The Tale of Erskine Faern

A street in the Town of Terreh
Thomas Faern is 14

The Faerns's cart, stacked tall with barrels of pine syrup, was
drawn by a pair of mules. Thomas's Ma and Da rode on the seat at
the front of the cart. Thomas walked alongside. They had come from
their farm at the break of dawn that day. As they neared Terreh's
riverport, it was getting into the evening. A woman in white robes
with black holy symbols slowly moved from one side of the street
to the other, lighting the streetlamps with a candle balanced atop
a tall wooden rod. Thomas had a keen eye for the symbols. On the
left shoulder of the robe was an intricate outline of a human
heart, with a thick line stitched across it. On the right shoulder
was the outline of a human brain, and a line stitched through it
vertically. On the sleeves were stitched the corresponding arm
bones that would be below them. On the body were stitched dozens
of faces with the eyes made to look sewn shut. This light-bearer
was an acolyte of the temple of the death queen.

Thomas realized that he had stopped walking to stare. He jogged to
catch up with the wagon, coming up with an excuse along the way--
he would say that he'd thought he'd seen something fall off the
cart and was trying to retrieve it, but he must have been
mistaken. When he caught up, it was of no matter. His parents had
not realized he had gone. Thomas was the youngest of four, though
for quite some time, he was more or less an only child. His older
siblings had each disappeared on trips to Terreh in years past,
while Thomas had stayed at home. Jack had died in an inn collapse.
Moira had run off into the woods and was never found. Danielle had
fallen in love and run off with a strange man. Thomas had his
doubts about all of these tales.

At the port, Thomas stood beside Ma while Da had a long
conversation with a ferryman. After some time--many eons, by
Thomas's estimation--the ferryman counted out a sum of silver
coins into a sack and handed it to Da. Thomas and Da got to work
unloading the barrels onto the ferryman's boat. When the work was
finished, Da handed Thomas a silver coin. "Get your Ma and you a
meal," he instructed. "Bring me back the change."

Thomas nodded, took the coin, and he and his Ma walked off.

After a short while, raindrops began to sprinkle. Thomas and Ma
looked up at the dark night sky.

"I'll get the umbrella," Thomas offered, and jogged back to the
cart.

There at the cart, Thomas grabbed the umbrella, but he also
happened to overhear Da and the ferryman in conversation.

"The boy's worth double that," Da said.

"He ain't," said the ferryman, who had lit a cigar and held it in
his mouth as he talked. "Scrawny. You did near all the work
yourself with the barrels. Thirty silver."

Da gave a contemplative groan, mulling the offer over.

All at once, the rain grew from sprinkles to downpour. Thomas
opened the umbrella and walked away from Da, away from Ma, into
parts unknown of Terreh. He wondered whether he was following in
the footsteps of any of his older siblings, or if they had all
been whisked away by the ferryman unawares. Thomas stomped through
the forming puddles. Eventually he found an alley to sit in and
cry in relative private, aside from a few others who had taken
shelter in the alley to escape the rain.

One of the others, seemingly an older man though it was hard to
tell in the dark, was drinking from a bottle and grumbling to
himself. Thomas sat with his head down, ignoring him.

The grumbling grew louder, until eventually Thomas heard
distinctly that the man was calling out, "Oi! Kid!"

Thomas pretended he couldn't hear.

The man started insulting Thomas, calling him a bum, a starving no
good no work orphan, a brat, a spoiled brat, anything to raise
Thomas's ire.

From behind him, reverberating through the wall, Thomas could hear
the rising of a steady clap, and then a hearty chorus of voices
singing. Thomas got up. The man got up too. Thomas ran out of the
alley, brushing past the others, and darted into the common room
of the inn.

Just inside the door a meaty hand caught Thomas's chest, knocking
the wind out of him.

"All booked up tonight," said a thickset man, seeming bored. He
looked down at Thomas, and seemed to realize he might have been
mistaken. "Are you that fishmonger's lad?"

Thomas nodded.

"Apologies, sir," the man said, still seeming bored, but he
stepped aside.

Thomas walked briskly into the inn and disappeared among the dense
crowd. He snickered as behind him, he heard the drunk man calling
after him but being stopped at the door.

Standing on a table at the center of the room, there was a man
dressed from head to toe in ribbons of red, green, and yellow.
Strapped to his side was a drum, which he struck slowly in time to
lead the beat of the clapping patrons. He was in the midst of
leading them in a song, singing a line which the crowd then
shouted atonally back. Feeling sufficiently anonymous in the
crowd, Thomas joined in on the fun.

"Yoho diddle doe diddle dum diddle deer!"
YOHO diddle DOE diddle DUM diddle DEER!

