The inn was frightening.

There was no other way to put it. A two-story shamble of boards and thatch, it looked more like a scruffy animal than a building; a big, stupid, lazy beast that had hunkered down in hope something would wander into its mouth. Drunken laughter echoed through the unwashed windows, accompanied by the sound of what could only be a rollicking brawl. The only thing missing was an unconscious patron recently tossed through a window.

"You don't like it?" Maggie asked.

"I didn't say that. Didn't think it either," Nathan replied. He glanced up at the inn's sign where it dangled from a rusty chain. The lettering was faded and the artist who'd carved the sign had either never seen a bird or hadn't been sober enough to care. "But I was expecting something a little less... messy."

"It grows on you. It's a little less Prancing Pony, a little more Star Wars cantina."

"How did you−"

"I peek," Maggie waved a hand. "Some things you just have to see, or so my uncle James says. He takes me. Tell the bartender I sent you. He's a friend. Don't draw attention to yourself and I'll be back in a few minutes. Five, tops."

"Wait, hold on! Aren't you coming in with me?"

She grinned and handed him a small knife. "Take that, it's for eating. I have to go to the bathroom and I am certainly not going in there to do it. Nervous?"

As if on cue, one of the windows behind Maggie shattered and a tangled mess of rags and limbs blew through the glass. Nathan didn't bother to look closer.

"Yes."

She chucked him under the chin and gave him a playful shove towards the door. "Assert yourself."

Before he could point out that her suggestion would probably get him killed she had disappeared around the corner, giggling.

"Shit." Nathan stared at the door for a few seconds, then opened it and stepped inside. Straw was spread across the dirt floor, scattered as haphazardly as the wobbly tables and shoddy chairs. He kept his head down and started forward as a man's angry bawl cut through the ruckus.

"You men have broken your last window! Stak, throw them out." Nathan heard heavy footfalls and looked up in time to collide with a huge and solid someone. The someone gently brushed him aside before Nathan could get a good look at him. He stood there for a moment and listened to the panicked yells behind him as the someone threw them off the premises. From the sound of it, Stak had quite an arm.

The bartender scowled at him, a great mildewed pork of a man missing every other tooth and nursing a temper as black as his beard. He looked Nathan up and down with an unimpressed snort and then asked what he wanted.

"A meal, please." Nathan said. "Maggie sent me. Said you were a friend?"

He grunted and pointed at one of the two stools at the bar. The other was occupied by someone or, Nathan reminded himself with a nervous smile as he made his way over, something. The figure was leaning on the bar, features invisible under tattered, multicolored layers of dirty robes and hoods. A tapping sound came from under its heavy sleeves as though it was drumming its fingers on the bar.

As Nathan sat it turned to stare at him. He stared back, trying to make out its features beneath the cowl but seeing only shadows. Without a sound the figure left its seat and vanished out the door. Deep gouges were left in the wood where its hand had been, as though by tapping claws.

Something, then. Nathan shrugged and turned back to the bartender just in time to watch him slide a plate loaded with bread, raw cabbage and a slab of meat his way, followed quickly by an unwashed mug of something that smelled like beer.

Nathan prodded the meat with his knife and watched it bleed. "Rare the house usual, then?"

The bartender grunted. "Dog isn’t rare."

"Ah." Nathan set down the knife and started eating, ignoring the meat.

"No weapons in my inn. Hand it over."

Nathan looked up to see the bartender pointing at his guitar case and swallowed. "It's not a weapon, it's a guitar."

"A what?"

"It makes music."

The bartender squinted. "You don’t look like a minstrel."

"What do I look like then?"

"A fool."

"You're no basket of fruit yourself," Nathan quipped without thinking. He winced, but the bartender only laughed and called Stak over.

