The goblins kept to their bargain, I pointed out the pressure plates and no one missed their step.

Attart shadowed us on the journey back. A figure in the dark, hidden by her clothes and habit. The others didn’t question her except to confirm she was my companion. That was enough. I suspect Attart herself was contending with the strange changes wrought by so many people, but I didn’t have the time to ask.

All in all, our half hour return was remarkably easy. The huldra hadn’t even eaten or married Eric in my absence.

The reunion was less tearful than last time and less joyful for it, though it was also less tragic. No longer had three lives been spent rescuing their friend.

The huldra delighted in Erin and Brace’s company and more or less avoided the eunuchs. Erin was so happy to see her brother she didn’t even mind their attentions, though she did ward off any huldra which got too close to Brace.

After the initial hugs and kisses Stovepipe stepped back to join me in enjoying the reunion from afar.

“You say we used to be friends?”

“Less than those I shared Elysium with, but yes. Mutual respect if nothing else.”

He chewed on his lip, “I know something about Elysium. Couldn’t tell you why. Is that part of whatever happened?”

I glanced at the albatross slowly tracing a circle about the room high above.

“Could be. It was just two days ago we were all friends waiting to be reunited.”

“Does it hurt?”

I looked at Oscar, and at Oisín beside him, and Rian dancing about Eric on two legs, poking a prodding for any weakness or injury I had overlooked.

“It’s a complicated feeling. It’ll never be the same.”

“Never is. There is no going back. As babes we float down the river to the sea. As old men we are lifted high into the sky and return down the path through the stars. No place for even a footprint.”

A cloud drifted across his eyes. An actual cloud, like the herald of a storm. I blinked and it was gone. The explosion about his eyes was no more, but the druidstone had still left its mark.

“Erin overcame her fear of magic last time.”

Stovepipe smiled, “Wonderful. I always knew she was as strong as the Lion.”

From the way he said “Lion” I assumed he was talking about the giant stone statue at the heart of the Delta and not the animal.

“What does it mean to lose your own progress due to another’s actions?” I spoke the question outloud, but the musing was for myself more than anything.

“Progress?” Stovepipe murmured.

He was right to question me. Overcoming an obstacle was not about the obstacle but about the character it revealed, and Erin already had done so in my eyes. Her strength was not diminished, merely untested.

“I am one of the Magi.”

Stovepipe raised an eyebrow. The cloud was back, slowly drifting the same direction as last time, “I thought you might be something like that. Hard to imagine many others escaping on their own. What is your companion?”

He nodded to the far end of the room where Attart huddled behind her changing curtain. She turned her hat into a veil at some point. Only her eyes and forehead were left exposed.

“She is a necromancer. As I understand it, you at the Delta have less fear of the diviners of the dead than us in the Painted Lands.”

“It depends on the necromancer. Not all use their gifts the same. Why does she hide from us? Is she hideous? Stunted? There is no shame. The Delta knows inner beauty shines through.”

“Not hideous, but changed. Much like myself in that she has drifted far from who she was, worse in that her body is not her own, worse again that an elf has been bound to her soul, and worse still that her appearance is mercurial; it changes when she is observed.”

Stovepipe deliberately faced away from her, “Poor girl.”

“The warlocks have much to answer for.”

Stovepipe eyed me up and down, “Are you the one to make them?”

I laughed, “They are already undone. The mural is an affront to the world. With it gone and the knowledge of what it was as natural consequence they will not last long. I need only end the rift which separates the dungeon from reality.”

“The what now?”

Right. I suppose I had explained that last time, not this time round.

“Your ingress will no longer serve. Warlocks are oath breakers. They sever the connection between a man and his word, or between nature and order. Here, they have gone a step further and separated the dungeon from the world itself. The changes wrought to the mural will be hemmed in until the connection is restored.”

Stovepipe’s eyes widened, lightning flashed.

“Do not fear. A band of orneas have taught me the way of it. I need travel down, down to the caverns far below. There even the warlocks’ power cannot reach and I can travel around to restore the portal from the outside.”

“Why did they ready the rift?”

“If you didn’t think me a teller of tall tales before you will now, but I give you my oath what I say is true. For what it is worth in the warlock’s dungeon. They opened the rift to prevent my escape. I was bound in a cell some short ways from here. A warlock named the Shadowmaster came to invade my mind and unmake my axioms.

“I killed him and half his guard before the rest escaped. The orcneas named me Darkswallower of Bleak Fort for the deed.”

“They fear you.”

“The guards do. A full force of warlocks wouldn’t.”

“Why don’t they send one?”

“The rift cuts us off from time as well. I don’t remember precisely how the orcneas described it, but it is my understanding that if we do escape, no time will pass between when they activated the rift and when we break free.”

