Shaded hands lingered at the edge of the darkness, stretching towards the small fire, held back only by the flame’s pale green flickering. I watched as the man stoked the blaze with the tip of his sword, keeping his one remaining eye on the shadow-shrouded limbs surrounding our refuge. Ash drifted from the sky in a light flurry of gray, clinging to all it touched. It littered the ground, blending the long dark shadow with the fire’s light, hazing the protective barrier.

Somewhere in the distance, I could hear the half-growled mutterings of long-dead things shambling around the fire, their rotting forms just beyond my sight. The man’s sword wouldn’t be enough to dispatch them all, not with that wound in his side, the injury he took protecting me, the girl who was of him, and he of me.

A sigh parted his lips as he began to relax, then winced at the pain in his side. A jab of remorse washed through me, but I could do nothing. He closed his eyes and breathed through clenched teeth, and I wished with the desperation of ages past for nothing more than to be free of this nightmare.

He clutched at his side with a grip like frozen steel, cold coagulated blood half oozing between his fingers, gluing them together. I sat across from the man and stared around wide-eyed and foolish, watching the shadowed hands twitch and writhe at the edge of the fading light. A grotesque sense of wonder filled me, and I half raised my hand towards the dark.

“Don’t look at them,” the man said, voice a low growl full of gravel and grout. "You’ll invite them in. They’ll leave you as little more than a wandering corpse, and I do not wish to burn your body." 

I flinched back from his tone, shifting my eyes to meet his gaze. After a moment, the tension grew too heavy, and I looked away, eyes locking onto the dark slick of blood running down his hand.

“Sorry,” I said, voice a whispered rush, like wind blowing through a cornfield the night before harvest. The man couldn’t hear me, that I knew, for it was part of our curse. He could see my lips move, but he could never understand.

He grunted and turned away, sliding another precious piece of kindling into the fire. The flames popped, a log cracked, and the embers shifted, spitting sparks onto the ash-laden dirt. I shifted restlessly on the packed ground, gaze flitting from his face, the blood, and the shadows, despite his baleful look. I tried my best to stop, for I knew that keeping me, that small part of himself, safe and untarnished was all he desired, but it was hard to stay so still. 

A flicker of movement in the surrounding curtain of black caught both his eye and mine. Careful not to look directly at the twisting things in the dark, we both stared into the shadows. Footsteps crunched on the dry earth beyond the light, approaching faster than any undead man or beast I knew. All a blur, the man grabbed his sword from where it lay beside the fire, pulling a burning stick free from the flames. 

He stood and thrust the torch out, dispelling his shadow, leaving the writhing limbs no path in to lay claim to him. I winced, fearing the pain he must feel, but his face remained cold as the steel in his hand. 

A figure emerged from the dark faster than the man could react, almost as if dragging itself from the air. They stood behind the hazy border of firelight, a ragged robe of burnt browns and gnarled greens hanging loosely across their figure. A moment later, a second figure appeared to their left, and a third appeared to their right, both of them dressed similarly to the first. There was an ageless grace to their faces, a sexless wonder that filled me with quiet ease.

The figures stood unmoving, staring out from under their pointed hoods. The man raised his sword, pointing the blade towards the three, throwing the torch at their feet. I could see he felt the same sense of ease as me, but his posture stayed stiff, blade unflinching from their presence. 

The center figure raised one arm, the sleeve of their robe sliding away, revealing a near skeletal hand. They gripped the side of their hood, then pulled it back, showing the full depth of beauty captured in their soft, smooth, hairless face. It was all I could do not to gasp in awe.

“May we sit with you and rest? The road is hard, as you no doubt know, and our bones grow tired of this cold,” They said to the man, their arms falling to their sides, both limbs disappearing in the folds of their tattered sleeves. 

The man narrowed his eye. “Your name?” was all he asked, and the odd figure nodded, the corners of their eyes wrinkling as they gave the man a slight smile.

