Leonidas left them treasure.
Fendor disliked the sentence before anyone said it aloud.
They remained inside the Pack Glitch’s lair long enough for the violence to settle out of the air. Nothing else came for them. No hidden guardian awakened. No blue dragon tore open the roof. Whatever design the Naked Goddess had been attempting through the creature they had hunted from the Crossroads, that part of it was finished.
The body was still there.
Fendor tried not to look at it while they searched.
That was difficult.
There were too many versions of Leonidas now.
The man he remembered.
The companion with the parasol, Pete and a suicidal affection for magical objects that should never have been touched.
The figure carved beneath Gildan with tentacles around his legs.
The Pack Glitch.
The thing they had killed.
Perhaps all of them had been the same person.
Perhaps none of them had.
The conversation about timelines could wait until someone found a version of the explanation that did not make Fendor’s head hurt.
Treasure was simpler.
Usually.
“This is yours,” Nethnarel said.
She held out a longbow.
Fendor took it.
Cold moved through the wood.
Not enough to burn the fingers. Enough to make the bow feel as though it had spent the last century beneath winter stars.
He examined the limbs, the string and the subtle enchantment worked through both.
“Another bow.”
Kaylor looked at the weapons already carried across Fendor’s back.
“You needed one.”
“I always need one.”
“You have several.”
“That is how needing works.”
The weapon was exceptionally made and heavily enchanted. Its ordinary arrows would strike harder and truer than those loosed from a common bow, but the deeper magic waited for a perfect shot. When everything aligned—the angle, the release, the impossible instant when bow, arrow and target became a single line—the weapon would answer with a violent eruption of killing cold.
Fendor tested the draw.
“Icy Burst.”
Nethnarel nodded.
“You naming it?”
“No. That appears to be what it does.”
“Less dramatic.”
“I have enough dramatic weapons.”
Kaylor looked at the Vorpal Longsword.
Fendor followed his gaze.
“That is tasteful.”
“That sword cuts heads off.”
“Elegantly.”
They found the candle next.
It appeared harmless.
That was the first warning.
The wax was dark and perfectly preserved. Ancient symbols had been worked around the base, but they revealed little until Nethnarel and Kaylor examined the magic around it.
Then Nethnarel’s expression soured.
“Oh.”
Fendor looked over.
“What?”
“Chaotic evil.”
Kaylor folded his arms.
“Of course it is.”
The candle carried powerful invocation magic. Burned under the correct conditions, it would strengthen people spiritually aligned with whatever force had been bound into its creation.
Unfortunately, the force represented by this particular candle would have considered most of the heroes enemies.
Fendor held it at arm’s length.
“So we light this when we want everyone unpleasant nearby to become more dangerous.”
“Essentially,” Nethnarel said.
“Excellent treasure.”
Kaylor took it from him and wrapped it carefully.
“Still useful.”
Fendor stared.
“How?”
“We may meet someone we dislike.”
“That is not an explanation.”
“It’s enough of one.”
The third enchanted object was a die.
Six-sided.
Small.
Unimpressive.
And dishonest.
Its magic allowed the owner to decide which face appeared when it was thrown.
Fendor rolled it once.
Four.
He rolled again.
Six.
He narrowed his eyes.
“One.”
The die settled.
One.
Kaylor smiled.
“That’s useful.”
Fendor immediately closed his hand around it.
“No.”
“What?”
“You are not allowed near this.”
“I haven’t done anything.”
“Yet.”
They agreed the Charlatan’s Die suited Isamu better than anyone else, though the monk was not especially known for cheating at dice. Perhaps that was what made him the safest owner.
The rest of the hoard contained substantial platinum and valuables—rings, a cup, a mask, an ornate bracer and other objects that looked more important than they were. Nethnarel checked them carefully.
No magic.
Fendor was almost disappointed.
Almost.
They packed what mattered.
Then they left Leonidas beneath Gildan.
No one said goodbye.
Not because they had nothing to say.
Because none of them knew exactly who they would have been saying it to.
The return to the surface felt like coming up from a grave.
Gildan was painfully alive.
Noise struck first.
Wheels over stone.
Merchants arguing.
Children running where adults wanted them not to run.
Bells.
Animals.
Open air.
