, those stories and dreams and words that had kept her afloat through it all, but only barely. That final surrender before it all ended. Here she was, wherever she was, alone. Hopeless. No future at all, just useless and dreaming. Hiding behind her dreaming, but the dreaming was shallow and it could not protect her. Nothing could protect her.

She heard them now, through the silky darkness of the night, the voices of her past and present. Calling out to her. Laughing. Mocking. Wondering. They didn't even care, for she was already lost, but sometimes they wondered. Whatever had happened to Coraline? Whatever had happened to that gal down the block, that girl in Databases who had always dressed up, that barrista with the funny hair? Oh, but she had failed, disappeared, fallen off the radar, never made it anywhere, not even out her own front door. They mocked and they chattered and they questioned. Who are you, little dreamer? Who do you think you are? Did you really believe it could be true? Are you this silly, this hopeless, this ridiculous? Oh, you pathetic little girl, you, who could not even handle real life!

Voices that rose around her, shrouding like a second night, voices that called to her fears and failings, voices that reminded her of who she had been and what she had lost, voices that left no room for escape, not now, not this time. And other voices too. Others which were not her own, others which were older, stranger, but just as bereft of hope as she was.

As the blackness pulled her under, there was not even silence in its shadows.

Voices

She woke screaming. She couldn't help it, couldn't stop. Then the others were holding her down, holding her back, gagging her, silencing here, but even still she tried to scream, scream through the cacophony, scream for silence and respite, for an end, for an escape.

And then she realised it was gone, it was over, whatever it was, and finally stopped. She was alive, and free, and here, and here there were no voices, just the wind's singing, just Costa holding her back and Merrs peering down curiously, just her overwhelming exhaustion, just a bird calling out to the day.

"Gloria?" Costa said.

She nodded slightly.

"If I take this out, you're not going to start up again, are you?"

She shook her head, and he ungagged her. She tried to sit up and had some trouble at first, but then managed it. She was so tired. She couldn't recall ever being so tired.

"The hell?" she said weakly.

"I could ask you that," Costa said. "What happened? Do you know?"

She shook her head. "How... I feel awful." Merrs sat down beside her. They were by the smoker, now cold and empty, at the campsite that had not yet been built. It was midday and the sun was gleaming with the brilliant force of spring, but though the day itself was warm, she felt cold, even wrapped in her coat.

"You've been out an entire day," Costa said, giving her some dried yam. "We found you by the trees, unconscious, but when I tried to heal you it was as though nothing was wrong. Nothing physically, at least."

"Oh," Coraline said.

"Oh?" Merrs queried.

She didn't know what to say. Was this... she didn't even want to think it. So instead she chewed on the yam and stared at the ground. Nice, solid ground. Lots of dirt and rocks and little half-dead plants and bits of twiggy things.

"Has anything like this happened before?" Merrs asked.

She shook her head. Not like this. She had heard voices before, but those had been... different? Quieter? Her own? It had been like what she had heard when she'd apparently healed Merrs, she realised, but that time they had stopped when she had blacked out, not like this. This had been so much worse. And this time there had been a feeling that had come with them. A sense of space, of vastness.

The voices, though. How long had she heard them, whispering at the edge of consciousness, bubbling up in everyday, mundane things?

"When I healed you," she said. "It was kind of like that, only not really."

"And you feel better now?" he asked.

"Better," she said. "I feel like I got eaten by cat with a gizzard full of toasters."

"But it already happened, and now it's over." Merrs said. "Now you feel better."

"That's..." It was a reasonable way to look at things, she supposed. "Sure."

Merrs stood and helped her up as well. "Come," he said, taking her arm. "Let's walk."

It was difficult at first, as she was quite stiff and quite sore, but as they got moving she began to really feel better. The stiffness and the pain subsided. She realised she was shivering, and drew her coat tighter. But she was all right.

Costa caught up a little later with the horses and everything packed up.

It was strange going, however. The world felt wrong. Not real. Not like a hallucination, necessarily, but like how it had felt going outside after spending 40-odd hours straight in a basement staring at four computer screens working on her animation final project, getting the last bits of details in the objects, setting up the lights and camera paths, and rendering, rendering, tweaking, and rendering.

Then she'd stepped outside with it all on a cd and the real world had just looked wrong. The leaves on the trees both too clear and not clear enough, the sunlight and the shadows too bright and too dark.

This felt like that.

And it was spring. Finally spring, determinedly spring, green moss and grass gleaming in the sun same as it had previously on the rare occasions the sun had even come out, but now with feeling, and accompanied with buds and new growth. There weren't leaves on the trees yet here for her to gawk at their surreality, but there would be soon.

"Blimey," she said to herself.

The feeling didn't fade, but it didn't get any weirder, either. Costa scouted around while Coraline and Merrs continued on foot. Keep moving, Merrs said. Keep moving. And so they did.

As dusk settled in, Costa returned and brought them on horseback to a nearby farmhouse. A woman was standing outside, an ageing farmer proud of her station, and with reason to be so. The place was well-kept and sturdy, the crop was almost ready to be planted even now, and the animals were tended. She helped Coraline down when Merrs parked the horse.

"No..." Coraline said helplessly. This was bad enough already. She didn't need more. Not more. More? She wasn't even thinking straight.

"C'mon, dear, let's get you a bath and a proper bed," the woman said, guiding her inside. "It's all right, your friend explained what's what. Come on."

Coraline didn't resist. The evening turned into a blur of warmth, moving from place to place. Soup. Hot water. Merrs gesturing parts of a story. Tea. Bed. Pillow. Sleep. Sweet, proper sleep.

Farmhouse and no answers

She woke to whispering, but it wasn't real. Just the voices that wouldn't fade. Voices which had been with her all along, voices that had been almost, but not entirely, out of sight, out of sound, and out of mind. She had not even noticed them even as they had snuck into her conscious thoughts, but they had been there, even then.

Now she was aware. That was the only difference. Perhaps they were louder?

She curled the pillow around her ears and stared at the ceiling. Bare studs and boards. Rough construction, but solid, like many of the older townhomes where she had grown up.

Oh, right, she should probably get out of bed at some point, shouldn't she?

Coraline slid over the side of the bed and flopped onto the bedroom floor.

Progress. Sort of. She got up and shook herself off. She was wearing a nightgown, but there were clothes laid out on the chair, so she put them on - woollen skirts and a top. Not her style, but clean.

When she peered out into the hall, the place was quiet, the other doors shut. She headed downstairs, into the kitchen, and found Merrs at the table with one of her books. He looked up as she entered.

"Good morning," he said.

"Can you read that?" Coraline asked. It was House of Leaves - a book that, arguably, wasn't even supposed to be read, at least never in full. She had gotten it for precisely that reason, of course, and never made it past the start, nor started before the middle.

"No," he said.

"Oh," she said. "You may or may not be missing out." Seeing a pot on the stove, she went to investigate. Food. She got herself a bowl and sat down with Merrs.

He was watching her, staring at, or possibly through, her with that same disconcerting look as had grown so familiar.

"So..." she began over her porridge.

He said nothing.

"What's the story? Where are we?"

He looked away and said quietly, "You won't last much longer."

She stopped in the middle of a heaping spoonful. "What?"

"Lydia Morrison owns this place," he said more normally. "In exchange for some venison, she was more than happy to put us up for the night. No lack of space with the rest of her family moved on."

"Oh," Coraline said.

"Darren is out helping her prepare some of the fields."

She nodded.

He placed something on the table and slid it toward her. It was her coin. "Why?" he asked. "Why is it always suffering? Why so much pain and loss? Love that leads only to heartbreak, and life that leads only to the coldness of death?"

She picked it up and turned it over in her hands. "Because."

Merrs looked at her.

"Because it's life?" Coraline said.

"That's all?" he asked.

Coraline shrugged. "I could spin you some pretty lies if you'd like, but they wouldn't make things any better."

Merrs said nothing, though he seemed to be considering something.

"What?" she finally asked.

"How did you come by it? That coin."

She hesitated, then said, "I'd... rather not say."

He sighed. "No," he said. "Kyrule only ever gives them to those who do the most difficult things."

"And who is Kyrule?" she asked.

"Kyrule, Kheris, Irin. He is the god of death, the only god that all mortals are assured to meet." He paused. "You committed a terrible act, but a necessary one. A life, perhaps. Or more?"

"Might have been," Coraline mumbled. Gods watching? Now that was just great.

"Then that coin is your reminder that whatever you chose to do, even if you chose without all the facts, you did choose."

Coraline stared at it. "And what if I chose wrong?"

"You may never know. But that's not what matters, at least to Kyrule. For him, it's that you chose at all. You erred on the side of mercy, even if you couldn't know."

"Blugh," she said. "Gods."

Merrs looked at her.

"What about Azorres?" Coraline asked after a bit. "What's Azorres the god of?"

"Life, among other things. But she and Kyrule have far more in common than in contrast."

"Because of the other things?"

"They are two sides of the same coin. Each gods of mercy in their own ways," he said.

Coraline spun the coin on the table. It came to rest, of course, skull-side up. The whispers were quieter, as though they were holding back, waiting for something, but she could hear them even now in the silence of the kitchen.

"Why do you want to die, Light of Azorres?" she asked.

He didn't answer.

She leaned forward, a half-smile on her lips. "Alternately, why were you going through my stuff?"

"Darren had hoped to find clues as to what was wrong."

"Did he?" Coraline asked hopefully.

Merrs shook his head. "The closest was the deathgod's coin, but it's not an answer."

There was a slam and a clatter from the back as Costa and the woman, Lydia, came in and got out of their muddy boots.

"Oh, hello there," Lydia said. "You look much better today."

"I feel better," Coraline said, standing. "I understand I have your hospitality to thank."

Lydia beamed at this, but pushed Coraline back into her chair with a surprisingly strong hand as she bustled past. "Oh, don't you get up on my account, dear."

Costa snorted and pulled up a chair as well, gratefully sitting down as Lydia bustled around the stove. "So you're all better, then?" he said. "All just a random fluke. Vapours in the air, clearly."

"Oh, no," she said. "It's hopeless, see. I'm going to die horribly, and it'll be horrible, and then there will be darkness and plagues and unending winter and a rain of burning dogs."

He barked a laugh. "End of the world show, eh?"

"Totes," Coraline said with a grin.

In the meantime, Lydia cooked up a whopping lunch, or dinner, or possibly supper, refusing any help at all. "You're guests!" she insisted, leaving the others to chat about the weather, and fields, and nothing terribly interesting a all while they waited.

After that it was simply a matter of food - not exactly a feast, but certainly a meal Lydia could be proud of. Or so Coraline assumed since Lydia certainly seemed to be proud of it.

Later Coraline managed to help with the dishes while Costa and Merrs tried to figure out how to repair one of the chairs, which wobbled slightly due to a loose joint. She wasn't sure how they intended to do so without glue, but it was funnier to stand back and watch than to intervene, and the rinsewater provided a nice, inconspicuous view.

Then Costa sorted it out by stuffing a piece of twine into the gap in the joint. Lydia rolled her eyes but accepted it.

The next morning they bid Lydia goodbye and continued on, ever westward. Coraline didn't mention the voices, but they stayed with her as they travelled on, there but not.

From there, the trip was largely uneventful, bringing them to the port town Telegrin, and their parting. They passed a few more farms, and bartered warm food and bedding. The voices stayed and chattered, and Coraline said nothing, but Merrs looked on at her with increasing concern as the days went on. Not just through, but at. An anvil fell in the path ahead with a loud thnkth.

As they passed the small crater, Costa remarked, "An anvil."

Merrs' horse coughed. Coraline could have sworn she heard words in it. Something along the lines of "Told you so."

"What does it mean?" she asked.

"A beginning," Merrs said softly. "A beginning of the end."

Costa shook his head, not hearing him. "Sometimes anvils fall from the sky. We don't question it."

Coraline gave him an odd look, but obliged as well, and they left the odd twist of metal and rocky hole behind them.

And Telegrin?

Meeting in a tavern

INT. SONM'S POST TAVERN - NIGHT

It is late - the place is mostly empty. Vardaman is seated at the bar, with at least a barkeeep around somewhere as well. Coraline stumbles in, scratched, tired, and muddy, and winds up standing next to Vardaman.

VARDAMAN

You look worse than I feel.

CORALINE

I feel... well...

Instead of continuing, she sits.

VARDAMAN

(he sighs)

Barkeep, a shalott for the lady. There's pain what needs forgetting, if only for a little while.

They sit at their drinks for a time.

VARDAMAN

So you're still alive.

CORALINE

Aye.

VARDMAN

Is it worse?

CORALINE

Not yet. It will be.

VARDAMAN

Normally I'd have killed a Carrier as soon as talk to one. But you... Like Shalias, you've found a way to stave off the hunger and survive.

Coraline looks at him, confused.

CORALINE

(after a pause)

What hunger?

Vardaman looks surprised.

CORALINE

(shaking her head)

It's not hunger. It's just noise. Pain. Voices that won't stop, that just keep screaming and pleading and whispering. I drink and they go quiet, but I can't stay drunk forever, and behind it all is this emptiness picking away at everything I am.

(she shakes her head or something)

It's more like loneliness than hunger. A sadness.

VARDMAN

So you don't feed it.

CORALINE

How do you feed sadness?

Vardaman raises his mug of shalott in answer.

Coraline starts laughing, a horrible half-laugh half sob, and raises her own in agreement.

Some pub after the madness

EXT. Sidewalk outside some pub - Night

Light and laughter drifts out. It is a busy night. Perhaps they all are.

Coraline is standing outside, not quite nearby, hesitant to enter. She glances toward the pub and back again. Then a couple turns into the street down the road, and she finally ducks inside to avoid them.

INT. Pub

The inside is well-lit with lanterns, but full of smoke. The place is fairly full - folks are around tables, at the bar, and generally conversating and having a good time.

Coraline drifts to the bar. Nobody really pays her much mind, though some of the guys smile at her as she passes. She smiles back a couple of times, nods at another. She lingers by the bar for a time, taking in the environment, the feel of the place, the light, the voices, snippets of conversation rising and falling.

JORRIN

And then there was stump, and only a stump! It was something else, I tell you!

CALSTEIN

Aye, it was a thing! Old Lacy never saw it coming, that's for damn sure.

JORRIN

(laughing)

Poor lady. And she was so certain.

DAVRIK

I don't care what your supplier said. I don't have the inventory, okay?

NISSA

You'll have what I need you do have. Are we clear?

DAVRIK

Look, lady, this is the real world, and in the real world, what is, is. You get?

NISSA

Oh, I get.

(she does something threatening)

And I get this, too. I don't need to tell you what this is, do I?

DAVRIK

(suddenly very nervously)

That's not... er...

KAELIN

I think it is so.

SALAS

I don't think it's accurate to say that I know nothing. I rather think that you think that you know things and think that I don't know these things. That is what I think.

NAERI

You think you're so clever do you?

SALAS

No, I'm not clever. I'm not even smart, but nor do I need to be. Smart is, after all, just a polished version of stupid.

NAERI

You're stupid, is that what you're saying?

YARROW

Hey ladies, check this out!

KRISTA

Ooo, pretty!

YJIORA

What's a little boy like you even doing with that? You've nothing but fuzz!

KRISTA

(surprised)

Yjiora!

AKRON

Yeah!

NELLIS

Smoke it all.

SAL

It's not like the alcohol even does it...

AKRAN

Have you been there before?

DRINK!

VARDAMAN

DRINK!

CORALINE

DRINK!

VARDAMAN

DRINK!

The barkeep comes over and looks at them flatly.

CORALINE

(pointing)

Drink?

VARDAMAN

YES!

The barkeep refills their drinks.

CORALINE

Yes!

They drink their drinks.

Vardaman stares at his empty drink disappointedly.

VARDAMAN

FUCK!

Coraline peers over at his drink, then at her own.

CORALINE

FECK ARSE!

VARDAMAN

DRINK!

CORALINE

DRINK!

The barkeep refills their drinks.

CORALINE

DRINK!

Coraline drinks and throws her cup over her shoulder.

Vardaman drinks.

VARDAMAN

DRINK!

Naming a King

It was paperwork. The paperwork of the multiverse, niggling for completion.

Most of the paperwork was automatic, the random details filled in according to sender and origin, but there were two things that needed a specific answer. Choices on the part of the petitioner. Names. A place and a person. A castle and a king. Black sand everywhere. So much sand.