"Our man Johnny bought the dancer two pints of beer!"
Our MAN Johnny BOUGHT the dancer TWO pints of BEER!

"Spilled half of each as he was ogling her rear!"
SPILLED half of EACH as he was OGLING her REAR!

"Spilled the rest on her bosom and his heart filled with fear!"
Spilled the REST on her BOSOM and his HEART filled with FEAR!

"Yoho diddle doe diddle dum diddle daughter!"
YOHO diddle DOE diddle DUM diddle DAUGHTER!

"Just then down the stairs came the dancing girl's father!"
Just THEN down the STAIRS came the DANCING girl's FATHER!

The song continued on a long time. Eventually the man in the
ribbons stopped beating on the drum, but kept the crowd clapping
in time by clapping his own hands high above his head for a few
beats. As the crowd went on, the man unstrapped the drum, and then
seemingly from nowhere, produced a slew of colorful balls which he
began juggling. Members of the crowd whistled while others
continued to clap, and Thomas just stared in awe, unable to even
count the number of balls the man kept up. With his foot, the man
began stomping in double time, and the crowd followed suit,
doubling the pace of their clap. The man stopped juggling the
balls in one big arc and instead juggled in two separate little
circles, one with each hand. The crowd whistled as he crouched
down low to the table, the backs of his hands nearly touching the
surface, and then rose up and up to his tippy toes, the balls
nearly hitting the ceiling. Coming back to center, the man juggled
in a way that Thomas could not make heads or tails of: the balls
danced in a variety of arcs from hand to hand, but always there
came one to rest centered at the man's chest, seeming to pause
there impossibly for multiple seconds before resuming its arc and
being replaced by a new ball of a different color. Thomas noticed
as the man quickly crouched between tosses to grab something off
of the table. Whatever it was, the man was now lighting the balls
on fire one by one until they all were ablaze. The crowd cheered
and cheered, although those nearest the man backed off a good
distance, and many began eyeballing the exit. Thomas stepped
forward to take the place of those who had left the front row.

Still juggling the flaming balls, the man in the ribbons looked
down at Thomas, sweating and wearing a wide smile. "I like your
bravery, son," the man said, speaking over the crowd just loud
enough for Thomas to hear. "Catch!"

From the whirling arcs, one lone flaming ball left the pattern in
an easy lob towards Thomas. On reflex Thomas caught the ball,
which went out in his hands.

The crowd roared for Thomas. Thomas, beaming, turned to them,
holding the ball in a hand high above his head. Then remembering
that he wished to remain relatively unnoticed in this place where
he actually was not supposed to be, he dashed back into the crowd.
Someone in the crowd handed him a pint. He had never drank before,
but he was his own man now, so who could tell him no. He drank
some and suppressed the urge to gag as he swallowed it down.

Later on that night, after the show had finished, Thomas still had
well over half of the same pint left as he sat by himself at a
booth in the corner of the common room.

Suddenly sitting beside him, there was the man in ribbons, though
he had now changed into a drab shirt and trousers. Thomas had
learned in the show that the man's name was David. "Havin a good
night, are we?"

"Not..." Thomas considered, and then decided not to bother the
performer with his troubles. He shrugged. "The show was amazin. I
wish I could juggle like that."

"Ye wanna be a jester, eh?"

"Oh, I suppose." Thomas tried to take a bigger drink from his
pint, regretted it, and put the immense glass back down after
letting most of the mouthful fall back into the drink.

"I could show ye to juggle."

Thomas felt his eyes widen.

"Still have my ball?"

Thomas set the red ball on the table. It was not a light object,
as he'd expected when he'd seen them in the air. In fact it was
heavy as a stone, larger than Thomas's fist, perhaps about the
same size as David's.

David picked the ball up, stood, and encouraged Thomas to stand up
out of the booth too. There in the corner of the inn, David tossed
the ball in an arc from one hand to the other.

"Easy as that," he said, and handed Thomas the ball.

Thomas tried, and threw the ball back onto the seat in the booth.
He tried a second time, and it landed on the floor with a loud
bang that drew the eyes of many who were still lingering around
the common room that night. Thomas cringed at the attention, and
crouched to find where the ball had rolled to.

David knelt and picked it up for himself. Thomas hadn't even
blinked and the ball disappeared from David's hands.

"Maybe we can give it another go in the morning. Outside on some
grass, eh? I give lessons you know."

"Oh?"

"Five silver for a session."

Thomas deflated.

"Too steep? I'm often told I should charge more."

"I have a silver to me name," Thomas admitted.