Nathan flinched as Stak's heavy footsteps thudded against the dirt floor. Two feet too tall, two-hundred pounds too heavy to be human, Stak looked like the unfortunate child of a sot and an alligator. Wearing nothing but a greasy loincloth over its pebbled gray hide, jagged teeth grinned from a lipless, cheekless, earless face set in what might have been a polite smile. Its features hadn't been torn off; they were simply not a part of whatever evolutionary process had created such a thing. Dull brown eyes peered at Nathan as it extended a three-fingered, taloned paw. Nathan did his best to trade grips with a hand that could palm a medicine ball, praying silently that Stak wouldn't grind his fingers into mush for a laugh.

"Stak keeps the undesirables out of my inn. Play us a tune, minstrel, and if he likes it you can stay."

The inn fell silent and everyone turned to stare at Nathan. "Umm... I don't do requests," he gulped.

"What?" The innkeeper growled.

"I, ah... I mean I probably don't know any, ah, any music he knows," Nathan stammered.

"That’s all right," shouted one man. "If we don’t like the song we’ll teach you a new one!" Raucous laughter shook the walls and Nathan considered bolting. As he eyed the door he felt an enormous hand touch his shoulder. For a moment Nathan thought Stak might try to keep him from running, but the creature just patted his back.

Nice to have some encouragement. Nathan took a deep breath and drew out the guitar, an odd sense of calm washing over him. It wasn't that he was no longer frightened. It was the thought of playing the guitar, a familiar act in an unfamiliar place. It was comforting, somehow. Always did want to play Mad World in a bar.

He turned his back on the bartender and sat down on the stool, checking the strings. "What you all do for a living?"

There were few shouts along the lines of 'mercenary,' 'cooper,' or 'farmer,' but most of it was unintelligible.

"Uh-huh," Nathan nodded. "And you come here often?"

"Too often," the innkeeper grumbled. "Ran out of good meat."

"Clearly." A few of them laughed, and Nathan smiled back as he began playing a set of slow, haunting chords. A stunned silence fell as Nathan began to sing about familiar, worn out faces, and his audience leaned forward. He smiled and closed his eyes, focusing on the song.

Something strange happened as Nathan played. A charge filled the air, pulling the tension out of those listening. He wasn't sure how to explain it; the music seemed... more, somehow. Deeper and more profound than anything he'd played before.

It was as if the song− no, the meaning of the song was drawn out of the words and spun into the air, weaving from Nathan's voice and into the minds of those listening, bringing the pains of the listeners to the surface and then sponging it away, leaving room for life to come again.

Nathan stopped and opened his eyes, surprised to see tears glistening on the cheeks of several men. A polite tap at his shoulder turned him about, and he noticed that even the innkeeper had wet eyes. "Did you write that, boy?"

"Not me. I learned it from a man named Gary Jules."

"When you see him, give him our thanks."

Nathan grinned. "You don't want to send him some dog?" The patrons laughed and the innkeeper gave a rueful smile. "Times are hard, lad. Dog is the best we have."

"Your best is garbage, Tornic." Nathan turned. There was something of the rodent in the way the speaker moved closer, a nervous scuttling that stuttered between cringing and bold. Several more men followed, close enough in disposition and attire to the gerbily man that Nathan instinctively categorized them as flunkies.

"Another round for my men," said the man. "Be quick about it!"

Tornic snorted. "You may have another round when you have paid for the first six, Renal."

"I shall pay when I wish, and you will call me sir!" Flecks of spittle fountained into the bartender's face, but Tornic might have been carved from stone. "I am a knight on an errand for my lord," squalled the little man. "I shall be treated as such. No knight should pay for fare as poor as this!"

This is a knight? Nathan thought, eating his bread and doing his best to look inconspicuous. It was hard; the self-proclaimed knight was close enough to touch and much too close to smell. Stak watched the argument for a few moments more, then reached out and took Renal's forearm in his hand, the long, rootlike fingers each as thick as the man's wrist.

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Renal hissed as though he'd been stung and tried to duck out of the creature's grip, but he might as well have been wrestling a mountain. "Keep your highland filth off me!"