She blinked, not that there was anything much to see. Curtains, wall. No sand. Just a metaphor like the castle itself. Two names. Castle and king. Moonlight speckled across the curtains, trailing shadows of leaves.

"Here reigns king of the sandcastle, Kyrule of Arling Tor," she whispered. Sand drifted silently around her.

There. Paperwork filled out.

With that she fell asleep.

Note on the setting

The year is 2032 of the fourth era, four years since the crown of Soravia fell, sending the kingdom into chaos and turmoil. As the ruling Houses struggle for power and influence, they make alliances and send their armies to march and engage in terrible battles. Time passes, and the devastation only spreads. There is no end in sight.

Fortunately for us, our story has very little to do with this.

Script

Lost kids

They emerge from the ruins/cave/whatever. Kit stares at the stars. Erry runs out, touches a tree, then runs back to the others, looking scared.

NOLAN

I'm hungry.

KIT

Oh, right, that's what we forgot.

JORA

You mean besides everything else we don't have?

NOLAN

How could we forget when we didn't even know?

ERRY

(bouncing around at them insistently)

What? Huh? Huh?

KIT

Maybe we could sell Erry.

ERRY

Yes!

(she stops, then hugs and clings to Kit)

Wait, no! Nonononono! No!

KIT

I kid. You may be an annoying horrible little pain of a sister, but you're my annoying horrible little pain of a sister, and ain't nobody could offer enough to buy you up.

ERRY

Yes! Yes I am!

KIT

Now will you let go of me? Please?

ERRY

(still clinging)

Yes!

Deathdealers as vultures

EXT. Some battlefield - day

This battle is current, on-going. Vardaman is standing on a rock overlooking the fight; a couple of dead archers are behind it. He leans over to the side slightly as an arrow flies through the space where he'd been. When he moves back, Nurunn is standing beside him.

NURUNN

Another day, another battle.

VARDAMAN

Aye, so it is.

NURUNN

When does it end?

VARDAMAN

When the last House falls, and all who would claim ascension lie dead. When mortals forget their ambition, and find peace with the worlds as is.

Nurunn looks at him consideringly.

VARDAMAN

(he shrugs)

Fuck if I know.

An important-looking man from one of the sides of the fighting comes up behing them on a horse.

MAN

Hail, priests. Have you come to bless this battle in the light of our Lords?

NURUNN

All come before the Lord of Death with or without your help.

MAN

The blessing of the Lord of Death would be welcome indeed, that we migtht stand victorious at the end of this day.

VARDAMAN

(muttering under his breath)

Oh, fuck off.

NURUNN

(somewhat dismissively, to the man)

Okay.

MAN

The House of Merrilenn thanks you, and your Lord.

The important-looking man rides off, back toward the safe side of his soldiers.

VARDAMAN

The house of what?

NURUNN

Every side is convinced that the gods are with them, and that with that, victory is assured.

He shakes his head incredulously.

VARDAMAN

Meanwhile we're standing here looking like a pair of vultures.

Vardaman does a vulture impression, craning his neck and tucking his arms back into his cloak like folded wings. Nurunn snorts.

Later, they're talking by an old road, with their horses nearby.

NURUNN

Charo wanted me to talk to you.

VARDAMAN

Yeah? How is the old bastard?

NURUNN

Dead.

VARDAMAN

Oh.

NURUNN

He said it would be time. That you would know what that means.

VARDAMAN

(disappointedly)

You know, I was really hoping it would be something else. Such as, maybe, "nevermind the old curses, it's all good, happy retirement."

NURUNN

(somewhat surprised)

Is it ever that easy?

VARDAMAN

Can't an old man dream?

Nurunn raises an eyebrow.

VARDAMAN

Yeah, okay. I'll go... deal with it.

NURUNN

Lords be with you.

Vardaman goes and gets his horse and stuff and heads off.

Av Aril and a crypt thing or something

Cue epic horsey montage!

Grand scenery, lots of galloping dramatically, etc etc, yadda yadda, interspersed with a few standard annoyances: waiting in a traffic jam in the middle of a town; slowing down considerably to safely make progress through the aftermath of some sort of horrible accident (it rather resembles the aftermath of an epically choreographed case scene); having to go around a massive sinkhole through the road; running into a mass of sheep that just happen to be standing in the road and across it and generally around it; waiting at a ferry crossing because the ferry is on the wrong side of the river; the horse getting distracted by a nice patch of grass...

Vardaman is rather irritable by the time he makes it to Av Aril, and makes a bee-line to the pub.

INT. Some crypt with ambiguous ceilings and floors

Vardaman is going through the crypt clearing it of undead. In each chamber, he casts in light, destroys any walkers he finds, and then attaches a second sanctified light to the doorway as he leaves. It's pretty routine. Some of the walkers try to flee; others never even get the chance.

At some point he drops something with a clatter. In another room a woman, ARIEL, is sitting on the floor; she looks up from her knitting at the noise, startled. She is dressed in fairly simple attire, with an ornate recurve bow at her side and a bag of various supplies at her feet. A ball of yarn and wooly ribcage lie in her lap.

Not hearing anything else, she goes back to her knitting.

Vardaman continues his process through a few more rooms. Her knitting needles jab in sync with his sword. Then, in one, he hears something, looks up, and finds her on the ceiling. Thinking she might be a vampire or something, he raises his spare hand to cast a spell.

ARIEL

(standing)

Oh, did I get that backwards?

Suddenly all her stuff clatters to the floor, and then she falls off the ceiling a moment later, landing rather gracelessly. Vardaman casts a spell to try to figure out what she is. It doesn't seem to work.

VARDAMAN

(guardedly)

What are you?

Ariel looks at him funnily as she gets up, then examines herself and sniffs her armpits.

ARIEL

(looking confused)

I don't know.

(she cocks her head)

What are you?

VARDAMAN

I'm a deathdealer.

ARIEL

What's a deathdealer?

VARDAMAN

A priest who hunts monsters.

ARIEL

What's a priest?

VARDAMAN

A... type of person.

ARIEL

What's a person?

Vardaman doesn't answer, and instead watches her suspiciously for a moment. She picks up her knitting, and watches him back. Then he marches over, places a hand on her forehead (she looks slightly surprised, but doesn't move away), and casts another spell. Nothing much happens. Ariel blinks.

VARDAMAN

You're not dead. Why are you in a crypt?

ARIEL

I really don't know. I was, and then I was! So I knitted.

She holds up the half-completed wooly ribcage proudly.

VARDAMAN

(exasperatedly)

Do you know anything?

A zombie or something starts to get up behind her. Vardaman watches it.

ARIEL

Well... I know my Dreamer would have me follow you, and that I'm supposed to find some kind of mystery and solve a princess. And I've got a 'pedia in my head.

(she stops)

Or was it princes? Maybe I was supposed to solve the princes, or was it the other way around, save the...

(she stops again)

My dreamer says I should shut up.

VARDAMAN

First redeeming thing I've heard.

He moves off around her and kills the zombie with his sword. Ariel picks up the rest of her things and starts following him awkwardly closely.

He pushes her away a bit.

VARDAMAN

If you're going to follow me, stay out of my way.

She stares at him with a really innocent expression on her face.

VARDAMAN

Please?

She mostly does. Vardaman gets through the rest of the chambers, and finally comes to his target - a particular tomb, older than all the others. They enter. Vardaman sticks a magelight to the ceiling. He looks determined. Ariel is whistling merrily, and then scoots up to the single large sarcophagus and pokes it.

An apparition, BAERLETHOR, rises out of the stonework and looms above them. Vardaman draws his sword and approaches.

BAERLETHOR

Again you come before me, priest? Again, you perform the same tired ritual as your brothers before you, putting it off?

VARDAMAN

Not this time. This time it ends.

The apparition laughs, billowing up before them. Ariel watches wide-eyed, looking quite fascinated.

BAERLETHOR

Really? You really think you can set aside your god and face me alone?

VARDAMAN

Alone.

(he glances toward Ariel)

With... her.

BAERLETHOR

And can she set aside her own, or will she doom your pitiful attempt before it can even begin?

ARIEL

I don't need no stinking gods.

VARDAMAN

Yes.

BAERLETHOR

(laughing)

I shall savour this!

The apparition throws some magic at Vardaman. He blocks it with his sword somehow.

VARDAMAN

Show yourself! Your true self!

He advances upon the sarcophagus itself. Ariel gets out and arrow and then starts working on disentangling the bow from her hair; she holds the arrow in her teeth and makes some faces in the meantime.

BAERLETHOR

In the name of your helpless god?

VARDAMAN

How about the name of I said so.

Ariel finally gets the bow out of her hair and restrings it.

ARIEL

(nocking the arrow)

In the name of eggplants everywhere!

She shoots the apparition and it explodes, dissipating quickly.

Vardaman pries the lid aside on the sarcophagus.

VARDAMAN

Get up and face me, Baerlethor.

ARIEL

(drawing another arrow)

Us.

VARDAMAN

(glancing back toward Ariel)

Uh-huh.

A skeletal hand reaches up and pushes the lid off the rest of the way, and a horrible undead awful guy monster terrible wizard liche thing rises from the sarcophagus. It smells really bad. Ariel's nose wrinkles.

ARIEL

Ugh.

Vardaman readies his sword. Ariel backs away. The liche, Baerlethor, does impressive-looking dangerous things trying to kill Vardaman. Vardaman fends him off. Mostly.

Ariel tries to shoot it and misses a few times.

ARIEL

Hold still so I can hit you!

Baerlethor throws some horrible deathly magic at Ariel. She ducks, which is oddly good enough.

BAERLETHOR

Funny, are you?

ARIEL

(to Baerlethor)

Not you, Vardaman!

VARDAMAN

(stopping, confused)

What?

Baerlethor hits Vardaman and sends him flying. Ariel finally successfully shoots Baelethor, and the liche falls to dust and ash and bone with a clatter, clearly now truly dead. She looks at the pile for a moment, and then runs to Vardaman, who is lying on the ground, groaning.

ARIEL

Hey, er, you okay?

VARDAMAN

Aside from the broken bones, I'm great!

ARIEL

Oh, good! I was a bit worried.

----

ARIEL

How do I do that?

VARDAMAN

What?

ARIEL

Well, not to sound completely crazy, but I was... um... I was talking to the voice in my head. She says I should try heal you.

Ariel and Coraline

ARIEL

I can't believe it worked. I mean, obviously it did, but the odds of an intersection in this simple of a search pattern, they're astronomical. The space, and the time, and the universe, it's so huge, and all we had was a name, and it just happened to be right, or mostly right, and to find you here in the right town at the right time of day... you could have been anywhere. You could have been anywhen.

CORALINE

Maybe I am!

Coraline wiggles her fingers dramatically.

----

ARIEL

Yes, it is a key... and it's the only one shaped like a key.

Something important

ARIEL

It's like staring your own death right in the face when it's already happened so long ago.

VARDAMAN

Ariel...

ARIEL

(suddenly frowning, then looking at Vardaman intensely)

Vardaman! I... I forgot what I was saying?

VARDAMAN

(he rolls his eyes)

Of course you did.

...something probably important is said/happens here.

VARDAMAN

Your dreamer told you all of this?

ARIEL

No, not her. The other one. The one that's... here. She's been in the room, waiting, all these years. Waiting and watching, and holding no wrath.

She's proud of him. She's so proud of him. So sad, but so proud of him.

Giant shepherd's crook

They're in some shop with a giant shepherd's crook. Nolan is staring at it.

NOLAN

(deadpan voice)

I want it.

SHOPKEEP

Sod off, kid.

NOLAN

I want it. You will sell it.

SHOPKEEP

Oh, I will, will I? You got 25?

NOLAN

I will give you 10. You will sell it to me.

SHOPKEEP

Sod off.

Kit scoots in and tries to steel Nolan out; when this fails he turns to the shopkeep and hands him some money.

KIT

Here's 20.

The shopkeep grumbles and hands Kit the crook. Kit gives to to Nolan, after which he finally stops resisting and allows himself to be steered out.

The Queen's Bust

There is an inn. The sign says 'The Queen's Bust', with a picture of a bust of the queen under it.

JORA

Really? Queen's bust? That's the best they could do?

KIT

I don't get it.

JORA

Bust.

Kit looks confused.

JORA

This?

She gestures toward her chest, which Kit glances at before suddenly stopping and staring as though seeing it for the first time.

KIT

Woah. That... you... woah!

JORA

(irritated)

Kit!

ERRY

What's so great about that?

NOLAN

It's a boy thing.

ERRY

Like sheep being a Nolan thing?

NOLAN

Boom.

Strange silvery key

Erry is lying against a tree. Nolan has wandered off for a bit, probably to relieve himself or something, leaving the camp alone.

The angle is odd - we see it a bit as Erry would, everything a bit fuzzy, not quite there, with swirls of shapes and colours drifting in and out of view.

An angel, MYRR, lands beside Erry and stands uncertainly for a moment, then says something unintelligible.

Erry giggles and reaches out to touch the angel; she winds up smacking its leg.

The angel says something important.

Erry stares for a bit and then finally nods vaguely.

ERRY

It'll be done, mun!

The angels hands her something and hovers for a moment more before teleporting away... or possibly just disappearing. Erry hugs the object for a moment before tucking it in the blanket beside her and falling asleep.

LATER:

Nolan comes back to find a peculiar silvery key on Erry's forehead.

----

Erry holds the key up to the light.

KIT

(matter-of-factly)

So that's the sympbol of the Chosen of Kyrule, who acts as his will upon the worlds.

Erry stares at it for a moment, starting to look more and more freaked out, then throws it into the air and runs away screaming.

Jora gives Kit an annoyed look as he picks it up, then goes off after Erry.

NOLAN

Er?

KIT

(grinning)

Responsibility. She hates it.

NOLAN

But it's a symbol. It doesn't mean we have to be responsible, just that it's a symbol of something that is.

KIT

It implies responsibility. Someone trusting her with something. A god trusting her with something. Er.

NOLAN

Er.

False front of Erry

JORA

Erry, why do you always act so crazy?

ERRY

I don't! I'm not. Nuh-uh.

JORA

I'm serious. You're eight, but you act like a crazed monkey, bouncing about, and not even forming whole sentences most of the time. But you're not really that stupid, are you?

ERRY

Maybe I want to be a crazed monkey.

JORA

Do you? Do you really think it suits you?

Erry seems to consider this, but says nothing.

JORA

You can read, too. I've seen you. Why don't you ever show it? Or are you planning to take everyone by surprise when they least expect it?

ERRY

(surprised)

You noticed?

JORA

Kit hasn't.

(smiling)

Time it well, my little monkey, and you shall shock the hells right out of him. But don't forget to speak in the meanwhile.

ERRY

But what do I say?

JORA

Doesn't matter. Doesn't even need to be to anyone. Just don't become me, will you?

ERRY

But I'm not you. I'm me.

JORA

(smiling)

Of course you are.

Faith in a table

ARIEL

Might as well have faith in a table?

Vardaman grunts.

ARIEL

I'd trust a table.

VARDAMAN

Of course you would.

ARIEL

Very solid things, tables. Very real.

Angels and angeloids

Aeryin explains her angelic heritage.

CORALINE

How does that work? I mean...

(She looks at Myrr)

Can angels have babies?

MYRR

We do not.

ARIEL

Convergent evolution. With contact with a same or similar environment, distinct needs arise which lead to the development of the same structures and features despite unrelated lineages. It's the reason elves and humans look so similar, and why we get so many different kinds of beetles that all look the same. They're filling the same space in the universe, and so they wind up taking on analogous traits.

CORALINE

Don't beetles usually just do that to look like inedible things and not get eaten? That's more than just specific to the ecosystem.

ARIEL

To a beetle, the ecosystem is the universe. And we all have things in our universes which shape us into what we are.

VARDAMAN

Well, that's helpful.

ARIEL

I know!

CORALINE

So what are you saying?

ARIEL

Well... planeborn aren't descended from creatures of the planes; they are creatures of the planes. Aeryin here is angelic for the same reasons angels are.

FULLER

(looking oddly at Aeryin, like he never noticed anything)

How are angels angelic?

CORALINE

(after a bit of a pause)

Welcome to the tautology club.

ARIEL

The first rule of the tautology club is the first rule of the tautology club.

CORALINE

The second rule of the tautology club comes after the first rule of the tautology club.

ARIEL

The third rule...

VARDAMAN

(coming up behind them and interrupting)

Shut up.

