Androkles’ feelings of disquiet rode with him as Agurne drove the horse-cart southeast out of the village, despite the money in his lap—a fat, heavy sack of gold coins totaling ten silver talents. A fortune, and the promise of more to come. With that much money, he had enough to buy back the core his ancestral property and have some left over to invest without risk of ending up in another tenement. His House and family name would be secure again, and if Agurne didn’t give him a son, he could try and convince the Dikaians to let Flower or Pepper inherit, whichever of them turned out more cunning when they reached adulthood. Probably Pepper.

  And with four good horses pulling the cart, he and his family had the advantage on the army chasing them. Soldiers on horseback might be faster than any cart when considered individually, but the rules of large armies still applied. The road was only so wide, and only so many could ride abreast. Horses had to rest whether the King wanted them to or not, and starting and stopping a whole army’s motion took far more time than a single cart. Not to mention obstacles like snowdrifts or muddy terrain. A bit of slowing at the front and the whole army’s progress suffered.

  No, the King could never catch up without an incredible stroke of luck. Even splitting the army to try and box them in would be hard to pull off, since each warband would still have to be big enough to get the job done, and that meant they might not be much faster than the whole army together.

  King Lugubelenus could try and send small kill-teams one at a time to hunt them down; those would have no trouble catching up. But he’d be wary of doing it. He’d seen the mess Androkles had made of his Great Hall. Why throw away his men a dozen at a time, over and over?

  And when the King found the corpses of his two demons and failed to see a dead Androkles, or at least a severed arm or something like one would expect, he’d be wary to send out any more of those either. He only had so many, after all, and they were valuable.

  But the fact was that the King still had the advantage, even if he didn’t know it: Androkles could no longer fight. His arms were all but useless until they healed, assuming he didn’t die of infection. He hoped that if necessary, he could will them to action one last time, ignoring the pain to strike with all his might, one last time, and never mind all the stitches. But it wasn’t just the pain—the muscles were torn and bruised as well, and he could barely close his fist.

  And curse all the gods individually if his killing intent was going to harm him every time he tried to use it from now on. With the full might of his anger, he dared challenge a Great King in his own hall, but without it and unable to so much as swing a sword, he felt no stronger than a child. Androkles had no idea whether he should try using it again any time soon, and hoped he wouldn’t have to.

  No, the only hope they had was that the King would remain cautious, keep his army together, and fail to move as fast as the horse-cart. With luck, there’d be a bridge they could try and burn to get even farther ahead, but Androkles knew better than to hope for good fortune.

  And so he sat there, trying his best to ignore the clawing fire in his arms and the flash of misery his ribs gave him every time the cart hit a bump, and worried.

  Agurne drove with the calm skill of a practiced hand, which surprised him; he’d only seen handcarts in her homeland. She called out instructions to the horses every so often, such as “Watch out for the mud, there,” and “Don’t get out of rhythm!” Under more typical circumstances, that would have been silly behavior and made him grin, but after what he’d see of her, Androkles wasn’t sure they didn’t understand.

  And with Garbi sitting cross-legged on her giant red stag, in perfect balance at all times, how could he say what was possible? The little girl talked to her mount as well, stroking the dark patch of thick fur running down its spine. Her posture was as solid and certain as if she was on a chair, but she never did anything to balance herself that Androkles could see. There was something deeply unnerving about the sight, something unnatural that was only tempered by the fact that it was Garbi, adorable, innocent, and pure. Her wolf, Ash, rode in the back of the cart, and she reassured him that her eagle, Queeny, would be back any time. He was not much reassured.

  Flower was in a miserable mood. Although he lay snugly on his side between the sacks of provisions and extra blankets Androkles was sitting on, he fidgeted and pouted with a pained expression on his face. The tip of his white tail flicked angrily where it poked out of the edge of his blanket. He’d been largely stoic in the days prior when it was just the two of them, but now his patience seemed at an end.

  Androkles might have tried to say something comforting to cheer him up, but his own well of enthusiasm had run dry also, and he simply didn’t have the energy or the inclination to make the attempt. The simple fact was that the boy had to endure it until his leg healed back up. A few more days should do it.

  Wolfscar, however, had both the inclination and the energy. He alternated between flying high up into the sky to look around and zooming back down into Flower’s blanket when he got cold. He’d rest for a minute with his head poking out and give the boy an account of everything he saw up there, letting him know when the village was out of sight, or when the road was going to turn, or if he saw an unusual tree. One thing he repeated every time was, “There aren’t any demons or soldiers.”

  The little fairy was starting to get discouraged, however, because after being at it for a while Flower still wasn’t cheering up. Finally, exasperated, he flew over to Garbi’s shoulder and whispered in her ear. Garbi inclined her head and gave due consideration to the fairy’s words, and then after thinking about it for a moment, said quietly, “Sometimes people like to talk instead of listen. Ask him something.”

  Wolfscar whispered into her ear again, and Garbi thought about it and nodded.

  The fairy flew back over to Flower and sat down on the side of his head, and Garbi turned to watch with concern, leaning forward to peer around Androkles. Her stag raised its head as well, as though it was trying to get a better look, which Androkles could not fathom. How much did the beast understand?

  “Flower, what do you want to do when we get Pepper back?”

  “…I don’t know,” answered Flower quietly.

  “Are you excited?”

  “A little bit. But I don’t think… never mind.”

  Wolfscar reached down and petted the base of Flower’s ear. “I bet he’s excited for us to come get him. Did you know that’s where we’re going? I say where we should go because no one else can see the roads, so we’re going to go get Pepper.”

  “Didn’t you say he was chained up in a cave when you saw him? How do you know he’s still alive?”

  Wolfscar huffed indignantly and said, “Because I said they need to take good care of him or they’d be sorry because Androkles is coming, and so am I. So they are taking good care of him.”

  Flower mumbled something too quiet to hear.

  Wolfscar said, “Yes, we will! Yes, we will, Flower!”

  “No, we won’t. And it won’t matter anyway,” whispered Flower, probably thinking he was being too quiet for Androkles to hear.

  “Why not?” asked Wolfscar.

  Flower had no more to say, and when Androkles looked down at him, the boy had shut his eyes and was doing his best to ignore the insistent little fairy sitting on his temple. His white ears flicked in annoyance, however, belying his disinterest.

  Androkles sighed and asked, “Is your leg hurting you, boy? More than usual?”

  Flower opened his eyes, sullenly looked up, and said, “Only if I move. If not, it only hurts medium.”

  “Then why are you so ornery?”

  “I’m not being ornery.”

  “Then what are you so upset about?”

  Agurne snorted, then turned back to say, “You think he’s gonna answer if you ask him like that, you dumb ogre?”

  Androkles scowled at her, upset because he knew she was right. She shrugged and turned back around. “He might!”

  “Oh really? Why don’t you tell us all what you’re so ornery about? You have an itchy asshole or something?”

  Androkles gave a mischievous smile and said, “Agurne. Dear woman. I can barely move my arms. What do you think?”

  After a short pause, Agurne snorted and tried not to laugh, even though it was her kind of humor. Flower’s eyes grew wide and quickly changed to a smile he couldn’t suppress. Garbi turned red and looked away, hiding her amusement.