"Stak is a friend to this inn, and to those staying here," Tornic said. "He keeps the undesirable out." The bartender eyed the little man coldly. "You are becoming undesirable, Renal."

Renal's face went pale, then red as he noticed his men were watching. He snarled and scrabbled for the sword at his side. Before he could touch the hilt Stak's hand twitched. There was a muffled crack as Renal's bones shattered like eggshells. Stak let go of the screaming man and swatted him on the back of the head. Renal toppled bonelessly into the creature's waiting arms. Stak snapped the sword belt from the knight's hip with a twist of his fingers, handed it to Tornic, and then hoisted Renal by the scruff of the neck with one huge paw, holding him out to his cronies.

The men fidgeted, eyeing the massive creature. One or two of them looked as though they'd like to try for their sword but their fellows held them back; evidently they didn't care to see their leader crushed like a dixie cup.

"Leave," Tornic said. "Splint his arm and carry him in a litter; he has no business being on a horse with a break like that."

" Go. Now." Stak pointed a claw at the door. He was hard to understand without any lips to form the words. To Nathan it sounded like "Ooooh oooow."

The flunkies took it like a death threat, gathering up Renal and fleeing.

Tornic considered the sword in his hands for a few moments and then offered it to Nathan.

"For the song."

Nathan considered the weapon for a few moments, tempted. Unlike its owner the weapon was well cared for, if a little rough around the edges. He didn't know anything about swords but this one looked as though it had seen plenty of a sword's business. "I could get in some trouble with that. Besides, doesn't it belong to the..." he waved a hand towards the door "...that dude?"

"Dude?" the innkeeper stressed the word as though he'd never heard it before. Probably hasn't, Nathan realized. "That 'dude' is an ass. He and his men are unwelcome in my inn, and owe me two days lodging besides. The sword will settle the debt, and I choose to give it to you."

"I don't deserve it. And I don't want trouble with a knight."

Tornic laughed. "He may be, but no knight worth his title stays at my inn. Take the sword, boy. If you wish to earn it, favor us with more song from your... your gee-tar."

"What song?" Maggie bloomed from the floor like a mushroom, her voice stern as she shouted over an encouraging cheer. Nathan smiled sheepishly and waved a hand at the crowd. Fans!

"Child!" Tornic beamed. "Have you a hug for me?"

"What song, Tornic?"

"The boy claimed to be a minstrel. I did not believe and was proved a fool. I offered him a sword as payment but he refused." The innkeeper shrugged. "I asked for more song to balance the offer."

"Didn't I say something about not drawing attention to yourself?" Maggie hissed.

"Stak is scary!" Nathan said. "I didn't want to be fastballed out the door, so I improvised."

"Well, you are not taking the sword."

"Hey, now!" Nathan complained. "This is my gig you're messing with!"

Tornic rubbed his ample gut, frowning. "Fastballed? Gig? Where are you from, boy?"

Nathan opened his mouth to respond but Maggie cut him off. "That is his business, Tornic. We need a room for the night, please."

"That will be five silver marks."

"five marks?!" Maggie shrilled. "You never charged me that much before!"

"That was before you deprived us of song," the innkeeper sniffed, checking his filthy nails. Nathan grinned and elbowed the angry girl at his side. "I like this guy. You were right, this place grows on you!"

Maggie was getting as red-faced as Renal. "If he sings, do I still have to pay?"

"I suppose not."

"Sword too," Stak rumbled.

"Whatever!" she snarled.

Tornic handed her a heavy iron key, chuckling. "Your usual room, last on the right."

She snatched it from his hands and stormed off without another word.

"She is poison, that one." Tornic grunted cheerfully. "Best of luck courting her. You'll need it."

Nathan spit out the mouthful of beer he was swilling. "What?! No, no, it's not like that. I'm with her, yeah, but I'm not... with her. Don't you like her? You wanted a hug."

The innkeeper wiped at the puddle with an already sodden rag. "As you say, I like her. She is like a favorite niece. My only niece, in truth." He smiled soberly. "But as I said, she is poison."