Obelisk

SOMEONE

Every town has an obelisk. Black stone pillar with a tapered top and a sort of hole or orb through it about two-thirds up, some marked, others not, they dot the landscape.

SOMEONE ELSE

What are they for?

SOMEONE

I don't know what they're for, we just put them up, marking the place. This place is real. This place is known.

Key investigation

INT. Some temple thing or something.

Nolan has cornered a PRIEST. Jora is lagging a bit behind.

NOLAN

Show me to your sheep.

PRIEST

(trying unsuccessfully to back away)

My child, there are no sheep here...

Jora scoots over to them.

JORA

Actually we were just looking for someone who can identify an object for us.

NOLAN

(still standing uncomfortably close to the priest)

Can you?

PRIEST

What sort of object?

JORA

We're not really sure. That's part of the problem. But it's dangerous, and there were mushrooms involved.

NOLAN

Psychedelic sheep.

PRIEST

(becoming somewhat unnerved)

That's... not a whole lot to go on.

Jora sighs. Nolan just stands there staring at the priest.

JORA

It's a... key. Silvery, about yea big, shaped like the crescent moons, with the figure of a tower going through the middle. We don't really know what it is, or where it came from, but it's powerful, more so than anything we've seen.

NOLAN

Sound like anything?

PRIEST

And what, this... key just fell out of the sky?

JORA

Dunno. Gal who... acquired it was hallucinating. Got some bad mushrooms. Seemed convinced that a giant bird had... she said the bird came out of a wall and gave it to her. There weren't even any walls around. We were in the woods.

NOLAN

She said it was a clock, too.

(he looks at Jora)

Is it a clock?

JORA

I really don't think so.

PRIEST

Um, that's a fascinating story, but I really don't think...

NOLAN

(getting even more uncomfortably close, right in the priest's face)

No, you don't, do you?

JORA

Nolan...

NOLAN

You know what we're talking about. You just think we're playing with you. And maybe we are. Maybe you're just a little toy to us, and I could tweak you like a sheep's balls, but you should still tell me what I want to know, because if you do...

(he grins slowly, drawing it out for maximum effect)

I'll go away.

PRIEST

(quickly)

It's the World's Key. Planets and planes, and through it all, the spire of Death. The key that can open all gates, that can bring the bearer forth into whatever world he desires.

NOLAN

(still grinning)

Yes?

PRIEST

It's the key to all the realms of life and death. It's... it's the symbol of the champion who will walk the realms as the Lord's will upon the world. But it's Kyrule will that determines whose hands it falls into, not...

NOLAN

Really. So if we have it, it's Kyrule's will?

PRIEST

You can't possibly...

NOLAN

(finally backing away)

Keep telling yourself that.

More heap or something

She gave him a look normally reserved for the criminally insane: utter fascination.

Strange mask: Kyrule

The mask was almost identical to the one she had in her notebook. Hers was a modern excuse for filigree: laser-cut aluminium. Here, intricate swirls and elaborate patterns arose out of the stone, mathematics of chaos that mostly worked out shifting in and out of focus. Only the circle at the top was empty, where the emblem should have been. The trinity.

"Who the hell are you?" she said.

Join the temple, investigate some murders, and generally be a drunken lout

Assassination

She felt something brush by her and instinctively reached out to swat at it. It turned out to be a man, who materialised in front of her as her hand brushed his arm. He grabbed her hand and yanked her forward, and then suddenly let go, vanishing once more.

She felt... funny. Like it was raining, except there was a cramp in her chest. She noticed that the group of priests had apparently seen the commotion and were moving toward her. Why were they worried? People vanish sometimes. She'd had weirder patrons. He hadn't hurt her. Had he?

She looked down and realised there was something stuck to her chest, and everything was getting very, very fuzzy. "Oh," she said softly. This wasn't supposed to happen. Had she failed? She realised she had, and the panic filled her like the greatest of nightmares, except it was fuzzy and distant, and it was too late now anyhow. Even the magic wouldn't come, just a terrible blankness where it should have been, and a dagger where her life should have been.

Then the darkness was flooding back, full of voices. Except this time the voices were different - welcoming. Familiar, rising around her. One of them said, "Fucking batshit."

She thought she felt someone catch her.

Sober

She awoke to voices. They swirled around her, content to a roar, to a whisper, pleading and cajolling, begging and screaming and chittering. They were everything. The world. A whole lot of nothing. She had to think, to get away, to stop them, but they would not stop and she could not think, so instead she looked about in desperation and found a whole lot of some things. Some walls, mostly. Some furniture. Some objects. A couple of other objects that swirled with their own strange whispers, their own odd shadows. Souls. Mortals. The strange ones that came after. The strange ones that never were. A myth. A legend. And still the voices, yelling and shrieking and singing with madness.

One of the shadows mouthed words and they formed in the space, jostled by voices. They were torn to pieces before she could even try to read them, so she mouthed her own, told the shadows what she needed, whatever it was. She didn't know. The cacophony was too great to tell, there was only clamour and sense and what needed to be done, and so she did it, pulling out pieces from her bag and mixing them in the glass that was now before her. Vodka. Adder root. Seravos. Denna seeds. Less juice. Ghorram. A concoction that mixed to the rhythm of the voices, the voices that overwhelmed, the voices that defined the instant.

It hit her like a brick to the head. Possibly a gold brick. Possibly wrapped in a slice of lemon, possibly taken to the brain. She had no idea. Everything was just swimming. The voices were gone. The glass was empty. The men were staring at her in concern, but it didn't matter. Nothing mattered. Gravity thought it did, but it really didn't matter either. She eyed it warily regardless.

"Whaaaah," Coraline said finally. Or something along those lines. She didn't really know. It didn't really matter. One of the men said something else, and the other responded, saying something as well. Whatever it was, it was lost on her. Then the latter was guiding her out of the swimming room into a swimming corridor and through swimming halls and everything was just gloriously fuzzy beyond belief.

Coraline's head hurt. She felt heavy. Everything felt heavy. Her body felt heavy. The blankets felt heavy. The hand on her shoulder felt heavy.

"Get up," the man in robes was telling her. "You need to get up."

She groaned, or tried to, though nothing really came out. The heaviness was immense, rather like the pain in her head. She could hardly even imagine what it would be to move. The scope of the very prospect seemed epic, a feat for the ages.

Then he was pulling her out of bed himself, and she was even helping, sort of, and then she was standing before him and he was looking at her uncertainly, and her head really hurt. The light hurt. The shadows hurt. His face hurt. Everything seemed to hurt. She closed her eyes.

That hurt too.

"Come," he said, and she realised even his voice hurt. But she followed him regardless.

Space around seemed to swim as it passed by. It still hurt her head, but swimmingly. So she stared instead at the guy's back, at the robe that rippled as he walked, but that, too, was swimming in strangeness. And that, too, hurt. She almost tried to think about what had happened, how this had happened, but the prospect of that, too, hurt. So she didn't, and simply followed.

Ritual

He gave her the skull, and she held it in her hand uncertainly. She had absolutely no idea what was supposed to happen here, but clearly something was supposed to happen, so she held it up, and addressed it, "Alas! Poor Yorrick, I knew him well, Horatio, a man of infinite jest, of... er..." She looked around, then hastily handed the skull back. The keeper took it, looking rather surprised, but nodded.

Coraline stared at him blankly.

More ritual

They were before an alter. Coraline looked at it blankly. It looked like an alter.

"Well?" the priest finally asked.

"Oh," she said.

"Will you pledge yourself to Kyrule?" the priest persisted.

"Sure," she said. "Why not?" Kyrule was fine. She'd not named him for nothing. Or had she? She couldn't really remember. Her head hurt too much to press the matter, anyhow.

There was an awkward silence.

On a whim, Coraline poked the alter. "Hi," she said.

Then she was surrounded by warmth, suspended in light. The pain faded away into nothing, and everything simply faded away. She found herself floating amidst nothing at all, at peace with the world. At peace with nothing. Everything was simple, clear, laid out before her.

And then it all flooded back - not the pain in her head, but the world itself; the voices, just out of reach; the room swimming around her; the alter; the mask; the priests looking on, overseeing this ritual she had probably just completely butchered.

"Holy buckets," she said.

Names and info

HANRON

Coraline Henderson.

CORALINE

Hmm?

HANRON

That's not even your real name, is it?

CORALINE

What is a real name but one you use and make real?

HANRON

The library is at your disposal. There are also frequent seminars that may be of interest - they are provided for the acolytes who study here, but there are no requirements or restrictions on showing up.

CORALINE

Folks just go to what they're interested in?

HANRON

To a point. Some are needed just in general, or for specific path a priest wishes to take, but for your part you shouldn't need to worry about that. Show up if it looks promising or useful, act normal, and learn what you will.

CORALINE

Right. I've joined a cult, I'm an acolyte. I'm doing acolyty things.

(she takes a long drink from her pocket bottle)

Perfectly normal.

HANRON

(starting to look concerned)

Drinking is not normal.

CORALINE

Okay, that could pose a problem.

HANRON

Addictions of the body...

CORALINE

I'm a Carrier of the Death of Souls. Doesn't it strike you as at all odd that I'm here and... well, coherent, among other things?

HANRON

But the amulet...

CORALINE

...only suppresses the effects to a point. Doesn't explain how I got here, either. And you want to know how? My great grand secret for the ages?

He doesn't answer.

CORALINE

(hefting the bottle)

Booze. I just need to stay drunk, and that ain't easy, either. I suppose I probably could try to get a more inconspicuous bottle, though.

You don't want to see me sober. Sober, I'm... well, I'm just another Carrier. It's quite sad.

HANRON

If this works for you, is it possible... is it at all possible that this might work for other carriers, to bring them back?

CORALINE

I wish. It doesn't actually fix anything, just... staves off the voices a bit, you know? Makes me relatively functional. But for other reasons I'm not nearly as affected in the first place.

HANRON

Go on.

CORALINE

I... no. I don't really want to get into that. Just please don't look at me and expect others to be like me.

HANRON

Why would I do that?

CORALINE

Er...

Lunatic woman

Coraline is on a messy bed, with old sheets. She wakes slowly. Her head hurts and she touches it briefly, then notices the woman nearby, moving her head unusually and rubbing it as well.

WOMAN

This isn't. It's wrong. Too late.

(she notices Coraline and backs away)

Waking. Stay back!

The woman makes a threatening gesture.

CORALINE

It's alright, I'm not going to hurt you.

Are you okay?

WOMAN

No? Okay. Not okay. Not the words!

(she grabs a knife and points it)

If just the right words. If you could hear what I'm trying to say!

CORALINE

I hear you.

(she sits up and takes in the room, before looking back to the woman)

What are you trying to say?

WOMAN

What? No. No, no, no. Not possible. That's not.

The woman waggles the knife and then suddenly drops it and scoots toward the other side of the room, toward a makeshift oven, muttering something.

Coraline looks after her confused, then gets up and quickly grabs the knife off the floor. She gives the madwoman another worried glance, but the madwoman is still muttering at and poking the oven, so Coraline goes and checks the 'door'. It opens slightly when she tests it, clearly not locked.

When Coraline turns around again, the woman is standing in the middle of the floor staring right at her.

WOMAN

You. Do you... understand me?

CORALINE

I... I think so?

WOMAN

But the words. These aren't... the words are broken.

CORALINE

Words don't break.

(she hesitates)

I understand you fine. Tell me what's wrong.

WOMAN

These...

(there is a long pause as she figures out how to explain it)

I can't speak words. I can't hear them. Not the right words. Unintelligible speak. I hear people and I know they know what they're saying, and I know what I'm saying, but they don't know what I'm saying and I don't really know either except it's not the right words, even in my head it's wrong. Jumbled. Wrong words. I try to say my words and they come out wrong. They're not right. They're not right.

CORALINE

So it's... the wrong language?

WOMAN

What? No! No, not language. Words from the language. Not the right words, but words. That aren't the right words. I don't understand them. Not my own, not others. Not until... right now. With you?

(she cocks her head weirdly)

You're... different.

CORALINE

That's... aphasia?

The woman looks confused.

CORALINE

It means... it means you can't speak because the words aren't going through your brain right. So the associated meaning just gets lost...

How long has it been like this?

WOMAN

Months. Years. All the same I don't know.

CORALINE

And you've... been here?

WOMAN

Can't go home. Can't speak and tell them how to open it, can't talk to anyone. Thought I was possessed. Demons don't possess, but they don't know that here.

CORALINE

Here, as in Cerris?

WOMAN

(she nods)

In Volundris they'd know. They would know what to do. How to fix this, how to fix me. But I can't get there. Can't talk, can't...

The woman stares at Coraline longingly, then her expression shifts to a sort of futile terror.

WOMAN

No no, no, no, no, no, no no NO NO!

This is a dream. Can't be happening. Can't even speak, no, so my brain makes it up, over and again. No! You're not real!

Coraline goes to her to try to comfort her. It winds up a bit awkward, but there's a hug involved somewhere, and some clinging, and a bit of random hair-pulling.

CORALINE

Shh, don't fight it. It's not a dream, I'm real. I have a hangover that is very insistent on this. I'd have it tell you all about it, but I'm afraid it's a bit of a personal thing...

The woman looks confused.

CORALINE

I understand you because I understand everyone. Language isn't a barrier, if something is meant by the words, then I can pick it up, and I can speak it in turn. Even if the words themselves are broken, even if it isn't a language. It doesn't matter.

WOMAN

How is that possible?

CORALINE

(she shakes her head)

I don't know. It started when I got to this world. I think... it might have been something a god did. So that I'd have a chance. Bastard.

The woman smiles slightly. Then the smile fades into another look of horror.

WOMAN

(accusingly)

And you're going to leave. With your god magic and your understanding. You'll leave, and there will be nobody left to understand. And it will be the same. The same.

She starts moving toward the door. Coraline scoots over slightly as well, but then the woman runs for it and blocks the way, hefting another knife as if out of nowhere.

WOMAN

I won't let you! I can't be alone! Not again! Not without words!

(yelling)

Without words!

CORALINE

Um.

(she holds up a hand disarmingly)

Do you have a name, madwoman?

WOMAN

Rutabaga.

CORALINE

Rutabaga?

WOMAN

No, no, no. Words. Wrong. Names...

CORALINE

Names don't translate?

WOMAN

Yes! No! No no no!

CORALINE

No, wait!

(she holds out her hands again)

It's fine. You can be Rutabaga for now. We'll get you fixed.

WOMAN

What? No! It's not possible!

CORALINE

Rutabaga, listen to me. You said in your world, in Volundris, they'd be able to fix this. We just have to get you there.

WOMAN

But the names...

CORALINE

I know the name because I've heard it before.

WOMAN

No...

CORALINE

I'll get you there. I'll get you home, trust me.

WOMAN

Trust?!

CORALINE

Trust me. You're alone, you can't talk to anyone, you can't tell them what you are, what happened to you. They fear you because they do not understand, and yet you mean them no harm, you simply want to be, and to go home, and to speak? To share your words, to share your experience, to have someone undestand, to not be alone. That's what you want, above all else.

The woman stares at her.

CORALINE

I know this because it is the same for me, not because I cannot speak, but because I can, and even more so because of what lies within me. A curse. I, too, am broken, in a different way. Just an emptiness. Voices and pain that I cannot explain, I cannot tell anyone, even when I need more than anything else someone to trust, someone to turn to and tell me everything will be okay, because there isn't anyone. Not anyone at all.

WOMAN

But you have words. You have the words! You can explain, tell them what it is...

CORALINE

Tell them what? Tell them that I am the Death of Souls, that I am the Carrier?

The woman expresses some sort of shock, and a small amount of fear.

CORALINE

I know what it's like to be alone! I'm trying to fight this, but instead of helping, all those who even know anything would rather kill me. Do you know how many times I've been turned away, how many bounties put on my head, how many swords drawn at the very mention? I know what it's like!

Solution

"Kyrule would have that I help you, though I do not know what all that would entail."

"So what, I should just trust you?" Then she shrugged. "Well, why not. So tell me, then. What do you know of the Death of Souls?"

"I know it is old, a curse that devours everything that a person is, and spreads to others in insatiable hunger. I know there have been crusade after crusade to try to eradicate it, and yet still it persists. I know there are stories told about it, theories and fantasies and even those who would try to master it, but it never helps. It never works."

She nodded.

"Is that what this is about? You're on... some kind of mission?"

"Not as such." She looked at him carefully, then said, "I'm afflicted. I carry the Death of Souls within me."

He didn't react, not like the others had. Instead he simply said, "I see."

