"What the fuck are-" I turned to glare at my companion, but, well she wasn't there.

  Where once stood a blood and wild priestess, now shrieked a pretty-faced young lady in a plain and frumpy dress. All the fire was gone, the strange light, the knowing look. All that was left of my Saint was a coldness about the eyes, a surety that no young woman could possess.

  What fuckin' game was this?

  You saved my life Tempy, only reason I'm trustin' in this madness. Damn hard to believe in so good a liar, even being the fool that I was.

  The man on the ground moaned, and I lowered my pistol.

  "You have no right to be in my home, nor to assault me," he said, "and-"

  "And if I see you go to strike a woman that didn't hit you first," I cut him off, "I won't assault you. I'll just kill you dead."

  He stared at me, his eyes wide, but still full of pride.

  "I'm sorry, Alistar, this man, Roche, he's a bounty hunter I hired. We were waylaid by bandits, and he saved my life," she said with a tender, bleeding voice. Something right out of a stage play. The desperate damsel's diction to my violent, villainous drawl.

  "And you've done a fine job, Mr. Roche," she said with a sweet smile, "but you should go now. I will pay you... Most of what you demanded," she gave me a teary look that implied I had asked for something untoward.

  Well ain't this a pretty picture? She's got her man, and now she's tryin' to cut me loose?

  Or... Is this the first step in our game? Is this somehow part of what she was wantin' me to do?

  Gods damn it. I'm shit at riddles.

  "-there's a bar that serves your kind well. Just down the road," she said, a sob nearly on her pink lips as she helped up that mockery of a man. She pushed him along, got him to the back room, and turned to face me with those wide, innocent, blue eyes.

  And smiled, wicked, cruel.

  Yeah. This was the plan. I'll trust you, Saint. But if you cross me, well, I guess I can't kill you. But I'll be mighty rude.

  I walked on down the way I thought she meant, feellin' mighty put out, little put on.

  She weren't the first to lead me around by my nose. I had a funny habit of letting women do that. Suppose it was because my mama and sister were so strong willed, my daddy so quiet. A man like me, a pig farmer, can't do much more than get behind, or out the way of a strong-willed woman.

  Found the saloon as evening fell. A part of me wondered how they protected a town so big from all that would come in the night. Guns and guards were well in good, but not against the things that could just manifest.

  All manner of hungry little sprites and goblins had no trouble pulling through the veil without the warmth of a sacred fire.

  Though, maybe that was it. This place was so big, and everybody just lit their own fire.

  Made a little sense.

  I pushed through the double doors to the old alley bar. Sweet ghostleaf tickled my nose. The stink of piss and cheap booze.

  A woman in a shabby dressed played a piano in the back, while a fat, middle aged Pardaz rubbed the ugly out of a clouded glass.

  A few barflies looked up at me, then right back down at their drink.

  This wasn't the kind of place men came to carouse or talk. This was one of them holes where the tired and weary fled.

  "You old enough to drink, boy," said the catman with an Imperial clip. Old soldier, likely.

  "I'm old enough to draw steel old man. Old enough to pay too," I slapped down a silver mark, "whiskey. Rye if you got it. Like water in it too."

  The old barkeep gave me an appraising nod.

  "Northman huh?" he asked as he fetched a slightly cleaner glass, and a bottle of old amber. Weren't no label I'd ever seen on it, and I know my whiskey.

  Strange. Local still maybe?

  "Yeah, I suppose," I nodded, "mama was. Daddy's from the South though."

  "Northmen are all welcome here," he said, "this city doesn't have much love for them. But used to run with a berserker from the Clans. Good man," he slapped the liquor down and clawed away my coin, "what brings you to Agustus' Hope. Work?"

  I frowned and set my fancy hat on the bar as I took a nip of the spirit.

  Good burn. Black pepper, little peat, white oak. Tasted a bit like home.

  "Something like that. Met a woman on the trail. Promised to help her out. She's a nun," I said, and took another sip. He gave me a look, then laughed.

  "Oh you're one of hers then."

  "One of who's?"

  "Mother Temperance. You're her new man," he said, and I frowned.

  New man? Well I didn't like the sound of that.

  "Now listen here, I don't know what you're on about," I said, and that cat's eyes flicked to my guns then back to my face, my teeth clencin’ nearly til I tasted blood, "but I ain't no one's man. I'm a friend, sure. But I'm no one's man. Hear me, cat?"

  He nodded slow, and flashed a mouthful of fangs, "sure do, boy. But fact stands. You're another she down dragged from the jungles or sands. We'll see if you last longer than the rest."