Nathan glanced up the stairs after Maggie, checking to make sure she was gone. As he did, he noticed that the inn had grown quiet again. Many of Tornic's guests were staring up the stairs as if they'd seen a ghost, a few making a familiar gesture with their hands. Yikes. They’re actually crossing themselves.

"Anything I should know?" Nathan asked. "About her, I mean. Stories you'd like to share?"

"Nothing." Tornic turned his back on Nathan, busying himself with his glasses. "Nothing I have to say would do her well, and she’s had enough ill in her life. I will not add to it." He looked over his shoulder. "Sing, boy, and think of better things. Know you a gay tune?"

"I may," Nathan replied as he took up his guitar again. "I don't suppose you've heard of Gaelic Storm?"

An hour or three later Nathan made his tipsy way up the stairs, candle in hand. The beer was actually pretty good, but Stak kept finishing his drinks when he wasn't looking. Stak also stole the chunk of dog, but Nathan didn't mind that.

Maggie was curled up square in the middle of a bed that, on inspection, was stuffed with straw. The room was surprisingly clean, which made Nathan suspect that Tornic had nothing to do with the room service.

"Finished, then?" Maggie grumped from the bed.

Nathan smiled. "Thought you were going to sleep."

"Not through that noise."

"Well, they seemed to like it." Nathan set down his guitar case and stared at the single bed in the room. "Um... where am I..."

"Take a bath, then get in." Maggie yawned, then blinked and shook a vague fist. "Don't get any ideas."

He blushed. "Okay. Right. Where is the bathroom?"

Maggie waved at a bowl of water, a bucket, and a stack of folded cloth in the corner.

"You're joking."

"It's not the Ritz, after all." she mumbled.

"Just wash myself. Standing right there."

"I won't look," Maggie said, pulling the covers over her head. "Promise."

Nathan snorted and made his way over, poking a finger in the bowl. The water was very, very cold. He shrugged out of his shirt, wishing he had a mirror. He thought a moment, then looked in the bowl of water to stare at his reflection in the candlelight.

He ran his hand where the giant lizard thing had licked him and cauterized the revenant's filthy bite. He looked... older, as though he'd aged years in the past few hours.

"Something wrong?"

Nathan shook his head, then smiled. Heh. "Nothing important. Shouldn't you be passing out?" Maggie said something along the lines of "meargh..." and rolled over, pulling the covers to her side of the bed.

"Blanket hog," he muttered as he finished doffing his clothes, and then gave himself a quick once-over before his skin turned blue. Clean, at least arguably, he considered the bed for a moment and noticed Maggie didn't seem to be wearing much. At all.

A few minutes later, a laughing Tornic was handing Nathan a private room key.

The dream was back again, towers of hellfire and ruin swirling all around him on a plain of ash, his flesh cracking in their wake.

"Why run? Why flee, knowing that in the end you will be caught, that you must be caught? You live on borrowed time, Nathaniel, and now you must pay your debt."

The flame converged, grasping like the claws of some great beast. It seized him and sank deep.

"From dust thou wert made, and unto dust thou shalt return. Isn't that right, Nathaniel? The time has come to return, that's all."

The air was ripped from his lungs before he could scream, the inferno tearing into his mind, his body, his very soul.

At the last moment the fire faded, dwindling into flickers, then embers, then darkness. A single star danced above him as he laid there, his life ebbing away. Then it vanished, and the molten glow of the fire returned.

He scrambled away even though he knew the fire would come for him, that there was no escape. He cowered for a long moment, but the light grew no brighter. He turned back and stared into the flames.

The beast from the forest basked in the fire, still bleeding where it had bitten itself. It was not simply enduring the fire but reveling in it, drawing strength from a place where he had known only pain. His thoughts went back to stories he'd read as a child. He'd heard of such creatures, beings that danced in the heart of the flames and yet, like the frail tree of Moses, went unharmed.