“Names are for the dead, my friend. The living have other concerns,” the figure said, a smile warmer than the fire softening their solvent features. Slowly, the man lowered his sword, eyeing the two robed people flanking the figure. I knew the first had spoken right and true there was no reason to deny them now, but those soft smiles on their face sent a chill up my spine.

“And your friends?” The man asked. The figure looked from one to the other, both bowing their heads before pulling back their hoods, revealing similarly hairless, smooth faces.

A sudden grunt escaped the man’s lips, and he staggered, saying in a tone weighted with weariness, “fine, you may sit with us, but leave the girl be. She is of me, and I of her, and so shall we stay.”

The figure and their two companions bowed low, their bodies parallel to the ash-covered ground. They straightened and stepped wholly into the ring of light. Behind the three, the shadow hands reached out from the void, stretching toward the worn hems of the figures' cloaks as they moved away.

I stared at the figures as they approached and sat, noting how the three figures had not even a hint of a shadow beneath their wrapped feet. The two arranged themselves behind the one, all three holding spindle-fingered hands towards the fire. The man placed himself between the three strangers, I was he, and he, me, easing slowly to the ground, resting the tip of his sword in the dirt and leaning forward on the rusted pommel. 

The first figure smiled placidly, almost stupidly, around the small haven in the dark. “Have you two been here long?” They asked after a moment of uncomfortably expectant silence. The man didn’t reply. Instead, he let the quiet reign, the only sound in the night the shambling shifting of the undead hiding behind the shadows.

“Talkative, I see,” the figure jibbed, lips parting in a faintly yellow grin. They shifted their gaze from the man to me, and the smile on their face twisted into something rictus and grotesque, like a demon’s theater mask. My guts twisted like tangled rope as they spoke. “Hello, my dear,” they said. “How did a soft thing such as yourself arrive in a place as this?”

The figure stretched a knotted and gnarled hand towards me, and I flinched away from his feted touch. In a red flash of rusted steel, the man leaped to his feet and twisted his sword through the air, resting the edge of his blade against the figure’s neck, teeth gritted from anger or pain. I could not tell. Neither of their two companions reacted, and the figure just let their gaze drift away from me and back to the man with a slow, lazy grace.

“Don’t touch her,” the man said, voice low and monotone, hard as cast-iron and cold as the air beyond the shadows. The figure gave him a wicked smile, a yellow crescent of amusement, resting one thin hand on the blade’s flat.

“Would you deny me, a poor and weary guest to your fire, the small and simple thing I ask of you?” They said, fingers curling gently around the sharp steel. They closed around the weapon, and a jolt of blue lightning ran up the metal, dissipating with a crackling pop where the steel met the leather-wrapped grip. The figure chuckled, something viscous and black oozing along the blade beneath their twisted hand.

“You cannot keep me from what I desire, boy.” The figure’s face seemed to age as he spoke, the smooth, soft skin wrinkling into exaggerated folds of heavy gray flesh, hair turning ash gray, then snow white before falling from his head in dry clumps, falling free with lumps of their withered scalp. 

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Ash continued to drift from above like snow, but where it met the figure’s skin, it disappeared into the half-rotted flesh, vanishing like spun sugar in warm water. The man pressed his sword harder against the now-weathered figure’s hold. The edge of his steel divided the soft tissue, sliding across their palm with a sickening slash. 

The figure’s expression remained unchanged, and neither of their companions even twitched where they sat. After a moment and another yellow grin, they released their grip on the blade. Slowly, the man withdrew his weapon, and I eyed the figure and their unnaturally placid companions. They couldn’t be spirits or undead since only the living could approach the flame, but no creature still bearing a soul could look so decrepit without a name. None could be so close to the edge of death and still draw breath.

A blink and the blood on the figure’s hand disappeared. The figure held a hand towards the man, who stared at the suddenly unwounded appendage in seeming wordless bewilderment. “Come,” they said. “Let me touch you, my boy. Let me give you what you want. Let me show you what you might become.” 