“So if we see an army of warlocks march down from above we will know we failed?”

“Something like that. I’ll try to stop them either way. It is far more likely they wait a few months their time for the denizens of the caverns to crawl up into the dungeon and kill all of us, but the result is the same. If the rift can no longer be ended, time will have proceeded as normal.”

“Time starts again when we all die.”

“That’s how I see it.”

“Let’s not,” Lightning crackled, he raised his voice, “Erin, a moment? Let the others see to your brother. It will just take a minute.”

Erin approached us cautiously. Approached me cautiously.

She knelt before me.

“I would curtsy, but I left my skirts at home. Thank you for saving my brother’s life. Our family is in your debt. Should you ever want for anything, call on the Ó Briain household.”

I dipped my head in a slight bow, “I am honoured.”

Stovepipe rolled his eyes and pulled Erin to her feet, then he shoved her into me, “Go on then, you fool. He won’t bite.”

It wasn’t that my reflexes were slow, but that I used them to quell my first response, which would have been to elbow Erin in the gut. As such, I was completely unprepared when she threw her arms around me and began to shower me with kisses.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. I was so worried about him. I thought we’d never see him again. I was worried I’d led everyone to their deaths coming here. We’ve seen such terrible things. Everything is twisted with dark magics. Thank you!”

Half her words were a blur as she pressed her lips against my cheek, shoulder, forehead, neck; wherever she could reach, and she was not a short woman.

Stovepipe chuckled, “That’s the girl I know,” he scratched the side of his nose and mentioned almost casually, “Oswic here is a Magus.”

Erin froze, but she did not withdraw. Her limbs were so tightly wrapped around me a lesser man’s ribs would be starting to ache.

“A Magus?” she asked hesitantly.

“Slew the warlock which bound him and came straight here. Apparently he’s from the future. Knows us there.”

She still didn’t draw back, but she remained completely still, “The future? How did you come to travel here?”

“It was not my choice, though in many ways I am glad for it. Oscar, Oisín, and Rian were slain by goblins originally. It does me good to see them. The warlocks’ twisted magics sent me and my companion back to the point of my own escape.”

“Yes, who is she? Why does she hide?” Erin kept her head locked staring over my shoulder as she mentioned Attart. Perhaps she was acting as though she was in the arms of one of her family’s bears.

“The magic which brought us here tore her from her own body. A hobgoblin’s tricks restored her appearance in part, but now she takes on the attributes those who view her most desire. And the hob’s form is inextricably bound with her own.”

Erin softened, “That’s why she is so small?”

I nodded. It had been a minute now and I had no idea what to do with my arms. Anything but returning her embrace felt supremely awkward, but if I did so she’d probably think I was trying to eat her.

“She was a prisoner of the warlocks for many years, and might remain imprisoned still in this time. If we return to her cell I may be able to restore her to her original form. I will try.”

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“Why do you have such a dread feeling about you? Like you wish to devour me?”

She DID think I was a bear—the holy man’s card. I’d forgotten. Stovepipe hadn’t mentioned anything. Perhaps it only effected women.

“The same dobby which cursed Attart cursed me as well. Both accidentally with a holy man’s cards. Fear not, it is harmless even if you submit. Attart was merely tired for several minutes.”

I could not see Erin’s face (I’d deactivated my senses the moment Stovepipe called her over), but something must have passed over her, for she suddenly pressed herself firmly against me, and clung even tighter than before.

Stovepipe’s eyes widened in shock, and then his expression softened into a faint smile.

“Brave foolish girl.”

The feeling of Erin overwhelmed me, much like it had with Attart. This time my head was enveloped in the spiritual mud. It was so thick I could scarcely breathe, but I couldn’t reach up to free myself, for Erin had gone suddenly limp and I needed to catch her.

I lowered her gently to the floor with Stovepipe’s help.

“What was she thinking?” I asked.

Erin’s eyes fluttered open, storms flashed their as well, “She was thinking she wanted to know if she could trust the word of a wizard,” she said.

“It was a little reckless,” Stovepipe chuckled.

“He rescued my brother. And he had Conan and Oscar vouch for him. I already trusted him in my heart, I just needed to tell my head.”

I clawed my mouth free of the mud and wiped the rest with my sleeve. I must have looked like I was insane.

Stovepipe raised an eyebrow at me, “Harmless?”

My heart sank. I’d taken some form of strength from Attart, but apparently my face hadn’t been the same.

“Excuse me a moment.”

I retreated to the corner of the room and reactivated my ring.

Stovepipe was a master of bodily control, or so unphased by the world he wouldn’t have reacted if the toad dragon burst through the door next to him. Erin, now regaining her strength reacted more appropriately and fainted. I myself fell flat on my back.