  The sour mood seemed to have broken, and they rode in silence for a bit longer, somewhat relieved. Flower was resting easier, at least. The tip of his tail didn’t flick so angrily anymore.

  Androkles wasn’t done yet, however. Old Diokles had made sure not to let little Androkles sit and stew for too long after taking him in. At the time, he’d hated it and resented the man for always putting him to work. But it was for the best, he later realized; Diokles was just about the last person in Dikaia who cared if he lived or died. Letting an eleven- or twelve-year-old Androkles dwell for too long on his father’s suicide would certainly have twisted his character. Instead, Diokles put him to work fetching things, or sewing, or practicing with a spear, or a hundred other such things. And when tedious work was unavailable, he told him stories. Most were retellings of Poems or Tragedies, but Androkles hadn’t known any better.

  And the more he thought about it, sitting around waiting for things to happen had never really suited him. He couldn’t do much about the King right now, or the problem with his killing intent, or saving Pepper, but there was no reason to just sit here and let his children sulk and be miserable. Or himself.

  “Who wants to hear a story?” he asked.

  Flower glanced up at him, then looked away and didn’t say anything. Garbi didn’t seem that interested either, but at least she had the good grace to pretend. Without looking at him, she asked, “What kind of one?”

  “You sound like you don’t really want to hear it.”

  “Well, maybe,” said Garbi, still sounding uninterested. “But what kind?”

  “It’s one I’m forbidden by law from telling you. They’ll execute you for telling it in Dikaia,” said Androkles, trying to sound mysterious and enticing. “But Dikaia is far from here.”

  “Are you telling us because it won’t matter since you’re going to die anyway?” asked Flower, but Androkles could tell his heart wasn’t in it. This was just spite.

  “Flower!” shouted Garbi.

  In a low and threatening voice, Agurne said, “If you think he’s done for, is this how you want to remember your last days with him?”

  A moment of uncomfortable silence followed. After giving it just a moment to steep, Androkles said, “I was only asking to be polite. I’m going to tell you anyway. This is a good one, so pay attention.

  “I was seventeen at the time. Already been through two seasons of war. I already had this scar on my neck from lowering my shield too far, and a couple on my arm from being hasty. I’d grown about as tall as I was going to get, although I’ve gotten a bit broader since then. I quit counting my kills in the middle of that summer after the battle of Terontos. I came in second in the footraces in the Games that spring, too, now that I think about it. Still hadn’t placed in the Pankration, though. I was a cocky little shit, I’ll tell you that much. Thought I had the whole world as good as conquered.

  “A few weeks before the harvest that year they called us out again and set us marching. Only two thousand, not the full army. Turns out a rich House in Stymphynthus, which is out near the edge of the Glories to the northwest, had a slave revolt, and those slaves had used their master’s money to recruit a bunch of barbarian mercenaries. They’d already overthrown their City and set up a tyranny. Executed most of the nobility and a bunch of citizens. Freed a bunch of the slaves, and killed a bunch more who refused to betray their masters.

  “Now, civil war in a City isn’t enough by itself to get the attention of the Great Army of the Glories, but a slave revolt can be. It depends on how long it lasts and how bad it is. Sometimes we just let it be, if it doesn’t spread beyond the City borders. There’s at least one City, Artessos, where the slaves rebelled and set up their own Laws, and the Glories just let them be because they didn’t take in runaways from elsewhere and they didn’t spread sedition to their neighbors. This place, though, they were doing all of that and from what the Generals told us, they had plans to become independent of the Republic and start claiming territory from other Cities.

  “By the time we crossed their borders, they had a force at least four thousand strong, including horses, slingers, archers, and twenty-five hundred footmen, many in full hoplite armor. They heard we were coming and retreated behind the walls, expecting us to come make siege and give them the advantage. Well, we didn’t feel like doing that, so we started ravaging their fields. Cutting down trees and vines, ruining crops, killing livestock, that sort of thing. Made a huge mess, right in the middle of their harvest season.

  “It didn’t take them long to realize that if they didn’t come out of there and fight us, there was a good chance they’d all starve to death, so they picked up their spears and came out. We met in a little valley in the shadow of a big, rocky hill and got down to business.

  “Did I ever tell you much about the Hewer?” he asked, and paused to wait for an answer.

  Garbi said, “He’s a god who likes war, but also things that grow in the ground.”

  Flower said, “He’s not a god, he’s a titan. He came before the gods. He likes soldiers.”

  “Good. All of that is true. He’s the old titan of the earth, and all the soil came from his body. The titans were the fathers of the gods, but they were different. The gods are wiser and much more like us, but the titans were more powerful and impossible to predict. Most of them are dead now, but there are still a few around.

  “The Hewer got his name because of his strength in battle. He carried an axe that could cut down whole armies of gods and demigods with a single stroke.

  “Before Arkos slew the Thunderer, his father, and took his place, the Hewer was unpredictable and malicious. One day he might thirst for blood and rip a bunch of poor farmers apart, or he might decide he didn’t like what people were building on his dirt and swallow whole buildings with all the people still inside.

  “After Arkos took the throne and became the Oathfather, he subdued the Hewer and calmed him. Now we can call on the Hewer like one of the gods, with prayers and sacrifice, and he might answer with a blessing. He rules over two things: the blood shed into his soil, and the crops that grow out of it. He watches over soldiers and farmers, especially ones who are courageous. Part of the success of the Glories is that most of our hoplites are also farmers and buy their own armor by selling their crops. The Hewer blesses them twice over.

  “Well, there’s a reason I bring up the Hewer, and that’s because he showed up to watch the battle. We’d attracted his interest by cutting down so many crops, and he was curious to see what we were doing. Once the Stymphynthusian rebels came out to fight, we had his full attention. The battle started off like you’d expect, for the terrain. They sent their horses to harass us, but the rocky hill kept them from making full use of them. They didn’t start slinging until we had our shields up, and I don’t think a single man got injured. When our lines clashed, the rebels held their ground at the start, but the simple truth is we were trained and they weren’t. We also had better armor and it belonged to us, which meant it fit right, and that makes a difference.

  “It wasn’t too long before the battle turned sharply in our favor. They couldn’t close their lines faster than we made gaps, and they were about to drop their shields and run.

  “Just at that moment, the Hewer himself burst out of that rocky hill with a huge booming sound like thunder. Sent dirt and boulders flying in every direction. I saw more than one man get mashed. Lots of broken bones. Where a hill used to be was now a giant head made of dirt and stone that moved like skin. He had a thick beard of grass, but no hair on his smooth head. He was grinning with joy at the slaughter, and each of his teeth was a flat, shiny rock taller than I am.

  “The worst of it wasn’t the shock, though, or the horror of seeing something like that. It was his presence. It was like my killing intent, or like Mari’s, but a hundred times stronger. Pure bloodlust, too, not even anger. Just desire for blood. I’ve never felt anything like it before or since. If he’d wanted to, he could’ve smashed us all to paste with a glance. The only reason his presence didn’t kill us all on the spot was because he didn’t want it to—he came to watch us fight. He wanted to see all the blood we were spilling for him.

  “Well, it took about two heartbeats for every man on that field to turn coward and flee with every ounce of strength he had. There wasn’t a single man who kept his ground for longer than it took to toss his shield on the ground. Myself included. I threw my shield away so hard it hit another Dikaian in the back of the head and knocked him over. I was pissing myself before I even turned to run.