David glanced around, determined that nobody was in earshot, and
knelt slightly to speak into Thomas's ear. "One silver now, and
I'll meet you in the morning for breakfast and a lesson."

Thomas reached into his pocket and pulled out his silver coin. He
paused only to ask, "Meet me outside the front of this inn at
daybreak?"

David nodded.

Thomas gave David the silver.

The jester pocketed the coin and then yawned. "I think that's it
for me tonight, kid. I'm beat. See ye in the morning."

Thomas looked around. He saw the thickset guard at the door of the
inn, standing and staring at him. He considered trying to retire
up to one of the rooms, but recalled that there was no vacancy,
and so it was unlikely he could find any place to hide away for
the night unnoticed. Ashamed, he left past the guard, who tutted
as he passed.

Thomas made his way to the river, and spent the night hidden away
under a dock. He slept very little, his stomach growling in
hunger.

Before sunrise, Thomas rose and returned to the inn. He sat
outside of it, eagerly awaiting the jester. For breakfast,
firstly, and because maybe this was the start of his new life.

The sun rose, and Thomas sat alone. Noon came, and Thomas had
relocated to a nearby alleyway entrance, as it had started to
dribble rain. He still watched the inn, but he knew that he'd been
had. The jester was not coming out.

In the evening, Thomas saw the thickset guard come out of the inn
to replace the thinner one who had stood there the day so far.
Thomas walked through the rain to him.

The guard raised his hand to block Thomas, but Thomas was making
no attempt to get in.

"Is David in?"

"The jester?"

"Yes."

The guard furrowed his brow. "Don't believe so. Wait ere a
minute." The guard turned and walked into the inn. Thomas watched
him walk through the door into the kitchen, and then shortly
thereafter, walk back. "He left this morning. Packed up his
belongings onto his horse in the stable in the back and rode out.
Didn't seem to Hamish as though nothing was amiss."

Thomas sniffled.

"What, are you HIS lad?"

Thomas shook his head. "I gave him me only silver. He was going to
give me lessons this morning."

The guard chuckled. "Gave ye a lesson alright."

Thomas lost it and stomped away.

By the time he had gotten over his tears and gotten back to the
hunger in his stomach, it was dark. The rain continued to fall at
a dribble. Thomas stood around a darkened corner of a dockyard,
staring at a riverside restaurant where patrons ate by decorative
lanternlight beneath umbrellas. He watched, and watched, and when
one of the couples left with a good amount of food left untouched
on their plates, Thomas sprinted up, hopped the rope fence,
grabbed the sandwich from one plate and threw it onto the other
with the half eaten meat pie, and ran off with the pieced together
meal. Nearby patrons had gasped and shouted at him, and he heard a
great many more shouts behind him as he ran off down a dark
street, but by the time he had gone a block it was clear that
nobody was giving chase. He walked past a couple of alleys that
were occupied before finding an especially narrow one that was
clear: one of the buildings leaned as it went upwards, making the
alley ideal for a kid such as him, and unideal for anyone taller.

Thomas shuffled deep into the alley and sat down.

Just as he was bringing the sandwich to his mouth, he froze at the
sound of something else in the alley. Fear rippled down him. Quite
nearby, there was a rapid sniffing. Thomas tensed, ready to lash
out if something attacked him.

The creature in the alley with Thomas whined.

"Are you a dog, you are?"

Thomas heard another whine in response, and the dragging of the
creature shuffling closer over the dirt ground.

Cautiously, Thomas reached out a hand.

The dog growled.

Thomas quickly pulled the hand back. "Well you mind yourself and
I'll mind myself, then."

Thomas bit into his sandwich. He had been shaking with hunger, and
immediately, he felt energy returning to himself. Not to mention
that the food was delicious. Spiced meats he'd only had once
before in his life, on another trip to Terreh with his sister
Danielle. Thin cuts of vegetables and a good helping of
condiments, on toasted bread. He tore through two more bites, and
then paused to finish chewing so he could tear through some more.

The dog whined again.

Thomas sighed through his nose, his mouth being still overfull. He
took the time to chew, and swallow.

The dog whined once more.

Thomas held his plate tight. "What, you here to rip me off too?"

The dog whined sadder.

Thomas gripped his sandwich for one more moment of defiant
resilience, and then sighed, put the sandwich on the plate with
the meat pie, and pushed the whole collection over to the dog.

The dog hopped up and began devouring the food as fast as it would
fit into its mouth. When it was finished it spent a long time
licking the plate, and then a while after licking its lips.

