Striding across the black sand to reach his stack of wooden boxes, Blackwing loosens its netting to access one of the outermost containers along its top layer. Lamp recognizes the chosen box by its construction, identifying it as one of the crates that had been added to their load during the cargo transfer at Wall Town. Most of those boxes had stored provisions, either for their outbound journey or Candlewire’s camping stint, so the majority were left behind with her.

  Lamp isn’t sure what to expect from this mystery container. He strongly doubts that his employer plans to halt their progress for an impromptu lunch break, but he doesn’t know what else besides food and water the merchant brought along. He watches with bated breath as Blackwing pries off the lid, only for his spirits to plummet the moment its contents are exposed.

  “Ah.” The scholar sighs. “It’s that gods damned chair again. Are you sure we have to do this?”

  His employer glances back with an unamused expression. “Would you prefer being left on the ground for Manslaughter?”

  Lamp lets out a dry chuckle. “I’m less sure of my answer than I would have been a few seconds ago.”

  The corner of Blackwing’s mouth twitches upward, but he doesn’t yield. “I need to keep you secure while leaving my hands free. This is the most reliable method we have.”

  “Fine… but you deliberately waited to show me this until after the portal closed, didn’t you?”

  The merchant smiles minutely but says nothing. Returning to his heavily-laden pallet, he digs out a bundle of rope and extracts the swaddled elephant tusk he’d received from Rosehalf. Blackwing then turns towards the chair, presumably intending to affix the ivory treasure to its underside, but he pauses to reconsider.

  “This is arrogance.” Blackwing mutters before gently setting the tusk down again. “I should carry only what I need.”

  Lamp presumes that category of items refers just to him, and he feels an odd combination of pride and irritation at being treated like a prized utensil. He questions that assumption a moment later when Blackwing, instead of ordering his translator into the seat, walks around his box assembly and pulls another mysterious container from its opposite side.

  Lamp observes with markedly tempered expectations while his boss digs two claws under the lid to pop it free. Unlike his prior disappointment with the chair, however, this time his curiosity is rewarded with a novel development.

  Sturdy wooden poles emerge first, each segment nearly the length of the box, followed by two folded sheets of sailcloth. Only when Blackwing begins to thread one of the former items through a diagonal tube stitched atop the latter does Lamp ascertain the combined object’s identity. Ashti seems to reach the same conclusion simultaneously.

  “Is that a fan?” She asks with curiosity. “I doubt your lord feels any need to cool himself, but I can only imagine one other purpose for these devices. Does he flap them like wings to propel himself?”

  She glances at Lamp expectantly, clearly presuming that he would know the answer to her question from prior experience. The scholar can only shrug in response.

  “I’ll ask.” He volunteers before walking forward to Blackwing’s side.

  Switching languages, he offers to assist the long-armed man with his assembly. His employer accepts the help and tasks Lamp with maneuvering the material over his arms while Blackwing inserts each stabilizing rod into its awaiting pocket. As they work along the length of the contraption, Lamp inquires after its purpose.

  “Are these meant to serve as wings? They enable you to fly?”

  “Yes.”

  Lamp nods with a slight frown, suddenly remembering a previous conversation.

  “So, when I proposed bringing Candlewire along so we could take your airship over Manslaughter’s territory…” He trails off, waiting for Blackwing’s answer to his implied question. The other man ignores his bait, so the indignant scholar concludes. “You had another method prepared? Why not mention it at that time, or even two days prior when we planned our journey? Actually, no- wait- let me guess.”

  Lamp deepens his voice and flattens his affect in a flimsy imitation of his employer. “‘I wasn’t sure the sacred gate would open for me until it actually happened, and I obviously couldn’t reveal the existence of my secret bird-technology until I was absolutely certain we would need to use it.’ Is that about right? It’s not that you forgot, you just didn’t trust me enough to-”

  His voice falters as the merchant removes their partially assembled wing-fan from Lamp’s arms and gently sets the object down atop the sand. Then, with nothing held between them, Blackwing lifts his gaze from the desert to look down into Lamp’s eyes. When he speaks, his tone is low and firm.

  “We’ve known each other directly for two weeks, Lamphand. In that time you’ve learned more about my capabilities and plans than almost anyone else who works for me. What major secrets I retain, I’ve shared with no one but Candlewire. You cannot expect the same degree of trust that she enjoys; you cannot expect complete transparency.”

  His voice softens. “That said, I apologize for withholding a detail I could have safely divulged. You are correct that I should have told you earlier. I will remind you, though, that I confessed to possessing a limited means of flight when we planned our expedition, and you chose not to ask further questions.”

  “Oh.” Lamp murmurs, chagrined. He remembers that exchange.

  Blackwing continues. “You are also wrong to assume we’ll fly over the icon’s territory. Neither my arms nor my graft possess sufficient stamina. I will walk as far as I can. Our basic plan remains unchanged.”

  “I see.” Fighting the urge to look away, Lamp draws in a breath and delivers a clear apology. “I’m sorry. I spoke out of turn.”

  The merchant shakes his head. “No, you didn’t. You’ve placed your life inside my palm. That gives you every right to scrutinize me.”

  “But you retain your right to remain inscrutable?” The scholar weakly quips.

  “Naturally.” Blackwing offers the barest hint of a smile. “I’d have no personality otherwise, I’ve been told. On that subject, your impression of me needs work. Wire would be happy to provide coaching.”

  “I’ll be sure to ask her once we’re reunited.”

  The merchant nods.

  With that matter resolved, the two of them resume their construction of the sailcloth wings. As they complete their first assembly, Ashti sets down her backpack and walks over to assist with the second. Conferring with Lamp, she confirms that the objects will indeed enable Blackwing to fly. She refrains from asking after the details of their brief argument.

  As the trio strings stabilizing cross-braces along the body of the second fan, Lamp notices a difference between it and its predecessor. Its splayed surface forms a rounded wedge, like the first fan, but a wide tube runs the radius of that ‘pie slice’ from its narrow starting point to the center of its outer circumference. When Lamp points this feature out, his employer steps back and holds out his graft arm with its claws tucked inward.

  Understanding their cue, the merchant’s two assistants collaborate to fit the tube’s opening over Blackwing’s fist, pushing the fan inward until its outer edge clears his wrist and its narrow point nearly reaches his graft arm’s elbow. Now that the thing’s in place, Lamp estimates its length as roughly equivalent to his own legs.

  Opening his hand but leaving his arm extended, Blackwing instructs them to retrieve a spool of twine from the same box that held the cloth and poles. Obliging that order, Lamp and Ashti make use of narrow, strategically placed cuts throughout the fabric to tie the fan to Blackwing’s graft. The merchant has to remind Ashti that his left arm has no veins to restrict, and she doesn’t need to worry about fasting any knot too tightly, but otherwise they complete the work in good time.

  Next, they secure the fan’s structural supports under Blackwing’s careful scrutiny, locking its position and orientation. Once that task is accomplished, the man orders them to step aside before he gives the artificial wing an experimental flap.

  Its slow but powerful movement tussles Lamp’s hair and kicks up a little flurry of dust that barely rises above their ankles. That’s an impressive wind force for a simple fan, but hardly enough to carry the weight of two adult men. Lamp supposes there’s a reason he’s never heard of anyone else attempting this trick.

  Apparently satisfied with his test, Blackwing plucks the final two remaining rods from their crate and slots them into opposite ends of a bronze sleeve. He affixes the joint with tiny, carefully driven nails, then inserts that lengthened pole into the other fan.