  “There was no resisting, make no mistake. Not in front of power like that. I can’t even describe what it felt like. All these years later, just thinking about it too hard makes me turn pale. I usually try not to, but there are days when it isn’t far from my thoughts.

  “The Hewer was outraged that his battle ended early, and he let us know it. Arms big as roads burst out of the ground and start grabbing men by the handful and tossing them into his mouth, where he’d chew them up still alive and spit them out in a big wad of gore. Some of them survived that, and died slowly on the ground with all their bones broken.

  “I didn’t see most of what happened. I ran, like I said. I never looked back. I ran until I had no strength left and passed out sometime that night. When I woke up the next morning, most of my armor was gone. I think I took it off piece by piece to help me run faster, but I don’t remember. All I could do was pick myself up and head back to Dikaia to report. I fell in with a few other survivors, and we walked in silence the rest of the way. Didn’t say a word the whole time.

  “Once the Priest Archon got wind of what happened, he had the Skythanders go round us all up and take us to one of the groves to have a little chat. He and some of the judges and generals made us all swear to secrecy for a couple reasons. One, because if word got out that the Great Army of the Glories had lost a war against a slave revolt, we’d have a dozen more, if not a hundred. Two, because the City religion would be harmed if people got the idea that the Hewer was not truly subdued by Arkos, and if we failed to keep offering him sacrifices we risked a real disaster.

  “So that’s the story. Most of the families who lost a husband and father never learned why, at least officially. I’m sure plenty of them pieced it together. But all of Dikaia was forbidden to learn about or speak of that battle in any way. All records of it were destroyed. No funerals were held. It just… never happened.

  “But I’ve never forgotten, and here are a couple things I’ve learned, as I’ve thought about it over the years. First, I know how nasty something has to be to get me to run away. Anything less nasty than the Hewer, and I don’t run. Hasn’t happened yet.

  “Second, well, I lost Diokles in that fight. Did I mention he was there? He was. I should’ve said that earlier. I never learned what happened to him, whether he got eaten, or killed from behind, or trampled, or what. He might have gotten killed before the Hewer showed up, too. I just don’t remember, or I didn’t see it, and I was forbidden by law to ask anyone and find out.

  “That was the last battle of the year, so I had until spring to just sit around and be miserable. I felt like I’d lost everything. My courage, my pride, and Diokles. He was the one who took me in after my father killed himself. I’ve told you about him before. I had no idea how to live without him, always nearby, being the father I needed.

  “But… I figured it out. Life went on. Over time, I made new friends that I loved just as much as I loved him. The weeks came and went and turned into months, then seasons and years, and I got over it. That’s the other thing I learned—as long as you’re alive, you just keep going. Keep being alive. You can remember the past, but you can’t look back and watch it again. You can’t change it. It’ll never go away, but it’ll also never come back. Remember if you want, or forget if you want, but the past is gone.

  “So, Flower, if you’re worried I’m going to die, I might. I probably will, if I’m being honest. These wounds are gonna fester and that’ll be it for me. But right now, I’m alive. You’re alive. Pepper’s alive, and this cart is moving. The sun hasn’t stopped. The seasons are still rolling along like they’ve always done. So we’re going to keep moving. Got it?”

  Flower didn’t nod or say anything, but he looked less troubled. He’d turned to lay on his back so he could look up at the sky instead of at a bag. The light of imagination danced in his eyes as he gazed upward at the eternal blue expanse. Perhaps all the boy needed, aside from protection, was some entertainment. The gods knew there had been precious little of that for him lately; even after Androkles got him away from the King, they’d ridden mostly in silence, tense and worried.

  Garbi, for her part, was staring through the trees at a hill, and he could guess just what she was thinking.

  Agurne turned around once the story was done to look at the children, and pleased with what she found, she gave Androkles a grateful smile and nod and went back to driving.

  By this time, the road had turned more southwest than west and the late-afternoon sun shone directly in their faces. It was brighter than it was warm, but it was pleasant. It warmed up their clothing, at least. They heard no whistling from the King’s men hidden along the road, either, and it had been several hours. That likely meant the King or his scouts hadn’t gotten to the village yet.

  Androkles said, “Wolfscar, how far do you think we are from the demons that have Pepper? One day? Ten days? A month?”

  The fairy gave him a blank look, then counted fingers on his remaining hand. After a moment he said, “It’s five away. Five things.”

  “Five days?”

  “No… five, um, five…”

  “Five what?”

  “Five things! I don’t know how long that is.”

  “What sort of things?”

  “A thing that says, this way to Garbi, that way to Papa, that way to Pepper. A thing like that.”

  Androkles felt himself go pale, although he wasn’t sure why. He was mostly just confused, but a hint of worry tinged his consciousness. “A thing that points to us? Are you talking about signs on the road, or what? What do you mean? Is it the King?”

  “Oh, no, it’s not the King. They’re just things so I know where to go. But don’t worry. You can’t see them.”

  “What sort of things?”

  “Just things, Papa. Like a hand. That kind of thing.”

  Androkles took a deep breath to stay calm and swallow his frustration. Why was so much of what the fairy said completely insane?

  Garbi asked, “Wolfscar, do you know how long it takes to fly to a thing?”

  “No, I just fly to it, and then I’m there.”

  “But how long does it take you to fly there? And how fast do you go?”

  “I go normal fast. But if I get cold, then I don’t go as fast, unless there’s a place to get warm. Then I go faster because I want to go in it.”

  Flower sat up with a lurch, his eyes wide. “Papa, I have an idea!”

  “Thank the Oathfather, because I sure don’t. What is it?”

  The kit’s eyes were bright, as lively as he’d ever been. He explained, “He can use a stick! He can use a stick to tell us.”

  “A stick? Flower, did you start drinking whatever Wolfscar’s full of?”

  Flower sat all the way up now and pulled his legs toward his chest with only a minor wince. His tail popped out from behind him and started whipping in the air. “Wolfscar, go get a little twig. Just a little one so you can hold it in one hand.”

  “I only have one hand!”

  “I know, but go get one.”

  “But I can only get a little one, unless I bite it. Or use my toes.”

  “It only has to be little. Like this long,” said Flower. He held his fingers about an inch apart.

  “But the trees don’t have any that short!”

  “Break it off, then. Or find some grass. Just go get one.”

  “But I don’t want to go in the snow!”

  Flower couldn’t help but smile, becoming amused instead of annoyed. “You don’t have to go in the snow! Just go find something. You can do it. I’ll even hold the blanket open so you can get warm when you come back.”

  Wolfscar flew into the air and floated over to the side of the road. He peered in every direction, floating back and forth to get a better angle around the trees. All at once, he darted off at great speed and vanished.

  He returned only a moment later and plopped down on Flower’s knee holding a slim black thorn nearly two inches long. He presented it proudly and said with a grin, “I wanted one of these anyway.”

  “Okay, good,” said Flower. “Now here’s what you do. Fly straight up until… Until the cart is as big as your thumbnail. And then, you line up the thorn with the road. You have to always hold the thorn in the same place for it to work. Okay? So you line it up with the road, and then you can look at where the tip of the thorn is. And then you fly over to that spot, up the same amount of highness, er, height, and you do it again. You line up the thorn with the road from there, and then fly to the new place where the point is. Over and over. And then what you can do, is tell us how many thorns it is. Then we’ll know how far away things are and how long it will take to go there.”

