The sun had risen, but Illus saw no sleep. Upon that stone bench and blanket he laid all night, running the fox’s and Ciun’s words in his mind, then the poems. Uncomfortable bedding, jarring lonesome, and unfamiliar conditions already made sleep a chore, so additional worries only fueled an already roaring fire. He came to three major conclusions:

1. Ciun was currently safer to be around, no matter that she was an immortal sorceress.

2. The fox only intended to pull him from Ciun, to provoke him to take her mask. Blatant bait.

3. The poems’ intentions conflicted with each other, the first one favoring Ciun and the second favoring the fox. No clear conclusion could be drawn from them presently.

Illus had to remind himself that his only goal was to survive and get back to civilization, not get wrapped up in their game. Ciun seemed to be more in favor of that than the fox, so he would bide his time closer to her, never attempting to take the mask. The fact that the poems could be false only left him with more questions, too, but those would only be answered by learning more.

Had the fox in the cave been a test by Ciun? Was the fox even real at all, or was it all Ciun? He rarely saw them together, and Ciun moved so silently that he would never hear her approach. And his emotions, who had been playing with them, or was he responding naturally?

To not trust others was simple, but the thought of losing trust in his own faculties sent a cruel shiver through him.

His challenge was survival, first and foremost, and to survive their game, he would have to learn some truths. For starters, he wanted to find out if Ciun had been listening to his conversation with the fox, or perhaps she had staged it.

Illus took up his fishing pole and walked to the north river in a daze. The misty earth obscured his feet, the morning sun having just poked its head over the mountain. Hidden in the mountain’s shadow, Illus hoped to reach the river before the fox could find him. Regardless of if the fox spoke truth or lies, its company unsettled him.

Ciun was already upon her usual pillar in her usual fashion by the time Illus arrived in his sloppy trudge. Unreadable as always, she greeted him. “Did this morning sneak up on you?”

He weakly nodded, his eyes droopy and struggling to focus on anything. “Something of the sort.” Furrowing his brow and casting his line, he turned to Ciun. “Is this how you normally are?”

“More personable, you mean?”

“Yes.”

“In normal circumstances, yes. It took a while to remember what normalcy felt like.”

Illus nodded, yawning.

Her tone shifted sternly as she pried. “The fox isn’t the cause for your exhaustion, is it?”

“Huh? No. I already struck a bargain with the fox that he wouldn’t bother me at night. Hasn’t since. He’s a more civil neighbor than I was expecting. He seemed awfully malicious at first.”

The mask stared directly at Illus, as if Ciun were glaring at him behind it. “Are you sure it wasn’t his ploy to keep you here?”

“Not much of a choice in leaving. But to join in on your two’s game? Probably. Rest assured, I have no interest in a conflict that does not involve me.”

“The fox will make it involve you. Surely it must be itching to contact you.”

Illus’s tired expression became a potent defense. He was too tired to emote with his usual skepticism. His words slurred and mumbled more than usual, too tired to tell things or be caught in casual conversation.

“I don’t know,” Illus shrugged, watching a salmon swim past his hook. “Bugger. Oh, the fox is probably out carving another poem or what-have-you.” Illus paused briefly, seeing if Ciun would jump in to respond, but she didn’t. “He did carve that out before the ruins, didn’t he?” He turned to Ciun, half looking at her.

She looked toward the river. “Likely one of the fox’s victims.”

“I suppose that’s what I’m most confused on,” Illus began, “what does the fox do to drive people so mad?”

Still, the mask faced away from him. “I cannot speak to the fox’s power, nor how it deceives, only what it has done.” Her tone changed again, as if worry underlaid a pained memory, “It drove them mad with desire, unfurling their minds until they were unsure of reality, unwilling to trust. Then when they slipped into madness, they joined the game.”

“It’s always back to the game, the mask,” Illus chuckled and slapped his thigh, an idea coming to him. “By the way, and not to be rude, do you ever take it off? I don’t want to steal it and claim the mask’s power or whatever it is. It’s… I suppose it’s a bit strange not seeing the face of the person I speak to so often.”

Ciun’s mask turned to him, her mouth flat, indicating some irritation at that comment along with her sarcastic words. “Do you think I wear the mask as a fashion statement? To bait people into taking it? Or perhaps there’s another reason?”

Illus pretended to think, then pointed to her. “You’re a burn victim, aren’t you? A cool, visceral scar hides behind that mask of yours. You should know my best friend has a nasty face scar and we get along quite well.”

She didn’t respond, her mouth thinning further.

Illus pulled his pole out of the water to recast it farther. “I apologize, I didn’t realize it was such a sensitive subject.”

He could feel her glare from beneath the mask. He was getting under her skin. “Yes, how could you have known?”

“All I have is a stingy poem which may not even be truthful in its promises of, what, immortality from the mask? I’ll pass on that.”