  The merchant steps back so his assistants have room to tie all components in place. When everything feels secure, Lamp delivers the object into his employer’s waiting right hand. Blackwing then spreads out his arms and gives the two ‘wings’ a downward test swish.

  His body still doesn’t move, indicating an absence of energy manipulation, but the falling fabric still generates enough pressure to kick up a decent cloud of sand. Lamp can easily imagine such gusts propelling Blackwing into the sky once weight ceases to be a factor. However, he can’t help but voice one skeptical observation.

  “Even when you’re weightless, it must take quite a lot of flapping to cover any ground.” The scholar opines in a neutral tone.

  “Less than you’d think.” Blackwing refutes. “I only need a slight push.”

  “Ah, right. To give your magic a foothold?”

  “Correct. Though a literal foothold is still preferable. We’ll fly further if I’m not completely forced from the ground.”

  Lamp nods. He remembers Candlewire telling him that it’s always easier to pull along with nature than to push against it. Perhaps for the prodigious Blackwing, any amount of upward motion is sufficient. The wings enable him to initiate a ‘fall’ in an arbitrary direction before he propels himself with his stored energy. That approach seems far more elegant than the laborious flapping Lamp had initially envisioned.

  The scholar smiles at a silly mental image of Blackwing furiously pumping his arms just to move forward at a walking pace. Lost in the daydream, he almost misses his cue to begin translating when his employer directs a question towards Ashti.

  “How far are we from danger, and how far again from safety?”

  In response, the girl points forward and up toward a remote patch of the metal sky. Squinting his eyes, Lamp barely resolves a faint line beyond which no red stars glimmer. He roughly estimates the distance and travel time, tentatively concluding that he could reach the border in about two hours on level terrain. He doubles that prediction to account for the dunes.

  “You will be safe from Manslaughter once you cross that barrier.” Ashti confirms. “As for the start of its territory, the initial surveyors from House Courage placed stone markers when they were mapping the perturbation in its historic patrol. We should find a small plinth dug into the peak of the second great dune. As a rougher guide, Manslaughter’s domain begins around the point where the sand rises high enough that a two story house could hide in its valleys.”

  Turning his squinted eyes downward, Lamp manages to pick out a likely delimiter. The flat field in which they currently stand extends perhaps a hundred paces forward before rising into small hills that rapidly build in stature as they recede away from the world wall. The fifth of those mounds looks tall enough that Lamp imagines its shadow could conceal an elephant. Though, having never seen a living example of those noble beasts, the scholar can only guess.

  Ashti waits for her translator to return his attention before continuing. “Both of you will require blindfolds to pass safely through Heartbreak’s territory. Did you bring suitable strips of cloth?”

  “Yes.” Blackwing affirms. “I have two in my pouch, cut from the same fabric I purchased as a gift for your king and Jaleh. When I wore one, it blocked all but a sliver of light.”

  The handmaiden offers a relieved smile. “That should suffice, but please keep your eyes closed as an additional precaution.”

  “We will.” The merchant solemnly promises before asking. “Are you certain you don’t need one?”

  The girl nods with a slightly puzzled look. Perceiving a misconception, Lamp faces his employer to explain. “Heartbreak exclusively targets men, as opposed to people attracted to women. Even men who prefer male company aren’t safe. While most of its depictions represent the icon as female, Heartbreak is by no means restricted to that appearance. I’ve seen images of the icon with masculine, feminine, and even combined bodies. It seems to adopt whatever form its current victim finds most alluring.”

  “Noted.” Blackwing looks back to Ashti. “You would have mentioned it, but to confirm, there’s no similar trick to evading Manslaughter?”

  “Like closing your eyes?” Ashti shrugs. “If such a method exists, my people have yet to discover it. Once Manslaughter senses a man, it bears down on him; only a force of magic equal to its own could deter it then.”

  After completing his translation, Lamp interjects with what feels like a promising thought. “I understand from what I’ve read that Manslaughter is a protector of women. If you cried out for aid or feigned an injury, would it divert its attention to assist you?”

  “No. Your understanding is absurdly wrong.” Ashti flatly rebukes. “The only thing Manslaughter cares about is killing men; the welfare of women does not concern it in the slightest. If I was lying wounded in its path, bleeding out from grievous injuries and begging for salvation, it would crush my body beneath its heel as it thoughtlessly passed over me.”

  Shaking her head, the handmaiden expounds. “Understand this- Each icon possesses a single, myopic objective, beyond which it cares about nothing. Most icons barely have minds; their behavior is more a product of tendency than of will. While some are said to embody specific virtues, and a few of them abide by nuanced principles, none of them behave like people.

  “Setting theology and myth aside to focus on the practical realities, Manslaughter is nothing more than an angry bundle of magic that slaughters every man it encounters. If you try to ascribe deeper motivations, if you try to imagine the twisted mindset that might have driven a living human to take the same extreme actions, you will only reach false conclusions. Such fantasies are common among the lower classes, but anyone who has actually met an icon knows better.”

  “... Oh.” Lamp responds with mild embarrassment. “I suppose I misinterpreted a few poems, then. I should start keeping a list of corrections. There are too many to remember.”

  “Well, you might have been close in this case.” Ashti smiles reassuringly. “Although the icon itself cares nothing for women, we can still easily exploit its temperament toward the opposite sex. For instance, if a woman or girl beset by men flees into Manslaughter’s domain, she will not be troubled further. There is safety here, for all that it was not born of love.”

  Turning back toward Blackwing, she addresses him through Lamp. “To your question, Lord Blackwing, while I cannot say how one might successfully hide from Manslaughter, I do know what would draw its notice fastest. Whenever a member of the Select desires an icon’s attention, they remove their falsemask and allow their magic to sweep across the boundary of its territory. The resident icon will generally arrive to investigate within a few minutes.

  “While the higher magic you wielded in partnership with Lady Candlewire would certainly attract Manslaughter’s ire, the normal use of your graft produces far less ‘noise,’ even when outputting tremendous energy. Absorption should be even more difficult to notice, assuming it is not completely imperceivable.”

  The merchant nods. “No released energy. I’d planned on that, but I appreciate confirmation.”

  Ashti bobs her head in return before continuing hesitantly. “Also- and this might just be commoner superstition- I have heard rumors that speaking about an icon inside its territory lures it to you. If that claim holds any truth at all, then I would expect that human speech itself is what draws their focus, regardless of subject.”

  “No talking either.” Blackwing acknowledges. “Do we have anything further to discuss?”

  Lamp and Ashti share a look. The latter shakes her head, so the former nods. Their exchange requires no translation; as soon as Blackwing sees the nod, he bends to slip his right arm through the strap of his back-carried chair.

  Lamp wordlessly helps the man secure another line over his left shoulder and a third around his hips. The merchant kneels once the contraption feels stable and safe, allowing his employee to clamber inside. After tying himself down so thoroughly that he thinks he’d remain in his seat even if it flipped upside down, Lamp declares himself ready.

  Ashti kneels to recover Blackwing’s second fan and returns it to his right hand before adjusting her own backpack and confirming that she’s also prepared to advance. Then the merchant rolls his shoulders, slightly jostling Lamp, and begins marching forward. He sets a ground-eating pace across the sand, one Lamp might have struggled to maintain, but which Ashti matches without any apparent difficulty.