After the blue-lit machinery, frozen caverns and impossible gothic halls beneath the city, the ordinary irritation of civilization felt almost miraculous.
Hexen stopped in the middle of it.
Fendor nearly walked into him.
“What?”
Hexen did not answer.
The sensation came through the ground.
Not a voice.
Nature rarely bothered with words unless someone forced it to.
This was pressure.
Wrongness.
A distant wound.
Hexen turned.
Beyond Gildan, following the river country toward the great lake, something had disturbed the natural order badly enough that he could feel it from the city.
The Cloak of the Moon stirred lightly against his shoulders.
Nethnarel saw his face.
“What is it?”
“Something foul.”
Kaylor looked around.
“Here?”
“No.”
Hexen pointed toward the countryside.
“Downriver. Near the lake.”
Fendor glanced toward the city behind them.
“Could we have one hour where something isn’t foul?”
Hexen continued listening.
It was not ordinary pollution.
Not hunters killing too much.
Not sickness in a herd or fire in a wood.
Magic had touched the land.
Wrong magic.
Something trying to bend living nature away from itself.
“We need to go.”
Kaylor nodded.
That part was easy.
Isamu did not come with them.
A message reached the monk before they departed Gildan, calling him back to the temple connected to his own order. Whatever business required him there was apparently urgent enough that even Isamu, who normally responded to inconvenience by simply moving faster, accepted the separation.
“We’ll find you,” Kaylor told him.
Isamu looked toward the road.
“You’ll get lost.”
Fendor nodded.
“Almost certainly.”
Isamu left.
That reduced the traveling party to four.
It should have made them less dangerous.
The next several hours demonstrated otherwise.
They followed the road downriver toward the Great Lake.
Hexen’s traveling tree accompanied them, moving with the slow absurd confidence of something that had once been expected to remain rooted in one place for its entire existence and had since discovered roads.
Kaylor ranged above them for part of the journey, scouting ahead.
He returned quickly.
“Town.”
Fendor looked forward.
“I assumed the road eventually reached one.”
“Festival.”
That changed things.
Nethnarel brightened.
Hexen noticed.
“So?”
Kaylor pointed ahead.
“Medium-sized place. Farms around it. Banners. Music. Lots of people.”
Fendor studied him.
“And the lake?”
“Still there.”
“Good.”
Kaylor looked toward the others.
“We can go through.”
“We can go around,” Fendor said.
Nethnarel stared at him.
“When was the last time we went to a festival?”
Fendor opened his mouth.
Nothing arrived.
Hexen considered.
“Does killing things during a religious procession count?”
“No.”
“Then I don’t know.”
Kaylor landed.
“The town is on the road.”
Fendor sighed.
“That is not an argument for stopping.”
Nethnarel started walking.
“We’re stopping.”
“Of course.”
Kaylor followed.
“Could be evil.”
Fendor looked at him.
“What?”
“It could.”
“It’s a harvest festival.”
“Evil likes harvests.”
Hexen smiled.
“Maybe we should investigate.”
Fendor stared at both of them.
“This is how our lives happen.”
The town called itself Middletown.
Fendor decided not to criticize the name.
Its inhabitants appeared to have invested all their creativity in the celebration instead.
Color hung everywhere.
Garlands crossed the streets. Tables overflowed with late-season fruit, bread and baked sweets. Musicians occupied a corner near the central square and played loudly enough that precision was unnecessary. Farmers from the surrounding countryside crowded the lanes with families, wagons and the relaxed exhaustion of people celebrating a harvest safely brought in.
There was no panic.
No hidden army.
No obvious cult.
Kaylor quietly reached outward with the senses that had once belonged to a straightforward paladin and had become considerably more complicated since Craven.
Nothing.
No fiends.
No undead.
No celestial corruption announcing itself.
Just people.
Happy people.
Kaylor looked faintly disappointed.
Fendor noticed.
“Bad news?”
“They’re clean.”
“That is usually good news.”
“I was checking.”
Near the edge of town, everyone was talking about a traveling carnival that had arrived and was opening that day.
Performers.
Games.
Strange exhibitions.
Music.
Food.
More gambling than the town’s respectable residents wished to admit.
Kaylor listened to the descriptions.
“Carnival.”
Fendor pointed toward the lake.
“Lake.”
Nethnarel pointed toward a tavern.