  Wolfscar gave this some serious consideration as he looked at the thorn grasped in his tiny fingers. “How many thorns away it is?”

  “Yeah,” said Flower. “And then what you can do, is tell us how many thorns away the village was that we just left. Then we’ll know how much road a thorn is.”

  Androkles said, “That’s pretty clever, boy. I’m impressed. Wolfscar, do you think you can do it? Do you understand what he’s saying?”

  “I think so. I just fly up, and then look how much road is a thorn, and then I can count… I’ll be right back,” said Wolfscar, his wings twitching behind him as he spoke. He jumped off Flower’s knee and shot straight up into the air and flew high enough that his glow was almost impossible to make out against the afternoon sky.

  Agurne stopped the cart to let the horses rest, since it was about time again. She and Garbi got up to feed and water the team because Flower and Androkles were not very mobile lately. Before the horses had even started on their water, Wolfscar descended again and stood on Flower’s knee.

  “Okay, I held it up like this,” said Wolfscar, holding his thorn in front of him point up like a sword, “and it was one thorn to the village.”

  “No, that’s not what I meant. Here,” said Flower, carefully plucking the thorn from Wolfscar’s grasp. He held it parallel to the ground and said, “You have to hold it down like this, so it’s flat like the road. And you hold it with your arm all the way out, and then look where the tip of the thorn is. Where on the road it is. And then you fly over to that spot, but in the sky just as high the whole time, and then you hold it down and do it again. Like this. Does that make sense?”

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  Clearly uncomfortable letting go of such a valuable possession, Wolfscar nervously grabbed his thorn back from Flower and said, “Okay.”

  He flew back into the sky, possibly as high as before; it was impossible to tell. He stayed up for longer this time, leaving everyone to wait in silent but amused anticipation. If this worked, if Wolfscar really could give a consistent measure of distance, Androkles’ next few weeks would get a whole lot easier.

  This time, instead of coming back down straight away, Wolfscar flew west along the road and was quickly out of sight against the sky.

  The moment stretched into minutes. The horses finished their grain and water and started snorting like they wanted to see what was further up the road. As she was placing the feed bags back into the cart, Agurne said, “That little shit better not get lost.”

  “We can always just get another fairy,” said Androkles. Flower and Garbi immediately shot him looks of surprise.

  Agurne said, “That’s true, but I’d hate to spend another four coppers when we already have one.”

  “What?” asked Flower.

  “We can’t get rid of Wolfscar!” said Garbi, loudly, with a voice of serious concern.

  Androkles could hardly contain his smile as he flatly stated, “We’re not going to get rid of him. I’m just saying, if we lose him, we can get another.”

  Garbi looked at Androkles, then Agurne, then Androkles back and forth again as she tried to decide if they were serious. “That’s not funny,” she finally said.

  “No, it’s not funny, but it is droll,” said Androkles, wearing his first sincere grin in ages.

  “What does droll mean?” Garbi asked.

  “It means it’s funny, but only enough to smile a little. Not funny enough to laugh.”

  “That’s all your jokes then, except the ones that aren’t even droll,” she declared, her face plain and matter of fact. That earned a snort from Agurne and Androkles had to admit his defeat.

  It took longer than anyone expected, but Wolfscar finally returned. He dropped in at high speed, slowing down only right before he landed in Flower’s lap with a little thump, surprising them all. The fairy hurriedly lifted the hem of the boy’s shirt and climbed in, causing Flower to shriek and squirm.

  “Wolfscar, you’re freezing! You’re like a ball of ice!” said Flower. He put his hands over the fairy to keep him still and started shivering and gasping like he did when Pepper put a snowball down his back.

  The fairy said something in response but it was too muffled to make out. Flower smiled from ear to ear, even as he squirmed. “Wolfscar, that tickles! Stop moving like that. Ow! Don’t poke me with the—Ow!” Flower’s squeals escalated into laughter that he couldn’t control. “He keeps… putting his… toes in my… belly button!”

  Just when it seemed Flower should be calming down, he redoubled his laughter and just about fell over. Tears ran down his face, but he didn’t want to spare his hands to wipe them—he needed both his hands to try and catch Wolfscar, who slipped around inside Flower’s shirt like an olive pit.

  Eventually Wolfscar popped his head out from Flower’s collar with a smug little smirk. Flower looked both relieved and disappointed and tried to catch his breath from laughing too hard.

  “Well?” Androkles asked, “How many thorns was it?”

  Wolfscar sighed and gave him an annoyed look. “Flower, hold me up. I don’t want to slide down. Okay. It was eighteen thorns.”

  Androkles and Agurne looked at each other. She said, “We’ve walked the horses three times, so that’s about twenty miles?”

  “Sounds about right.”

  Wolfscar said, “But! But I don’t like to do it. If I don’t go high, then it’s too many thorns to count the road. And if I do go high, then the air gets soft and it’s harder to fly. I only go that high to look sometimes.”

  “How high up did you go?” asked Androkles. Soft air?

  The fairy thought about this for a moment, then said, “The mountains look little from that high. And the road is just a line. I couldn’t see you at all. So that’s how high it was.”

  That was unimaginable. Androkles had no frame of reference to even imagine what it must look like up there. “Can you see the whole globe at once?”

  “The what?”

  “The globe. The sphere. The earth is round. Can you see it all from up there?”

  “The earth is round? Like a head or a rock that’s round?”

  “It’s round like a snowball.”

  “It is?”

  “Yes, but it’s so big you’d never know it. You have to discover it with mathematics, but no one ever taught me how.”

  Wolfscar looked up into the sky, clearly considering going back up there to check. He did not, however; instead, he shifted around a bit to make himself more comfortable and that was the end of that.

  Androkles’ mind started turning with all the possibilities from having Wolfscar measure distances. Knowing the King was twenty miles behind instead of ten could mean the difference between life and death. But the possibilities didn’t stop there. Maps. Military planning. Land disputes.

  This escape of theirs was starting to look better and better. The four horses had little trouble pulling a cart with him on it, and they recovered well each time Agurne had slowed them from a trot to a walk. Even now, in the middle of a real rest with food and water, they seemed energetic and eager.

  They were moving again in less than an hour, and with the sun more than a fist above the horizon, it looked like they were going to make something like thirty miles before they settled in for the night. At that pace, they could take all the breaks they wanted to keep the horses healthy—moving an army the size of the King’s anything close to fifty miles in a day was unthinkable, at least not several days in a row.

  A loose whomp of something falling directly into his lap shocked him from his thoughts. He jumped in startlement and tweaked his ribs, and when he realized the thing that had fallen on him was an animal, he just about fell over trying to get away from it.

  An instant later he had it firmly in hand and discovered it wasn’t moving. No sooner had he picked it up to inspect and toss away than Garbi broke out in riotous laughter, her voice ringing with mirth like the bells in the hair of the gods.

  It was… a hare? A big one—grey, heavy, and entirely dead. He got a second scare when a wide shadow darkened the cart and an enormous golden eagle landed without warning and perched on the rail near where Garbi was riding.

  Androkles tried to curse but was so flustered it just came out as a garbled mess of half-words, causing Garbi to laugh even louder. Flower panicked and tried to scoot away, but there was nowhere for him to go.