  They quickly reach the first of the minor dunes and summit it in only a few paces. The next one rises significantly higher, as does the third hill after it. By the forth, Blackwing spends the better part of a minute just on his assent. From there, the merchant and handmaiden begin walking along the top to reach a relative high point between their current ridge and its forward neighbor.

  Blackwing’s gait feels far smoother than Lamp would have expected, given the loose terrain beneath them, but he supposes the man must have reduced his weight to less than Ashti’s. Indeed, looking back at their footprints, Lamp finds that his employer’s tracks leave shallower impressions. Seeing that, he’s even more impressed that the girl isn’t flagging behind.

  The three of them dip into the relative high point of a sloped valley between two peaks, then climb back up again. The scholar glances around as they crest over the next dune and quickly spots what he was looking for. Just a stone’s toss to the right, a gray stone plinth juts from the coarse black sand at a slanted angle. Lamp silently points it out to Ashti, and she nods after turning to look.

  They’ve crossed the safe zone’s barrier. Manslaughter could lurk anywhere around them now.

  Lamp shudders at the thought but consoles himself by recalling Ashti’s assurance that Manslaughter doesn’t behave like a hunter, that it won’t lie in wait or stalk them quietly. Unless they blindly stumble into its path, the monster will make its presence obvious before it strikes.

  All the same, the scholar finds himself nervously searching the quiet shadows of every valley that falls behind them, alert for any signs of movement. He nearly calls out a warning when his peripheral vision catches a small patch of sand losing its grip upon a neighboring dune. Thankfully, he manages to suppress that sound before it forms in his throat, and he watches quietly as the onyx grains slide downward for a span only to merge again with the greater whole.

  Shaking his head, Lamp concludes that continued hypervigilance poses more of a threat than a boon to his companions, so he ought to stop. That said, he can’t very well just relax and enjoy the ride, so he casts his attention inward to root out a subject that might distract him. The first thing he digs up is his tiny spat with Blackwing.

  Though their conflict was short-lived and the two of them resolved it calmly, Lamp’s accusation of “you didn’t trust me enough” still proves sticky to his ruminating mind. It was, without a doubt, a true and objective statement of fact, but Lamp’s not quite sure why he’d felt compelled to say it aloud.

  Where exactly did that fit of pique originate? Was he upset simply because Blackwing had withheld seemingly relevant information back when the man had rebuked Lamp’s idea of bringing Candlewire through the gate? Perhaps partially, but Lamp suspects there’s more.

  It requires little soul searching to recognize that his angst likely stemmed from the conversation he’d half-overheard- half-eavesdropped, rather- at the exit to Wall Town’s tunnel. Lamp had successfully avoided thinking about this subject over the past few days, stubbornly dismissing any related thoughts with aphorisms of loyalty and privacy whenever they occurred.

  Apparently, that’s not quite good enough.

  Although his shoddy impression of Blackwing had offered minimal offense, and although the man had chosen to respond with more grace than his station required, Lamp’s buried resentment could easily produce more damaging interactions in the future. The chairbound scholar therefore recognizes a pressing need to examine and resolve his feelings before they cause real trouble. He wasn’t interested in doing that even an hour ago, but given his present circumstances, he’ll take any distraction he can get.

  So, the question: Why exactly is he bothered by Blackwing’s secrecy? Again, this inquiry doesn’t necessitate much soul searching. Now that Lamp’s finally willing to engage with the mystery, he finds it simple.

  Obviously, his fundamental concern can’t be that his employer refuses to reveal his agenda as plainly as an unrolled scroll. Lamp doesn’t expect every person who hires him to share any more information about their life and goals than is required to complete his work. No… Blackwing’s tendency to keep secrets only troubles Lamp because he’s begun to fear their implications.

  This is the painful truth he’d left buried beneath a layer of uncomfortable questions- the barb lurking amidst the nettle- and now that he’s touched it, he has to push. New questions seep from the mental sore as he presses deeper.

  What untold plans has the merchant concocted for Ashti’s homeland? What exactly did he mean when he said he wanted to establish parity between their realms? Is this really a mission of diplomacy and trade? If not, what other interests and agendas is the enigmatic man pursuing? Lamp doesn’t like the possibilities that occur to him, so he shies away from their particulars.

  That cowardice is fine for now. He can dwell in generalities; there’s still plenty for him to consider at that level. To begin with: If Blackwing’s interests conflict with those of Ashti’s kingdom, where will Lamp’s interests lie? That seems like an easy question. Lamp signed a contract with Blackwing. He owes his life and the beginnings of his fortune to Blackwing. He shares his native tongue and culture with Blackwing.

  Lamp’s allegiance should be to his home and his employer, right? His decisions might vary in specific circumstances depending on the moral choices others make and the options they provide, but shouldn’t Lamp lean toward supporting Blackwing’s secret cause, whatever it may be? Isn’t his answer that simple? At least in abstract?

  Maybe it would be, if he didn’t know anyone on the other side, but he does know one person rather well by now. The next question is how much she matters to him. So, what about Ashti? Lamp counts the girl as a friend by now, despite his initial hesitancy towards forming any attachment, and he feels great sympathy for her position and goals.

  That said, he doubts the strength of their nascent bond. Ten days; that’s how long he’s known her. Barely anything. She’s a recent acquaintance, not a life-long compatriot. Their connection remains shallow and untested.

  Yet in the brief time they’ve traveled together, she’s placed herself among both his brightest students and greatest teachers. The information they’ve exchanged could enable both of them to write memoirs on the other’s civilization and natural environments. Lamp hasn’t learned so much from an individual tutor since… since he was her age.

  Gods, that makes him feel old. Lamp doesn’t need to think about the passage of time on top of the existential crisis he’s already having, so he shoves those thoughts aside and refocuses.

  He reminds himself that he and Ashti accomplished greater feats over the course of their partnership than a simple academic exchange of knowledge. Together, they stirred two of the caldera’s strongest warriors to expunge an evil that had lurked on the periphery of Lamp’s home city for his entire life. Together, they confronted the woman who’d given Lamp nightmares as a child and convinced her to end a nightmare plaguing thousands in the present day. Together, they gave the abandoned dead a purpose for their suffering.

  Blackwing, of course, deserves more credit for the graft thief raid than Ashti, but Lamp still has to give the outlander her due. The purge would never have occurred without her. If not for the questing handmaiden and her ill-conceived kidnapping plot, Lamp would never have obtained the opportunity or courage to suggest his own retribution. Clearheart certainly wouldn’t have agreed to his proposal had her niece’s suitor not been involved.

  Lamp owes Ashti, he feels. His world-tile owes her.

  And… gods without! He’ll admit he’s grown fond of the girl! Not quite fond enough to proclaim she’s like the daughter he never had, but nearer to that metric than he’d ever have expected. Perhaps she’s more in line with, say, a favored niece. Lacking his own extended family, Lamp can’t be certain how that dynamic typically operates, but the comparison feels appropriate.

  So, with his sentimental attachment to the outlander acknowledged, where does he stand? The question lingers in his mind for several seconds before he unhappily returns to his original conclusion. Ultimately, Lamp’s duty still compels him to support Blackwing before any foreigner- ancient oaths of fealty be damned. At the very least, he must uphold the letter of his contract. Surely he can take any actions up to that limit without doing anything heinous.

  The scholar almost lets out an exasperated sigh at that stifling decision, but he strangles the breath in time to prevent any noise. His eyes briefly widen in reflexive fear before he calms himself. Dear Mother, that was too close. Lamp actually got so absorbed in his thoughts that he temporarily forgot about the mortal peril of his circumstances. What a stupid way to die that would have been.