My face was nearly a twin of Erin’s. Erin with golden skin and ruby eyes. Not quite as feminine, not quite, but I didn’t look like her brother. At best you could call me elfin, though that had already been true. Some would call me pretty. Beautiful even, if you discounted the beard. Like the Seven-Lettered god, master of both masculine and feminine, or perhaps the ideal dandy, winner of every noblewoman’s heart.

Erin woke with a scream, which was not ideal for her rehabilitation when it came to magic.

I deactivated my ring and struggled to my feet.

“Perhaps it is best if I leave,” I mumbled. I’d had little control over the situation, but I felt embarrassed anyway. At least those sun-parched statues looked nothing like me anymore.

Stovepipe pulled Erin to his chest. Brace ran over to me and grabbed me by the shoulder. I flinched at her touch. She withdrew, then slowly grabbed me again. Nothing was given to me, no one was absorbed, “Come on now, I’ll go with you. We all know you meant nothing by it. We’ll just give her a moment.”

“Shame your curse didn’t pick the better looking sibling!” Eric called from where he lay, “You’d think it would have better taste.”

That got the room laughing. Talk had resumed by the time Brace had guided my still dazed form out the door and was sounding livelier than ever.

We were back in the corridor with the female versions of my face carved into the wall. The old female version of my face. The poor warlocks would need to update all their statues.

Brace pulled the door shut. She noticed me studying the statues.

“They sort of look like you, don’t they?”

“Makes me seem suspicious, doesn’t it? No idea why the warlocks carved them.”

“We’d be made if we could understand their broken minds. Look at what they did to poor Eric. He puts on a brave face, but that is my sister’s brother,” It took me half a second to remember the Delta people had a very different alternate definition of sister, “I’ve known him my whole life. He was never that raucous before.”

“And they targeted him for no reason. You’d think they’d try to conquer the mind of a noble, not deal out petty experiments in punishment upon him.”

“I know something of power from Erin and Eric. After a time you start to question why you don’t do everything you can do. It isn’t like there is consequences. A lot of their raising was having the eunuchs teach them restraint.”

“There is always consequences. My powers are such I could have destroyed my village a dozen times over with a single spell, but I was always watching. Not me here in front of you, but that spark of divinity planted in all of us. The divine I with the power of morality, creation, destruction. That which makes me a god on earth. Makes all of us gods.”

“I guess you had similar training”

“Similar results. The training is mostly about cultivating nature, both inside and out. Similar to alchemy. I’d consider the Magi to be a branch of alchemists even.”

Brace released me. I hadn’t even noticed she’d still been clinging to my shoulder, “What is the nature of your curse? I feel drawn to you despite seeing what happened with Erin.”

I shrugged, “The holy man who laid the curse in his cards was a man of restitution and reconciliation. Many of his curses and blessings seemed to be keyed to forcing the recipient to submit to their own nature so that they might change.”

“Your curse appears opposite.”

“It does. It has only triggered twice. Once with Attart, which made me stronger, and now with Erin.”

“Which gave you beauty.”

I touched my face. I nearly poked out my eye. My nose was in the wrong place, my eyes too wide.

“I’d thought about it as giving me her appearance. But I you may have the right of it. Twice is not enough to be sure.”

“You say Attart fully recovered.”

My heart began to race. My stomach boiled. Did I want this? “In a matter of minutes.”

“I would grant you some part of myself, if you were willing. Three is the number of answers and answers come in threes.”

She said the last in the tone of one repeating an old saying.

“I am grateful for the offer, but I think it would do little to calm Erin if you collapsed as well.”

“She was willing to give herself up to your curse. You know that. It is her own face which scares her now. She’ll get used to it. You got used to these statues.”

Had I? I still didn’t like looking at them. Though the reason was deeper than being unsettled by my own appearance. It was the reminder of the warlocks’ intentions toward me, even if I only had glimpses of what those intentions might be.

If I was honest with myself, the intentions remained whether or not I could see the statues. I was strong enough for that truth. Erin was as well.

“You are right. If you are still willing I’m ready to try for a third time. We’ll let Erin come to us, however, if that is alright with you. She can choose her own courage rather than be forced to endure. I can face my statues, but the enduring does wear at me.”

Brace sat on the ground and sat next to her, “Deal,” she said.

Then she plunged forward across my shoulder. Unconscious.

She’d been touching my arms, but it was my right leg which was enveloped. I “cleaned” it while Brace regained consciousness, but even once I’d finished I didn’t feel any difference.

Brace’s breathing quickened, though she remained draped about me, “What happened? Do you have my scars or did you decide to take my red hair instead?”