  Agurne stopped the cart and spun around on her bench. Her face lit up with almost predatory mirth and said, “I see you’ve met Queeny. Now you can guess why I made her stop.” She slapped the reins and pushed the horses back into a trot.

  Androkles tried to lean away from the massive bird, easily as long as his arm, sitting close enough to peck out his eyes. He still held the dead hare up and had no idea what to do with it.

  “Papa, it’s okay. That’s just Queeny. She’s my eagle. Remember I told you about her? Come here, Queeny. Come,” said Garbi. She held out her sleeve and the bird jumped over to it and started nuzzling the girl’s face like a puppy. It looked bigger than she was. She stroked the speckled brown feathers down its back and scratched gently around the golden-tipped feathers on its head and neck, and the bird responded like a cat or dog, leaning in and looking content.

  Garbi cooed and petted her raptor while Androkles stared, bewildered. Flower pulled himself up to his knees so he could watch and his yellow eyes got as big and Androkles had ever seen them.

  “Oh, you’re such a good girl! You brought us a rabbit! Is that for us to eat? Oh, of course it is, my precious little darling.” The giant bird’s chirps and squeaks were nothing like the predatory screams that pierced the skies.

  He looked at Flower, who had crawled to his knees and was just about laying across Androkles’ lap to get a closer look, and said, “Have you seen this before?”

  “No,” the kit responded simply.

  “Flower, do you want to pet her?”

  “Can I?”

  Androkles felt what little blood was left in his face drain out. The black bird’s talons were the size of his fingers and sharper than a sewing needle. Its thick black beak had a vicious hook on the end that looked sharper than a knife.

  “Go let Flower pet you, Queeny. Go on. Go over there.” Garbi lifted her arms a couple times to shoo the bird off, but it stayed put. “Maybe later. You can pet Ash, though. Do you want to pet her?”

  “Garbi, I don’t—” began Androkles, but he stopped when he felt the beast’s breath on his neck. He turned back slowly to see that the gray wolf had put its feet up to watch Garbi, right behind him. It had just turned its head, and that’s when he felt its breath. It was right there, breathing right down his neck.

  Its predatory yellow eyes fixed on Flower, who slowly backed off of Androkles’ lap and up to the front of the cart. “Maybe later,” he said. The boy was pale, even for him.

  Ash circled on her seat and lay back down, and went right back to ignoring them.

  The countryside grew rougher and more mountainous the farther southwest they went, and the next ten miles or so were all slightly uphill as the road wound its way up the foothills and, an hour after nightfall, into a narrow canyon. The steep, bare mountainsides to either side of the road seemed to loom over them as if constantly about to topple over them, especially in the waning moon’s unreliable half-light.

  Fortunately, mountains here were not as sharp and tall as others he’d seen, and the road was never steep. When Androkles asked about going so far uphill, Agurne insisted the rests were enough and the horses were fine.

  Finally, they crested whatever height the mountain road attained and the road turned downward, and even Androkles could see the horses were relieved that their burden had suddenly lightened.

  After guiding them downhill for at least three miles, the shallow canyon opened into a broad valley in the foothills. The road curved along the mountainside to the left, heading down into the valley indirectly, but opening a vista before them where they could see for dozens of miles. The snow gleamed gently under Erastria’s light, revealing a ring of short, pine-covered mountains guarding this little valley in every direction but west, where the horizon faded into gray far in the distance.

  Androkles had seen sights like this more times than he could count, although never with so much snow to brighten the dark of night; he spent most of his life marching around the rugged countryside of the Glories, after all. But the children hadn’t, or at least not often, and both of them murmured their amazement. Wolfscar couldn’t seem to figure out what the big deal was.

  A good-sized stream ran down the center of the valley, and even from here the sound of rushing water told him it was full of melting snow and would be dangerous to try and ford, or even get close to. The last thing he wanted was for Garbi to get swept away because she was trying to get a drink. Could her stag swim? He should ask. The road wended its way toward the stream, then ran down in the same direction until it reached the valley floor, where it looked more likely they’d find a bridge.

  And there would certainly be a bridge. Plenty of farming was happening down there. Their familiar circular huts ran all the way up and down the valley, the firelight peeking out their doorways dotting the valley floor like yellow jewels on a blue dress. No doubt plenty of them were still out there, only a few hours after sundown, tending their chickens or cattle or whatever kept them from starving.

  The descent into the valley was even easier travel at night than the road here had been in the daylight. Now that they were out of the canyon, the moon’s full light could rest upon them, and it seemed almost as bright as daylight. Garbi asked why it was so bright, and Agurne said it was the moonlight reflecting off the mountains, and that sounded about right. Whatever the reason, the horses had no difficulty at all finding their footing, and even picked up the pace a bit.

  Once they reached the valley floor and the ground levelled out, the landscape seemed snug as a blanket, almost, with tall hills encircling everything and hiding the sharper mountains that lay beyond them. They rested near a sharp bend in the road, where it turned to run alongside the stream instead of crossing it.

  By now, Flower was restless enough to get out and limp around helping give the horses their feed, and Garbi deigned to dismount from her stag and help him. Wolfscar hovered over them both, and Androkles noticed that the moonlight was so bright it drowned out the shadows the fairy cast.

  Androkles decided he should get out and move around a bit to warm up, since they could still go another couple miles before settling in for the night. He lumbered out of the cart, not bothering to hide his wincing at every motion. He made his way over to a likely bush not too far off the road and carefully untied his pants. He’d been holding in a good piss for hours out of fear he’d need help getting his rod out, with his arms bandaged and his fingers freezing off, but that wasn’t the case. He could just barely move them enough, and he made enough water to put the horses to shame.

  Getting back into the cart was far harder than getting out of it, and even Agurne had to come try and help. She couldn’t do much, though; he was too tall and heavy and she was too short.

  “After all that piss, I’d think you’d be lighter,” she said. “If you fall over and can’t get back up, we’re leaving you here.”

  “It wouldn’t be the first time my woman ran off with all my money,” he replied. “No, don’t push there, that’s—!”

  “Oh, stop complaining, you whining child,” she said, but she stopped pushing on his ribs and allowed him to breathe again. She patted his lower back gently instead, an affection gesture like she might give one of the children. The feel of her hand stayed long after she moved it.

  Between Flower and Wolfscar pulling uselessly on his shirt and Agurne trying to push him upward without grabbing his buttocks, they eventually managed to get Androkles back into the cart. A few moments later, and they were back on the road.

  As they rounded the sharp, unusual bend in the road, however, Wolfscar flew a bit in front of the horses and asked, “Where are we going?”

  “What do you mean?” said Agurne.

  “I want us to go that way,” said Wolfscar, pointing across thirty paces of unbroken snow toward the stream. “That’s how you get to where Pepper is.”

  “We can’t, sweet thing,” Agurne said. “We can’t take the horses over snow like that, not in the dark. And that stream is too dangerous.”

  “Then go on the road,” he replied, giving her a look like he thought she was an idiot. He pointed at the snow and added, “Just go on this one!”

  “There’s no road there. We can’t go on the snow.”

  “Then don’t go on the snow! Go on the road!” he yelled, starting to get frustrated. “Do you not want to get Pepper anymore?”