  Refocusing on his surroundings, Lamp scans the landscape of rolling black hills and their winding crevices. After assuring himself that no terrible monsters lurk in those shadows, he allows his attention to turn inwards again.

  Having chosen his position, Lamp now wants to convince himself that maintaining it will be easy, that conflict is unlikely, and any disputes that do arise will remain minor. To begin with, he challenges his assumption that Blackwing would have any willingness to harm Ashti’s people. Certainly, the merchant isn’t motivated by a desire to hurt them.

  The worst accusation Lamp can levy against the man is that he’s hiding something, and secrets aren’t always a mark of ill intent. After all, Blackwing had implied he would let Ashti test the gate’s lethality herself, yet when the time came, he’d gambled his own life instead. His deception prevented the girl from circumventing him and taking a risk he was determined to confront before her. With that example in mind, it seems plausible to Lamp that his employer might withhold information under the justification of protecting them.

  That explanation still implies the existence of a dangerous secret, though, so Lamp takes little comfort in it. Still, the positive memory does provide some hope. Blackwing’s insistence on testing the gate himself suggests a deep devotion to the ideals of hospitality; his conduct over the past twelve days furthers the same conclusion.

  Surely a man who makes such a dutiful host would feel a similar degree of concern for his responsibilities as a guest. Right? That feels like a safe assumption. It’s also an assumption that makes Lamp feel safe, so he’s tempted to stop thinking about the matter from this moment onward. However, one final concern snags his mind before it manages to locate another distraction.

  Almost unwillingly, Lamp recalls the conversation he and Blackwing had shared on the caldera’s outer slope in the morning after they had camped beneath the open sky. He remembers the stoic, accepting manner in which they’d discussed the likelihood of their visitor inviting her own death by attempting to abduct Clearheart from her stronghold. Lamp hadn’t taken any pride in their passive attitude at the time; he feels somewhat ashamed of it now.

  All the same, the scholar can hardly fault Blackwing for setting limits to his hospitality. Lamp would simply do well to remember where that line is drawn. Hopefully, his employer plans to keep within those same lines himself. Lamp struggles to imagine the merchant prince stepping over them, and that very difficulty finally grants him some solace. When it comes down to it, he simply doesn’t think Blackwing is a bad person.

  Lamp could have just started with that gut check, he supposes. He doesn’t know enough to arrive at an informed opinion anyway, so why is he overthinking this?

  Oh right, the monster. He almost forgot again. Whoops.

  Lamp allows himself a very quiet sigh and shakes his head. Ashti, seeming to notice his movement, drops further behind Blackwing so she and Lamp have clearer views of each other. With an encouraging smile, she signs to him.

  “The sky ahead of us grows marginally darker. I estimate that we have traveled at least a quarter of the way.”

  Lamp nods in response. He considers signing back to the girl, but the nebulous threat of sudden dismemberment makes him a bit too nervous for polite conversation in a language he hasn’t mastered. Ashti seems to feel a similar laconicism, as she repeats her smile before glancing around to scan the hills and crevices. Lamp unenthusiastically joins her exercise, reminding himself not to cry havoc until he’s absolutely certain he saw something.

  For the next several minutes, they occupy themselves with surveillance, and time drags on in quiet tension. Eventually, after a long stretch of nothing happening, Lamp actually begins to relax. He doesn’t feel safer, necessarily, but he does accept that danger is not imminent enough for him to spot it coming.

  From that point onward, he allows himself to appreciate the surreal beauty of his environment. Seen with calmer eyes, the towering black dunes have an ominous mystique to them. Their edges shimmer slightly under the irregular red glow cast by their metal sky. More of that light scatters than reflects, producing the faint rosy haze by which he sees.

  Now that he’s focused on these subtle interactions, Lamp belatedly notices something quite peculiar: the crimson light doesn’t seem to touch him. Glancing down at the unnaturally pale skin of his arms, he confirms that the sky’s red flickers never seem to glint against his own form. Lamp’s plaid hue remains constant beneath their wavering glow. His body almost appears to be illuminated by an entirely separate light source, but that can’t be true, can it?

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Lamp shifts his limbs to confirm that he can still cast shadows over his own body. Judging by their position, the radiance responsible for his coloration seems to originate from directly above. This indicates that either the red flashes are interacting with his skin in a different way than they interface with the sand, or there’s a second, sun-like brightness shining invisibly through the false sky high above- one that exclusively interacts with humans and leaves no trace of itself on the wider landscape.

  Convinced that he’s discovered something profound, Lamp opens his left graft and attempts to consume the strange, plaid light that coats his body. To his immense disappointment, he only manages to absorb a faint trickle from the red ambiance. The typical darkening that usually appears around his graft when it feeds makes no appearance now.

  If there is a second source of illumination shining down upon this desert, then its nature is wholly incompatible with Lamp’s own magic. Perhaps it isn’t true light at all, but rather a novel form of energy that enables sight without producing luminance.

  That surreal possibility tangles Lamp’s thoughts for a time, but after a wasted span of unproductive puzzling, he eventually shakes his head and resolves to stop scrutinizing the esoteric architecture of divine constructions. He can stick to looking at pretty sand dunes.

  Glancing around, he idly wonders how these peaks and valleys ever formed along the border of their windless realm. Perhaps they’ve been here since the rupture, sculpted into their current arrangement by the hands of gods, or perhaps Manslaughter or another icon carved them out somehow. Or maybe this world-tile has a native climate after all, despite its chill aridity, and some ancient windstorm piled up the sand into the shapes he sees today.

  Tilting his chin upwards, Lamp next examines the dull and distant form of the all-encasing roof that hangs above this world-tile with no apparent need for structural support. Out of all the bizarre and mind-bending phenomena he’s seen on his journey, he’d rank the gray roof as the third strangest thing he’s ever seen. First place goes to the sea of chaos, naturally, and he awards second place to the instantaneous sunset he experienced when flying above the final canyon wall.

  The scholar wonders what other phenomena he’ll add to that list of oddities over the next two months while he’s a guest in Ashti’s realm. The two of them had discussed several strange and wondrous features to be found throughout her world-tile. To pass the time, Lamp runs over that list in his mind, ranking each feature in terms of his interest and sorting them into categories of historical significance, natural beauty, and man-made marvels.

  He hopes Blackwing will allow some time off to visit a few of those sites. Maybe Lamp can even convince his boss to tag along. The locals would probably enjoy showing off their landscape’s great wonders to their impressionable foreign guests, and an overland tour would provide Blackwing with ample opportunity to wheel, deal, schmooze, and do whatever else an enterprising merchant might want to get up to under the social pretext of an expedition.

  Lamp nods to himself, pleased with his basic scheme, and resolves to pitch the idea to his companions once it’s safe for him to talk again. The acquisition of a subject he wants to discuss puts him into a chatty mood for the first time since they entered Manslaughter’s territory, so he glances back toward Ashti and catches her eye with a wave.

  The girl nods to him with a curious expression while adjusting the weight of her backpack. Lamp feels a twinge of guilt for hitching a ride while both of his companions have to carry their own burdens, but then he reminds himself that he had no real choice in this arrangement. Sloughing off the unpleasant and unwarranted concern, he signs a message to his study partner.

  “Are you okay? Is bag too heavy?”

  She smiles wanly and shakes her head. “I can manage, though I might ask for a rest stop once we escape these dunes.”