I leaned her upright against the wall and spread my arms wide, “I look and feel the same as far as I can tell. Something happened to my leg, but I can’t look at while I’m next to you.”

“Why not?”

Even here, struggling for survival, countering vile magics, after thirty years of training, I felt my face go red.

“I’d have to remove my trousers or activate my ring, and then we’d both be naked.”

“What does a Magus need with a ring like that?”

The red continued, “It’s a ring of senses. We wouldn’t actually be naked we’d just—“

“And where can I get one?”

It was only then I noticed the large grin across her face. She was teasing me.

“Eric is putting on a show, but he’s only imitating me. It’s a wonder they all put up with me,” she leaned forward until her nose was nearly pressed against my ring, “Now, what does this thing do?”

“I can see, hear, taste, smell anything within about fifteen feet of myself. Among other things.”

She whistled, “How do I taste?”

I pushed her away from my ring. She laughed.

“Like feet and mold and worse. It would be more accurate to say I sense everything, not anything. The voyeurism of watching someone’s stomach from the inside loses its appeal after the third or fourth time.”

Brace made a face, “Everything? Then you’d taste... that’s disgusting.”

“It is. Which is why I try not to use my ring next to others. Not unless I’m travelling, where safety is more important.”

“So trousers it is?”

“Only if you look away.”

To my relief and surprise she did so.

My trousers were difficult to remove without first removing my armour. Plus, the last time I’d taken them off I’d been sent back in time to the moment of my death.

Thankfully this time was far less eventful. I freed my right leg after a good deal of shimmying, and brightened it with a thought to get a proper look.

The brown and green stain where the Mushroom-King had fused my brace with my leg was gone. The skin was smooth; bare except for a mark on the inner thigh. I turned my leg. A tree with wide spreading branches, coloured brown like a birthmark. It was small, only half the size of my palm, if that.

It was rather beautiful contrasted with my golden skin. The edges glowed faintly.

I studied my other leg, the one which hadn’t been effected by the spiritual clay.

The legs didn’t match. My right leg was now lighter than my left. My skin had become the smooth pale of the Delta, though gold instead of white. The pattern was different too. I hadn’t even noticed skin had a pattern until now. It was especially notable at my hip, where Brace’s skin ended and mine began. Nothing a bit of tanning wouldn’t solve unless you were looking for it. The golden hue already covered most of the different in tone between us.

I pulled my trousers back up, “You can look now. Tell me, do you have a birthmark on your right thigh?”

She raised a red eyebrow, “I do. Have you stolen it? Do I need to pull down my own trousers and check?”

My face was once more as red as the hair would presumably be on my new leg, “In the shape of a tree?”

“Just a dark splotch, like a bit of ink. Go on now, I’m curious.”

“My right leg was a thing of mottled colours. A being I call the Mushroom-King warped it to absorb a splint I’d wrapped around it when the warlocks broke it. My skin is now even and clear, save for a mark in the shape of a tree.”

Brace poked her own leg, “About here?”

“Exactly there.”

“So you took the strength of your friend, Erin’s face, and now my clear skin?”

“Only on my leg. The rest of me is unchanged.”

“I still feel the pull of you. I’m willing to try to even you out.”

I raised up my hands, “I’d rather not push my luck. The difference is hard to notice. All my skin still has a golden hue, even when dim.”

“Do we need fear luck? What is the nature of the holy man? We have three clues now.”

I noticed she’d said “we” and not “you” and smiled my gratitude in response. She noticed and smiled back in return, “You saved Eric. You’re one of us. The fact you look like Erin’s identical twin is irrelevant.”

“Strength, Beauty, and... lessened disfigurement?”

“All blessings or improvements.”

I ran my hand over my face, “In isolation, perhaps. The card depicted molten gold being drawn from a pool of slag.”

“Ascension.”

Darkness swelled. The blackened ore of our discussion became a truth in my mind. Cracks formed. The sun peaked through, a ray passed over, then was swallowed as the darkness crumbled and swallowed the fissure.

The sun had risen, for what it was worth. But the imagery was a clue in of itself for the conversation at hand.

“Spiritual purity. A crucible of form. The feeling of mud when I am ‘gifted’ could be the slag of the exchange. What remains is ‘gold’.”

“So the best of the two is taken and the rest is discarded.”

Ouch.

The pain was reflexive more than felt in earnest. Even a blind man would register Erin’s transcendent beauty over my own.

“I think we’re close, but not quite there. I was and am far stronger than Attart. And the strength she granted me was more of a feeling than a reality.”

Brace lay her hand on my shoulder, “Once more?”

I readied myself to catch her, “Very well.”