  “Of course we do, but—”

  “Papa made me look all over until I found him, even though it was cold, so you have to go get him now! I did my part!”

  Androkles declared, “Wolfscar, we can’t just make a road where we want one. We’ll cross at the next bridge. There’ll be one somewhere.”

  “You don’t have to make it! It’s right there!” shouted the fairy, who began flying back and forth with great agitation. Androkles and Agurne gave each other concerned looks, but tried not to seem upset in front of the children. No reason to have them panic.

  “Are you feeling okay?” asked Agurne.

  “No! I’m mad! Go on this road! Don’t turn!”

  “We’ll stay on the road. I promise, my little darling. Come sit back down,” said Agurne. She let out a bit of her love, the counterpoint to Androkles’ anger. Its soothing, reassuring warmth washed over them, as if she had hugged them all up in a blanket.

  Wolfscar flew over to one of the horses and tried to tug its mane to get it to turn, but it just snapped at him and huffed. “Come this way!” he told it sternly, right into its ear. It ignored him.

  “Garbi, would you go get him? See if you can calm him down,” said Androkles. Garbi seemed paler than usual, almost as pale as Flower, but she hopped off her stag and walked over to get the fairy.

  He scowled at her and shouted, “No! Don’t get me! Come this way! That is a bad way, so don’t go down it!”

  Garbi reached out to lift him out of the air, but he darted away from her, a few paces toward the river.

  “Come here, Wolfscar,” she said. Her voice trembled, and her fear was almost palpable. “Please?”

  The fairy wiped tears of frustration from both his eyes, then balled his fists resolutely and said, “No! Come get me then!”

  A trembling Garbi took another step toward him, then another. No sooner did she step off the road and into the snow than she shrieked in surprise and froze.

  “Garbi!” shouted Agurne and Androkles at the same time. Agurne was off the bench and halfway to her before the girl spun around to face them, wide-eyed with shock.

  “Mama, there’s a road! I’m stepping on a road!”

  Wolfscar shouted, “Of course you’re stepping on a road! What did you think it was? A bread?”

  Garbi turned, abashed and red faced. She reached out for Wolfscar, and this time he let her catch him. She kissed his head, right between his pointy ears, and he looked somewhat mollified. She, however, still looked bewildered.

  By this time Agurne had reached them, and when she crossed whatever threshold Garbi had, she turned around to face Androkles with her jaw slack and her eyes wide. “There’s a road!” She stepped back and forth over the threshold a couple times, staring in confusion at the footprints she made in the snow.

  “I said there is a road,” muttered Wolfscar. “You are all being mean.”

  “Oh, Wolfscar, no we’re not! I just couldn’t see it, so I didn’t think… I’m sorry,” said Garbi, distraught. “I’m sorry, Wolfscar. I know I should have believed you. Please don’t be mad.”

  “Well, you shouldn’t have said there wasn’t a road!” said Wolfscar. “Why did you all even say that?”

  “We can’t see the road unless we’re standing on it. We only see snow from back there. Let’s calm down before we make Garbi cry,” said Agurne.

  “Why can’t you see it?” asked Wolfscar. His unhappy demeanor was replaced by confusion. “It’s right here.”

  “You tell me, you flying rat!”

  Wolfscar pushed Garbi’s fingers away and flew forward with his fingertip in his mouth. He stopped near the threshold and looked all over, up and down in the air. “Is it this thing?” he asked, pointing upward at nothing.

  “How should I know?” asked Agurne. “What are you pointing at?”

  Wolfscar gave her a blank look, which usually meant he was so deep in thought his face lost all expression. Androkles had seen him do that once when Flower asked him what it would sound like if fish could sing. The fairy had just drifted away, so lost in thought he forgot to reply. Flower had gone to catch him before he got lost.

  After a moment, he asked, “What does this look like? This thing right here?” Again, he was pointing at the open air.

  “I just see snow, and past that, the river. No bridge or anything. There’s nothing there to see.”

  Wolfscar’s eyes shot wide open and he bounced in the air in excitement. “You see the snow thing? The snow thing? You can see it? How come you can see it?”

  The fairy started bouncing all over in the air, talking to himself. Mostly, he flew back and forth over the threshold, both high and low. “You can see this thing! How come you can see it?” he asked Garbi, stopping briefly in front of her.

  Androkles had had enough—he simply had to see this. Flower seemed too nervous to go investigate, but Androkles said, “Help me get down, boy. Let’s go see this.”

  Sure enough, once he got over there and crossed the line himself, a road magically appeared right beneath his feet. It filled him with conflicting feelings of wonderment and dread, but there it was. From one side, the road passed a fork and led right over a sturdy wooden bridge that crossed the stream. From the other, no fork, no road, no bridge. He could even leave footprints in the non-existent snow if he stuck his foot across the line.

  Flower did what everyone else was doing—crossing back and forth over the line to watch the spectacle. It was hard to tell what he thought about it, but he wasn’t complaining about his cut leg. He seemed to be examining the illusion from other angles, looking to see if the trees changed; that sort of thing.

  “Wolfscar, what is this?” asked Androkles.

  “It’s a… um… Well, you can’t see them so I don’t think there’s a word. And I don’t know it if there is, but it’s from, uh… Well… So I can make one if I want to, and not just me. So can lots of fae and, um, other things like me that don’t have a name that you can’t see… Some of them are fairies but not most, and anyway I can make one like this—” Wolfscar declared, waving his hand in the air. Nothing happened. “And then there’s one there, and it looks like how I want. Some stay for a long time, but most don’t. The other fae in the, um… The others can see them, or they don’t have to if they don’t want to, but…”

  “I don’t see anything,” said Androkles.

  “I know! So how come you can see this one? It’s a thing that looks like snow, sort of, but you can see it! At least, I think you can. Sort of see it. I think you can sort of see it. I want to make one like this!”

  “How come I can’t see them, Wolfscar?” asked Garbi. She seemed a bit disappointed.

  “I don’t know. I still don’t know everything you can see and can’t see. All of you are too confusing! Even though… well, you just can’t. Except this one!”

  “Wolfscar, come over here. Come sit on my hand,” said Androkles, holding out his palm for Wolfscar. Time for an end to all this nonsense. “Kneel down like you’re paying attention. Don’t give me that look; you’re not in trouble.”

  The fairy left Garbi’s grasp and hummed into the air. He plopped down on Androkles’ hand as instructed and look up with mild trepidation.

  “Nothing you say ever makes sense, Wolfscar, so help me out. You’re telling us there are things everywhere that we can’t see?”

  Wolfscar nodded. “All over. Lots. All the time.”

  “Big or little?”

  “All different sizes.”

  “Do they move?”

  “Some of them, but not these ones.”

  “Are they spirits?”

  “No, spirits make them. And fairies. And other kinds of, uh, things.”

  “Are they dangerous?”

  “Not to you. At least, I don’t think so, because you can’t see them.”

  “Can I touch them?”

  “No. Well, not most of them, I think.”

  By this time, Flower was leaning in against Androkles’ side to cuddle and listen and Garbi was moving toward his other side to do the same. Her wolf appeared at her side and brushed against her leg.

  “Can you touch them?”

  “Sort of, but only with… um… no. Well, yes, but no.”

  “What do they look like?”