"That's what the alcohol is for. It drives away the voices. Keeps me sane." She stopped and then corrected, "Well, maybe not sane, exactly, but it keeps me me."

"That's it? The solution is alcohol?"

"Doubt it," she said. "I think it's more just putting things off. Driving the hunger away in confusion, because how can it eat my proper self when my self is too buried in shalott to even show its face?" "I won't hurt anyone, though. Well, not with this, at least.

"So there's no cure."

"Not that I know of. But you do have resources. Books. I dunno, maybe there's something here..."

Reminiscing on cultisting

Three hundred years ago, Coraline Henderson, then going by the name Anja Torn, had been a regular customer at the Empty Cistern, even then one of the oldest taverns in the city.

It wasn't that the place was close to where she was staying (because it wasn't), it wasn't because it had good service (because it really didn't), it wasn't because the clientelle were respectable (if anything they were the opposite), and it wasn't because the booze was good, although it actually was most of the time. The reason she went here because because nobody cared - eveyrone here was here because nobody cared; nobody cared about the law, or about propriety, or about anyone else's business. People came, they went, and they got, if not exactly discretion, a good heaping dose of apathy.

So Coraline got no trouble here walking in dressed like an acolyte of Kyrule and ordering a triple-dose of 20-stone shalott, even though it was well-known that the acolytes were not permitted alcohol. Indeed, it seemed some of the temple's higher-ups had a made a point of visiting all the bars in town to let them know, just to be clear, but they would have skipped this one.

She got the same trouble as everyone else, of course. The general suspicion, shifty-eyed watching as she passed, the curiosity of what might be wrong with her that was gone as soon as she was, but that was really it. All in all, the Cistern of the time was the sort of place where the more normal you looked, the better off you were - if you looked normal, people had to guess, and the imagination often filled in far worse nightmares than reality ever could. And aside from the robes, Coraline looked pretty normal.

The only real trouble had come the first night she was there, or might have had she responded differently.

She had been sitting at the bar minding her shalott, wondering vaguely how drunk she could safely get and still maintain her cover, when someone sat down next to her and said, "Hey, you going to stop that?"

Not even sure what she should be stopping, she looked around. Turned out someone had died, something which often happened there - a body was slumped over a table and it sounded like people were bidding.

She took this in and just said, "I don't want him."

Somehow that settled it. The guy grinned gappily at her, slapped her on the shoulder, and left. This was the nature of the place, lawless, godless, and ruled only by the order of commerce, of what people wanted. And if someone died, that was valuable.

Of course, had she really been an acolyte of Kyrule and not just posing as one, that could have presented something of a problem. The religion was very much against the mistreatement of the dead, and selling bodies very much qualified as mistreatment in their book. But she wasn't one, and in her somewhat more practical view of things, the dead were already dead. They weren't apt to care.

Nor was anyone else, there. And so, during her stay in the city of Soransie, she came to frequent the place.

Arbitration

"I have spoken and that is final. Shut up leave me alone I'm drinking."

Wizarding

Basic Necromancy was at four. It covered the general theories, and would begin practical studies in reanimation in the next few weeks. Coraline was good at theories, but the reanimation part worried her. It sounded suspiciously like magic, and she had no idea if she could actually do magic.

Not normal magic, at any rate.

Elementals

Coraline had a problem with elementals. Namely with the entire concept.

They were supposed to be summoning air elementals today, but though she pointed out air wasn't really an element, the professor wouldn't listen. So she tried to think of something that was air. Oxygen? An oxygen elemental would probably burst into flame. Nitrogen? But what the hell would be the use of that? It'd be invisible. Carbon dioxide? Good way to suffocate people, if nothing else... but not exactly an element either. Hydrogen would flat out explode. Helium would be funny but not very useful.

Something radioactive, perhaps. Radon? She could give everyone cancer! Okay, maybe not that either.

She sketched out a periodic table in search of ideas. Something further up the table, something inert. Neon? Nice noble gas, and nice and colourful if given electricity... sure, why not.

So she focussed her mind on neon - atomic number 10, simple assortment of electrons, nobody cares about the neutrons - and she twisted it into the spell they'd been going over all morning, with, of course, an added electrical current thrown into the weave to make it actually show up.

There was a brilliant flash of light, and then a form of intense red appeared before her. She giggled as the rest of the class turned to look, then shielded their eyes from the red-orange glare of the neon.

"As I said," she announced to the class, "Air is not an element. This, however, is. It's neon, one of the elements that is found in air."

"Cute," the professor said, and gestured to dismiss the elemental, though when Coraline felt a bit of a rush of warm air afterwards she was pretty sure it had just exploded.

Random

"It's not that I'm incredibly drunk," she said. "It's just that I am incredibly drunk."

---

"It's not like I'm worried. If I could think straight about anything I'd be worried, though."

---

It hadn't been the sister. It had been the sister's dog.

stuff

• wallet
• phone
• bluetooth
• mouse
• three flashdrives
• bus passes
• cuddly sea-anemone toy

• two books - House of Leaves, Guild Wars Factions art book
• pens/pencils
• notebook/pad thingie
• wad of eraser - 'kneaded rubber'

• floss
• screwdriver set
• wirecutters
• pliers
• two knives
• set of upholstery needles
• file
• pair of chopsticks
• small scissors
• MAGNETS

• hairclips
• sunglasses
• extra socks
• small mask (filigree-style)

• tube of ointment
• superglue
• deodorant
• lip colour (paint stuff and balm)

• empty metal water bottle

• bars of soap
• clothes
• spoon
• bristle comb
• set of small pots
• some dried food
• smoked meat
• waterskin
• some money (Verash currency)
• rope

• Strange coin

• jeans
• xkcd sysadmin t-shirt
• huge-ass coat
• scarf
• beanie
• mittens
• boots

...and a staff weapon. Dzang, girl, you go into the world with an odd assortment of junk.

War and stuff

There is a war, ongoing. In the wake of the battles, the dead are left to rot, no longer belonging to opposing sides but merely esisting as 'remains', finally brought together where treaty and diplomacy had failed. For most, it is a tale of horror and loss, but for others less savoury, it is a feast, an unending buffet of parts from which to gorge themselves.

Blah blah blah bad creatures blah hunters blah blah. Blah blah deathdealers to put the monsters down and the dead to rest. Vardaman one of them blah.

Vardaman found something in the process. A note, an emblem perhaps, a lead in a matter from his past that had been all but forgotten, a quest he had embarked upon that had turned up nothing. But here it was again. A message from Gedrel, or perhaps just a reminder. Was Gedrel even still alive after all these years? Did it matter?

It was important enough that this clue led him to abandon the fields of dead and take on the quest once more. Now he had somewhere to search, and he would find it this time.

Probably.

And find Gedrel too, since maybe he'll have found something useful in the intervening years as well...

But what had it been? The quest?

Av Aril

Vardaman looked at his shalott. He drank his shalott. He sighed vaguely and stared off into space. Space winked at him and smiled, and he realised he had been staring in the direction of the waitress.

Then the barkeep refilled his mug, and Vardaman went back to staring at it instead.

The inn was quiet, and indeed nearly empty at this point. Most of the townsfolk regulars had retired an hour back, leaving only Vardaman at the bar and two other old men nearby, so the waitress, for lack of anything better to do, came and sat down next to him. She was rather pretty, especially by outland standards; the seasons here tended to take a quick toll on the people, hardening lives and features alike.

Nothing much happened for awhile. One of the pair of old men fell over.

"There goes Patterson," the waitress said, glancing over. "Every time."

Vardaman looked as well, in time to see the passed-out fellow's friend roll him onto his side.

"Happens every time," he said with a shrug. "We'd used to place bets if it'd get through his skull eventually to not, but, well, never did."

Vardaman raised his mug in a salute and then downed it.

"Don't say much, do yeh?" the man said.

"Don't trust myself," Vardaman replied slowly.

The man laughed and sat down. "Well, I'm Vance, and the guy who winds up with all the gold," he gestured toward the barkeep, who nodded, "is Frankston, and you've met Suze. Finest voice in these hills, and that's sure."

Suze smiled. "Hey," she said.

"Vardaman," Vardaman said. His mug had mysteriously filled itself again, though the mystery was quickly resolved by his realising that the barkeep... that Frankston was still there.

"So what brings you to Av Aril?" Suze asked. She did have a nice voice; didn't sound the faintest thing like a kerosene-powered cheesegrater.

"Zombies," Vardaman said after a bit of a pause. There was of course a good deal more to it than that, but he was having some trouble articulating any of it. "Bones?" he tried again.

"Bones?" Suze repeated.

Vance snorted. "What, you mean the ruins up top Galatharn? You an adventurer or something?"

Vardaman responded by slumping forward on the bar, unconscious.

Hangovers

This was Av Aril, a village on the eastern end of Kartheldrin, a country of hills, junipers, hills, more junipers, and even the occasional yucca, but mostly junipers. It was hot in the days and cold in the nights, but the mornings... those were something else entirely. Horrible, for the most part, at least as far as Vardaman was concerned.

It was the hangovers. One of these days he would have to stop drinking, he told himself, same as he did every morning, though he never did stop. So there were always hangovers. There was always fog. It was foggy. The window was entirely grey. He went over and rubbed clear a pane. Outside was more fog. Oh joy.

Zombies with rocket launchers

Ariel ran down the slope, waving her sword and yelling. It wasn't the smart thing to do unless you wanted to draw attention, but she felt watched and for lack of a better idea it seemed as good a way as any to draw any watchers out. And out they came - zombies armed with... well, she wasn't quite sure. Something thick and cylindrical and very, very black. And pointed at her.

Vardaman just stared at her for a moment, then yelled, "Get down!". She saw he was already behind a stump as she managed to dodge the first couple fireballs, but the third hit her square in the face.

Everything exploded.

Ariel looked down the slope. They had stopped by a large stump, because something didn't feel right. Eyes. There were eyes. And she remembered the fireball coming toward her, getting bigger, and nowhere to go...

"There are undead down there," she said, and cast a seeker spell. The glimmer highlighted through the trees.

"How did you know that?"

That was the question, wasn't it? And how could she explain that she could go back and do anything over, that whenever she died, she simply got a horrible jolt and then could refocus wherever, and, for that matter, whenever? Some wizards did it; she knew this because they had been the ones to give her the idea in the first place, but not with this level of control. No mortal should have this level of control over their own deaths.

"Lucky guess?"

He snorted. "Armed?"

The stupid thing, of course, was that if she didn't have this fallback, she would never be so reckless in the first place. It just worked so well, and as awful as dying was, you got used to it. Just like how dreamers get used to waking up in the morning, she supposed. It sounded dreadful.

"Got blasty things."

"Great." He screwed a knob onto the end of his staff and hefted it. "Good thing we've got blastier."

Everything went white.

Random

"I remember too much. I don't know what has already happened, and what yet needs to happen."

Meet in the park

Vardaman was seated on one of the benches overlooking the park. He looked utterly out of place in this civilised land, a warrior shrouded in leathers and death, and he looked tired.

Ariel sat beside him. She supposed she probably didn't look much better. Younger. Prettier. Dirtier, if anything. Lost and tired.

They watched nothing in particular. Clouds drifting overhead. Some kids playing ball. A man with his dog. Wind in the trees.

"Anything?" Ariel asked.

"No."

"I think I found him."

"Aye?"

"He's dead."

"We knew that."

"Not exactly," she said. "His name is not in the Book of the Dead. He was taken without passing through the halls of judgement."

"You can't know that."

"Probably Saro."

He winced. "How?"

"You would have paid their price in full. Mine was cheaper."

"And what did they ask?"

"They could not buy what I do not have, but whores are universal." He looked at her, but she said, "Don't worry, Vardaman. It was interesting."

"Heh." He smiled slightly. "Everything is, to you, isn't it?"

"It's new."

Death and judgement

She was standing in a vast hall, walls distant, ceiling high above. Everything was grey. An enormous throne stood before them, and on it a winged cat groomed itself, but it was simply background. A robed figure read off names, one by one. Names for those around, but they didn't matter. Nothing mattered.

A whisper tugged at the back of her mind as she stared at nothing. There was only nothing, and more nothing. This place, and nothing, and then the whisper again.

Ariel, it said. The space was clearer. There was a concept here.

Ariel, listen to me. And then she saw the others. She saw the cat, and the robed figure, and the sarcophagi lining the walls. She saw the others, shades one and all, and raised her hand to look - she was as they were. Not quite there, not quite real.

"Dreamer," she said aloud. And she listened.

You are Ariel Sartorien. Remember who you are and all else will follow.

None of the others noticed. None of them moved, simply waiting in turn for their names and sentences to be called, the Voice reading them off, one by one, the winged cat behind him ignoring it all with style.

Names. Lives. Judgements. Sentences. She listened, half hearing, half waiting, half wondering what the hell she was going to say, because she was going to have to say something, and half, somewhere in the very back of her mind, smacking herself for forgetting the meaning of the word 'half'.

"Augorine Zha Siel. You have lived in service, and for your acts and deeds you have been judged as true. Go forth."

"Dyre Austeroferoz. You have lived in fear, and made the world your own, but throughout you have lived without faith. Go forth."

"David Weaver..."

The souls, once called, simply faded away, each by each.

And then it was her turn.

"Anja Torn," the Voice intoned. "You have-"

"No," she interrupted. "My name is Ariel Sartorien!" The Voice moved as if to speak, but she continued over him. "I'm Ariel! I dream the Dreamer's dream, and act as her will upon the world, and you will let me go. In the name of Eapherod, and for the sake of the god you serve in turn, you will let me go!"

Her voice echoed for a moment, and then a silence fell over the hall.

"I see," the Voice said finally.

Ariel stared at him resolutely, though she wondered vaguely where the hell 'Eapherod' had come from. Some webcomic, perhaps? But what was it?

"Very well," he said. "You have lived and died in the service of your god. Go forth and continue as she commands."

Now you run for it, the Dreamer whispered as everything went blank. And be careful. You never know when some...

New god: Eapherod

"Vardaman," Ariel began, "Have you ever heard of Eapherod?"

"What, the god of dreams?" He looked at her for a moment, then said, "Of course not. Who's heard of her?"

"Right, nevermind." She stared into the fire.

He finished a shalott and threw the bottle into the fire.

"Vardaman," Ariel began again as he tried to wrest a new bottle out of his bag. "Yesterday, had you ever heard of Eapherod?"

"What?" He gave her a weird look. "Why would yesterday be any different from today?"

"The world of men is dreaming," she said. "It has gone mad in its sleep, and a snake is strangling it, but it can't wake up."

"That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever."

"Yes."

"Good. I'm glad we've established this." He popped out the cork and took a long swig, savouring the strange textures of the top of the bottle.

"Vardaman," she said when he was done choking on the fumes. "Have you ever died?"

"Er... no?"

"Oh."

"Have you?" he finally asked.

"Of course."

He stared at her.

"It's like waking up, I suppose." She cocked her head. "Except I can't imagine ever waking. So instead of waking I die. Whereas you wake, so you don't need to die."

"That's... lovely."

"Is it?"

"No." He glowered at her. "Seriously, woman, I have no fucking idea what the hells you're talking about."

"Sorry," she said.

Shrine and no mystery

"I know many things," Ariel said. "I know the atomic weight of curry, and the favourite colours of cast of Waste Land, and time it takes to drain a human body of blood given inadequate suction, and the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything."

"What is it?" the priestess asked.

"42," Ariel said. "At least that's the answer I'm sticking to. It's all a book, see. Always books."

"Right," Vardaman said, and got back the entire point of their being there. "Priestess, is Eapherod real?"

"Of course?" She looked at him quizzically.

"See?" he said, turning to Ariel. "Not made up. You now have the word of a woman in a weird black dress on that."

"Everything is made up at some point," Ariel said.

Vardaman rolled his eyes.

"I'm sorry," the priestess said, "But is there some particular problem you have?"

Vardaman grunted. "Dreams. Fucking weird things. Now zombies, those are sensible. You know where you stand with zombies."

"Where?"

He paused for a moment, then said. "Preferably very far away."

Ariel looked at him, confused. "But we've gone well out of our way to fight them."

"Right," he said. "And we've generally done it from a distance."

"Except when they had rocket launchers."

"Zombies aren't supposed to have rocket launchers."

"But those did."

"Those were different."

"Who are you people?" the priestess interrupted.

The two wanderers exchanged glances, and then Ariel said, "Well, he's a deathdealer, and I'm... I'm real. I'm real and I have pills and I am very clear on this."