  I scratched my chin and drank again. Didn't make sense that anyone know her here. We came on the same boat. Woke up on the same beach. Ain't more than few days passed since that prison tug sank.

  Right?

  "Say old timer, what today's date?"

  His smile went cold and mean, "yeah, you are one of hers for sure. They have that look when they ask. It's the sixth of Harvest, eighteen eighty-four."

  Shit.

  Lost track of time in the dark. I knew time had passed, I could feel it in my bones but-

  But it was eighteen seventy-six when I got thrown in the belly of that beast. Got shipped to this new land and...

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  Ain't no way to make sense of that.

  Ain’t no way it could be true but-

  Magic maybe? But my gut said something stranger and worse. I was probably marked dead long ago. Why even bother with coverin’ my tracks? Why play so many games within games? Just to twist me up, make me want for whatever truth that’s offered amongst this flock.

  No doubt. I almost thought to spare a moment to mourn for my mama, daddy, and sister again. Were they even alive? Did they still keep my name?

  But the conversation moved on without me.

  "How many years, son?" the Pardaz asked. His eyes were old, but not cruel.

  "How the fuck do you know that I lost time?"

  "You're not the first to ask. Not the first to lose years, even decades," he said, "she plucks you boys from the brink of death. Pulled me out too, and all these sad sons-a-bitch too," he raised a hand, as if it cheer at that fact, a chorus of 'ayes' and 'yeahs' rose.

  "What is she?"

  A pause.

  "You know it boy. You done found yourself in the service of a Saint. Welcome to the fold."

  Didn't say nothing. Just downed my drink, and tapped the bar for another.

  He didn't charge me this time.

  Just as I was inspecting the bottom of my glass a ghost wandered on in.

  "Good evening, all," said the soft voice of that devil herself.

  She'd dropped the glamor she wore. That's what it was, I was sure.

  I had heard of it once, just took a few stiff swallows to knock it loose.

  Magic, often taken from fey pact, a glamor could change your face and figure. Make you seem different, and give you all the airs and grace of a queen, or a Saint. Or church-wife in distress. Whatever served the caster's ends.

  "Evenin', Tempy," I hissed that name.

  "Good evening Roche. I'm sorry for the theatrics," she said, "my husband would not have understood the truth. None of them ever do. They are too simple to comprehend. So, I let them have their little lives, their little lies."

  "That so?" I asked, some heat in my voice, a little liquid courage in my blood, "well am I too fuckin' simple too?"

  She turned to face me, her eyes wide, and a little hurt.

  "No Lorcan. None of my chosen have ever been simple. Not you, not Leopold behind the bar, no Davy," she pointed a calloused finger at a grey haired-man, "not Tom, not Sten," she called out the rest of them. Every man in the bar looked at her with respect, yes, but more.

  One man gripped his class till it cracked, and another whispered a curse under his breath.

  It weren't anger, but fear.

  Well damn. I was probably the only idiot in here.

  "Well," I started, cooling a little as Leo poured me water and gin. Nice man that cat, "you want to fill me in then. I get a little... Hot, when I fell like I'm bein' lied to."

  "Okay," she said and sat, her tattered skirts and stained clothes making her look more beggar than Saint. I couldn't see a scrap of the beauty and power I'd seen before.

  Lie without, lies within.

  You done found a Devil, painted like a Saint. That's what mama would have said. I'd take that to heart.

  "I find spirits, those in need," began Temperance as she stole the gin away, "I often offer them Patronage, as I have done with most here."

  "But not me," I said, and Leo grunted in affirmation.

  "Me neither. Already had one."

  "That's right," she said, "you two did not need my power, just a helping hand. But the others," she looked around the room, "I have given them new lives, new hope, and new Paths alongside my won endless road."

  "Sure gave us somethin', ma'am." snarled the grey-haired man.

  "Watch it, Davy," said Leo, "she brought you back from the dead, and don't you forget that."

  What?

  I looked up and around and saw the ghosts in the eyes of all the men gathered here.

  "Was I-"

  "No," Temperance shook her head, "not quite. You are a rare case, Roche. I knew you before I started any of this. Remembered your choice of valor over selfish vice. All I did was call you from the Deep. Make space for you in the world. I knew you would be here when I needed you."

  Riddles. Fuckin' riddles. I was a tired man, a simple man, and I'd had enough.

  "Speak it plain, Temperance, or I will walk out them doors. I can out on a debt, if you push me to it."