Her voice softened. “Why wouldn’t you want immortality?”

The lightness of his mind caught Illus in a daze. “I don’t know. We’re not supposed to live forever. It’s hardly desirable to see everyone you love die while you are doomed to remain.”

“Awfully pointed answer.”

He glanced up to her with another shrug. “I’m just a man caught up in a game played by immortals. The fox may be a mirage of yours for all I know.”

Cloth shifted above Illus, and he glanced up to see Ciun standing on the column. “What did the fox tell you?”

“It caught me on a walk and babbled about a mouse in a house. Some metaphor, I think. Hard to tell most of the time.”

What did he say, Illus?”

“My mind is foggy from being up all night.”

Ciun clenched her jaw, her voice strengthening enough to cause reverberations throughout the air. “What did the fox tell you?”

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

Illus’s gaze hardened, swallowing a sudden rising fear. “You can ease the voice mirage. I really prefer your company when you’re not tampering with my emotions.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, watching another salmon swim right past the hook, taking no interest in it. “Bloody hell! Not a fish in the world is hungry enough to even stop!” He shot up, fury spiking in his blood.

Then Ciun’s voice erupted behind him. “I banish thee, fox!”

Within a fraction of a second, the fish began disappearing from the water, dissipating into blue smoke.

Illus’s rage sweltered, his trust demolished. He broke into a fit, erupting at Ciun. “Have you been creating these salmon to keep me under your watch?! To keep me unfed?! For what?!”

She dismissively waved it off, “Illus, the fox is deceiving you-”

“Is it?! You’re the only one around!”

“The fox was hiding nearby, Illus.”

“The fox! The fox! The fox! It’s always the fox!”

“I wouldn’t lie to you,” she gently pleaded with him, “I have no reason to cause you harm.”

Illus broke out into a fit of yelling. “How am I supposed to know that?! How am I supposed to know anything?! Look where you are! You’re terrified of me! I’m being tugged along every which way by this blasted game, so it must be awfully important! Baited along by the fox leaving me fish! Baited along by the poem offering power from your mask! Baited by you testing if I’ll notice you manipulating my emotions! Baited into whatever your game is every which way when all I asked for was peace!” He threw the fishing pole to the ground, pulling the ring out of his back pocket. “Baited along into this hell by a woman who wanted bollocks all to do with me!”

His eyes were wild. Clenching his hand around the ring, he reared his arm back to toss it into the river. He held his shaking fist in place for a moment, the exhaustion and frustration blaring through his head like a crashing train horn.

And then Ciun was beside him, hand on his, guiding it to his side. “Illus,” she whispered lightly to him, a calming chill coursing down his body, “I’m not testing you. I’m not lying to you. I’m here because the fox will not relent, but I am not omnipotent. I can only protect you from what I see and hear.”

Illus’s temper fell, his eyes resting on the silver band and pearlescent white sapphire gem. He glanced at Ciun by his side, then past her, to Ciun on the pillar. The one by his side dissipated into blue mist and he fell back to his seat. He wiped at a rogue tear forcing its way from his eye.

She held her head down. “That is the first time I have manipulated your emotions, Illus.”

His head fell onto his hand with a wry chuckle. “You’re not even trying with these lies anymore. Then what was the voice thing you did, Ciun? Was that not an attempt to scare me?”

She paused. “The fox was nearby, tampering with our conversation. Your comment on my voice clued me into it.”

Illus bit his lip, a silent, maddened laugh creeping up his chest. He forced it down, on the verge of breaking down. “So you’re telling me that the fox has nothing better to do than make my life into misery so that I’ll hate you enough to steal your mask?”

Ciun nodded. “Illus, what reason would I have to want you to take my mask, to bring your hate and to… bring me such a terrible fate? How can I prove to you that I do not control the fox?”

“I don’t know! I don’t know what the mask does! I know nothing except what the both of you tell me!” He stared exhausted into the river.

“Walk me through your meetings with the fox, beginning to end, please.”

He sat back, trying to calm himself. “It was standing on the rock outside of the ruins. Sator and Tyza attacked it, and it made these-”

Illus paused, staring blankly up at Ciun, then stopped talking. He remembered the fox making the sounds of the weapons, then he remembered how he had sat with Ciun by the water for so many days, catching her in the midst of mimicking the sounds of the river.

“Illus?” Ciun asked him, noticing he spaced out.

He stared blankly forward, unwilling to look at Ciun, pondering how he would manage to survive this place. Survive her game. Was all of this just her toying with him? She knew he would never be able to get the mask, so did she just want to watch him toil away for entertainment? Why would she call attention to it? Did she want him to know? Did she want to know if he had pieced it all together? Or was it part of the fox’s lengthy deception?

“My mind is tired, Ciun. I think I need to sleep.”