  After her final sign, Ashti waves an expository hand at the black hills surrounding them; she must have remembered that Lamp hasn’t learned the gesture for that word yet. The scholar nods in thanks while committing the motion for ‘dune’ to memory. He practices the movement a few times himself before looking back to the handmaiden.

  He finds her wearing a contemplative expression. Lamp flicks his fingers in another question, asking Ashti if she also feels well in a more general sense. The girl begins to nod by social reflex before stopping herself. A conflicted expression gradually overtakes her previously calm face, and she sighs.

  “Should I be?” She silently questions. “I handled almost every graft I now carry, so I know how many dead people I stuffed into this bag. The total is around twenty. That is a strange and morbid thing to have in mind, but I am still glad to know it. I should feel this weight. I should bear this sorrow. It would have been too easy to make this journey while another carried my burden.

  “While I feel we have discussed the ethics of our plan at appropriate length- and I remain fully committed to seeing it through- to carry them on my back after sorting them… after choosing these specific grafts… Their sacrifice feels more real to me now than ever.” She nods to herself then, and her eyes gain a touch of resolve. “I think we should hold another funeral for the dead when we inter them with Growth. Even if their souls are long departed, I would like to thank them properly… If our plan works and the icon rejuvenates, all of my people should thank them.”

  The scholar agrees with a misty-eyed nod, touched by the solemnity with which Ashti regards their shared project and its costs. And she’s right that a second ceremony should be conducted. For all that Lamp doesn’t regard grafts as containers for human essence, he must avoid representing them as mere fertilizer.

  The conversation pauses while they detour around a collapsed section of the current sand dune’s winding ridge. Once safely past the unstable terrain, Ashti resumes.

  “Since we have broached this subject, I have a related question.” She draws a breath in, despite not needing more air to speak, then presses on. “I was wondering whether anything remotely similar to our actions has ever been attempted in your world-tile. Excluding the involvement of icons, of course. I ask because such precedent would explain why every lord and lady of your homeland whom we informed of our plan accepted it so easily. I might have expected more resistance…”

  She shakes her head. “To my point, do your people ever transplant grafts consensually? Say, for instance, that a great warrior has grown old or suffered tremendous injury, and he or she wishes to pass their graft along to a successor. Is that done? Can it be done?”

  The attentive manner in which she searches his expression indicates a stronger motive than mere curiosity, so Lamp decides to earnestly engage with the question despite his ongoing clumsiness with Ashti’s gestural language. He carefully considers his answer as they descend into a deep valley then hike up its opposing side. Once the group has level ground underfoot, he responds as best he can.

  “Taking strong graft is rare… rare choice? Chance… Door… Opportunity? Like this: Opportunity? Thank you. Very rare opportunity. Not open for most. Strong grafts are always big, and grafts can be many places inside body, so strong grafts are many big places inside body. If you cut same places out of second person, second person dies before new graft starts working…

  “Well. Sometimes possible when graft is outside center of body. Arms, legs.” He taps his limbs to illustrate the point, then shakes his head. “Still big risk. And one other problem: Grafts grow old like people. Strongest grafts often create old lords because they are difficult prey. Grafts get too-”

  Lamp’s fingers jerk to a halt as his eyes snap upward in automatic response to an oddity in the sky. Far behind and well to the right of their position, one of the flickering artificial stars flares with sudden intensity. For a brief moment, it shines with more than twice the power of its neighbors. The bright burst holds a fraction of a second longer than the normal pattern before it fades away.

  Lamp watches that patch of heaven for several long seconds, waiting for another anomaly. He holds his breath while sweat beads on his skin despite the cool, dry air. When the same light finally shines again, it reverts to its typical pattern, faintly blinking on and off like every star around it. Lamp forces himself to exhale slowly, though the tension lingers in his muscles.

  Ashti, having followed her companion’s startled gaze, stares off in the same direction. Spotting nothing out of the ordinary, she waves for his attention and signs. “Did you see something?”

  “Not sure.” He pauses, scanning the metal heaven for any further disturbances. “Large flash. Brighter light. I only saw once.”

  The outlander nods, seeming reassured. “That happens sometimes, when the icons use a bit of power. How far away was it?”

  “Far. Big distance. Behind and right”

  The girl smiles in relief. “Far is good, and one flare probably means nothing. We should be fine… At least we have an idea of where it is now, and it is reassuring to learn that we have already passed it. Good eye.”

  Lamp nods, feeling only marginally relieved. The two of them pause their conversation for a span while he keeps watch on the rearward sky. A minute or so passes without further oddities, after which Lamp consciously relaxes his body.

  Turning to Ashti, he signs with lingering trepidation. “Are we close?”

  The handmaiden nods. “Yes. We have maybe thirty more minutes of hiking in store. Optimistically.”

  That’s much too far away to reassure him, but maybe it’s a short enough distance that Blackwing could manage flying across it if he had to. Lamp shudders at that thought, then mouths a prayer to Mother and Wayward entreating them for safe passage. Despite all the effort and attention he put into securing his connection to his chair, the thought of putting its stability to the test at high altitude fills him with dread.

  He sighs- quietly, of course- and rolls his neck to alleviate a budding stiffness. Another few minutes of dull silence follow thereupon, by the end of which Lamp manages to convince himself that the solitary red flare was no cause for concern after all.

  Waving again for Ashti’s attention, he signs. “Where was I? For your question?”

  “You were explaining that grafts age.”

  “Ah, yes.” He regathers his thoughts before picking up where he left off. “Grafts grow old when owner dies peacefully. Grafts too old then. If they join new body, they stop working after few years. Stop both magic and normal health, then new host needs cut them off again. So is dangerous if graft came from old person… Also, if big graft comes from young, strong person, it probably broke in big fight. Or maybe they died from poison, but then graft is poisoned too. Same problem with sickness.”

  Lamp flexes his fingers, the tactile equivalent of clearing his throat, and tries to remember the signs for cardinal directions. There’s a story he’d like to share about a tribe rumored to live along the caldera’s North West coast, one that supposedly practiced a tradition of transferring grafts from recently deceased elders to their heirs. He’s not sure whether that practice actually happened at scale, but if it did, then it was one of the many hedge rituals suppressed by the central cult during its expansion.

  Before he can formulate his explanation, however, Lamp feels his chair tilt slightly to one side as Blackwing raises an arm. The scholar can’t see where the other man’s pointing, so he watches Ashti’s face instead as she follows the merchant’s skyward claw. The girl squints ahead and up with an expression of mild concern. For a few long seconds, her eyes flick back and forth across the metal heaven as she tries to pick out whatever oddity caught Blackwing’s attention.

  Apparently failing to find anything unusual, she begins to relax and shake her head. Then her eyes suddenly widen in shock as her body stiffens. The fearful response lasts less than a second before she rushes forward to smack Blackwing’s shoulder as she jogs past him. Taking the hint, the man increases his pace to match and quickly overtakes the younger but shorter girl.

  As Ashti reenter’s Lamp’s view, he frantically signs. “What happened?”

  She replies with choppy motions, glancing back and forth between her companion and the ground. “I saw two of the black stars ahead of us turn red. That means the local icon is approaching their shared border. Quickly.”

  “It saw us?” Lamp asks with rising panic.

  Ashti stares ahead with tightly pursed lips, then stiffly shakes her head. “I cannot say with certainty. This could be pure coincidence. Just to be safe… we need to move faster.”