“Drink.”
Hexen nodded.
“Strong argument.”
Fendor closed his eyes.
“We are never reaching the lake.”
The tavern was packed.
That, oddly enough, helped.
For a little while the Heroes of Oxland were merely four travelers among farmers, merchants and festival visitors.
People recognized them eventually.
Some always did.
But there was enough ale and celebration in the room that recognition produced raised mugs rather than requests to save anyone.
They found drinks.
They found seats.
They discovered that being somewhere for no reason other than pleasure felt suspiciously unnatural.
Nethnarel leaned back.
“This is nice.”
Fendor looked around.
“No one has attacked us.”
“Exactly.”
Hexen drank.
Kaylor watched a group near the bar.
Fendor noticed.
“No.”
Kaylor looked at him.
“What?”
“Whatever you’re thinking.”
“I’m not thinking anything.”
“You’re looking for trouble.”
“I’m looking.”
“That is the same thing when you do it.”
Kaylor stood.
“Dice.”
Fendor lowered his head.
There were gamblers upstairs.
The bartender confirmed it after Kaylor made his interest clear and his coin clearer.
“Friendly game?” she asked.
Kaylor considered.
“Serious.”
Fendor looked at Nethnarel.
“We should leave now.”
Nethnarel finished her drink.
“Absolutely not.”
Hexen changed his face.
Fendor watched.
Within seconds the druid no longer looked like Hexen Brew.
He looked like Kaylor.
Not approximately.
Not a dragonborn who might have been Kaylor’s cousin.
Kaylor.
Fendor stared at the two identical figures.
“No.”
Hexen smiled with Kaylor’s face.
“Yes.”
Kaylor looked him over.
“I’m taller.”
Hexen adjusted.
Kaylor narrowed his eyes.
“That’s disturbing.”
Fendor stood.
“I have changed my mind. I want to see this.”
The upstairs room was smaller than expected.
The “serious game” had been arranged on a carpet rather than a proper gaming table. Several townsmen sat around it, along with one figure who did not resemble the others.
Green armor.
Heavy shield.
Battle axe.
Fur showed at the edges of the armor.
His face and build marked him as a gnoll, though an unusually disciplined one.
He looked less like a festival gambler than a mercenary who happened to have discovered dice.
The gnoll studied the newcomers.
His eyes lingered on the two Kaylors.
He decided, sensibly, not to ask.
“You have coin?”
Kaylor produced platinum.
The gnoll nodded.
“Then sit.”
Fendor remained near the wall.
Nethnarel sat.
Hexen—still wearing Kaylor’s face—stood behind the real Kaylor and occasionally mirrored his expressions.
The first few rounds were harmless.
Coins changed hands.
Dice struck the carpet.
Kaylor won.
Lost.
Won again.
The stakes climbed slightly.
Fendor began to understand why people enjoyed the game.
That concerned him.
Then Nethnarel cheated.
She did not use the Charlatan’s Die.
That would have been obvious in retrospect.
Instead she waited until attention settled on the throw and reached through the room with telekinesis.
The dice rolled.
She encouraged them.
Very gently.
One changed its final movement by less than an inch.
The result favored her.
Nethnarel smiled.
The gnoll did not.
Another throw.
Another tiny adjustment.
More platinum moved.
The gnoll’s ears shifted beneath the edge of his helm.
Fendor saw it.
“Neth.”
She ignored him.
The next roll landed.
The gnoll stood.
His boot came down over the dice.
Conversation ended.
“You’re cheating.”
Nethnarel looked up at him.
“Am I?”
“You used magic.”
The common gamblers moved away from the carpet.
Kaylor stood.
The false Kaylor stood behind him.
Fendor remained against the wall.
This had become much better than the carnival.
The gnoll pointed at Nethnarel.
“You steal from me.”
Nethnarel rose slowly.
Fire crawled across her clothes.
Not consuming them.
Becoming them.
Her eyes brightened red.
Heat rolled through the small room.
“Can you prove it?”
The gnoll tightened his hand around the battle axe.
Kaylor’s expression changed.
“Careful.”
The gnoll looked toward him.
Kaylor stepped closer.
“Are you accusing one of us of dishonor?”
Fendor stared at him.
Nethnarel had absolutely cheated.