The priestess gave them a long look.

"We were just leaving," Vardaman said, turning Ariel around. "Sorry to have bothered you."

But then Ariel pulled free. "Wait," she said, turning back to the priestess. "Do you dream the Dreamer's dream?"

"Of course."

"What is the square root of rope?"

"String?"

"Who reigns king of the sandcastle?"

"Kyrule of Arling Tor."

Ariel shrieked and hid behind Vardaman.

"What," he said, moving out of the way, "are you even on about now?"

"Who would you say reigns, little dreamer?" the priestess asked, as though in a trance.

Ariel stared for a moment and then sighed. "Oh, it's Kyrule. Definitely Kyrule. He just... he scares me, is all." She paused. "I mean... I could say Sherandris, but he ain't here and I ain't been anywhere but here, and he's going to die, the Dreamer doesn't want him to, but she made it so and now he's going to die just as sure as she is." She stopped for breath, then looked confused. "I'm confused."

Vardaman took the opportunity to finally steer Ariel out of the shrine.

Hells

Honoured Dead

Ahead, three daemons stood over a solitary figure - an Honoured Dead, alone for reasons they could only guess. One of the daemons poked at him mockingly, and there was a roar of laughter as the Honoured backed away, looking around frightfully in the hopes of salvation.

Vardaman moved to pull Ariel into an alley, but the Honoured had already spotted them.

"You!" the Honoured commanded, "Help me!"

"Oh, shit," Vardaman muttered. They both felt the compulsion to obey, despite the seemingly worrying odds - the daemons were twice as big as they were, and as the Hells were their realm, only all the more powerful - but they also had little other incentive to resist, as such would only arouse suspicion.

Drawing his sword, Vardaman walked slowly forward and stopped in front of the Honoured, looking calmly up at the daemons while Ariel lingered behind, hopefully doing something useful. He wasn't sure if he could take on all three of them at once, and the Honoured Dead soul behind him had shown no signs of competence.

"You've got yourself an army now, dead soul," the lead daemon hissed. "Damned souls to do your bidding, and you think it'll save you?" Its companions bellowed laughter.

"Uh," the Honoured said. Then Ariel let out a yell and, jumping out from behind him, threw a pair of spells at the closer daemons. The leader dodged, but she managed to hit another. It disintegrated.

Taking his cue, Vardaman leapt forward as well, dodging around the others and slashing and stabbing at them with the agility born of years of simply trying to stay alive. It was short work, and as the last toppled behind him, he turned and angrily yelled at Ariel, "Can we perhaps come back to that discussion we were having before?"

"Er," she said, and hid behind the Honoured Dead.

"You know, that one about consequences!" He stopped as though finally noticing the petrified Honoured he'd been shouting around. "What?"

The Honoured let out a deep breath. "I thank you," he said, not looking at either of them.

Vardaman grimaced, then said, "Perhaps you can help us in turn. We're looking for someone..."

"Vardaman," Ariel interrupted, stepping around the Honoured soul. "Don't."

He looked at her. "What?"

"He won't know. No Honoured Dead could."

Vardaman groaned. "Oh, right. Of course not. They won't know anything. It's not like the name was in the Ledger." He stopped and then threw his arms into the air. "The name wasn't in the Ledger. Fuck! So how do we even know he's here, then? This could just be a wild goose chase!"

"Have faith." She smiled slightly. "For without it, what do we have left?"

"Eternal damnation?"

"Besides that?"

"No, I'm pretty sure it's just fucking eternal damnation." He grumbled, then swung his sword up and pointed it at the Honoured. "You," he said, "What do you know of daemons?"

The Honoured took a step backwards, probably more out of surprise than anything else. "The Lords rule the Hells. The lesser daemons serve them in battle?"

"Yes, yes," Vardaman said, lowering the sword. "But what do they do? How do they plan, where do they congregate, and if they try to pull some fucking stupid shit under the gods' noses, how would they go about it?"

"That's impossible. They cannot go against the gods, to do so would be..." he stared at Vardaman.

"What?" Ariel said. "Unthinkable?"

The Honoured nodded mutely.

"Think it."

"I..." he began, but then he stopped to think, to really think. "In the pits. In the fields. The Lords of this level reign from there, and the bloodiest battles are fought before them, with fodder of souls and soldiers. It is utter chaos, and neither side pays heed to details." He looked up at Ariel and Vardaman. "That is all I can think of. But at best you will only find scavengers... they would not actually pull anything. They could not."

"Yeah," Vardaman said. "The daemons of the Hells trying to spread their hell? Unthinkable."

Temptress

"Ariel, you are the worst temptress ever."

"Oh?"

"You turn me against my god, and for what? Such a betrayal should at least entail some fun in the doing."

She laughed. "You're actually enjoying this, aren't you."

"Never."

"Not even a small bit?"

"Only if we get out of this alive."

"Afraid to face your god's wrath, are you?"

"Shut up."

Escape up the river

"I'm afraid Ariel isn't available at present," Ariel's voice said. "She has had a significant trauma, and while the nature of dreams is resilient, even she cannot rebound so quickly."

"Then who..." Vardaman began.

"Eapherod," Kyrule said. "Aren't you supposed to be dead?"

Ariel smiled, whoever she was. "With a little patience, certainly. Do I know you?"

"Do you?" Kyrule said.

She looked at him for a moment, then said, "You are Kyrule of Arling Tor. I know you for the king you are, but you know me for something else entirely. What is it?"

"I only know a name. In your words, who are you?"

"Athyria of Kenning Vos."

"And Sherandris?"

"Reigns king of the sandcastle." When he said nothing, she asked, "Did Eapherod ever say who reigns?"

"I did not yet know to ask."

"Ask her if you get the chance."

Death explained

"A house fell on me," Ariel said.

Vardaman turned toward her. "What?"

"You asked how I died," she said, staring off into space. "A house fell on me."

He rubbed his brow. "An entire house."

"Yes."

Confused, the high priest looked enquiringly to Vardaman.

"Just ignore her," Vardaman said. You've got to hand it to this gal, he thought to himself. Always chooses the absolutely weirdest times to raise questions... and damn strange ones they tended to be, at that.

"Okay..."

The mystery

"Coraline's the mystery! We have to save her."

"Save her from what?"

"From the princess, of course!"

Random

"Remember, I don't know what I'm talking about."

---

Go on, then. You will find the keys to the cupboard behind he who reigns king of the sandcastle. Riddle? Sort of. But you'll see what I mean. Pass the gates, find the mongoose, and you shall see.

Eapherod

"Isn't Eapherod dead?" Vardaman asked. Then, suddenly looking very confused, he turned toward Ariel.

"Don't look at me," she said. "I haven't the foggiest idea about anything because I don't have the foggiest idea about any of this and I don't have the foggiest idea at all because I don't know anything because I don't know anything and I don't know anything and I don't know anything and it's all not anything so don't look at me!" She clapped her hands over her ears and stared determinedly off into space.

Vardaman blinked. Lacking any idea of anything better to do, he blinked again, and then a few times more. Finally, he said, "What?"

"Yes," the man said.

But Vardaman wasn't so sure. Eapherod had certainly seemed alive when she'd spoken through Ariel before. If that had been Eapherod. What had Kyrule called her?

Ariel interrupted his thoughts by saying, "The wombats are right, you know. Gods really are entirely more trouble than they're worth."

"No," the man said.

"No," Ariel said.

"Yes," the man said.

"Yes," Ariel parroted.

"Yes," the man repeated.

"The Dark Sister cannot die," Ariel said. "She who was living is still living, though not necessarily here. I bet your Kyrule knows. He's awfully shiny. I doubt she'll listen to him. I know I wouldn't."

"Yes," the man repeated again, not really paying any attention.

"Sometimes I'm her, you know," Ariel said dreamily. "I wonder who she'll be after she dies. I wonder if death truly is the heaven to the hell of dying. I don't want to see it, but there's nothing to see anyway. Nothing is scary. Defines too much."

Ariel's reactions to gods

Vardaman elbowed Ariel in the ribs.

It took a moment for her to respond, but when she did, he said, "Kyrule."

She hissed.

Then he said, "Eapherod."

Her eye twitched.

"Alyre."

"Her I like," Ariel said.

He shook his head bemusedly. "You are bizarre."

She grinned and said, "Veshura!'

"What about her?"

"I like her too."

"Bizarre."

"Name reminds me of Ganesh," she said. "Deeds of Boethia. No real downsides."

"And would those be cats or gods?"

"Why choose? Why ever choose when you can have cats and gods? Lokshmi forever!"

He looked at her.

"What? Lokshmi is awesome. Saves the world, you know. She does. I think?"

Random

"The cleric has a bunch of dead gods in her head. She'll tell you all about how these are better than yours. And perhaps they are. They're older, at least."

---

"Hazz'ridan!" Ariel yelled angrily.

"You and your cursing Hazz'ridan." Vardaman shook his head.

"It's what he's there for. Grack!" She glowered for emphasis.

"To be cursed?"

Ariel looked at him. "He's a bloody god of dead ends. What the buckets else would he be there for?"

Juggling ale

She juggled some ale. Something niggled in her mind, something about the mystery. Who was it? Where were they going? Who was this Coraline? There was something about it that she was unsure about, but she also wasn't sure about just what that was.

Vardaman, of course, was still drinking his. Strange effect it had on him. Was it because he was human? Or was it because he was real? In dreams, it was as though everything was real, and everything was nothing. Perhaps that was also why the ale changed nothing. It was all still real, all still there, all still so perfectly reasonable. Juggling ale, of course, was reasonable too.

"Nice," someone said.

"Hmm?" she turned toward the voice, then completely freaked out. It was... what was it? A monster, a horror, a... a... "AAAAGH!" she yelled, and dropped the ale all over her feet in her haste to get away, to flee.

"I'm sorry," the figure said. It looked... human? Underneath the horror, a human. "I didn't mean to startle you."

She backed away. "I... I... what... you..." She stopped for breath. "What are you?"

It looked confused. "A humble priest, nothing more."

Ariel looked at it. It was... terrifying. She wasn't sure why, but here, standing before her, she perceived a monster. And yet all she saw was a man, an ordinary man, robed in black. Strong in his faith, coloured like Vardaman. Like death. Like Kyrule.

"Are you okay?" he asked. He looked genuinely concerned.

She closed her eyes. "I'm sorry. It's your Lord. Your Lord scares the ever-living shit out of me, frankly, and I guess I freaked out a bit because of that and I'm sorry."

"Why?" he asked.

She looked at him again. That was, actually, a rather excellent question. Why, indeed? Because... "Because I fucked up," she said. "I fucked up and now, to me, he is a symbol of that failure." She unconsciously drew the ale back up off the ground into a twiling ball and laughed. "How stupid is that?"

"But why would Kyrule be such a symbol?" the priest asked.

She flinched at the name, but said, "He caught me."

"Caught?"

She broke the ball up into bits and started juggling again. "That's what we call it. The souls of the dead just sort of drift out, you know, until the deathgod catches them. And one time he caught me, and it didn't go quite proper. I'm not sure why. Something about... something. I can't explain it, it's just this feeling, it was missing and it didn't work."

The priest-horror looked confused.

"Wasn't his fault, though" Ariel said. "He did everything proper. It was the Dreamer, she kind of borked it."

"What dreamer?"

"Oh, Eapherod as Eapherod, she never would. I don't think she ever could. She's too... well, let's just say she knows a thing or two Kyrule don't. Or she will. Once she finally shows up all those years ago." Ariel laughed and lobbed a ball of ale at the priest's head.

When he ducked, she darted past and out the door, out into the night and the sweet, sweet wind, where she could yell and chatter with all her might, without anyone to object.

Dead body

Ariel poked the body with a stick. "In my professional medical opinion," she said dramatically, "this is a dead body."

"Really?!" Vardaman said with mock shock.

She dropped the stick and knelt down by it. "Oh, yes." She started checking out various aspects of the corpse in more detail - limbs and various regions for bruising and signs of broken bones; eyes and mouth for general oddities; wrists, ankles, and neck for ligature marks; everywhere in general for discolourations; and so forth. "Hey Vardaman," she said, "how do undead work?"

"You know what?" he said, picking up Ariel, "You're done here." He carried her several feet away and set her down again, facing away. "Stay there, yes?"

She eyeballed him, but said nothing as he went back to the body. And, for the time being, she even stayed put.

Thing with Ariel and a hole

Ale on head

Ariel announced, "Vardaman activates special power: become shit-faced drunk!"

He responded by dumping the rest of his ale on her head and shoving the empty mug back toward the barkeep.

Ariel stood and glared at him.

The barkeep gave him and Ariel an odd look, but, when it became clear she wasn't actually going to do anything about it, obliged and refilled the mug, which Vardaman took and happily went back to working on.

"Right, then," Ariel said, and wandered away from the bar. She cast a quick spell to get the ale out of her hair and, twirling it between her hands absent-mindedly, wondered just what to do now.

---

"What are they?" Ariel asked.

"We have no idea," Nellis said. "They act like zombies, but they're... well, they're not. They're not really undead at all."

Woods

They set out into the woods as soon as they were equipped. The ranger took point, guiding them through the dark, with Ariel and Nellis close behind. It seemed a mission of great importance and urgency. Ariel had a really bad feeling about it, but said nothing.

The clearing wasn't far. They came out of the trees and were met by a well of moonlight and utter horror rising out of the brush, sinking into the depths of what seemed almost a ravine, though in truth it was nothing more than a small hollow. Dark and indiscernible objects littered the floor, but what drew the eye, what really drew it, was the pool of absolute nothing in the centre. It was a blackness so pure it gleamed, though no light could ever reflect from something so hungry, so empty.

"Now you see why we were concerned?" Nellis whispered.

The ranger led them to a group of rocks overlooking the hollow. From here they could see everything, but anything looking up would be unlikely to see them, if it even looked with eyes. For the moment all was still, so it was hard to guess.

"Stay here, then," Ariel said. "I'ma get a closer look." She had no idea what she hoped to accomplish, but part of her knew this was too important to trip up over such meddling details as her innate incompetence. As she stood, she faded into the background, not exactly invisible, but just not important anymore. The others could still see her, but anything that didn't know she was there would have had a very hard time ever noticing her.

She half slid, half fell down to the bottom, but none of the mounds stirred. They seemed... asleep. Animals of the forest that were no longer animals, slumbering together irregardless of what they had been - a bull here, a mountain cat there, rabbits, wolves, badgers. But now they were dangerous, paying her no mind as she walked past only because they didn't know she was there. She could feel it, the menace, the fright, the confusion... the hunger. It scared her.

And the closer she got to the pool, the stronger it got.

She stopped by its shore. Oblong and dark. Flat and empty. The same from all angles. It looked like a rendering error, almost. A rendering error that had tried to mate with a black hole. She picked up a pebble and dropped it in. It hit in silence and disappeared.

Ariel looked around, but the slumbering mounds around were as still as ever. Nellis and the ranger seemed to still be by the rocks. It was all on her at the moment. Fuck, she thought, and stuck her bow into the ground so it stood by the shore, by the edge, like a sentinel. And so it would be.

Focussing her mind on the bow such that she could return to it, and only it, she jumped into the pool of blackness.

Visions

She was in a room, square by rectangle by square. The walls were smooth and precise. The ceiling glowed, an indistinct light source. The floor had a slightly raised pad on one side, and a slight indentation on the other. There were no windows or doors.

"Prisoner 8471369, you are called to stay. Stay your piece." The voice filled the room like an intercom. It made as much sense as one too.

"What?" Ariel said.

There was no response. No change.

The bow echoed in the back of her mind like a beacon, though she wasn't entirely sure what to do with it.

She sat on the pad. She paced and waited. The voice returned, and repeated its words.

"Prisoner 8471369, you are called to stay. Stay your piece."

She tried to argue, tried to plead. When it came again she tried to throw a piece of her clothing, but the robe had nothing to throw. It was simply there.

She sat. She waited. The voice came and went. She waited and responded. It came and went. She stood, she spoke, she bounced off walls. Mad words came to her lips and filled the room. The voice still came, still stayed the same, still intoned its odd request.

"Prisoner 8471369, you are called to stay. Stay your piece."

Nothing changed.

"Prisoner 8471369, you are called to stay. Stay your piece."

Repetition of silence and voice.

Light without shadow.

Sound without source.

No hunger. No sleep.

