I THOUGHT PERHAPS she was jesting with me. But Param seemed to possess no humor at all. She glared at me with all the charm of a rattling snake, eyes unblinking, patience seeming to ebb.

I caught up the edge of my thumb on the blade and pressed just enough to part the skin. Radiance—weak and thin—beaded on the pad of my thumb. With another glance at the woman, I touched it to the dog’s head pommel.

I felt the energy in the blade rise suddenly, like a great thrumming vibration deep in the iron core. I grasped it with two hands as smoke poured off the blade, too afraid suddenly to gasp. But Param did not move. She watched and waited as the smoke coalesced into a dark, familiar shape.

Fear shot through me, and I sank back into a fighting crouch, bringing Bloodfang up into a high guard, ready to cleave the head from the monster that stood before me. Black as night, and four-legged, the shadow-wolf lowered its glowering head and snarled at me.

Master, I heard.

That gave me pause. “What is this?”

“The ur-iron,” answered Param, “cages its soul. I have seen its like before, though not that blade.”

“I’ve seen this before,” I said. “The Baron had a dog. But it wasn’t the same as this one. But I killed it.”

The wolf leered at me with baleful eyes. This was the creature the Baron of Elarm had called Gnasher. Except it was not rotting. Indeed, its coat was a shiny, healthy black. It had no sign of mange or infection.

Painful, came the impression, and the feeling of dim memory. Horror at glimpsing what I’d done to it.

“It cannot be killed. Not unless the sword itself is destroyed,” said Param. “This I know.”

“You’ve seen it before,” I said in a wonder. I held out a hand to the beast. It lowered its head to sniff at my fingers, and then turned its head away.

Bloodfang, it said, and I knew that was the creature’s name. It had told me as much. It settled on the sands several paces away, turned away from me. I marveled at it.

“We must not tarry here,” Param said. “The deacon did us an unexpected boon in revealing the nature of your blade, Cinderborn. Such tools were forged for your kind, in the ancient past. But if we linger here, who knows what might crawl out of the shadows? And you are very weak.”

That was true, I knew. But there was something I had to do first. I dug the silver tear our of my little pouch, and held it out to the woman. Her eyes darted down to the sphere.

“What is this?” she asked.

“A silver tear. You saved me. I owe you.”

She hissed and turned away. “Fool. I would not use such a thing, even if I wished to remember. You owe me nothing, Cinderborn. Do not speak of it again.” Her shoulders rose and fell in a sad, slow rhythms that reminded me of that distant beach. She spoke no more, and kept her face turned away.

“Bloodfang,” I said into the strange quiet. The wolf picked up its head. “Is there a way out of here?”

It glared at me for a long moment. I returned the stare. There was much here I did not understand, but I knew predators. And I knew not to back down from them. This thing might be bound to my blade, but the sword belonged to me. After a long moment, it turned its gaze away, hunting through the shadows with vision beyond human.

Then it stood and trotted off. Param darted off after the wolf without a look at me. Sighing and shouldering the big iron sword, I followed.

Bloodfang cut across the dark with the unerring ease of a prowler. It came as no surprise, of course, but my own going was slower. The wall curved down in almost complete darkness, and came flush with the floor. Bloodfang led us along the wall until we found a tall, arched door. There it stopped, and turned its ember eyes back to us.

“Do you know this place?” I said to Param.

“The fleshtearers often hunt here. We visited only in times of need, to restock.”

“So you have no idea where this leads?” She stared back at me, her narrow face betraying nothing at all.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

I set my shoulder to the door. It resisted at first, as if no one had passed this way in centuries. Yet, even as I leaned, the hinges began to squeal in protest, and iron hinges that had long forgotten their use grated slowly open. I took a few laboring steps forward, and shoved them open the last bit with a sigh.

“Heavy?” asked Param acidly.

I didn’t give her an answer. The doors opened on a dark tunnel that might have stretched unto infinity. It had the stale, stuffy stink of a crypt. Yet, there was something passing familiar about it. Indeed, I’d seen one of its like before, deep below the Church of Elarm.

“What is it?”

“A road,” said Param. “A worm’s road, wrought in shadow.”

“Where does it lead?” I could see she had no answer to that. Bloodfang stirred behind us, pacing in unhappy circles. “Do you know?” I asked the shadowy wolf.