Hexen, still wearing Kaylor’s face, stared too.
The gnoll’s answer was immediate.
“Yes.”
Kaylor’s jaw tightened.
“Among my people, that kind of accusation can get someone killed.”
Fendor quietly moved farther from the center of the room.
Nethnarel glanced toward him.
“You’re not helping?”
“I am giving diplomacy room.”
The gnoll drew his axe.
Fendor sighed.
“Diplomacy has concluded.”
Hexen became wind.
His false dragonborn body dissolved upward into a swirling elemental mass that filled much of the already crowded room.
The common gamblers screamed.
One was lifted from his feet.
Then another.
Cards, coins, blankets and cups shot through the air.
A third man struck the wall hard enough to reconsider every decision that had brought him upstairs.
Fendor ducked.
“Those aren’t his friends!”
The elemental paused.
The frightened gamblers were already fleeing.
Hexen’s voice came from inside the wind.
“Good to know.”
The gnoll charged Nethnarel.
His axe struck.
The blow got through.
Before she could recover, his shield smashed into her and knocked her onto the floor.
Nethnarel hit the boards hard.
Flames flashed around her.
Her expression became very calm.
That was worse than anger.
Kaylor hit the gnoll from the side.
Not with Peacemaker.
With himself.
He seized the warrior.
The gnoll tried to turn the axe.
Kaylor locked one arm.
The warrior was strong.
Kaylor was stronger.
Much stronger.
The gnoll swung backward, missed, then tried to drive Kaylor into the wall.
Neither moved very far.
Fendor drew the Vorpal Longsword.
He looked at it.
Looked at the gnoll.
Then put it away.
“No.”
Kaylor grunted.
“Help.”
“I was deciding.”
“Faster.”
Fendor grabbed the gnoll from the other side.
Between them, they forced the warrior’s axe arm down.
The weapon hit the floor.
Kaylor kicked it away.
The gnoll continued fighting.
“Stop,” Kaylor said.
“No.”
“This has become stupid.”
“Death before dishonor.”
Fendor blinked.
“Oh, he means that.”
Hexen’s elemental form struck.
The blast glanced from the gnoll’s heavy armor.
He remained on his feet only because Kaylor and Fendor were holding him there.
Nethnarel stood.
She raised the Staff of Power.
Fendor saw her.
“No.”
“He hit me.”
“You cheated him.”
“That remains unproven.”
“The dice moved sideways.”
“Unproven.”
Kaylor still wrestled the gnoll.
“Could we discuss this after?”
Nethnarel aimed.
Fendor tightened his hold.
The gnoll struggled.
The room around them had emptied.
Footsteps thundered downstairs.
That fact finally reached Hexen.
He returned to himself.
The sudden absence of the elemental wind left loose papers fluttering everywhere.
“We should leave.”
Fendor stared at him.
“That thought has arrived remarkably late.”
Kaylor tried once more.
“Enough. We walk away. You walk away.”
The gnoll spat something Fendor chose not to translate.
“Death before dishonor.”
Nethnarel attempted to bind his will with magic.
The warrior resisted.
Of course he did.
Fendor looked toward the open door.
“There are people coming.”
“How many?”
“Enough that explaining this becomes difficult.”
Kaylor looked at the gnoll.
“You are making this extremely inconvenient.”
The gnoll snarled.
Kaylor hit him.
Once.
Controlled.
Not a killing blow.
Given Kaylor’s strength, controlled remained relative.
The gnoll went limp.
Fendor caught him before his head struck the floor.
Silence.
Kaylor shook his hand.
“See?”
Fendor stared.
“You rendered a man unconscious because we cheated him at dice.”
“Nethnarel cheated him.”
Nethnarel placed one hand against her chest.
“Unproven.”
Hexen looked around the wrecked room.
One gambler had left through the door so quickly that his shoe remained behind.
“We belong underground.”
Fendor nodded.
“Absolutely.”
“We are not made for towns.”
“Clearly.”
Footsteps approached.
Kaylor tied the unconscious gnoll before he could wake and moved him onto the bed occupying the room’s far side.
Fendor looked at the arrangement.
“This is going to be very difficult to explain.”
Nethnarel went to the door.
Guards were coming up the corridor.
Spears.
Town colors.
Several of them.
One rounded the corner and saw her.