  She drops her hands and stares forward, focusing on speed and careful footwork. Not wanting to risk distracting her further, Lamp keeps his burning questions to himself. While the other two struggle to cover distance across the desert’s unstable and uneven terrain, he reviews recent events in his mind.

  As he searches for an explanation, one burning question occupies the forefront of his anxious thoughts: Is this his fault? The scholar stares down at his hands as an absurd, horrible possibility slowly dominates his imagination. A knot forms in his stomach.

  At the start of their trek, Ashti had claimed that the icon might hear its name spoken from anywhere inside its territory, so the two men had agreed not to speak aloud until they crossed the far edge of its domain.

  It hadn’t occurred to Lamp until this moment that any form of communication might draw Manslaughter’s attention. The prospect seems like nonsense- it seems impossible- yet something drew their hunter’s eye. Was that him?

  Lamp’s wide eyes look down upon his grafts and his face falls numb with shock as he considers the significance of their composition. His hands are living glass, reforged by divine intervention before his birth. Does their structure lend them a metaphysical weight beyond what normal flesh might hold? Did the nature of his gift betray them?

  Lamp reimagines every sign he made as an unwitting insect tapping its leg against a spider’s web. With that dreadful analogy in mind, he realizes just how much motion he produced. He should have lain still.

  Craning his neck to peer up at the metal sky, Lamp tries to convince himself that the red stars haven’t grown brighter. That hopeful lie falters and extinguishes as he watches the crimson flashes gradually increase in their tempo and intensity.

  Merciful gods, what had Ashti said about that accursed light? That it was the icon’s castoff authority? A constant scattering of flares from an endlessly burning soul? And Lamp had tried to consume it.

  A chill creeps through the scholar’s body as he wonders whether Manslaughter had felt him feed upon a sliver of its power. Perhaps that was the first moment it became aware of their intrusion. It might have been watching for them from that moment onward, but they still could have gotten away if Lamp hadn’t made so much noise by prattling with Ashti.

  If they die, it will be his fault.

  He almost tells Blackwing to drop him and run faster, but the cost in time required to untangle his chair wouldn’t be worth the enhancement in speed. Of course, Lamp could simply untie his own bounds and jump free, but that, too, would only waste time the others can’t afford to spare as they tried to save him. All he can do is wallow in terror and shame. That, and keep watch on the sky behind them.

  Facing backward and gazing up, Lamp sees the heavens brighten in a rising flurry of chaotic bursts. He’s not sure whether the others can see its full intensity while facing forward. They might underestimate the icon’s activity. Lamp hesitates to speak a warning, not wanting to draw further attention to them, but with no one in view of his hands, he has no choice but to use his voice.

  After a dry swallow, the scholar opens his mouth to whisper his report. The icon of manslaughter beats him to it.

  An anguished scream pierces the desert’s brooding silence, breathing horrid life into the windless air. Lamp’s initial, startled reaction is to marvel at how human it sounds. In opposition to their dire circumstances, the mournful call reminds him of a funeral he attended years ago where he heard the grief of a young mother burying her infant son. The sorrow and pain contained within that echoing wail chills his blood in a manner he could never have expected.

  But the scholar’s pounding heart won’t allow him to linger on that distraction any for longer than a bewildering second. Focusing through his confusion, Lamp frantically darts his gaze across the towering sand dunes, struggling to find the keening’s source. The hills scatter its sound, confusing his senses; it almost seems to surround them.

  Ashti doesn’t wait to find out where the icon’s hiding; she simply yells one of the few words she’s learned in their language. “Fly!”

  Without slowing his jog, the merchant holds his left arm out in front of the girl. She swears in frustration before grabbing hold. As soon as her fingers tighten, Blackwing kicks off from the dune and sweeps the fan in his right arm backwards to increase their staring momentum by a miniscule degree. Then his magic takes hold, and the three of them soar into the empty space between neighboring peaks.

  Blackwing’s velocity barely exceeds the jogging pace he had maintained before jumping, but transiting a straight line through the air allows the trio to rapidly cover a distance they might have wasted minutes navigating on foot.

  As they fly across the valley, Lamp allows himself a moment of hope that they can still outrun their pursuer. Just as that vanity swells in his chest, however, the icon screams again. It doesn’t sound human this time.

  Dozens of feminine voices join together in a wordless wail. The overwhelming pain of their lament crashes into Lamp’s mind like a rock smashing into the side of his head. For several seconds, he barely manages to think.

  Blackwing, by dint of stronger will or deeper magic, manages to hold his focus. Their passage continues smoothly as their bodies drift forward above a deep well of black sand toward the ridge on its opposing side. Lamp feels their momentum begin to drain as they cross the halfway point, but a flap of Blackwing’s artificial wing permits another surge of magic to drive them forward.

  Ashti, hanging onto Blackwing’s other arm, shouts something unintelligible at Lamp. He can barely hear the noise of her words above the nearly deafening cries of the approaching threat. Manslaughter’s many-voiced scream still pierces the night, burying mortal words beneath the weight of its eternal anguish.

  Releasing one of her hands from Blackwing’s arm, the outlander signs to Lamp with rapid motions. The swift and unconventional movements strain the limits of his understanding, and he fails to interpret several gestures. Still, Lamp manages to intuit her question from the few signs he recognized. She’s asking whether the men are willing to risk her summoning Heartbreak by calling its name.

  Lamp immediately comprehends her logic. The closer they draw to a rival icon, the faster Manslaughter will abandon its chase. However, despite understanding the proposal and its stakes, he hesitates to answer. This doesn’t seem like a decision Lamp should make on his own, but what other options do they have? It’s too late for them to ask for Blackwing’s input. The choice has to be made by those still capable of communication.

  Lamp nods to Ashti, and she nods back, fierce determination shining in her eyes. She signs again, slower this time, and the scholar catches her meaning. “I will not let you die.”

  As they finally approach the neighboring dune, Ashti suddenly drops from Blackwing’s arm and falls to her hands and knees on the sand below. She immediately recovers her balance and begins running along the ridge while frantically waving Blackwing onward. The merchant doesn’t stop to argue, launching himself again the moment his own foot touches down. This time, he flaps both of his artificial wings in tandem with the jump, pushing himself and Lamp even higher into the air.

  Looking backward, the scholar watches Ashti scramble sideways along the dune, rushing to remove herself from the icon’s likely path. He thinks he feels the pull of her graft filtering through the overwhelming sensation of Manslaughter’s power. Her magic tightens his focus on the girl as she sprints to keep up with them. Even with the brightening sky to aid his vision, it’s still only through her warping of attention that he manages to read the epithets falling from her lips.

  “Heartbreak! Scourge of Love! Death of Ardor! End of Romance! Affection’s Bane! Heartbreak! Seducer’s Cure! Final Embrace! Heartbreak! Last Kiss! Heartbreak!”

  Then she falls too far behind for Lamp to catch another word. As the distance between them grows, Lamp can only pray she’s fast enough to move aside before Manslaughter catches up.

  Lifting his eyes to scan the desert behind them, he finally catches his first sign of the icon’s advance. The side of a dune, one they’d crossed five minutes ago, shudders violently as something massive and fast burrows under it. The perturbation raises a glittering cloud of dust that occludes Lamp’s vision as he tries to find some trace of the monster beneath the glinting haze.

  When he finally catches a glimpse of the creature through the thin black cloud, he realizes something ludicrous and terrifying.

