Pale slices of orange light infrequently mar the roiling gray storm clouds, briefly illuminating the inky black trees and under-traveled cart path passing hurriedly beneath his feet. The humid night air weighs heavily with the wet scent of impeding rain. Each breath irritates his parched throat, but he doesn't have the energy to cough. Too much of it is already going into putting one foot in front of the other.

Another dream, Nevin thinks. Strange. I don't remember going to sleep.

He tries looking around, but quickly finds that, despite the almost immediate realization that this was a dream, he has no means of controlling anything but the thoughts floating around in his head.

The trees disappear behind him one by one, but neither notice the other. The first is too concerned with the approaching storm, while the second is too concerned with the approaching men. He barely hears them over his labored breathing, but their intermittent hoots and teasing calls help him ignore the burning in his lungs and legs. His fear of them, of what they might do if they catch him, of what he’s already seen them do, drives him ever forward.

Fear, and the unwavering grip of the darkly dressed man pulling him along behind.

Nevin pictures himself frowning, aware that his dream body isn't reciprocating. It's an odd sensation, feeling as though he is a guest in his own body, an unwilling passenger to an unknown destination, but while he doesn't know where he's headed, he does know the dark figure before him.

At least, he knows he should know him. His brain twists and strains, but nothing comes. There is a name there, beyond his thoughts, ephemeral and teasing and whispering nonsense from the forgotten corners of his mind. How could he not recognize someone who feels so familiar, so integral? He feels safe with him, protected, comforted. Not at all like the feelings engendered by his pursuers. This man is his salvation, his only hope of survival.

And he can’t even remember his name.

He pulls on the man’s arm and urges his legs to move faster, drawing his partner close, searching him for a spark of recognition. Strangely, his legs move at almost twice the speed of the other man's, but he doesn’t pass him. The man is much taller too, nearly twice his height.

The yelling and screaming gains. Even in the heavy darkness, he knows he’d be able to see their hateful, leering faces if he turns. Their lofted torches. Their well-maintained weaponry. Their lust for his blood.

But the shadowed silhouettes behind mean nothing in comparison to the depthless void guiding him forward.

Beside the colorless form of his partner, the overcast night shines with all the dazzling brilliance of the rising sun. He can’t imagine why he didn’t notice before, why the details of the man had escaped him, but now…the black outline garners his attention to the exclusion of nearly everything else. The man has no features save darkness.

Who is he? Why doesn’t he know?

The figure suddenly speaks, and Nevin feels the words ripping the dream asunder.

“Just a little farther, Nevin. Don’t give up now.”

The man’s voice is the voice in his head.

His own voice.

************

“Wha-” Nevin started to say, but the words got stuck in a mouth drier than salted bone meal. The briny air weighed heavy with moisture, but it felt good in his lungs and breathing it in got the saliva flowing. Sweat glued his shirt to his chest, and the pillow beneath his head was soaked through.

Groaning from an entire body's worth of stiff muscles, he pulled himself up on the simple cot until he could sit and rubbed his puffy eyes. “What did you say?” he asked again, not completely understanding yet that he wasn't dreaming anymore.

A gravelly, unexpected voice answered. “Told you not to give up yet. Would have said it hours ago if I knew it'd finally wake you.”

Glowing blue eyes appraised him from beside his cot. The man in black leaned against the wall of the small storage room, positioned atop a squat crate like a king pining for his missing throne. A globe-shaped glass lantern hanging from an iron hook cast an eerie glow over the dark folds of Theis’ cloak and the stacked assortment of sacks and crates. On the far wall, a moth-eaten wool curtain dangled across a narrow opening in the vertical sealed oak planks. Along with the heavy scent of salt, the moisture-dense air carried the smells of cinnamon and kerosene and sweat.

Nevin rubbed his sticky face, flicking the sleep mung from the corners of his eyes. He was surprised to find the sword still gripped tightly in his right hand. The fingers of that hand were blanched and sore. He relaxed his hold but didn’t fully release the coarse stone hilt. He couldn’t imagine why he hadn’t let go of it in his sleep.

“Theis,” Nevin said, finding himself genuinely glad to wake up to the familiar - if not so friendly - face of the stoic warrior. “You left us. When did-”

“We’re on the boat, headed to Greater Delphine,” the man in black interrupted. “You’ve been out for nearly two days now.”

Two days. No wonder his muscles felt so rigid. He ran a hand through his damp, matted hair and allowed relief to overcome him. We made it. A hometown in ashes, a raging forest fire, hundreds of miles of wilderness, and an army of men out for blood, and we made it through all of it.

The relief was short-lived. His eyes stretched wide and he nearly leapt from the cot. “Where's Aidux? He had blood-”

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Theis hopped down from the crate and put a firm hand to Nevin's shoulder, forcing him to sit. “Save your energy. Cat's fine. Woke up about two hours into the trip, and none the worse for wear. Spent most his time lying next to your cot, waiting for you to wake up.

He snorted. “Whining, mostly.”

Nevin breathed a sigh of relief. “Where is he?”

“On deck, if I had to guess. The crew has taken to stashing fish up there, to get him to come topside. Didn't much like having a giant predator on board at first, but that all changed around the first time he opened his mouth.”

“Yeah.” A wide grin brought a spark back into his eyes. “I know the feeling.”