Nethnarel raised the Staff of Power.
Kaylor stepped behind her.
“No more.”
“They’re armed.”
“So are we.”
“They’re coming toward us.”
“Because we destroyed a room.”
Hexen lifted both hands.
“I have an idea.”
Fendor turned.
“No.”
Hexen cast.
Eight tiny figures appeared in the room.
Pixies.
The guards stopped.
The pixies looked around.
The heroes looked at the pixies.
The unconscious gnoll remained tied to the bed.
For several seconds nobody knew what the correct response to the scene should be.
The guards chose first.
They backed away.
One turned.
Then the others followed him.
Fast.
Fendor looked at Hexen.
“Your plan?”
“Working.”
“Define working.”
“Do you want to become a tyrannosaurus?”
Fendor stared.
“What?”
“One of them can change you.”
“No.”
Kaylor considered it.
“Maybe.”
“No.”
Nethnarel looked toward the window.
“Birds.”
Everyone stopped.
She pointed.
“Turn us into birds.”
Hexen smiled.
“That is much better.”
The pixies did.
Four extraordinarily dangerous heroes vanished.
Four small birds appeared in their place.
Fendor had exactly enough time to become offended by his size before instinct took over.
The window was opened.
They flew.
Behind them, Middletown remained in the middle of its cheerful harvest festival.
Music played in the streets.
Children ran between stalls.
The traveling carnival had not yet been visited.
And somewhere upstairs in a tavern, a heavily armored gnoll would eventually wake tied to a bed after being accused of starting a fight over a completely legitimate and absolutely unmanipulated dice game.
The four birds crossed the rooftops.
Only after the town had fallen well behind them did the pixies release the transformations.
They returned to themselves beside the road.
Fendor sat in the grass.
For a long moment nobody spoke.
Kaylor checked his coin pouch.
“I won.”
Nethnarel looked at him.
“What?”
“At gambling.”
“You were chased out of town.”
“Still up.”
Fendor covered his face.
Hexen laughed.
That broke the others.
Perhaps it was exhaustion.
Perhaps it was the simple relief of having spent an entire catastrophe fighting nothing that wanted to end the world.
They laughed until the absurdity became manageable.
Then Fendor pointed back toward Middletown.
“We are never discussing this.”
Nethnarel smiled.
“Which part?”
“You cheating.”
“Unproven.”
“The fight.”
“Kaylor started it.”
Kaylor looked offended.
“The bird escape.”
Hexen considered.
“I liked that part.”
Fendor stood.
“We were supposed to go to a lake.”
Hexen’s amusement faded.
The distant wrongness had never disappeared.
Even while they drank.
Even while dice rolled.
Even while the gnoll tried to kill Nethnarel over several pieces of platinum.
Something still waited downriver.
“Yes.”
They rested in the woods beyond Middletown before continuing.
No one argued.
The fight itself had not seriously threatened them, but pride was surprisingly tiring, and Nethnarel had been hit hard enough to respect the value of a quiet night.
By morning, the festival was behind them.
The road followed the river toward the Great Lake.
The land became wetter.
Reeds replaced fields.
Fishing birds moved above broad stretches of shallow water.
Hexen listened to the natural world as they traveled.
The wrongness grew stronger.
They reached the lakeshore without further trouble.
A small fishing settlement occupied the edge of the water.
Calling it a village was generous.
A few buildings clustered near a modest wharf. Boats rested beside narrow docks. Nets hung from posts. Weathered huts stood back from the shoreline, and the smell of fish had colonized everything.
Farther out, a larger structure had been built over the water.
A hall.
Perhaps a meeting house.
Perhaps something older.
Its roof was decorated with bones.
Fendor stopped.
“There.”
Hexen nodded.
He felt it too.
The wrongness.
Not everywhere.
Here.
Kaylor looked toward the hall.
“Finally.”
Fendor glanced at him.
“You are relieved to find evil?”
“I’m relieved to find what we came for.”
Nethnarel studied the quiet wharf.
No one was screaming.
No smoke rose.
No monster stood openly in the street.
The lake looked peaceful.
That made Hexen trust it less.
Behind them, Middletown celebrated its harvest.
Ahead, dark water moved beneath the bone-roofed hall.
The calm had lasted almost a day.
For them, that was practically a vacation.