The man’s eye was locked on the figure and their companions as he edged around the flames toward me. “Your riddles make no sense,” he said. “What thing would I want that you could give? I only see a withered bag of flesh. You are near a corpse walking. What could be worth the risk of your septic touch?” The man removed one hand from his weapon, resting it on my small shoulder. Despite myself, I felt fearful tears budding in the corners of my eyes. The figure laughed, their suddenly sagging body swelling with every howl, and I shuddered.

“Please, I don’t want to touch them,” I pleaded, and the figure’s smile widened, splitting his face beyond the limits of the living, but of course, the man heard me not.

Instead, he spoke with a dangerous air. “Leave my fire. I give you no choice, and I accept no offers. Leave stranger. You and your friends are no longer welcome beside my flame.”

Cocking their head at an angle that would snap an owl’s neck, the figure’s grin became a frown. “But you invited me, friend. You beckoned me to share your flame. Would you truly toss such a low, pitiful creature as me to the dark so simply? Why not just say yes? Take my hand, accept my offer. From one, I can make two, and from two, make one. She would no longer have need of you. You would become her, and she, you. If you are truly of the girl, and the girl of you, please let me show you what might be.”

“I care not for you, your plight, nor your offer. I see now what you are, not a friend but a fiend. You are a blighted creature and are unwelcome here.”

The figure’s head righted itself, and one of their two rose from the ground and stepped forward, their own skeletal hand darting out from their robe like the talons of a striking crow. The man raised his sword to block, then spun the weapon around and jabbed at the second figure, the straight slice sliding through their stick-thin waist.

The second figure's upper half slid from their lower, falling back in a cloud of ash. I saw the gash in the man’s side split slightly and blood drained from his wound as the first figure’s frown deepened like an expanded grave. 

“You strike with such fear, young one. Is it really so much that I ask from you? A simple shake of the hand? Are you so afraid of accepting the thing you desire?” Their voice sounded cold and dry as the ash falling from the sky, but the man stayed silent, flicking the black blood from his weapon with a quick and easy flourish. He aimed the sword’s tip at the figure’s other impassive companion as they stepped forward. 

The third figure didn’t flinch as the weapon was leveled towards them, dark blood from their fellow pooling around the fire, reflecting green flame and littered with ash, like cotton caught in spreading oil. The first figure chuckled. “We fear not death, not as most living do. Slay my friends, slay me, or abstain, but one day we will find you again, and I will show you what it is to be what you want to be.”

A shadowy tendril reached towards the fresh corpse's shadow from the gloom, latching onto the two halves of over-aged flesh and dragging the body away in a flash. A few moments later, the dark was filled with sharp cracking, like the limbs of dead trees in violent storm winds.

Everything was still as we listened. The man kept his sword straight, the edge angled toward the third-robed figure, ready to snap toward the first. The first figure’s hand found the sword’s edge again, this time his grip a gentle persuasion, pushing the weapon away from their companion without a word. The man said nothing, and I felt cold watching as blood ran down his side. 

He glanced back at his flame for the briefest moment, visibly uneased by the fire’s dimming life. His gaze lingered on the last untouched log, but he turned back to meet the first figure's eyes, and in a burst of desperate motion, he swung the sword back towards the first’s face, cleanly leaving their fingers from their hand. The digits hit the ground with four pitiful thuds. It didn’t seem to bother the figure. They just continued as they had, staring placidly at the man, expression brimming with satisfaction.

“Again, I offer you this, boy,” the figure said, voice more resonant, his words seeming like thunder as they reached their unharmed hand towards the man. “Take it, and I will show you what you can be. It will only cost you a small and simple token.”

The man arched an eyebrow at the figure, his weapon not yet dissuaded. “Explain,” he said, and the figure pointed to me. I was hiding behind the man, clutching the lower trim of his shirt. The man shifted his gaze fractionally to look at me for a moment. I held his eye, but nothing more passed between us.