She frowned, her voice low and remorseful. “You should. And… please, Illus, keep your head. I would quite like to see you leave here well.”

Faux sympathy? Baiting him into trust? Or honest? Why didn’t she help him escape with Anilee like when she helped him get to Tyza in the catacombs? When did she steal Anilee’s nightgown? Had she been the one casting mirages that trapped him? Were these all the fox’s deceptions? That would be the easiest thing to believe, that Ciun were honest and pleasant, but the subtleties, the points where things didn’t make sense… they plagued his mind to no end. Hungry, exhausted, empty of emotion, Illus ventured down the river to where the salmon would spawn to swim upstream.

He didn’t even have to see the end of the river before the stench hit his nose. Beached salmon lined the river by the blue haze, like they had simply swam out into the gravel and flopped to death.

Then a cackle. The fox’s cackle. Illus gazed toward the source and spotted a glimpse of a tall figure, a white spot near where a head would be, surrounded by blue and dressed in blue. It disappeared into the trees above just after he caught a smirk on her face.

An empty, jittering weight throbbed through Illus, despair.

And then he wondered why he was bothering at all. He had survival to worry about, not a petty hatred and a mask game. He thought of Tyza and Sator on the outside, thinking he was dead. Would they be starting anew with the money from the expedition already? He wanted to get out of the ruins more than anything, to give them the peace of mind that he lived.

Illus clenched his fists, a deep sputter creeping up from his chest. A sob and a laugh in tandem, at the misery he would face and the thought of overcoming it as he always had. He just had to use what got him so far, practicality and resilience.

His temper calmed and his chest eased. His whole body lightened as if he was back in control. With a bit of a limp and a steady mind, he poked through the fish on the shore, searching for fresh ones. He spotted two fish flopping on the shore and screamed.

“Yes! Ahah!” He almost took off into a sprint toward them, then paused with an idea.

Illus scraped a fistful of gravel up and threw it out toward the flopping fish. Both disappeared. His joy faded, but his spirits were high.

Another deep laugh emerged from Illus, and he poked at one of the dead fish. Still fresh enough to eat.

Illus pocketed several fistfuls of gravel and set off toward the shed, uncaring for everything else he saw, realizing all he had to do was keep himself in check, as Ciun first said. All her advice had rang true. He had no reason yet why he shouldn’t trust her.

Perhaps the blur was not Ciun, but the fox presenting Enae. Perhaps the fox was framing Ciun to make him hate her enough to take the mask. He realized then that the fox only had that one goal, for Illus to take Ciun’s mask. The fox was who trapped Illus, not Ciun. The fox was just trying to drive Illus mad, pulling Illus’s faith to poems written by men made mad by the fox. The fox who was a master of deception, a manipulator of the mind.

With a full stomach and content mind, he went to sleep just in time for the heavy gray clouds to roll in.

The fox found itself by the darkening amphitheater’s pond creating mirages for the frogs to attack so it could grab their tongues. Clothes brushed behind it.

“Ciun, what a time. Commit I crime?” It cackled, glancing at the masked woman in the reflection of the water.

“I warrant your falsehoods have yet lost more strength. Is your control finally fading?” She held her hands in her sleeves, tiptoeing across the lilypads in front of the fox.

“An aloof man I see, enticed by your trickery.”

“Do not pretend it is not in his best interest.”

The fox broke out into a wild laugh, scaring all the frogs away. “Aye, sigh. One test he passed, but tis not the last.”

“He remains strong.” Ciun turned away from the fox, helping a frightened frog onto a stone.

“He doubts, he shouts. He scouts for trouts. You hear so clear yet sneer when near.” The fox frowned at Ciun. “I only wish to save your kin, but all my love to hate you spin. I am your friend! Great men I send! Always you deny and then they die. My game is of love, yours the death thereof.”

“Yet you bat at frogs and fish all day. For what?”

The fox leapt into the air, hovering while twisting playfully. “All you do is harp, but my skills are sharp. You see a victory, I’m contradictory. Nothing is won, which is not done. Why must you fear, a life of veneer? Your brother and sisters all, enjoyed a scrumptious ball! Then Enae my delight, a joyous flight. Now all of them suffer, all on your selfish spur.”

Ciun sneered at the fox. “What’s a husk to enjoy, to live for at all? I weep for their torture, their suffering in ways-”

“Bah!” The fox burst out laughing. “Hah! A tale as old as time! Tears belonging to a mime! You watched your people die with a blatantly uncaring eye! Never a thing you felt, lest I’m not a god in a pelt!”

“I banish thee, fox!”

Ciun stoically stared into the haze as the fox dissipated with its cackle.

Its voice lingered in her head, though. “For every era you live through, I’ve a million more, then a slew! Good luck, sorceress, he will soon obsess.”

Ciun waited on the lilypad a moment more, idly thinking to herself, gently feeling the mask on her tired face.