  Leopold gave me a toothy glare, but she held him back with an open palm.

  "Alright, Mr. Roche," she said, "I will keep this simple. When the ship went down, you were taken by another. A beast of the deep, a monster of the sea. I pulled you from its grasp, and led you to shore. It cost me. I expect you to pay that cost."

  Her eyes were hard, her words firm, but her heart was aflutter.

  "Each man pays me in his own way. Leo keeps this place, makes a haven for my boys, and helps us to hide. Tom," she pointed to a fat man with a lazy eye, "works at the docks. Smuggles in all I need. Listens in the dark. He has the gift of tongues, and the skill of shadows. Sten and sour old David, they work at the mines."

  "Watch the slavers," spat David, "I can't stand it much more, Mother. They beat a girl dead today. Whipped her raw and left her to bleed in the sands."

  "Soon, David. Soon. Your time is almost up. I am sorry you have to bear such a burden," she said, "but please, just a little longer, then you can rest."

  Deeper and deeper into the Serpent's den I go.

  "Alright, I get it. You got a whole gang of boys, doing your dirty business. What do I owe you, and where do I fit? And what is all this for, Temperance? What do you get from it?"

  "I get to right the wrongs of this place. And you get to kill," she smiled a sharp smile, "kill and kill all the wicked men you like. Follow me and your Path will be fast, and bloody. But never easy."

  She took my glass and drank. I watched those lips, so red, so stained, and I saw her eyes turn hard again.

  Did I want that? A fast track along my Path?

  The further a man advanced on his way the more the world would bend to him. I had been ambitious when I carved the rune into my face and chest, but did I have the grit to see it through?

  I looked around. At the broken, the dead, and the damned. But this time, I did not look with a mortal eye. Instead I focused on the one that had been changed, my Arcane Eye.

  Power. Shinnin' just through. Not aura, these weren’t a bunch of secret champions, but some of them had the seeds of it.

  These men were not weak. Each one had the embers of true power lit in their bellies. And it was growin’, hot and strong.

  Leo could probably snap me in half with a little clawed finger. Tom, the fat, old man, he was a master of shadow, and David...

  Ah, I see it now. See why he hates his lot so much.

  David had the soul of a protector. The spirit of a guardian. He ought to be raising a shield in defense of honest women and men. Out to be on the Crusader's trail. And instead?

  She had him guarding the most evil of men.

  Didn't see much on Sten, but that only meant he hid his gifts well. Or they were subtle. But he was a killer for sure.

  "Fine..." I sighed and took my drink back, "fine, you got yourself a man. So long your goal is what I think, to un-fuck this rotten pig of city, I'll play your game."

  She smiled and touched my crooked hand. It writhed in response.

  "Good. A round, for us all," she said to the cat, "let us celebrate a new brother in the fold."

  We drank. Didn't talk much but what was needed.

  Each told me a little more of himself and his work. Most of what I guessed was true.

  The details of what Sten did made my skin crawl, and damn near shed a tear for old Davy.

  But Tom? He had some good stories. Made me laugh. Made me drink. Him and Leo were alright guys, in their way.

  When a little more night had run past Temperance finally called flock to order.

  "Boys, I need some things. I have been in the jungles too long, and I need more than I thought," she said with a little sigh, "I'll send my work to each of you in the usual way. Except you, Lorcan," she said, "I have a different task for you."

  The men nodded and began to disperse, all except me and Leo who ducked out to the room in back. Probably to get some sleep.

  "Alright, what do you want me to do? And keep in mind, I do expect pay, even if I am working off a debt. Still need to eat."

  "Of course. And that is your first task from me. Go, get established at the Hunter's Guild. They will take anyone, so long as they are strong, and, don't ask questions," she said, "it will be a good cover for you, and a steady flow of coin, to keep you fed. In month or two I will find real use for you. Until then, just get stronger."

  "Fine, I can do that." Had to do it. I owed you. What choice was there?

  "Come back to the Chant house at the first of Fall. Until then you may bunk here while you find a home of your own. And if you have any questions, just ask Leopold, he knows the most about our little operation."

  I nodded. Hid the tiredness at it all. Here’s your place dog, rest at the foot of my bed, eat from my bowl. You go outside when you like, but never forget, we hold the leash.

  She left.

  Chains. A fool ever in chains of his own making. Strength wasted on a man set on hangin’ himself from them.

  All I could do was accept this devil, and hope that I might find my own Path beyond.

  And that that Path would bring me the keys to break free from it all.