  “All different stuff, but sometimes like nothing. Just things. But sometimes they look like what a tree says, but different, or steam, or jumping, or laughing. Stuff like that. They put them there usually when something makes them happy, or have a big feeling about… about um… About their thing that they do.”

  “Who’s they?”

  Wolfscar pointed at himself and said, “My kind. Fairies. Other things. Things like what I am, but all different kinds.”

  “Are there lots of you around, then?” asked Agurne. Androkles couldn’t tell what expression that was on her face. Excitement? Nervousness? But she had something rolling around in her mind.

  “Well, not lots like me, no, but there are some fairies except they’re different. There aren’t many like me. I haven’t met one since I met Garbi, but I know that there used to be more and I forgot about them. I forgot lots of things when I turned young again and was a flower. But there are little ones, or different ones, everywhere. There’s one right here, and right here, and some on the road right there…” Wolfscar began pointing at nothing, in every direction.

  “Wait,” said Androkles, “Which things are we talking about? The things we can’t see, or more of your kind?”

  “Oh, well, both. But I was pointing at my kind, the ones that aren’t like me. There are some rocks, and this one is a wood, and that is a rain but it’s asleep, and some other rains, and there’s a… a, um, a… I don’t think there’s a word for that one. Or for that one. Or that one.”

  Androkles couldn’t help but feel a bit lost. It was one thing to be taught as a child that there were spirits in everything, small and great, and gods ruling over them all. That was one thing. It was quite another thing entirely to have a fairy point at a bush at the side of the road and tell you there are spirits in it.

  Garbi’s eyes were wide with wonder, and it was plain there was no part of this story that she doubted in any way. “Do you talk to them? What do they say?”

  “No, not usually. Not most of them.”

  “Why not?” she asked.

  “Do you talk to rocks? No. So why would I?”

  Flower said, “Sometimes I feel like the rocks are listening when I sing.”

  “Well, that’s not the same! A rock can listen, but do you think it has anything to say? No. It just has rock things to say. Like this, over there. That one on the… well, you can’t see it. But it’s right here.”

  At this, the fairy jumped up off Androkles’ hand and zipped between the stag’s antlers, which made it start and step backward a few feet. He stopped over a small boulder, half-buried in the snow and slick with ice, which must have formed after night fell. He pointed down at it and said, “There’s a thing on this rock, and a rock made it, but it’s just a picture of being hard.”

  Androkles waved for the fairy to come sit back down, and after a few increasingly insistent tries, Wolfscar finally gave up pointing out invisible things and came to sit back down. “Alright. So there are invisible things everywhere, and your kind make them. Fine. Now. There’s one right there in the road, and it’s why we only see snow? Is that right?”

  Wolfscar nodded.

  “And you didn’t know we could see it because we can’t see any of the others. Right? But it’s what hid the road from us.”

  Wolfscar nodded again.

  “So how did it get there?”

  The fairy’s face went blank again as he fell deep in thought. He sat perfectly still, his eyes like empty glass. After a moment of uncomfortable silence in which everyone shifted their weight several times, eager for an answer, Wolfscar stood and jumped into the air and flew back over to the invisible threshold.

  He circled it slowly, over and over again. Everyone watched as his faint blue lantern-light played across the snow beneath him.

  Flower asked, “Did a person like us make it? Was it the King?” Where that thought had come from, Androkles had no idea, but it was a good question.

  Wolfscar suddenly stopped in midair. He forgot to beat his wings for an instant and nearly hit the snow before he started them going again. He looked back over at Flower, his mouth and eyes wide open. “Can he do that?” he asked.

  Agurne said, “Well, shit, it seems obvious now that you point it out. He thinks he’s clever enough to trick sweet young Agurne, does he?” She rummaged around inside the pouches tied around her waist, looking for a charm or powder or some such bit of witchcraft.

  “What do you think it is?” Androkles asked.

  “I bet it’s a glamour. I’ve never seen one, but I’ve heard about them.”

  Androkles wasn’t quite sure what a glamour was, but he imagined he had the general idea and didn’t want to look ignorant. He nodded sagely and said, “That would make sense. What are you doing?”

  “I’m going to see if I can break it,” she replied with a mischievous smirk.

  “Let’s leave it up for anyone chasing us instead,” he said.

  She stopped rummaging and gave him a scowl. He’d ruined her fun, he realized. Oh well. Too late now, because he was right.

  Agurne huffed and closed her bags again and said, “Wolfscar, can you tell this one apart from all the others? Would you recognize another if you saw it?”

  “Yeah, because it doesn’t… Well, it doesn’t… I can’t… If I try I can.” Wolfscar continued to fly around the illusion in slow circles, staring at it intently. He stopped, and hovered forward a few inches, stuck his hand out, and closed his fist around something no one else could see. He gave it a sharp tug, and the false image rippled like water, creating a circular disturbance along the borders of the illusion.

  “Oh!” he shouted. “Oh! Look! It has two things! They are the same so I didn’t notice.” He yanked and the image rippled again, more vividly this time.

  “Don’t break it,” said Androkles, in part because he wanted to confuse anyone chasing him, and in part because he didn’t want to find out what it looked like to see the world ripped open right in front of him.

  “Look at this!” Wolfscar waved both his hands this time and flew high up into the air. The illusion wobbled and burst into light brighter than the moon.

  Androkles squinted and peered through his fingers as the glowing mass grew in size, taller by far than the trees. Its glow lit up the steep hills surrounding the valley and broke the light of the stars. Near the top of the shimmering pillar of light, Wolfscar danced around in the air, singing a tuneless song of joy much like he had the first time he tasted a fig.

  All at once, the shimmering pillar dimmed and reformed into a hulking giant taller than any temple. Androkles reached only just past its ankle. It wore thick, loose furs and a long, black beard, and stood perfectly still, immobile as the eternal mountains.

  In size, it reminded him of the Hewer. It looked nothing like that old titan, however; thank the gods for that. Even so, even knowing in his mind that this was some trickery the fairy had made, it was deeply, deeply unsettling. The sight bruised some part of Androkles’ mind too primal for words.

  “It’s you, Papa! Look, Garbi! Everyone! This is what Papa looks like to me! If you’re my size! You can see it, can’t you? You can see it!” shouted Wolfscar as he plummeted back to earth.

  Agurne clapper her hands together in amusement and said, “Now this, I have to see. Come on, Garbi, let’s go back from it so we can get a better look.” She acted as if the towering giant standing above her was a mere novelty, like a dancer at a carnival or a cat with three eyes. She walked as fast as he’d ever seen her move back up the road, waving at Garbi. “Flower, you too!”

  “What about me?” said Androkles, carefully trying to dismount the cart without pulling all his stitches out.

  “I would never presume to tell you what to do,” said Agurne, a laugh dancing in her voice.

  Wolfscar darted thirty paces up the road and floated in the air, somehow looking impatient even though it was impossible to read his body language at that distance. Garbi hopped off her stag and ran to catch up to Agurne, and Flower wasn’t far behind with his ears pointing straight up and tail swishing excitedly behind him.

  Once Agurne reached Wolfscar and turned around, her laughter could not be contained. "It looks like just like him!” she managed to spit out between guffaws.

  “Mama, his eyebrows!” squealed Garbi, although her laughter sounded a bit forced.

