“I don’t know that I really eat anymore,” I said.
“You do,” he told me. “You devour. There is a yawning emptiness inside of you that craves sustenance, but you do not yet know how to feed it.”
Buildings parted before us, sliding out of the way, creating a narrow road for us to walk.
“I’ll take your word for it,” I said.
“You’ll do more than that,” Faysal told me.
We rounded a corner, and walls pulled away, revealing me.
Not only me, but a me that, on a level, I hadn’t ever really seen. Discount my false memories, and account for the fact that Rose had taken my place in the mirrors every time I’d looked, up until I’d become a bogeyman, and I’d never really looked at myself.
Average height, longer hair that had a way of getting in his eyes, hands in his sweatshirt pockets, with winter boots… he looked just a little tired.
“What the hell?” I asked.
“An image. Nothing more.”
“An image.”
“As you are now, you’re a starving giant, Blake Thorburn.”
I raised my head a little at that, eyes widening.
“Yes, I know your name now. I know who and what you are. It did take some doing. You have the appetite of a giant, and you aren’t aware of it, but you are devouring everything you can get your hands on. Spirits flood to fill the emptiness inside you. When Blake Thorburn became something Other, a great many connections were broken. You came undone, in a great many ways. You were broken, and now you are a shattered vessel. The drains filled you and transformed you, the spirits are finding surer footing in you, stronger ones supplanting weaker ones, while your psyche and your body render them into something familiar and comfortable to you.”
“Birds and sticks?” I asked.
“Something in that vein. Once I knew what to look for, and once I had the details I needed, I was able to ask my practitioner for permission to follow the loose threads in his consciousness. Connections were broken, and some are already mending. His weren’t, not really. It was a tenuous relationship to begin with, and it’s easy for the mind to lose its grip on those who they have only met once or twice.”
I nodded slowly.
“The memories are still there. They weren’t erased, only lost. This is your image, as Johannes had it. I found two Others who caught glimpses of you, and strengthened that image. Without ready access to those memories, they won’t suffer unduly. Take it. The difference is meager, but it will make a difference.”
“No trick?” I asked.
“No. This is my hospitality.”
I reached out, not quite sure how I was supposed to eat myself.
The image blurred, and it folded itself around me.
I breathed in, almost as if I were testing the skin that wrapped around me.
It felt different. More human, almost.
The tattoos, as I looked at my arm, weren’t quite so stark. I couldn’t pick anything out that was different, but it seemed somehow better.
I checked my ribs, and the feathers didn’t stick out so much, the ribs weren’t so exposed.
“Thank you,” I said.
“You’re very welcome. The hungry chasm in your being shouldn’t be quite as open as it was. You’ll recover faster”
He’d started walking, and I walked alongside him.
“Thank you,” I said, again.
“We have had our discussion, in a way, though I am open to more. That leaves only the favor.”
I started to speak, then hesitated.
“Yes?”
“I have two favors to ask,” I said. “I’m hoping that since Mag- the ambassador is working for all of our interests, you’ll help with this without making too big a fuss of it.”
“I agreed to grant one favor.”
“You didn’t agree to grant only one,” I said. “Trust me, this is helpful to all of us.”
“What is the favor?”
“The ambassador is chasing a wraith. The wraith, I’m pretty sure, is going to keep running, moving from haunt to haunt. Can you capture it?”
“Capture it? I would be reluctant but willing. If I displayed power to bind, kill, or alter the wraith, I might draw unwanted attention, disturbing a tenuous peace.”
And the prophecy of blood, fire and darkness would come to fruition.
“I would be willing, but I would prefer to choose a specific time and place, so my practitioner isn’t too disadvantaged.”
“No, scratch that,” I said. “What about… if you have a control over paths, can you bar the wraith’s path, keep it from running?”
“I cannot close paths, I can only open them. But I could open paths that would lead the wraith to a dead end, and arrange it so the only exit would be through you and the ambassador. I could do this discreetly, and if the wraith didn’t harm you, there would be no cost to you or the ambassador.”
“Sounds like an option,” I said. “That’s fair.”
“Would you deem it satisfactory, per the terms I offered? I would want the past you and the present you to be happy with this favor.”
“There’s the second favor,” I said.
“Ah.”
“I have an acquaintance, from the Drains. She helped me, I thought I should get her out if I can, and I know she’s not a warrior.”
“She’s an ally, nonetheless,” the dog told me.
“Yeah,” I said. “And that’s why I can’t ask the ambassador to do it for me, and right now I don’t really have anyone else to turn to. I can’t imagine she’d be the turning point in this war for the Lordship… I just owe her, on a level.”
“A greedy thing, asking for two favors, when one is generous enough.”
“I had to ask, to keep my word,” I said.
“I understand. I can’t grant it to you as it stands, unless you have something to offer me.”
I frowned.
The wind was cold, which was strange to me, and the landscape alien, twisted, a little too inclined to move as Faysal needed.
The Sorcerer’s domain, but it was also the dog’s.
I was pretty damn sure I didn’t want to fight either of them here, if they had this much say over just how things were laid out and put together.
It was just a dog, but here, seeing the whole landscape change around it, I felt like I was getting more of a glimpse of the metaphorical iceberg beneath the water’s surface.
“I don’t have anything significant to barter,” I said. “But… the reason I ended up in the drains was that I was fighting a demon. Given a chance, I’ll fight it a fourth time and I think I have the tools to win, this time around. The knowledge. It’s a demon of the first choir, and I can bind it with art. I know how to trap it, I know how to kill it, and I fully intend to do both.”
“Given the opportunity.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Maybe that counts for something, if it’s a demon and you’re an angel?”
“In the colloquial sense. Yes. That does count for something, and it does answer questions. In an even match, my kind will inevitably lose to one of their kind. Entropy will have its way in the end, but I can hope that end is in the far-flung future. A demon of the first choir… entropy distilled. Brave or ignorant, to challenge it.”
I didn’t speak.
“You’ll have your two favors,” he said. “The second in payment for what you have lost in the fighting of demons. Is that agreeable? You should be leaving my domain happier, healthier, and better.”