Nevin glanced up at the hanging lantern and scratched at the twisted snatch of wet hair irritating the nape of his neck. The lantern was still as the dead, not an ounce of sway in its dangle. “Doesn't much feel like we're on a boat.”

“No complaints from me. I hate sailing. Was bad the first day and a half, but now...” He cocked his head, a thought occurring to him. “Hadn't even noticed the change.”

“We must be close to the Void.”

“The Void?”

Nevin nodded. “Ishen taught me about it. Ships don't generally sail directly from Comelbough to Greater Delphine across the Sea of Calor. They tend to take a more circuitous route along the coast, even if they aren't planning on stopping in any of the smaller ports along the way. The Sea of Calor has an anomalous stretch at its heart that, while it isn't exactly dangerous, can be problematic for the unprepared.

“They call it the Calorthian Void. It's supposed to be next to windless, and without wind, the sea is calm. Don't think anyone has ever figured out what causes the Void, and I don't know why the captain would sail close enough to it to lose the wind. That seems like a bad idea.”

He remembered a lot more than that brief explanation, but he doubted the man in black would be interested that the Void may be the remnant of an ancient seafaring civilization lost to a powerful curse, or that a stray cloud may have blocked the rays of Empyria's holy light at the dawn of creation, or any of the other unproven theories of how an unremarkable stretch of water was somehow bereft of naturally moving air.

The crate creaked beneath Theis as he leaned forward to rest a forearm across his knee. “What happened in that alley?”

Different moments from that morning flashed through the forefront of Nevin's mind, summoned not by his own desire to know, but by the man in black's query. Aurnia's fight with Theis. Audix in the crate. Aurnia talking to various ship captains.

He visibly flinched when he remembered how Vincht and his men had snuck up on him. Theis watched him, unmoving, as he closed his eyes and struggled to stitch the events together that followed.

He frowned, shaking his head. “We got away. We're here. We're safe. Does it really matter?”

“It does. What do you remember?”

Nevin slumped onto his knees with a resigned grunt. “Things happened fast once Vincht showed up. I ran into the alley, and Vincht started ranting about...I don't know. The man was losing his mind. I remember being cornered, trapped on the wrong side of a locked door. I...I dropped the Sharasil at some point. Then Vincht came at me and-”

Visions of Aidux slamming into the warehouse wall replayed over and over again, the sickening thud of flesh on wood a sadistic drumroll that urged his heart to match the beat. A wave of bile burned his throat, and he had to squeeze his eyes closed to banish the thoughts.

After he composed himself, he took a deep breath and shrugged. “And then that's it. I don't remember anything else. I woke up here.”

“That's all?” Theis pressed him. “Nothing else?”

Nevin bowed his head. “Thanks...uh...thank you for the company.”

Theis turned away, the bright blue light within his drooping cowl shifting suddenly to a dim violet glow. He reached up and adjusted his mask before taking a single, awkward step toward the cramped room's narrow exit. He stopped there, his back to Nevin, the faux starlight dancing across his matte black cloak as the moth-eaten curtain swayed. He only half-turned back, and when he did, he tossed an odd-looking leather strap onto Nevin's lap.

Raising one eyebrow, Nevin lifted the object to his face. The thin double-layered strip of brown pig leather was easily long enough to wrap around his waist three times. A traditional belt buckle adorned one end, while a pair of dissimilar c-shaped pieces of metal were attached to the strap about two feet apart near the middle of its length, each designed in a way that reminded him of some sort of custom pressure clasp.

As far as he was concerned, it may as well have been a purple tentacle.

“It’s a baldric,” Theis said, answering his unspoken question with a hint of annoyance.

Nevin continued to stare at the leather strap like it had three heads. “You got me a shoulder belt?”

Theis twirled a finger as he spoke, his normally biting tone replaced by an uncharacteristic diffidence. “Don't know how you manage to keep hold of that thing, even while unconscious, but you can't keep carrying it around the way you do. You need your hands free. Wear that, and the sword can rest on your back while you travel. The clasps should secure it, but since I couldn't hold the weapon during the baldric's creation, they might need some adjustment before they work perfectly.”

He blinked, holding the baldric to his chest. “You made this for me?”

“Don't make a big deal of it.” Theis grabbed the hem of his cloak and jerked it tight around his form, hard enough to elicit a whip-like snap of leather that startled them both. Somewhere else in the ship, beyond the tattered curtain, someone coughed.

“How did you do it?” he asked quietly, still facing away from Nevin.

The young man ran his fingers along the glossy leather, its pristine surface yet unmarred by use. He had a hard time believing Theis had gone to such lengths for him. “Do what?”

“Survive.” He planted his hands on his hips, the action broadening his stance until his cloak absorbed every pinprick of light cast by the ratty curtain. “The state of that alley...”

“I'm think I'm gonna go find Aidux.” Nevin struggled to his feet, flexing muscles frozen in various stages of petrification due to his extended rest on the cot.

“Thank you, Theis. Really. For the baldric, for keeping me and Aidux safe. And for coming back. You've been a good friend, and I don't think any of us would have lived through the fight had you not been there.”

Theis snorted, regarding Nevin from the corner of his eye. “You would not have.”

Drawing the cloak tightly about his lean form, the man in black shoved the ratty curtain aside and paused. He spoke one final phrase before disappearing into the underbelly of the ship.

“You're welcome, Nevin.”

With a warm smile painting his face, the young man set to donning the baldric and learning how to mount the Sharasil on his back. That was the first time Theis had ever used his name.