  Flower giggled and covered his mouth. His shining eyes darted from the giant, to Androkles, and back again.

  “I’m gonna regret seeing this, aren’t I,” said Androkles, nearly out of breath when he reached the others. He must be more tired than he realized.

  Then he turned around and looked, and once again, that primal part of him shuddered at the sight. Staring up at something so enormous and so close made him dizzy, and he had to look away and take a deep breath to center himself.

  The giant’s eyebrows burned with living flames and his eyes glowed red from beneath them. He scowled ferociously through a tangled mess of wild black hair. The beard was thick, full, and black, and danced with sparks both inside and out. The furs the giant wore looked more like stinking animal corpses than clothing, and what skin was visible on his hands and cheeks looked more like cracking rock than scarred skin. Thin, flickering bands of light ran in a web all the way up and down the illusory Androkles, bundling in a few places to glow more brightly than elsewhere.

  Most troubling, however, was a clotted mass of glowing reds and purples that sat like a cancer of flame over his heart. The little flickering strings of light all seemed to end up there, much like how all roads lead to Dikaia.

  “That is him exactly!” shouted Agurne between howls of laughter.

  “What do you think, Papa?” said Wolfscar, flying in close to ask the question.

  “I... Is that a statue of when I’m angry?”

  “Oh, that’s not you when you’re angry. That’s just you normal, like all the time. Should I make you when you’re angry? I think I have a little bit left. Just—” The little fairy darted back up into the sky and stopped somewhere up by the giant’s head.

  After a moment of stillness, the ball of cancerous flame over the giant’s heart burst outward in a shower of a thousand flashing lamplights. the giant was surrounded by a hazy red glow like a storm sunset, but darker and bloodier. Shapes emerged in the haze as if it were the surface of an uneasy pool of charnal rot—skulls, teeth, grasping hands, claws, bits of torn flesh. They writhed and pulsed to an unknown drumbeat as the red haze expanded, fed by the well of evil over the giant’s heart, which swirled like thunderstorm about to become a whirlwind. The threatening, churning miasma of glowing carrion pulsed ever outward, growing to engulf all they could see.

  The laughter from Androkles’ family died away, and Garbi stepped back to hide behind her mother. Flower sheepishly reached for Agurne’s hand, all delight gone from his face.

  The giant’s face was all aflame, bright and violent. Its skin burned away to reveal the giant’s facial muscles and bare teeth. The giant’s eyes became no more than glowing balls of fiery yellow and white. The sparks in its beard became lightning strikes that shot in every direction as if thrown. Its hair whipped about like a gorgon’s snakes, lashing out for something to grab.

  “No wonder...” began Androkles, but his mouth was too dry. He swallowed. And again. “No wonder they always piss themselves.”

  He looked over to see that his family were hardly troubled, once the initial shock wore off. Garbi stepped out from behind her mother and Flower let go of Agurne’s hand. He got a big, silly grin on his face and said, “Papa looks like he just found out there was a hole in the wineskin.”

  “He looks like he usually smells,” said Agurne.

  Only a heartbeat or two later, the giant vanished completely, leaving Wolfscar alone against the empty chasm in the air. The little fairy spiralled downward and grabbed something from the ground with his remaining hand, something small as a pebble. It gave one last weak flash and vanished.

  “Well?” said Wolfscar, sticking his chest out with pride. “Did you like it?”

  “It was very good, Wolfscar, but I think that one time is enough for that,” said Garbi.

  “It looked just like him, huh, Princess? Mama? It looked just like him!” said the fairy, oblivious to everyone’s disquiet.

  “I don’t think Papa looks like that...” said Flower, but everyone could tell from his tone of voice that he was lying, and he sounded like he knew it.

  “Yes he does! Even the parts you can’t see, I think! Well, some of them, because I didn’t do all the parts.”

  “Well, there are certainly some parts you don’t need to flash around the valley, no matter what he tells you,” Agurne said.

  Androkles smiled slightly at that, but it was half-hearted. His mind was too unsettled for humor. Did the fairy see some truth of him that wasn’t apparent otherwise? Was he truly full of decay and blood, as in the image? Or was that an artist’s interpretation? He needed to ask Wolfscar more about it, but not now, not with everyone around.

  Wolfscar stuck his fingertip in his mouth and slowly drifted back and forth, trying to measure his audience. “Didn’t you like it?” he asked.

  “It was very good. Unforgettable. I’m just tired,” said Androkles, in a dull gray voice that matched how he felt. “Where did it go?”

  “It ran out of the, uh, the nectar,” said Wolfscar, holding his hand out. There was nothing in it. “Oh. Well, there’s... never mind. But I still have it. It’s sticky so I kept it. I can do more things later. I want to show you more things.”

  The walk back down to the cart was longer than it should have been, and it seemed like all the energy had gone out of all of him. A long day on the road, a horror Abraxia Dreamweaver herself could never have imagined, and he was done. More than done. Androkles wondered if Flower would want to sleep next to him, or if the kit would be too scared now. Androkles himself was too scared. It would be a fitful, restless night. One full of nightmares and terrors. Who could sleep peacefully after that? Even just the size of it, even if it hadn’t been his own wretched soul on display, just the sheer size of the giant, the terribly majesty, the blood and rot… It was a sight not meant for mortal eyes.

  Garbi leaned over and whispered something to Flower, and he guffawed and covered his mouth with his hands, then looked back at Androkles, his yellow eyes sparkling. The kit whispered back to Garbi, and she giggled.

  Androkles snorted and looked down at the ground. Fine. If the children weren’t going to be bothered, then a pox on them. Clearly, they had only very little regard for him, if they could see such a version of him and laugh. He ought to sell them both and buy a dog.

  Indeed, why should he be bothered at all? It’s not like he’d seen the Hewer again. And he’d forgotten how many men he’d killed—his soul looking like Raphos Corpse-eater’s lunch shouldn’t surprise him. The fact the gods left him to wander and corrupt the earth was the real mystery there.

  Once his annoyance at his heartless family faded into a quiet sulk, he realized that one thing still bothered him about the giant. That glowing, red mass of cancer over his heart reminded him of the pain caused by losing control of his anger earlier. Mari had called it a wound. So had Wolfscar. Was it some kind of injury that he aggravated any time he got mad, and it was just now starting to show its true nature? He’d just about killed himself with it earlier, when it circled inside him instead of radiating out. Wolfscar had said something about that, but he couldn’t remember what it was. Something nonsensical.

  After they got back to the cart, they continued only another mile or so to find a good spot to settle in for the night. The children spent the time talking about illusions and imagining all sorts of crazy plots, and it was clear that in truth, no one had been as bothered by the Giant as Androkles had been. Not even Agurne, who might be able to better imagine what it represented, seemed concerned in any way. Their good humor carried them through the evening bread and into their beds.

  Flower settled in right next to him as normal, which was good because the cloudless night just kept getting colder and Androkles didn’t want to sleep alone. Wolfscar even crawled in with them instead of with Garbi, which he did only rarely.

  Tomorrow, Androkles resolved to do something he’d been putting off for far too long: He would understand his power. He’d ask Wolfscar a hundred questions and get to the bottom of it, once and for all.

  The last thing that crossed his mind as he drifted into Abraxia Dreamweaver’s arms was whether anyone else had seen the giant.