The voice as she sat and waited. The silence as she told herself stories, as she tried to dream, oh, how she tried to dream. But there was nothing left to dream. There was nobody to be. Who was she?

Long silence, interruption and long silence. Nothing to say or do. Nothing but walls. Floor. Ceiling. A bow in the back of her mind like a beacon. The voice.

"Prisoner 8471369, you are called to stay. Stay your piece."

Nothing but time.

Time.

"Prisoner 8471369, you are called to stay. Stay your piece."

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

There was simply nothing. She slipped into the void.

She was standing by the pool again. Memories, voices, feelings, flooded about in a cacophony of normalcy. She knew who she was. She knew where she was. Her hand was on the bow. The pool was before her. It had all been... a dream? Or had it? She stared at the pool in abject terror. If it was a pool. If it was anything at all.

She would have to try again.

Everything about her wanted to flee, but instead she focussed on the bow and leapt once more.

... (another)

She was standing by the pool, shaking. A lifetime. It had been an entire lifetime. Forever in a moment. And now here she was again. What was this? What?

... (another)

Closing the hole

She was standing by the pool. None of it meant a damn thing. It was all just objects, fragments, pieces and pieces of nothing at all.

She shook herself. What the hell had happened? Nothing had happened. Everything had happened. It didn't matter. Here she was.

It's a portal. A hole. the Dreamer said. You know what you need to do.

Ariel looked around at the slumbering mounds and nodded. She pulled an arrow from her quiver and got to work, driving it into each form, and waiting while each ceased to move and became mostly harmless once more. Dispersing the darkness. When the arrow faded or broke, she simply got out another.

Then there were none left, just empty carcasses. The sky was lightening. Birds and insects sang, though none particularly nearby.

Nellis and the ranger were picking their way past the forest's dead like the uncertain victors of a battle that had made no sense. Probably because it hadn't.

"What now?" Nellis said.

"Now we pray." Ariel said, looking toward the pool. The portal. They needed to get rid of it.

Nellis raised an eyebrow.

Ariel paused, but pulled out another arrow. "This," she said, pointing toward the portal. "While this is here, it won't ever stop."

"But how?" the ranger said.

She smiled and turned back to it. In truth, she was scared out of her wits, but it didn't matter. It couldn't. She said the words. "Kyrule of Arling Tor," she intoned, "I, who have no name, would call on you in the name of Kenning Vos, to close this hole upon your kingdom, and upon all others. Act through my motions, and end this."

Then she whispered, "Dreamer, guide my eyes, for I cannot see."

She poked the pool with the arrow.

There was darkness. There was light. There was pain, and then there was nothing at all.

Sunlight exploded into the clearing. The pool was gone. Ariel lay by her bow, the strange shadowy arrow still in hand, all too still. But the air had cleared, and the sense of wrongness that had pervaded the area was gone as well.

Nellis ran and rolled her over, but she was clearly dead, skin too pale to seem skin at all, eyes that faded into blackness. The arrow dissolved into dust as it slipped from her lifeless hand.

"What in the hells?" the ranger asked. "The Lord of Death wouldn't take her for that, would he?"

Nellis shook his head. "I don't know. With this... it may have been a necessary sacrifice."

The other bowed his head, then shook it. "She knew."

"Perhaps. It was certainly no coincidence that I found her." He sighed. "Let's get back to the city."

Awkward conversation

"I was created with a single purpose in mind, and I existed to fulfil that purpose above all else. But something came up that took precedence."

"What?"

She shook her head. "It is strange to have one's very existence called into question, and then sacrifice everything for that question. Very strange," she said. Then she looked straight at him. "We look to our kings, Vardaman."

"What happened?" he asked, confused.

But she only shook her head again. "You should ask Kyrule. My Dreamer would not have me say."

Random

"Eapherod is just a sideshow."

---

"Do you think the gods ever get stoned?"

"Have you ever seen a bellduck?"

Another hells thing

When she passed through the Gate, she was alone. Whether this was by design or instead a simple struck of luck was unknown to her, but it didn't matter - the course was the same regardless. Forward, and on.

It was a standard hell: plains of lava, interspersed with the Towers. Souls and demons stood around and passed from each to each, doing their things, striding across the firey ground as though nothing were off. Cosmetic? she wondered vaguely, and looked up to the closest tower, directly ahead, welcoming all who passed the Gate with its immense architecture. It would be the proper way to go. The standard. Best avoided.

She skirted across the lava fields instead, dancing through the licking flames. She didn't know where she was going, but she had an idea regardless. This way. Onwards.

Back door

The back door was untended, so she pushed it open and slipped through.

The other side was a breath of strange air, architecture reminiscent of a rising city, party guests in formal attire, fake snow falling to the carpet. A large evergreen was decked out in tinsel and baubles.

Christmas? Ariel wondered. But how? Then one of them was telling her, "Welcome, welcome! Take off your coat!" and she was ushered up into the next hall.

This was not a Hall of the Hells, however. This was a high society Christmas party in full swing, full of lights and colours and laughter, with trees lining the hall, tables full of delights, and a dance floor that mesmerised with its swing and twirl. She pushed past guests who smiled and laughed, and guests who paid her no heed at all. Her dress did not fit this, with her leather coat and long pants, but she noticed a few others in similar interspersed amongst the crowd. Other denizens of the Hells? Somehow she didn't think so. This was personal to her.

Or it would have been, had it been her own memory.

Ascension

She darted past the demon before he could really make note, and he made no further move to stop her. Up, she pressed. To stairs. To the lifts. Around the demons, away from them. They would question, and answers she did not have. A demon on the landing, so take the lift. Prisoners in the hall, so take a moment to join them, blend in, and rest. Not that she truly needed it in this place, but it was in her nature to stop from time to time, so stop she did.

They talked, they mourned, and they did not discuss their fates. She reminisced with them, calling out the oddities of life, and the strangers that had been known, and they all nodded and understood. Yes. They'd been there.

Then the guards called for a move on, and she slipped away.

---

She paused at the landing. A guard stood before the next door, though it didn't look like any she'd seen below, so she headed for the lift instead, and the guard began to move too, gliding towards her at angles. Then she was inside, the half-doors closed, and the guard stopped as the lift began to rise.

More guards when she came out, here covering each of the three exits. She rolled past the closest before it could react, and realised what they were - not flesh and blood and magic like the demons themselves, but mechanical. Automatons to guard and hunt. No demon would show mercy, but they did have humour - these would not. This made them dangerous.

She threw her coat over the one at the stairs and didn't stop to check if it had even worked as she ran past, up, up.

These stairs ended in a lobby, two more of the automaton guards silently waiting for her. She pushed the nearer one away as it made a grab, and followed the force of the action over it in a long leap, landing heavily on the hard grey floor. As she regained her feet, several more automatons glided out of doorways. Behind her, the automaton she had pushed was rising wobblily, but the other was also approaching, cutting off all escape.

Ariel stopped, and sighed. "I surrender!" she said, holding out her hands. Somewhat to her surprise, the automatons likewise stopped, then one drifted toward a doorway and she implicitly knew it expected her to follow. She did.

It led her up three floors and down several corridors before stopping outside some sort of office, two demons standing guard by the door. After a moment, the door slid open and she was ushered before the desk, and the grotesque occupant of the desk. He considered her for a moment, and she regarded him as well - a large demon, out of place but not in a pretentious corporate office, nameplate, in-box, telephone, plastic plant and all. The imagery had to be drawn from her own mind, the Dreamer told her. The odds of something this specific appearing somewhere so distant were slim to none.

"So," he said silkily. "Ariel Sartorien, is it?"

She didn't answer. He knew enough already.

He paused, then nodded. "Very unusual for a Damned to come so far. Are you, then?"

She waited a moment for him to go on, but he didn't. "What?" she finally asked.

"Damned. Are you really?" He was smiling slightly now, as though enjoying some private little joke.

"Should I not be?" she said innocently.

Now the demon broke out into a full grin, horrifying in its potential. "Let's find out," he said, and the office faded away into nothing.

Heroes!

There is a story here, perhaps. It's not about them.

Vardaman and Coraline

VARDAMAN

Are you Coraline Henderson?

CORALINE

(looking him over)

No. Should I be?

VARDAMAN

Are you?

CORALINE

Whatever it was, I'm innocent, really.

Zaeres raises an eyebrow.

CORALINE

Well, probably.

VARDAMAN

(suspiciously)

Probably?

CORALINE

Weeell, if this is about a pile of bodies, I might have done that.

VARDAMAN

(looking somewhat worried now)

Erm...

ZAERES

Supposing this is your Coraline Henderson, what would you be wanting of her? An answer to that might help to... persuade her more agreeable nature.

VARDAMAN

You know what, I'm really hoping she's not.

CORALINE

Aww. You're just saying that because you're not drunk enough yet.

VARDAMAN

Are you trying to bribe me?

Coraline grins, and hefts a bottle of shalott.

CORALINE

Will it work?

She waves it and nearly falls over, but before she can Zaeres grabs her shoulder.

VARDAMAN

Right...

CORALINE

Yes, alright, fine. I'm Coraline, though please don't call me that? Names are dangerous, is all.

VARDAMAN

So what, then?

ZAERES

Denereise.

VARDAMAN

And Kyrule called you Coraline because...?

CORALINE

(waving the bottle)

Because calling me Nelanor would have been really weird!

ZAERES

Nelanor?

CORALINE

(still waving the bottle)

That's my name. Don't wear it out.

ZAERES

Your true name? Oh, Denereise, you just told us your true name.

She swings the bottle at him, but misses completely.

CORALINE

Stuff it, Alores.

VARDAMAN

Is it really?

CORALINE

Sandcastles.

VARDAMAN

(he groans)

Oh.

ZAERES

What.

BARKEEPER

(leaning forward)

Is there a dragon involved?

CORALINE

(perking up)

You know, there totally should be.

VARDAMAN

(ignoring the barkeeper)

Nelanor of...?

CORALINE

Kenning Vos.

VARDAMAN

I know the name. Why do I know the name?

CORALINE

(now acting less drunk and more just tired)

Because time.

VARDAMAN

Time?

CORALINE

Zrai. Teleoth. Zorachar. Ejran. Athyria. Sherandris.

Isarra. Nelanor.

VARDAMAN

Fucking hells.

CORALINE

(tiredly)

Time.

BARKEEPER

So. Dragon? Or no dragon?

----

VARDAMAN

Will you stop acting drunk?

CORALINE

But I am drunk!

VARDAMAN

That's entirely beside the point!

CORALINE

(she suddenly relaxes)

Okay, you're right, it is.

Fuller's wife

FULLER

Hold a moment. Is this a mission that might be considered 'worthy'?

CORALINE

Worthy of what?

FULLER

You know, a worthy cause. Just. Proper. Good.

CORALINE

(confused)

You mean like with orphans and stuff?

FULLER

Er...

(he stops to think)

I don't think so? I mean is it more a matter of getting treasure or whatever, or more along the lines of 'this is right and we're doing this because it's right' sort of thing?

CORALINE

I think it's mostly just an OH GODS I DON'T WANT TO DIE sort of thing, really.

FULLER

Oh. Well, it don't really matter to me one way or another, 'cept if it is a worthy cause and stuff I should really tell my wife. She's... into that sort of thing.

VARDAMAN

Into?

FULLER

You know, real pally and shit.

ZAERES

(smiling)

Tell me, Denereise. Are you a worthy cause?

CORALINE

(She snorts with laughter)

Fuck me.

VARDAMAN

(He grunts)

I dunno how worthy this is, but there's an angel involved.

CORALINE

Oh, no, no, no...

VARDAMAN

(surprised, but somewhat pleased by this reaction in spite of himself)

That was my thinking too. So I let this crazy person I know take her shopping. We'll see if there's still an angel involved after they're done.

Anyway, Fuller, go on and get your righteous lass. She should meet our dear... cause and decide for herself, I think.

FULLER

(he shrugs)

All the same to me.

He heads out back.

CORALINE

Crazy person?

Crown

AERYIN

(laughing)

Fuller, you look ridiculous. Why in the hells are you wearing that stupid crown?

He flourishes it.

FULLER

Oh, it's perfectly cunning.

CORALINE

Like a knitted stocking cap from your mum?

AERYIN

He would wear one of those far more proudly.

FULLER

You know I would.

Dead Fuller

There was a fight. Fuller got killed.

CORALINE

You know, this sort of thing is exactly why I like to avoid fights.

(she winces)

Sorry. That's a pretty stupid thing to say now, isn't it?

Aeryin glares at her.

ZAERES

I could raise him as a zombie if you'd like. You'd get to keep all of his good looks and charm, but without any of that troublesome soul business.

AERYIN

(furious)

Why... you... How dare you!

Ariel places a hand on Aeryin's arm, but looks off into the distance.

ARIEL

So according to the liquids guy, who isn't the bear soup fellow, there's three things you need for a resurrection: a soul, some kind of component, and... and...

(she stops, trying to remember)

Glue?

CORALINE

I think Zaeres said the soul was the glue, Ariel.

ARIEL

What, no, I said that. I wanted glue because I was trying to make some tape.

(she shakes her head)

Nevermind.

AERYIN

Vardaman, is there nothing you can do? Plead to your Lord for his return? A resurrection...

VARDAMAN

You know it's not done, least of all by us.

ARIEL

You did it for me, didn't you? Not that it worked, but... still."

(Her eyes narrow in accusation)

And you spoke to her! What did she say?

VARDAMAN

Just some things that didn't make a whole lot of sense. Ariel, come here, will you?

ARIEL

(obliging)

Wot?

He draws her slightly away from the others and whispers something in her ear. A hushed discussion follows.

AERYIN

He's really dead. After everything, I couldn't protect him.

CORALINE

But you can't protect everyone all the time. Sometimes things happen. It's just life.

Aeryin closes her eyes. Nobody says anything for a bit.

CORALINE

I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.

Ariel runs back and starts to kneel over Fuller's body, then suddenly lies down on top of him. Vardaman comes back as well.

AERYIN

What...?

VARDAMAN

Ariel...

ARIEL

(in a whisper, her head on his chest)

Dreamer.

Suddenly Fuller stirs, and groans.

AERYIN

Fuller?! Fuller!

Ariel scrambles out of the way as Aeryin pushes to his side.

FULLER

(sitting up)

Aeryin, what...

They hug and kiss and crap.

VARDAMAN

(to Ariel)

Good job. Your first divine spell. You're clearly a cleric now.

ARIEL

Er. That... so... what happened was basically that... er... I prayed to Eapherod and she... did some stuff... and... sent me some magic and... interceded before Kyrule to get the soul of the dead into... er... this... what?

VARDAMAN

Basically.

ARIEL

Er. I think I'll stick to sorcery.

Vardaman snorts.

ZAERES

But I've seen resurrections before. They don't look like that. They're generally flashier, for one.

CORALINE

But why would you expect flashy from a god of dreams? In dreams everything is normal. It all fits. Even when there are suddenly tentacles everywhere, it all fits.

ARIEL

Tentacles!

Fancy last meal

CORALINE

So.

AERYIN

So.

CORALINE

So we're all here, at this nexus point, this turn of the story, this place where the plot thickens and congeals. And we're faced with an overwhelming question.

(she picks up a menu and flips it melodramatically)

What shall we have to eat?

FULLER

Important questions.

VARDAMAN

What about how we're planning to pay for this this? Anyone stop to think about that?

ZAERES

As I said, money is not an obstacle.

VARDAMAN

You said money isn't an obstacle, not that you'd spend it on us.

MYRR

(staring at her menu)

I do not understand this. These... courses. Does this mean we are to eat multiple... pieces?

(she looks up)

My apologies. You know I am not well accustomed to the matters of food.

FULLER

(jabbing a fork in Myrr's direction)

Remind me, why did we bring her?

Aeryin snorts.

VARDAMAN

Something about politeness and togetherness and propriety and crap.

(he shrugs)

Fuck if I know.

MYRR

So we are together?

VARDAMAN

(He grunts.)

Looks like it.

MYRR

If we are of common cause, then we are always together.

VARDAMAN

Sure.

A waiter appears behind her.

WAITER

(solemnly)

Are we ready to begin?

Vardaman shrugs again. A few of the others look uncertain. Zaeres looks around the table consideringly before finally settling his gaze on the waiter.

ZAERES

Yes. I believe we are.

CORALINE

Do you use real coconut milk? I only ask because we always had to use canned stuff back home and it was kind of... off. Funny aftertaste. Not at all like what you got in Singapore. And don't even get me started on the mangoes.

