Otto listened carefully, but he could not sense the watchful gaze of the divine. The Father seldom watched him and had only spoken to him once before, in the shrine on the Long Hill above Fallow Vale. He said he had high hopes for him, and he said that Otto was from good stock.

Good stock; that’s why he was here.

It might have been many years, but just in case he let his mind slip away a little further along the chain, Clink, clink, clink. Did the anchor shift in the sand?

He suppressed a giggle. He didn’t usually giggle, did he? Was he a giggler?

Fawntree was a forgotten port town on the Lost Coast, the last rung of the ladder for many. His fine boots splashed through filthy puddles, and scrawny children approached him with their hands out before catching sight of his face and cringing back into the dilapidated buildings.

The small barbershop was crammed in between a frippery and an abandoned cobbler's shop, and the faded sign was no more than a crude painting of a pair of scissors. Through the dirty glass, he saw the back of a young girl, and he pulled off the silk necktie to reveal the crude scar on his neck.

The store was long and thin, with barely enough room for two people to pass each other. A single barber's chair sat in front of a cracked mirror, and in it sat an older man, sorting through a few coppers in his hand.

"That’s okay, Jim; pay me next time," said the girl behind the chair.

Her back was towards Otto, but she was glaring at him through the reflection in the mirror.

"Thanking you, miss; that’s a good turn you’ve done me there," Jim mumbled before easing his way out of the chair.

The old man straightened up when he caught sight of Otto, the blood draining from his face. He touched his forelock briefly and scurried out.

The store was dark and dusty, but on a clean section of the wall hung a half dozen gleaming pairs of scissors of varying sizes. Each of them had been sharpened to such a degree that the air might have been sliced in two as it whispered over the blades.

The girl turned and leaned against the wall, producing a straight-edged razor and beginning to strop it on a strip of leather. "Sit," she commanded. "And drop off that disgusting face."

Otto slipped into the chair and let the face of the Father fall. The face that looked back at him in the mirror was that of a young man. His eyes were like chips of ice, and he touched his chin, feeling the unfamiliar hard angles and the stubble that covered it.

"You got old", giggled a voice in his head.

The girl kicked at the foot pedal on the chair, sending him flying backward, and her sour expression appeared in his field of vision, upside-down, her blond hair falling around her face. He felt the whisper of the razor blade touch his neck.

"I just want to talk," Otto said, trying to keep his Adams apple from moving too much.

Silence greeted his words, and the blade did not move.

"I need your help."

"Did you bring them here, the other monsters from that temple of yours?" Athir said.

"I came alone."

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"How did you find me?"

The razor blade was removed, and she pressed on the foot pedal, bringing him back upright. He saw her face in the mirror, glaring over his left shoulder.

"I can hear you; there's a sound; I don’t know what it is. It led me to you."

He caught a small intake of breath from her and continued. "It’s like something scratching."

He flinched when her hand came up, but she held a brush filled with soap lather and began to apply it to his face.

"You hear it too, don’t you? What is it?" Otto asked.

"Enough questions. What do you want?" She replied.

The brush was set down, and the razor blade hovered below his ear, then scraped down his cheek in a fluid movement.

"I need Faelen magic."

Scrape, scrape.

"Why?"

"I can’t tell you."

"Not good enough." The blade pulled slightly to the left, just under his chin, drawing a thin line of blood that mixed with the soap.

"I can help you," he blurted out. "When this is done, I won’t have to hide any more. I can serve the Father; I can lead him away from you. He wants you."

"I can help warn you." He sent the last five words directly into her mind without speaking and felt her stiffen slightly.

"I know you haven’t been here long, but you’ll have to leave soon; the other champions are looking for you."

She navigated the scar on his neck with the razor and threw a towel into his lap.

"Wait here," she said, and she left through a narrow door in the back of the shop.

There was a small tearing sound, and the buzzing that had drawn him here became louder for a moment before fading again. The buzzing drew his mind towards it, the sound promised a flowing river his consciousness could slide into and be carried away from all of his problems. He wouldn’t suffer. Why shouldn't he do it? It would be so easy.

His eyes snapped open, and he reeled his mind back in, getting to his feet, he was running out of time.

The door opened, and she returned, her face flushed with anger. She pulled away a few strands of her hair that had caught on her lips, and he thought that she was quite pretty really, the way that a sword freshly pulled out of the forge is pretty.

"I can show you the way in, but after that, you’re on your own. If they don’t want to let you out, there’s nothing I can do," she explained.

Otto nodded, and she ripped open a window in the air. He staggered backward as the red light and the sound of a hive of angry bees invaded his senses.

"It’s a bit much the first time," she said evenly.

"This is the Faelen land? How do they stand the noise?" Otto gasped.

"They don’t," Athir replied, her voice tight.

"The sky looks like the eyes of the Father."

She gave him a curious look, like a tiger eyeing up a baby deer. "How do you block him? Is it mediation?"

"Why do you want to know?"

"Call it professional curiosity."

Otto licked his lips, happy to put off the moment when he would have to step into the world of the Faelen.

"I think I found to hide from the Father. If I ever really needed to hide, I just had to let some madness in."

"How do you stop yourself from going all the way?"

"That’s why I’m here. I don’t think I can do it for much longer."

"What does going mad feel like?"

"It feels like I have an anchor dug in, and I’m hanging onto the chain, but the current is strong, and the chain keeps getting longer and longer, and as much as I pull it in, I just keep drifting away."

Otto stepped through the window into the Echo, and it shut behind him.

-

Athir stood leaning against the barber's chair with crossed arms and a frown.

Finding any sort of calm was far beyond her, and her mind turned furiously. The champion of the Father turning up and begging for Faelen magic was more than the gentle whisper of destiny. It was destiny kicking down the door and shaking her warmly by the hand, telling her how wonderfully everything was going.

A year ago, she would have thrown him dead into the gutter. Time had not softened her stance, though, and she knew she was doing this for purely selfish reasons. He would be a valuable ally in the temple of the Father. She didn’t want to have to move house again.

There was a subtle change in the texture of the air, and her hand tensed on the pair of scissors she held.

A window from the echo ripped open, and the champion of the Father stumbled out, his face drained of blood. "Why didn’t you tell me?" He mumbled.

"Would you have believed me if I had?"

"They can’t leave; it just pulls them back."

"Did you get what you wanted?"

"Yes."

"Then you’ll keep your end of the bargain?"

"Yes, I can stop gambling with my sanity now."

"In my experience, there’s always a catch. What did they ask you for?"

"They told me not to tell you."

"Sounds about right."

The boy's voice was hollow. "Only what I deserve. The next time you see me, I may not be the same as I am now. You’re going to have to leave, stay in the South. I’ll warn you if I need to."