  Initially, before they had entered Manslaughter’s territory, Lamp had imagined it would walk upright. He’d expected it to charge like a warrior out of the unseen darkness behind any random hill. That assumption had shifted only seconds ago when he saw what he briefly mistook for evidence of burrowing. He had, for a few brief moments, imagined the icon swimming beneath the sand like a whale. That presumption was also wrong.

  Through the dust raised by its passage, Lamp finally sees the monster’s form. Manslaughter isn’t a sprinting giant or a burrowing mole traveling beneath the sand. Against logic and nature, without elegance or majesty, the icon’s entire body has contorted into a mat of writhing limbs that churn their way across the desert’s surface. Rather than copying the graceful motions of a running athlete or imitating a sea beast surging beneath the waves, Manslaughter claws its way forward like a swarm of scratching rats.

  Lamp unfortunately gets a better view of that horrifying sight with every passing second. The red light shed by the sky’s intensifying flares has increased the desert’s brightness from a starry midnight to a bloody dawn. As the icon surges closer, those crimson stars begin to synchronize, dimming and flashing in tandem like a heartbeat. Each crimson pulse glints fiercely off the onyx dust raised by its charge.

  A lump forms in the scholar’s throat as Blackwing’s jump reaches its zenith and they begin to fall, and Manslaughter exits his view. The merchant flaps his wings again to hasten their descent toward his next launch point. Forced to only look backwards, Lamp’s frantic eyes lock onto the path he expects the icon to take, waiting for and dreading any trace of movement.

  In his peripheral vision, he tracks Ashti’s progress as she darts away from the oncoming danger. He isn’t sure what distance would be safe for her, but he can tell she hasn’t slowed. Caring Mother, lenient Wayward, let them both be fast enough to evade what’s coming.

  The ground approaches rapidly and Lamp braces for another jump. Blackwing kicks off from the next hill the moment he touches down, but something goes wrong this time. The forward pull of his magic carries them in a lower arc, and he employs the fans far sooner, as if his magic has suddenly grown feeble.

  Before Lamp can try to parse that terrifying mystery, Manslaughter’s scream suddenly abates. The desert falls silent, save for the ringing in Lamp’s ears, but he’s not fool enough to reach for hope. Glancing up, he confirms that the red stars have only grown brighter. The icon hasn’t left them. It must have burrowed underground as it approached striking range.

  “It’s under us!” Lamp shouts, breaking the taboo of silence now that it no longer matters.

  “Activate your graft!” Blackwing commands without acknowledging Lamp’s warning. “Take as much pressure off me as you can!”

  Though Lamp doesn’t understand what his employer means, he immediately tries to shine a light. But for the first time in his life, the energy refuses to respond. Staring down at his hands in shock, Lamp tries again. With sustained effort, he can sense the force opposing him. It feels like a heavy stone laid atop his soul. The task of pushing it off seems impossible, but Blackwing clearly achieved it, and he thought Lamp could do the same, so the scholar keeps pushing. Eventually, he manages to summon a weak glow from one hand.

  He’s not sure if the faint light made any difference to his employer’s struggle, but the icon seems to notice. Perhaps the timing is coincidental, or maybe Lamp’s partial victory drew its ire for a second time. Regardless, less than a second after he manages to force a trickle of magic through his graft, the world begins to bleed.

  Red pigment percolates around them, shed not from the stars above but directly condensing in the air. Lamp watches with awestruck horror as it overwhelms the revealing light of his graft and seeps into his skin, staining the bleached canvas of his body with the icon’s blood-toned magic.

  Somehow, Lamp knows what the change means. Manslaughter has caught up to them, and its first attack is imminent. As his body begins to fall towards the next dune, a dreadful conviction swells within him. He feels certain that death awaits them on the ground.

  The scholar opens his mouth to repeat his warning, but Blackwing must have reached the same conclusion. With a grunt of effort, the merchant pumps his wings and flexes his magic to carry them higher, skipping past the crest of sand.

  Remaining airborne will increase the strain on Blackwing’s body and drain his energy reserves all the faster, but the earth is no longer safe for them.

  Lamp’s suspicion is immediately confirmed as his body travels beyond the hilltop and he looks down to see the dune’s surface. There, digging up through the ground behind them, grasping fingers rise like shortgrass from black soil, waiting to receive the icon’s falling prey in the location where they should have fallen.

  As the duo travels past its trap, Manslaughter withdraws its wriggling appendages. Hundreds of fingers disappear beneath the dark sand as if sinking into water. Lamp, expecting the icon to burrow forward toward the next hilltop, lowers his eyes to trace its probable route. He isn’t ready when the hillside explodes.

  A second after the meadow of fingers vanishes beneath the dune, full limbs erupt again as trees. Two multi-jointed trunks burst from the ground, thrashing wildly as they whip themselves into the sky.

  Even as he flinches away in fear, Lamp can’t help but analyze the monster’s flailing anatomy. In a brief glance, he identifies a shoulder joint leading to a chain of elbows, then to a wrist, then back to another shoulder. Forearms and hands sprout seemingly at random, splitting from the core like twigs on a branch.

  In different circumstances, Lamp would be amazed. He might even try to sketch the thing. However, in his present situation, all he can do is scream at Blackwing to fly higher. The merchant obliges, sweeping downward with his fans and propelling the two of them as far above the winding dunes as those same features rise above the desert.

  That apparently isn’t high enough to place them out of reach, for the icon yet pursues. Its twin chains of tangled limbs stretch after them like saplings sprouting from fertile earth. Their leading segments circle through the air as they ascend, spinning in the manner of vines seeking purchase on their future host.

  As Blackwing’s latest surge approaches its zenith, the towering monstrosities bloom into bouquets of bloodstained arms. New appendages seem to germinate from the existing mass, stretching outward and repeatedly splitting to form a writhing disk. One of these grotesque nets swings towards the merchant from below while the other reaches higher, seeking to catch Blackwing if he rises again.

  Noticing the danger encroaching from two sides, the merchant alters his direction. He first absorbs what little remains of their upward momentum before hurling their bodies sideways with another powerful sweep of his arms.

  Their escape is a near thing. Manslaughter’s questing hands swing near enough for Lamp to catch a stomach-churning closer look. Stiff bristles cover the icon’s skin; the spines remind him of a spider’s leg. All the better to hold them with, he imagines. If this monstrosity touches them once, it will surely ensnare them. Death would follow immediately after.

  Luckily, or by the grace of gods, those questing limbs pursue no further. The wretched trees collapse behind them, seemingly hitting the limit of their range as Blackwing creates lateral distance. For the first moment of the chase, Lamp allows himself a flicker of hope.

  Manslaughter crushes it instantly.

  Lifting a bulbous shape that must be its head above the sand, the icon renews its scream of pain and sorrow. The wail strikes far more powerfully than before. Across a bleeding sky repainted by its crimson magic, the terrible force of Manslaughter’s will bears down upon Lamp’s spirit like a storm surge against a camp fire.

  Panic and confusion overwhelm him, along with an imposed sense of guilt and shame. The soul-piercing force of Manslaughter’s attack drives deep into his psyche to convey a simple message: You are the source of my suffering. Lay down and die so that I might know a small measure of peace. Don’t run. Let me kill you. It’s the right thing to do.

  Fighting through that warped impression of the icon’s foreign thoughts, Lamp regains his sense of self and returns to his senses. The first thing he notices thereupon is that his graft has stopped glowing. The second thing he notices is that Blackwing has begun to fall.