WAITER

We do not serve mangoes.

CORALINE

Of course you don't. There's no way you could get them this far north.

City of Death

CORALINE

I don't want to run anymore. I just want to stop. To stop. To stop letting everybody down, to stop ruining everything, to stop having to run because there's nothing else I can do, there's nothing else left! I can't take it anymore, and I know this is utterly selfish, but dammit, please, help me. Help me stop running.

KYRULE

From here, you can be saved. Push the curse back into the world, and you will be free.

CORALINE

That ain't freedom. That's just running. More running on top of everything else.

Kyrule says nothing.

CORALINE

Isn't there anything? Anything else?

KYRULE

There is... another possibility. A sacrifice. But it is not meant for you.

CORALINE

And why not?

KYRULE

You should go. Free yourself and go. Wait for your story to follow.

CORALINE

Is it because I'm Nelanor? Because I was the one who named you King? Is that it?

KYRULE

Go. It is not your concern.

CORALINE

It bloody well is. Tell me, Kyrule.

KYRULE

Are you asking as Nelanor?

CORALINE

What?

KYRULE

Free yourself and go, Nelanor of Kenning Vos.

He vanishes. Coraline stares at the spot where he had been.

CORALINE

(yelling after him)

Can't you at least tell me where the fuck my soul even is?!

There is no response. Swirls of dust drift across the street, a sphinx licks itself in a doorway, the river makes its strange creaking noises in the distance. A little ways down the street, a Lost walks into a lamppost.

CORALINE

Right. Fine.

She pulls out a bottle of brandy and took a swig.

BERTRAM

(behind her)

That's one way to avoid your problems.

CORALINE

What, you got a better idea?

BERTRAM

(He shrugs)

Do you know the name Shalias zu Harenai?

CORALINE

Aye.

BERTRAM

Her story, that of the Betrayer, is that to which Kyrule referred. Like you, Shalias carried the Death of Souls, and like you, she chose to fight it, though not in... quite the same way.

CORALINE

Yeah, but that's not really helpful here.

BERTRAM

Shalias found a way to end it, though this solution, too, was not the one you found.

CORALINE

So my ways are better all around, are they?

He raises an eyebrow.

CORALINE

Well, aside from the whole not working. Did hers? Work, I mean.

BERTRAM

She never carried it out. The price was too high, and she chose to save only herself instead, pushing the curse back into the world, where it has led to the destruction of thousands.

CORALINE

And that... is what Kyrule wants me to do? What she did?

BERTRAM

Shalias betrayed her faith and her obligation to the people she should have protected. You share no such obligation. These are not your people, and Kyrule is not your god.

CORALINE

Right. So what exactly was it? That she didn't do.

The Voice doesn't answer.

CORALINE

I assure you my intentions pursuing this are purely sexual in nature.

He doesn't respond to this either and they stand around awkwardly for a bit.

BERTRAM

Find the rest of your soul, Coraline Henderson. The gateway is in the ruins beneath the Amn.

CORALINE

What didn't Shalias do?

BERTRAM

There you must choose.

CORALINE

(giving up)

Choose what?

BERTRAM

Whether you will make the sacrifice, or save yourself.

CORALINE

(finally snapping)

For the love of all things shiny, what sacrifice?!

Fragments of a soul

It shifted in her hands - first a rock, then a mask, then a sword, then a length of chain. It knew no more what it was than what it was supposed to be, and yet it clearly wasn't anything more than an object. But nothing is more than an object, now is it?

"What is it?" she asked.

"An emblem." He gestured toward the pits. "A representation, if you will, of what has come to pass. Of what was lost."

She watched it for a time as it changed, never the same thing twice, though at times similar. It could not make up its mind, if it even had one, because it did not know. "It's the mystery," she said finally. "Ariel thought I was the mystery, but really it's this. It's him."

"So you see it," the dark figure said. "So it shall be."

And then she awoke.

Randomness

"I don't see it. This is madness."

World's Gate

When Coraline, Myyr, and Fuller passed through the World's Gate, it was not as an epic finale to their grand quest. There was no fanfare, no drama, no replay of history to beckon them down the same desperate paths as had claimed the lives of the heroes of yore. Instead, they stepped through to the Underworld quite undramatically, looked around uncertainly, and then made sure their radios were still working.

When the Gate closed, they made sure they were still still working.

Turned out they were.

"Hey, you never can never be quite sure with these things," Fuller whispered. "Can't trust this kind of magic."

Myrr gave him a look that said absolutely nothing. Coraline snorted.

They appeared to be on a street of sorts, though it was unlike any street any of them had seen before, simply a perfectly flat, straight length shaped into the sandy, dusty terrain. Behind them it ended at an impossible wall, too high to follow, and ahead it stretched through further lifeless hills and crannies until the sand gave way to city, a vastness that spanned the entire horizon, sprawling in shapes and forms. One broken tower soared above the rest, fading into the sky itself, but it seemed to only emphasise how jagged the rest were with its own irregular form.

It was clear that nobody out here had been expecting them. People, or what had once been people, loitered in the sand, but it was with such a listless air that they might as well have been sand themselves. Nobody was going anywhere. Some of the denizens glanced at them in passing, but few even saw them at all. It was questionable that most ever saw anything anymore.

"This is the sky under which you will end, Coraline Henderson," Myyr said. "I do not know when or how, but it is so."

"I don't want to hear that," Coraline said. The sky was like an abyss, black and swirled over with other shades of black, but it had no depth to it. It was just there. It made her feel sick.

"It's an abyss," Fuller said.

"How abysmal of it."

"Yeah."

---

The battle had spilled into the streets, though this high up the defenders definitely had the upper hand. Those skirmishes they ran into were small enough to walk around without any trouble.

---

Coraline propped up her staff and sighted down its length. "I see some folk out there. They look important. Think I could hit them from here?"

"Don't," Myrr said. "It's not our fight."

"It's a fight, though. Could be interesting to try." Fuller grinned, but it was clear his heart wasn't in it.

End of Dream

"Fuck," Ariel said, and shattered into dust.

The dreamer had died, and her dream died with her.

---

Coraline never exactly got the news. When there was no response from Vardaman and Ariel, it only confirmed what she already knew to be true.

They had lost.

The Between

Souls rising around. Swirls of light dancing upon ground and surface. Pools shimmering into the distances, spires rising from their waters. Depths falling into nothing. A feeling of a vast cavern, a vast space between places. A realm of transition, and of motion. No way in. No way out.

Voices fill the space. Of memories, of fragments. Lives to precious to let go. Voices that threaten, that plead, that question. Confusion and tulmult. Echoes and whispers and shouts of secrets and legends. The shout and the call and the reverberation of voices against the vastness.

It is not a real place, but it exists. Like the room. Like the garden. Like the city above. It is there, but not.

Those who live will never see it, and those who see it will not remember.

Or so everyone thought.

The kids looked up when they saw the newcomers approaching.

The souls within the soul, the place where they should be

Door

CORALINE

It's like a videogame... except if it were one I wouldn't be standing here in my undies.

----

DOOR

Oh, hello, welcome, welcome! If I'd known there was a lady coming I would have been able to give you a proper welcome.

He doesn't seem to notice her attire - or lack thereof.

CORALINE

Hi...

(she looks around)

Do you get a lot of visitors here?

DOOR

Oh, none. In fact I'm not sure there have been any at all. It's a very quiet place, this. I can hardly remember...

(he looks at her bemusedly)

You haven't seen a dog, by any chance?

CORALINE

Who are you?

DOOR

Oh, well, that's... you know, I don't quite recall. Doesn't matter, though. What good is a name, really?

CORALINE

Francis Door?

He flinches.

CORALINE

But this is a dream.

Avatar of the void

Coraline is in her tavern behind the bar. Toast is toasting in the kitchen. An overnight is drinking some tea, looking hung-over. This... hadn't been what she'd expected coming downstairs; for some reason she had expected a library... but she'd found a bar instead. Weren't they the same?

She looks back to the toast, to the archives, to make sure. When she looks back, the overnight is gone, replaced with a cloaked and hooded figure watching her from within its shadows.

She frowns, for that wasn't there before, then looks back toward the kitchen again. There is now a dog curled up in front of the fireplace.

CLOAKED FIGURE

This isn't you.

Party info

Party:

• Ariel Sartorien (lunatic - mage/cleric/hunter)
• Ense Vardaman (deathdealer - cleric/hunter)

• Coraline Henderson (librarian - mage/sniper)
• Lord Alores Severin Devres Agustine duSante Zaeres (mage)

• Fuller Taeth (mercenary - warrior)
• Aeryin Vals (guardian - cleric/warrior)

• Myrr (angel - cleric)

Conversation handling:

• Ariel: Atrocious, something about being nuts, tends to say all the wrong things if she's even paying attention at all
• Vardaman: Good, but tends to say too much when drunk (and is usually drunk), also very jaded
• Coraline: Decent, but clueless about the world and later drunk
• Zaeres: Excellent right up until the point where he loses interest
• Fuller: Questionable, though good at yelling/threatening
• Aeryin: Decent, in the sense that she's actually sane and capable of carrying on a conversation
• Myrr: Terrible, serious communication barriers

In the game, Fuller is listed as the party leader. So long as his wife is with him, he's not really the party leader. (Though here the leader proper would be Coraline.)
Vardaman or Aeryin often take point in anything involving talking to people, unless Ariel says something stupid first. She usually does.

Fights:

• Ariel: *pokes it with a stick*
• Vardaman: "Ugh, not again."
• Coraline: *shoots it*
• Zaeres: "I'll just stand over here and see what happens."
• Fuller: "Attack everything! Attack!"
• Aeryin: "Take point. I've got your back."
• Myrr: "Is this our concern?"

Why don't Vardaman and Zaeres have any problems with each other? Deathdealers do not tolerate vampires, nor any undead, but especially vampires... not that Vardaman is at all typical of a deathdealer.

Fuller and Aeryin are married. It makes as little sense to them as to anyone else, and yet it works. Potentially too well at times - when you see them in battle it all falls into place.

Gods:

• Ariel: Eapherod ("Is the Dreamer a god? I thought she was just a voice in my head.")
• Vardaman: Kyrule ("Don't get me started on gods. Don't even.")
• Coraline: n/a (*mutters something about foot fungus*)
• Zaeres: n/a ("I make my own divinity.")
• Fuller: Orin ("Huh?")
• Aeryin: Orin ("What about them?")
• Myrr: Kyrule ("I serve Kyrule, and act as his will upon the world.")

Alignments:

• Ariel: Chaotic neutral (She's insane, but not necessarily good or evil. Just insane.)
• Vardaman: Lawful neutral (The world is harsh. And so is he.)
• Coraline: Neutral (Lawful about some things, chaotic about others. She generally means well, but her logical approach to overall problems often leads her to do things that others would consider to be quite cruel.)
• Zaeres: Lawful evil (Usually a decent guy to be around unless you manage to tick him off. Won't help at all unless he likes you, though.)
• Fuller: Neutral evil (He really likes to attack things. Doesn't have very good manners. Not sadistic or cruel, though, just belligerent.)
• Aeryin: Neutral good (Too practical to be considered lawful in practice, though she usually leans toward it. Finds Fuller's antics to be more funny than anything else.)
• Myrr: Lawful good (She's an angel and the right hand (or possibly wing) of a lawful deity.)

Vardaman and an angel

EXT. TOWN STREET - DAY

Vardaman is standing by a street watching folks go by. He looks bored and mildly irked, for whatever reason.

An angel in resplendent horror appears behind him (MYRR) and he turns quickly, starting to draw a sword. Then he sees it's an angel and stops, looking a bit confused.

VARDAMAN

Oh, uh...

MYRR

Be not afraid, mortal. I am Myrr of Souls, the Falcon of Kyrule, and I have come to offer you a task...

The angel stops, looking around. People are staring in varying states of awe, confusion, horror, and curiosity.

Vardaman now looks more than just mildly irked.

VARDAMAN

Will you put your hood on?

MYRR

(pulling down her hood)

I am sorry. This was not meant to alarm, but it is easy to forget the ways of mortals.

This hides most of the horribleness.

VARDAMAN

Yeah, I can see that.

Suddenly Ariel jumps at them out of the growing crowd and starts waving some massive leeks in Vardaman's and, as soon as she notices, Myrr's faces.

ARIEL

(screaming)

I found CELERY!

VARDAMAN

(trying to push her away)

Um...

ARIEL

Celery! Celery!

RANDOM CROWD PERSON

But those are leeks...

VARDAMAN

(trying to hold Ariel away at arms' length)

Will you fucking...

(he suddenly decides to just ignore her instead)

Alright, Myrr. What is it?

ARIEL

Celery!

She smacks Vardaman in the face with a leek.

MYRR

It is a difficult matter, something not to be taken lightly. You should know that you have been chosen for your unwavering faith and strength in the midst of most difficult darkness, and this will be the truest test of your resolve to...

VARDAMAN

(interrupting)

Get to the point, will you?

ARIEL

(even more loudly than before)

CELERY!

The angel takes a step backwards, then adopts the exact same stance as before.

MYRR

It is a difficult matter, something not to be taken lightly. You should know that you have been chosen for your unwavering faith and strength in the midst of most difficult darkness, and this will be the truest test of your resolve to stand as Deathdealer.

Vardaman groans, but lets go of Ariel.

Ariel stops waving the leeks, looks at the angel, looks at Vardaman, and then looks back at the angel consideringly.

Meanwhile Myrr goes on at length. We don't really care so we'll just skip past that.

Most of the crowd realises it doesn't care either and wanders off while Vardaman and Ariel wait for Myrr to actually get to some sort of point.

Two hours later:

Ariel is leaning against Vardaman and drooling on his sleeve.

MYRR

You must find a wanderer, one not of these worlds, who has been cursed. You call it the Death of Souls, but though its very presense threatens to consume everything that is, this time it is different. This story mimics that of Shalias the Betrayer, and as Shalias, you will know the Carrier by her stance and by her fate, for she too will hold the golden coin. You will join her cause and aid her to the end, whatever it may be. This shall be your task. So it has been decreed.

Cue flashback to Vardaman and Coraline at some bar. They're both rather drunk by this point, just babbling about something utterly inane.

Vardaman stares at Myrr for a bit, then moves slightly. Ariel startles and then stares at him.

VARDAMAN

Do you people practice sounding cheesy?

ARIEL

(wiping off her face with a leek)

You know, that's the mystery. We need to save the mystery, you know. You promised.

She waves some leeks for emphasis.

VARDAMAN

Great. It's like it's all been fated to work out.

ARIEL

(beaming)

Oh, don't worry. My dreamer is way too incompetent to have planned this.

(mumbling)

Eapherod, on the other hand... no, she's not that competent either.

MYRR

(to Ariel)

Your mystery has placed you on this path for a reason, child. Do not waver, and the truth will shine through.

ARIEL

Yes, yes.

(she drops the leeks and tugs on Myrr's arm)

Let's go shopping.

MYRR

(moving toward Vardaman)

You will need guidance...

VARDAMAN

Oh, I think I know where to find her. You two have fun. Shopping.

ARIEL

Good fun! We'll get you a nice hat and a box of wangs and some shiny paint and everything. And maybe even some swords! And we could go all out and...

(she lowers her voice dramatically)

...get things like travelling supplies and foooood!

Vardaman gives them a small wave, and Myrr relents and allows Ariel to tug her off back toward the market.

Vardaman then wanders off in the other direction and corners a random guard.

VARDAMAN

Oy, how many taverns does this town have?

GUARD

Five, though I reckon only one or two'll be open this time of day.

VARDAMAN

Either of those have good shalott?

GUARD

That'd be Kessigan's.

VARDAMAN

What about really bad shalott?

GUARD

Also Kessigan's.

Meeting

INT. TAVERN

Coraline is at the bar. Vardaman goes and sits next to her. The barkeep gets up very, very slowly.

CORALINE

(suddenly realising she actually knows the guy who sat next to her and he probably isn't trying to kill her)

Oh, hello!

Vardaman gives her a long look.

VARDAMAN

You know you have an angel after you?

CORALINE

(exasperatedly)

Oh, for the love of waffles...

VARDAMAN

I'll take that as a yes.

More stuff

If he thought you'd gone on that oath, I wouldn't be here.

Right... well... That's not all there is to it.

It

I haven't slept in almost two months now.

Oath

"Kyrule of Arling Tor, I will guard you, now and always. You know I will."

Fuzziness.