To death. I didn’t know what to make of that.

“We have no light,” said Param. “The wolf will have to lead the way.”

At that, Bloodfang stopped and turned its baleful eyes to her. It would not be commanded so easily.

I recalled the silver tear in my hand. I held it up to stare into its surface, but in the grim shadow, there was hardly any light to reflect. I felt Param’s eyes on me as I drove my thumbs into its pliant surface, splitting the thing open. I knew what to expect this time, and I caught it up above my mouth. The silver fluid inside flowed down, bringing with it that ethereal, icy flavor of quicksilver.

This time I searched not for a memory of swords, of war and victory, but of the stars. Of the gods. I gasped, stumbling backwards. My heel slipped on sand and I went down, but I hardly felt it.

I remembered. The names of the gods—my gods—came rushing back all at once, like a river loosed down a valley. I recalled Beor the Blind, and his wife, Golden Frin who wove the fates. I remembered their sons, Alain and Dorain, Fire and Ice, whose clashing filled the seas and drove the rains. I remembered Neff, who sang the forests into being and laid in the river reeds with handsome Roal, lord of the rivers and fish. And I remembered his twin, Ranna, who dwelt in the sea and claimed all things as her own, eventually.

My fists clenched in anger. In hate. Ranna. Wife of Tibor, King of the Dead. The Arch-Fiend, the Old Liar, the treacherous brother who blinded Beor and was cast down to the foot of the World Tree itself to rot in abasement.

This was his domain, I realized. Hell was Tibor’s kingdom, where he raised the armies of the dead to wage war with the gods, where he built engines of cruelty to punish the wicked, and worse. And I was here for some reason I could not fathom, abandoned by Beor and his shining family, thrown into the same pit as the Old Liar. The isolation, the severance from the gods returned like a crippling heartache. But the silver tear wasn’t done with me yet.

With the names of the gods came more: their forms picked out in starlight, and songs that honored each, telling of more tales and adventures than I could remember. And their families, and their half-human sons and daughters, and the monsters they birthed in wrath or pain, and more, pouring forward until I couldn’t keep it straight. I clutched at one idea, a single drop in the torrent of knowledge that poured through me: the sigil of Alain, keeper of the fire.

The rush faded, leaving me exhausted and out of breath. Vestiges remained, but even as I lay on my back, I felt much of it fading back, as if the memories ran thin and faded in the darkness of this barbarous place.

“Your nose is bleeding,” said Param. I wiped it with the corner of my hand, and she was right. A little radiance was smeared across my thumb. I acted then on instinct, forming the sign of Alain with my fingers, twisting in the three-pronged curl of the holy first flame. It took some of my radiance, more than just the blood on my hand, but I did not regret the loss.

Light sprang up above us. More than light, it was warmth, giving a sense of comfort. Param gasped, and I saw in the light just how worn she was. Her skin was shriveled and dry, but around her eyes it sagged with great age. She looked up into that light, though, and I saw the beauty she had once known.

It was not so easy for Bloodfang. The wolf snarled at the light, and danced back, but it was too late. It began to fade, falling to ash in no more than a heartbeat.

“Bloodfang!” I cried, jumping toward it. “What happened?”

It took Param a long moment to tear her gaze away from the soft light that floated in the air before us. “The light,” she said. “The wolf is a thing of darkness. It has returned to its cage, until you summon it forth again. Cinderborn, what is this light?”

“The flame of Alain,” I said. She looked at me vacantly. “Do you not know of Alain, son of Blind Beor, who lofts the sun?” Param shook her head, and I wondered what strange land she might have come from, where that name was unknown. Though, I realized sourly, I myself had forgotten holy Alain until moments ago.

“You knew how to call upon such a thing?”

I shrugged. “I must have known some magic before…Before I died,” I said, though the words felt strange in my mouth. “Or perhaps I knew someone who knew.”

She nodded, staring at the light again. “It is a wonder,” she said quietly. “By this light, we can travel far, I think.” The flame above us wasn’t the only light, I saw. I pulled aside the stained and dirty tunic I wore, and saw a second petal had been added to the Cindermark on my left breast. More knotwork vines, but this time tracing a new pattern. The mark of a memory restored. I stared at it a long while before I covered the wound again.

Behind Param, the tunnel loomed. She was right, I realized. Standing in Alain’s light, it didn’t seem so dark.