“You know what I offer. Do not play me for a fool. I am far more than you know.” They looked ponderous for a moment before continuing, “have you walked the undying lands, boy? Or, rather, did you ever walk them in the days past, before the trees withered and the doors died, before the undying fell to the dark's cold hand?” The figure said, his own hand still outstretched.

I glanced at the fading flames, and a thread of fear coiled around me, filling me with dread. To my dismay, the man saw nothing. He was distracted from the fire, asking the figure, “what do the undying have to do with this? They have long faded from this world.” 

The elder’s wide yellow grin returned like an unwanted blister, and I wished I could scream to the man and warn him of the danger. “Most, yes,” they said. “Most, but not all. You and I saw the lands for what they were, brilliant and bright in their light but darker in their depths than any mortal land. You sit before their flame, yet, you claim not to have visited our lands? It is strange.”

Shaking his head, the man glanced towards the shadows, dark outlines of limbs flailing in the shrinking light. Fingers grasped at the air as if trying to take hold of the ropes binding him and I to the world to drag us into the dark.

He averted his gaze as I watched. Those things were bereaved of their souls, but neither yet quite dead. They were shadows ruled by the absence of an afterlife, controlled by their desire to live and to die.

“I have never been to the undying lands," the man said, tone dry as the cold wind. “Worlds do not live or die as mortals do.”

“As you say,” the figure said, then gestured towards the flickering fire, their grin broad and full of sharp malice. “Might I suggest you stoke the flames once more? Your light appears to fade just as you say the undying did.”

The man’s posture shifted as he glanced at what were now barely glowing coals. In seeming panic, he leaped to the side, snatching up the last of his firewood as green sparks fell from the failing embers. The man carefully settled the split, dry log atop the flames, and after a moment, it took to the fire. 

My fear began to settle as the shadowed limbs hissed away from the searing light, then, in an instant, a hand wrapped around my neck, and I was thrust into the air, spluttering and choking. The figure chuckled, their voice deep and brambled, and the man spun. I struggled against the first figure’s grip as the third figure placed himself between the man and the first. 

“How simple a thing, your flames, but with such dire consequences should they fail. My gift could give you many things, my boy. The same goes for you, my child.” The figure leaned forward to look into my watering eyes, that yellow grin glinting in the firelight. The man growled at the figure as they brought their other hand up to cup my chin.

 I could see him struggling to bring his sword back to level, aiming it at the figure. “I have no desire to parley with you, creature,” the man said. “But I will not allow you to do her harm.”

“Perhaps you have not been listening, boy?” the figure replied, tone filled with tired exasperation. “That would explain a great number of things, would it not? Well, listen again, and listen well. This is important.”

The man stepped forward with sudden surety, and his sword lashed out before the third figure could act, cleaving their head from their shoulders. It rolled into the flames behind the man with a burst of ash and sparks. He gasped, and the wound in his side audibly cracked. The man staggered, clutching his waist, hot blood oozing between his fingers. He glared at the first figure. 

“Release her,” he said, but the figure only sighed, then, with one exaggerated motion, turned my head, forcing me to stare into the writhing shadows. 

“I offered you something great, boy. Perhaps not my wisdom, knowledge, or power, for I cannot let you have it all, but I am still barred from passing through death's doors. I beg you once more, boy, take my hand. If you wish, you may slay me when it is done. Only let me make the two into one so that she might be free of you and that I might be free of me.”

I screamed, trying to close my eyes, but the figure’s wrinkled, withered hand snatched back my lids with a casual swiftness, and the shadowed arms stretched towards me, drawing ever nearer as terror choked away my voice. It only took the man a moment to act. He reached out and took the figure’s hand with his. My world tilted, the figure laughed, and I heard the sword fall from the man’s hands with an echoing clatter.

The figure vanished in a cloud of stinking ash, and I fell, screaming as the grasping shadowed limbs wrapped around me. For a dreadful moment, the man was me, and I the man, and we stared on as death's grand doors swung shut between us. The lock clicked shut, and then, again, I was me, but the man was gone. 

The figure’s withered voice sounded in my mind.  "How does it feel, child? To get what you wanted?"