Dead Agata

"Agata..." she turned fractically back to the high priest. "I had a cat with me before. Have you seen a cat anywhere? Is she alright?"

He frowned. "No," he said slowly. "Why...?"

She looked around, trying desperately to remember. The priests were watching her curiously, but this had nothing to do with them. Something about death. Blood. One soul?

There was a knife on the alter, and she grabbed it, looked at it in momentary confusion, slashed at her other arm, and immediate dropped to the floor. "Blood of my blood," she said, drawing the sigil again on the tiles. It was almost the same as before, but not quite. This one was for the present, for renewal. For life.

"What are you doing?" the main guy cried, and jumped forward to stop her. But the last stroke was quick, and she was done before her got there, flashing the entire shape into darkness, black smoke rising and coalescing in the circle.

She was already feeling light-headed. Bad idea, perhaps. But done was done, and the shape was there. Paws, whiskers, ears. Tail. A feline smile, a weight of fluff.

"It worked," Agata purred. "You're better than my last witch."

"Agata!" Coraline screamed, and drew the cat into her arms, hugging it, getting blood all over its fur and also herself in the process, but not even caring. She kept trying to say something else, but nothing would quite come out, and just sat there rocking back and forth, cat in her arms, tears streaming down her face, blood down her arm.

"What..." someone started to say, but was interrupted by the high priest sweeping forward and covering Coraline.

"Everyone, out," he commanded, but then ammended that the main guy could also stay.

Later, after the place was cleared and Coraline had managed to calm down a bit, he mused, "So this is how you survived at all. You're a witch."

"Good witch," Agata said. "Wouldn't have done this for my last one."

"Yeah," Coraline said. "Er, sorry about your floor. I kind of panicked a bit there."

"Floors can be washed," the main guy said, "but what of everyone who saw that stunt of yours? What in the hells are we supposed to make of that?"

Agata peered at him suspiciously. "Old magic," she finally said when nobody else said anything.

"To ressurect your familiar?" the high priest asked.

"She died for me," Coraline said. "I didn't know how to face that. I could feel her gone, I just knew what she'd done, and it was too much. So..." she shook her head. "I did something?"

"Wasn't completely gone, now was Í?" Agata said. "You still knew what to do. I was the only one who ever knew that."

The other Coraline

But if I do this, what about the real one? What if it deprives some other girl out there of her birthright?

You're from Ord, right? Coraline Henderson. A peculiar name.

Yes...

You don't know where you came from. Lived on the streets, hitchhiked about, eventually wound up here.

Lost family

Coraline entered the room hesitantly, so much so that Faulo wound up having to pull her the rest of the way in by the hand. There were three of them waiting there - an elderly fellow who looked oddly familiar, a woman who seemed quite preocupied by the ceiling, and another guy who seemed to be some sort of guard. A cliché of a guard, at that - he had a suit, some sort of gun thing, a pair of sunglasses, and what was probably an earpiece for the ordian equivalent of a radio.

The man fixated on Coraline at once and stepped forward hopefully. "Coraline?" he asked.

She startled at the name, but managed to mostly cover her surprise. "Um," she said. "Hi?"

"It is you," he said, smiling. "How lovely you've grown, just like your mother."

She looked at him, confused. She didn't know this man. This was all just a horrible inter-universal mixup. Except the thing was, he looked like her crazy uncle Frank. Just without the long scar across the top of his face.

"I'm sorry," she said, taking a step backwards, "but who are you?" She wasn't even sure if she was playing along or not at this point. Mostly, she was just confused.

"Coraline, this is Lord Teller," Seras said. "He's your uncle."

Heading to pick up dress

"It's just a mask, dearest. A... my sister designed it, and when I saw it I told her I wanted one, so she just had a whole pile of them made and shipped me a box of about a hundred. I wasn't expecting that, but apparently that was cheaper than only having one made, and she figured, 'why not? What kind of dumbarse sister of mine can't find a use for a hundred lace masks?'"

"And did you? Find a use?" he asked.

"Oh, yeah. I made a chandelier out of them. That thing was awesome." She sighed. "I miss that chandelier."

"You... made a chandelier out of masks?"

"Yes." She smiled proudly. "You should have seen the glittery patterns it threw at the walls."

"Okay, I have to ask," he said. "But just... how old are you?"

She paused to think. "Twenty five, I think. Why?"

He looked surprised. "You're well-educated, a master crafter -"

She snorted at that.

"But you also act like you've actually seen the world," he continued, ignoring her interruption. "And you've got a crassness about you, too, not like what one would see in noble circles. How have you have you seen so much, and yet acquired such skill?"

"Oh, you think I'm crass?" she said, eyeing him. "Now there's this other guy I know, he's crass, all fuck and shit and fucking shit vittu vittu. Well, not vittu, obviously, but you know what I mean."

"Is this guy's name Vardaman by any chance?"

She feigned surprise. "How did you ever guess?"

"You don't seem the sort to hang around cutthroats."

"Sure I am," she said. "If they're paying, anyway."

He looked skeptical.

"As a barkeep is, she tends her folks." She frowned. "Or something along those lines."

"I thought you were a witch."

"There's a difference?" Coraline asked.

Heading to pick up material

"So what are we doing?"

Coraline looked around. "I'm not entirely sure. The lifespan of phonebooths is one of those mysteries of the the universe."

"Uh huh."

They both just stood there for a bit.

"I'm not sure," Coraline repeated. "Frankly it's been awhile since I've been in a city like this, and the last time... we knew where we were coming from and going ahead of time. Get through customs, and then the first stop was the place we were staying. And they always had information around the train stations," she mused.

Deathdealers

They were down to three.

They had passed all the trials. Achieved all the things. And now, standing at the end, holding their mugs, they were down to three.

It was a potion, that last step that would turn them into the true swords of the god. It was just water, of course, but it was also more than water. Molecularly it could be anything it wanted, Coraline supposed. She wondered what she was doing here, what she was thinking. This was not what she was supposed to be doing, she knew that much. But at the same time, it made sense. It had made sense all the way here and now here she was standing with these two other warriors who were willing to do anything for their god, to give up all the world to be his will.

All she wanted was to survive.

She clutched her mug of water-not-water closely, and the others, too held theirs in trepidation. All they had to do was drink. It could kill them, of course, but it wouldn't, not if they were truly strong enough to be what they needed to be.

Garen smiled slightly, and Martel just looked down.

It was Coraline who drank first, first a tentative sip, then large gulps until it was all gone, deep breath at the end. The others followed suit, not wanting to be outdone, and then Garen just laughed.

"Well, that wasn't so hard!" he said.

Coraline smiled too.

"Speak for yourself," Martel said. He was almost shaking. "It's over, then?"

"No," Coraline whispered. "Now we must last the night."

She sank to the floor slowly, drifting down like a lost shawl, down down down across the tiles, her hair trailing after into a whispering puddle, the others moving to catch her as she slipped out of grasp...

She was in a space. Everything was dark, but she could see herself. Everything was peaceful, quiet, calm. All her pain gone. All the voices silent. Just her own self, free and alone, sitting in the dark.

She let it be. Simply sat. Waited. Not for anything in particular, just nothing at all.

There was a presence before her. A figure, shrouded and dark, but against the darkness of the space, infinitely bright.

"This place. Is it yours?" he asked.

"No," she said.

"She called it Midnight," he said.

"It's been called a lot of things," she said.

"It's not real," he said.

"No," she said.

"But it is," he said.

"Yes," she said.

"You can't stay," he said.

"I know," she said.

"You need to wake up," he said.

"I know," she said.

"It's all right," he said. "You don't need to be afraid. Not here. Never here."

Suddenly she was hugging him. Surprised, he hesitated, then embraced her in turn.

"It's all right," he repeated. "You're safe. I'll protect you, my dreamer."

"I know," she said, and awoke.

Coraline was lying on the floor. It was morning. Martel was sitting up, rubbing his head. Garen moaned.

"What... just... what..." Garen said.

"Yeah..." Martel agreed.

"That was weird," Coraline said, getting up. She felt better than she had in months, stronger, more aware, the voices pushed away into the back of her mind.

"What?" Garen asked, still lying flat on his back.

Coraline opened her mouth to answer, then reconsidered. "What... happened?" she asked. "Did you dream?"

Martel shook his head, then winced again. "One moment we were all drinking, the next... floor." He spread his arms to demonstrate, and added, "Looks like we all made it. Yay!"

"I'll drink to that," Coraline said, pulling Garen up off the floor. He practically bounced.

The door to the chamber boomed open and Harrus swept in. "Well, you're all Deathdealers now. Congratulations," he said flatly. "There are those who will think you are the chosen of Kyrule, but you know that's not true. You chose yourselves. You chose this."

"Kyrule's big on choices, isn't he?" Coraline said, cocking her head.

Harrus snorted. "You'd know more than most, wouldn't you?" Then he addressed the other two, handing each a coin, "I'm proud of you, you know. Now get out there and guard the world."

"That's it?" Martel said.

"What about her?" Garen asked, indicating Coraline.

She shrugged. "Got stuff to do, you know," she said vaguely.

Martel frowned. "You're some sort of chosen after all, aren't you? That's why you've ascended so quickly."

"No, that would be because someone tried to kill me," Coraline corrected, "and that seemed like the easiest way to keep them from finding me again when they came back to finish the job."

The other two looked a bit surprised at his.

"I'm still working on sorting out what's all behind that," she added.

Notes on the Death of Souls

• Contagion: Usually folks just die immediately as a result of contagion, as opposed to turning, hence relatively low spread
• Spread by those who don't just die ('carriers') trying to eat their souls - hunger the result of trying to fill the resulting hole?

Early stages (0-3 days)

• hunger
• restlessness
• fear

Intermediate (0-4 days)

• insatiable, overwhelming hunger
• loss of awareness
• seeing things that aren't there
• hearing voices
• loss of ability to sleep
• extreme twitchiness
• eyes turn black

End (0-7 days)

• utter madness
• voices shouting
• loss of soul/self
• contagion
• death

• Longest recorded carrier lasted 11 weeks. Survived by application of soulbinding and devouring the souls of spirit forms. Succeeded in curing the infection from self; method used and current whereabouts unknown.
• Longest recorded non-magical carrier lasted 13 days since initial infection.
• Average lifespan for carriers: 5 days.

BOUNTY: Black soul gems (Carrier 'souls' turn black in soul gems). Bounty only allows one black soul gem at a time. Attempts to turn in more than two at a time result in no bounty, confiscation, and a black mark (to stave off practice of allowing infection for monetary gain)

Bounty put out as a result of sudden rash of outbreaks that occurred 2-3 years ago; rates are down again, but the disease/curse remains more common now than it used to be.

Carrying soul gems may help to prevent infection upon normal contact; use of soul gem upon Carrier death appears to reliably prevent the curse jumping to nearby hosts.

Upon carrier death, Death of Souls appears to have a ~20% chance of jumping to any nearby living creature of sufficient base soul type. Jumping to two from a single dead host has been observed/reported once.

Finland

"Everything is forbidden in Finland, or if it isn't, then it's taxed."

~ A Finn

The thing about Finland is that, if one were to simply sit down and start describing it, it wouldn't even sound like a real county. It has seasons and people and things and glow-in-the-dark deer and giant statues of butts and tar-flavoured lemonade. It is a country where people will tack letters to the wall rather than interact with each other directly, where everyone will just stand around waiting rather than say anything when a bus driver forgets to open the doors, where personal space is not just valued, but imperative. Graffiti is short and to the point. Sarcasm and cynicism are taught in schools.

Metaphors comparing Finns to drunk, angry bears have proven effective, and general descriptions of antisocial engineers have also held quite well, despite most Finns not being, in fact, either engineers or antisocial.

One Finn explained, when asked how to approach a Finn, "You don't. You just don't."

Coraline was not necessarily an exactly average Finn, but she was also by no means unusual.

Steel (sword)

The thing with steel was that its hardness seemed to depend entirely on the carbon. If anything, the iron in it was the weakness. So Coraline wanted a diamond sword. Just a big-arse sword made of solid diamond. Or better yet, some sort of carbon compound that was even stronger. Like... graphine or something. Totally a thing.

Unfortunately Barney had thought her mad when she'd brought it up. Ambiguously more or perhaps less fortunately, this had also led to him following her around trying to sell her a sword for the better part of four months.

Now she had a sword she could scratch with her earrings.

This ain't even living

CORALINE

Everything is noisy. That's my world. Constant noise. Sounds that don't fit, voices that aren't there, a clamour and tumult and thunder of noise, noise, noise that never stops, until one day when it will, when it will all stop and I will finally have peace, and on that day I will probably be dead. But it's still something to look forward to. It's something. No more fuzziness. No more noise.

GUY

And that's it?

CORALINE

It's peace. Freedom. Something else that ain't this.

GUY

It's death, though. That's not what you want.

CORALINE

Death? I'm already dead.

(she laughs humourlessly)

I'm drunk. I can't even put proper concepts together. I can't care about anything, not really. It's a life, sure, but it's not living. It's just one thing in front of another, moving, forward and on, but not properly living.

Because I still remember. I still dream of what it was to go through life, to be properly aware, to be a proper person interacting with the world and experiencing things in full without this fuzzy mantle covering all the sharp edges... I remember anger, fear, hatred. And pain. I remember them as concepts, but what they feel like I cannot even comprehend. Instead I'm just here, existing, ambling, and it's all good, all the time, but I cannot even love, either, not really.

GUY

That's not really...

CORALINE

It is! It's the only existence I've got, and it's horrible, but I have to have it, because the alternative is so much worse. Like this, I have fuzziness and a not-quite world, but without it I have nothing at all, only pain and horror and a terrible emptiness. And the voices, that never stop.

This, it's quiet. It's quiet, at least.

Escape from the Hells

Vardaman pushes and pulls the other two into the boat as the ferryman watches impassively. Charo slides into the bottom and sits wearily. Ariel collapses in a heap.

There's a long pause. Vardaman stares at the ferryman. The ferryman does nothing.

VARDAMAN

I don't suppose you'll get us out of here?

FERRYMAN

Do you have the fare?

VARDAMAN?

What?

(he checks his pockets)

Oh, no, I must have left it in my other pants...

Ariel slowly stands up behind him, taking on an aura of auraness. It's very presency. And commanding. And stuff.

ARIEL

Ferryman. You will take us from this place.

FERRYMAN

You are damned and bound. Without the fare, you cannot leave these realms.

ARIEL

You will take us. I command it.

There is a long pause. Vardaman raised a dubious eyebrow.

FERRYMAN

(bowing slightly)

Very well.

The boat slides silkily over the water...

Awkwardness

ARIEL

Vardaman, think about it this way. It's like when you lose a screw, and you don't know where it went. You take another screw and this time you watch where it falls.

VARDAMAN

Then you lose two screws?

KYRULE

Or you find both.

ARIEL

Either way you still need the screw you lost, so the second screw is a risk you can afford. But this time you're watching, so even then you're not likely to actually lose it.

VARDAMAN

What are screws?

ARIEL

They're... little thingies that hold stuff together. Easy to drop when you're working with them, though.

VARDAMAN

And the screws in this metaphor would be...?

ARIEL

Kyrule?

KYRULE

Lost souls.

ARIEL

Unfortunately I don't actually have an overabundance of souls to throw at the problem, or even any spares, so that's an issue.

KYRULE

Fishing for a donation, are you?

ARIEL

Weell...

Digital

You forget so much when you go digital. You forget how to cut out and store a template for a poster, how transactions are all made on location, how you have no idea at any moment what is happening anywhere else. You forget the girls they hired to manage the records, you forget the store-rooms filled with nothing but papers, the indexing systems, the boxes. You lose the uncertainty of printing, and you lose the danger of only having a single copy, because now there is never only a single copy. You forget the worth of things, and only know the worth of names.

And then you go back. And you forget how much trouble it was to guard your name, how easily things could disappear, how scary it was when your entire work could be lost. You forget the monotony, the simplicity, the boredom. You forget what it feels like to run on the road, to go south for the winter, to come home after. You forget the friends you made and never met, the things they made you feel, the things you shared with them. You forget what it's like to have fifty pens and yet find that none of them are the one you want.

And then you go back.

Back in a world of ideas, of conceptual currency and ephemeral product. A world where food is cheap and work is expensive, a world where you can hop from planet to planet in a matter of minutes and yet still see nothing new. Updates stream throughout the stars and indeed here we know it all, and yet still we know nothing, because people. People never change.