  Unable to hear his own shout of alarm, the scholar attempts the only thing he can think of to help. He fights to relight his graft, to push back just a small pocket of Manslaughter’s overwhelming power, but he quickly realizes his feeble efforts are futile. Before, the icon’s suppression had felt like a crushing stone he’d needed to shove aside. Now it feels like an abyssal ocean. There’s no hope of overcoming so much weight.

  In desperation, Lamp takes the only other course that comes to mind. He opens his right graft and pulls Manslaughter’s dread light inside his body. Its radiance immediately tears his mind apart.

  Visions of carnage and depredation surge into every corner of his fragile consciousness, filling his body and soul with pain and power that neither were built to withstand. Lamp screams so roughly that his throat begins to tear, joining his voice with the icon’s in a dreadful harmony he cannot hear.

  Illusions overtake his senses. Trapped inside a nightmare, he feels a thousand hands claw and grope at his flesh, splitting his skin apart and digging through his muscle, violating every cavity they make to tear at him further. Fear, humiliation, agony, and a sense of absolute betrayal subsume his own identity and perception.

  The only thing Lamp can feel from his own body is the physical pain inside his graft. There, a burning lance of agony and hatred roots him to his mortal form. He clings to it like a lost sailor to driftwood and struggles to cough up the invading, unnatural light from his mind and graft.

  A powerful memory inexplicably rises in his thoughts. He suddenly finds himself back in the old ruin where he met the graft thieves. Feeling surrounded with only one option for escape, Lamp can barely tell the present from the past. All he knows is fear and the desperate need to get away.

  He acts now as he did then. Forcing all the magic from his right hand in a single flash. It struggles like a wild animal, and despair nearly overtakes him, but then something in his spirit seems to catch and burn. His magic ignites for just a single moment, roaring with an intensity he hasn’t felt since childhood when his grafts first burst alight.

  Lost in the depths of panic and hopelessness, Lamp achieves his second soul flare. It’s only a flicker of real magic, only a whisper of authority, but it’s enough.

  Lamp ejects Manslaughter’s bloodstained light from his hand, finally overcoming the icon’s suppression. A bright burst explodes from his right graft with the brilliance of a miniature sun, driving back the red sheen that seems to blanket the rest of this world.

  Clinging to his feeble sense of self, Lamp desperately gasps for air. It tastes like copper. He feels wind whipping through this hair and tries to orient himself in relation to the ground. He quickly determines that ‘down’ isn’t where he left it before his vision was stolen by visions. Rather concerningly, down seems to have become up.

  Lamp shouts a plea to Blackwing, one he knows the other man can’t hear. The force of his call enflames his injured throat, and he nearly succumbs to a fit of coughing. Fighting back the spasms and ignoring the burn, he stares upwards towards the approaching desert and silently prays to all the gods.

  Perhaps one of them answers.

  A shell of dark light forms around Lamp’s body, blooming through his chest and expanding to encircle him. The scholar recognizes it by feel; it carries half of the dreamlike sensation he had felt when Blackwing and Candlewire raised their airship above the caldera’s slope.

  This aura is Blackwing’s authority, manifesting itself as color according to the strange logic of this twisted realm. In response to that dark glow, Lamp activates his left graft to shed his weaker light in company. He finds the effort far more manageable now that Blackwing’s power envelops him. They shine together, two pinpricks of human life against the crimson sea.

  Their miracle may have come too late, however. Sensing that its prey have regained their faculties before colliding with the ground, Manslaughter raises another arm to meet them. Lamp sees it rising and knows they won’t evade it in time. Even as Blackwing consumes their fall and brings their bodies to a peaceful midair halt, there isn’t enough time remaining for escape.

  Death drives towards them like a spear. A grasping hand with long, wet nails stretches out from the hillside where the monster rooted itself. With time for nothing else, the merchant responds in the only way he can; he meets the icon’s power with his own. The palm of his long black arm slams against its grasping fingers, and the full force of his authority follows behind the blow. His graft and willpower collide against Manslaughter’s skin with the impact of a boulder crashing into a mountain.

  The next few seconds are chaos.

  Lamp feels himself launching backward into an uncontrolled spin, but he sees nothing of the desert or its master. A burst of shimmering light wraps around his body and blocks his sight. Ribbons of color in a thousand vibrant hues twist through the air like a writhing swarm of eels. As the wild magic dissipates, or maybe as they exit the edges of its cloud, those squirming rainbows shrink and swim away.

  Lamp regains his sight to find a world tumbling around him as hills of sand and their deep shadows rapidly pass by in a rolling circle. He twists his neck about in a frantic effort to spot Manslaughter. He fails to locate the creature but detects instead the welcome edge of its territory.

  The broad crest of the dune sea’s final great hill flies under him only one rotation after he first noticed its approach. Foothills follow afterwards; Blackwing’s altitude and momentum swiftly wane as they two of them careen above these final barriers. Lamp thinks he spies a stone plinth buried in the sands below, but his body twists away before he can be certain.

  He doesn’t see the dune they crash into. The impact comes and ends within a single startled moment of blind helplessness. Lamp’s not certain how the merchant handles their collision, whether he shoves off with his arm in a controlled manner or smashes into it face-first.

  An upward bounce and a feeble pull that yanks their bodies further from danger proves that the man is still conscious and in control of his magic. However, Blackwing makes no effort to right himself or stop their spin. The man clearly isn’t well; Lamp hopes he can remain sensate for long enough to land. They’ll have a nasty tumble in store if not.

  Distracted by that concern, he barely notices when their bodies cross the true barrier of Manslaughter’s power and her red light rapidly begins to wane. A double take at his arms confirms that the desert’s unnatural monochrome began to reassert itself while he wasn’t looking. Lamp draws in an excited breath as he realizes his skin has lost all color again, that the icon’s stain no longer touches him.

  Except, one portion of it does remain. A single streak runs through his right hand, following the curved path of a vein from his index finger to his wrist. Lamp feels bile rising in his throat at the sight and slams his eyes shut to suppress the nausea. He’s dizzy enough already from the constant spinning.

  It almost feels like a mercy when they finally hit the ground. The initial collision takes them in the side, rattling Lamp’s chair but sparing him from injury. He braces for another impact as they start to roll, but then their momentum abruptly cancels. They hang less than an inch above the sand for a quiet second before Blackwing releases his hold and they fall straight down.

  Lamp coughs away the dust, irritating his sore throat even further. Fighting to control his breath, he looks back towards the dune sea just in time to witness Manslaughter emerging from the final mound. Stepping out from the sand with the ease of a human passing through smoke, the icon shows its monstrous form in full.

  The wrathful demigod now assumes a form Lamp had seen carved from stone on the day his adventure began. It appears as a giantess woven from an uncountable mess of intertwined limbs. A misshapen head rests atop its shoulders, and within that ugly ball, a gash positioned like a mouth opens and closes in a gnashing motion. The creature’s bundled legs carry it back and forth along the border of its territory, pacing a tight line in the sand but advancing no closer.

  They got away.

  Manslaughter throws open its jaw to scream again; Lamp braces himself for another mental assault, but the blow doesn’t land. A second call rises to counter the bloody icon’s baleful cry. A choir of soothing voices, beautiful, protective, and warm, swells to claim the space that fear had held before. Lamp almost tries to twist out of his chair to find its source before reason takes ahold of him and snaps his eyes shut.

  As the monsters’ cries fall silent, Lamp hears Ashti’s voice echo across the dunes. At the top of her lungs and with the full force of a graft unimpeded by Manslaughter’s selective suppression, she commands. “BLINDFOLDS, NOW!”