Salamander... as he thought the beast's name it turned, staring at him, into him, and suddenly it was inches away, its life dripping slowly to the ground as it offered the wound to him with solemnity of a priest offering a sacrament.

"Endure, child."

Nathan got up very quickly the next morning, not because anyone woke him but because he fell off the bed. Wincing, he rolled to his feet and noticed that where he'd piled his filthy clothes a clean stack was waiting, though he’d been left his shoes. After some experimentation he managed to put the new clothes on, glad tights weren't included in the ensemble, then stumbled down the stairs to meet the day.

"Tuck that tunic in, you look like a slob." Maggie said as she waved him over to the bar. Stak was behind the counter, tending a pot of stew that smelled amazing.

"What are you, my mother?" Nathan tucked it into his belt and sat down. "Where'd these come from?"

"Tornic runs several businesses out of this place, not just his inn." Maggie smiled. "Stak said your clothes looked like crap, so I bought you some new ones."

"Great, I'm wearing Tornic's tunic," Nathan grumped. "He didn't wear it, did he?"

Stak let out a rumble that worried Nathan, but as the creature turned and offered them bowls of stew he realized the sound was what passed for its laugh. "Bad business," it grunted. Stak went back to work as Maggie took her bowl and led Nathan to a table.

"You know, for a grint Stak is a pretty good cook," Maggie remarked. "Good housekeeper too."

Nathan tasted the stew and had to agree. "A grint?"

"You know how humans supposedly evolved in the trees? Well, Stak's people are from the mountains. I've known them to eat thorn bushes when times are tough; they don't usually cook."

"Why's he here, then?"

"He likes beer. They don't have much of a sense of taste and I've never seen him get drunk, but Tornic says he enjoys the buzz."

"Oh." Nathan frowned and Maggie raised an eyebrow. "You're thinking, Nathan. What about?"

He glanced about to be sure they weren't overheard. There was no-one else in the inn but Stak and he'd moved out of earshot, so Nathan leaned forward. Maggie, looking curious, copied him. "How can I understand what everyone is saying?"

It had been bothering him ever since they’d arrived. Everyone was speaking English, and a vaguely broguish English at that, as though they were in a seedy tavern in medieval Ireland. It made no sense at all.

"You said the worlds are separate, Maggie. How long has that been?"

She straightened, shrugging. "What does it matter?"

Something about her tone made Nathan scowl. "Don't assume I'm an idiot, Maggie. I'd bet anything people used to go back and forth all the time and something happened to shut that down. How long have the worlds been apart?"

She blinked at him, looking unnerved. "Uh... a little over a thousand years."

"And they speak English here? Perfect, understandable English? Bullshit. I don't think English even existed a thousand years ago." A sneaking suspicion dawned on him. "What did you do?"

"What?" Maggie leaned away, her stew forgotten.

"What did you do?" Nathan did his best to stay calm but an edge of cold fury was creeping into his voice. "What did you do to me? You tinkered with my head, didn't you?"

Maggie looked genuinely frightened. When she spoke, her voice was little more than a whisper. "Yes. Yes, I did. How could you-"

"What did you do?"

Stak turned at Nathan's raised hiss of a voice, eyes narrowed, but Maggie waved him away. "I... I altered your speech centers."

"What?"

She spoke in a nervous rush. "The language isn't all that different, just separate. I fixed it so you'd hear English but speak the language here."

Nathan leaned forward. "Anything else?"

"No, I swear it! Jesu, Nathan, I didn't think it would be a problem."

"Not a problem? You were screwing around with my brain!" Nathan spat. "What the hell are you? No games, no dodging the question. Tell me now."

Maggie sighed. "It would be easier just to show you."

"How?" Nathan asked coldly. "More tinkering?"

"Yes." she straightened and a hint of resolve entered her voice. "No games, no dodging. It's too much to tell with words."

Nathan considered his options and shrugged. "Whatever. Do it."

Maggie reached out, took his hand, and showed him.