Upriver from the Town of Terreh
Thomas Faern is 14
Erskine Faern might be 1

In all, Thomas had ended up stealing very little from Terreh. He
had found great big tangles of fishing line and lures by wading
through the river banks. The knife blade--or sword end, or some
such--he had found jutting out of a fence post, and had not waited
around to see if anyone was coming back for it. The flint and
steel, he had nabbed off the side of a traveler's backpack, and
had been caught and walloped for it before Erskine had come
barking and snarling to liberate the boy.

Thomas and Erskine sat now at a campfire beside the river, Thomas
cooking the three fish he'd caught, Erskine supervising. It was
noon and only partially overcast. Erskine, though still clearly
quite young, was already just as large as Thomas. He was a great
big mutt with long shaggy hair that was tangled and littered with
odd bits of trash he'd picked up in gods-knew-how-long of going
ungroomed. Though only on his own for a matter of days, Thomas was
beginning to look quite the same.

When the fish were cooked, Thomas divided the bounty evenly for
himself and Erskine. Both of them ate like animals and afterwards
licked the flat rocks their meals had been served on.

Thomas went and rinsed off his hands and face in the river. As he
did, a river stone caught his eye. It was more or less round as a
ball, and a bit larger than his fist. He picked it up, bounced it
up in the air a couple of times in his hand. It had a nice weight
to it. He waded upriver until he had found three such stones in
all, and then returned to the campfire, where Erskine had been
standing, watching him.

Standing near the fire, Thomas tossed the ball from one hand to
the other. He missed it completely, and the rock thumped to the
ground. Erskine bolted towards it and tried to grab it in his
mouth. Thomas laughed as the dog wagged and fussed with the stone.

"Go find me a stick and we'll play."

Erskine looked up at Thomas and barked. Whether or not the mutt
was being playful or mean, the volume of the bark stung Thomas's
ears, and he flinched.

Thomas left the stones on the ground near the campfire for the
moment, and went to go find Erskine a stick.

As the day went on, Thomas threw the stick for Erskine, threw the
stones to himself, and in the evening he set a lure in the water
to get dinner started for the both of them.

A street in the Town of Merrom
Thomas Faern might be 15
Erskine Faern might be 2

Thomas stood on a street corner, juggling his river stones that he
had gotten painted red, orange, and blue. They were not evenly
weighted, but they were what he'd learned everything he knew on.
On the one occasion he'd had to use evenly weighted stones, he was
completely thrown by them.

A fair few people stopped to watch him juggle throughout the
busiest market hours of the day, and most who stopped were kind
enough to toss a few coins of change to the boy's straw basket--
woven himself, which would likely be of little surprise to anyone.

When the day's performance was over, Thomas bowed, stowed the
stones in the basket, wiped the sweat from his brow, and sat for a
while on the market corner, petting the shaggy brown dog that had
laid at his side throughout the show. Later on in the day, he
bought a sandwich for himself and a meat pie for Erskine, the cost
of both easily covered by a portion of the day's earnings.

A crowded beer hall in the City of Tinst
Thomas Faern might be 17
Erskine Faern might be 4

Thomas sat at a secluded table, idly running a hand over the well-
groomed Erskine who sat close at his side. It was a cool night,
the air smoky with the cookfires of nearby restaurants. Thomas
stared daggers at a jester in ribbons of red, green, and yellow.
It was David, unmistakably. Earlier he had done the same song from
all those years ago, and a juggling routine with flaming balls.
Thomas was a much more skilled juggler now than he was before.
David's routine was certainly still impressive, though Thomas
could now put a name to all of the tricks.

At present, David had produced a lute--none of his trademark
sleight of hand on drawing out that one, which Thomas did consider
fair enough, given the instrument's size. As he strummed, he told
a classical tale of Leigus and Tinira:

The widowed Leigus waded through the shallow waters of the land of
death for fifty days and nights, the days waning duller and the
nights waning greyer, until the two were a single thing, as fogged
as the air and the water. Leigus's handsome complexion was wracked
with mourning the fifty days and nights of his walk. At the end of
his journey, in a mist of grey nothing, Leigus stood face to face
with a figure whose white and black robes contained naught but
whitened, faded, and now grey bones. "What will you trade?" the
skeleton hissed. Leigus produced Tinira's garden sheers, and with
them, cut off his nose. His fetching looks were nothing to a world
without his beloved. His nose fell to the ground, and there it
grew larger and larger, forming into a torso, arms, legs, a head,
a face--Tinira. The new body gasped at life anew as Tinira's soul
entered it.

David's rendition of the tale continued. Thomas waited patiently
for the jester's show to end.

When the jester took his final bow and descended from the table,
Thomas melded into the lingering crowd and followed the jester out
of the beer hall and into the common room of a nearby inn. These
days he looked respectable enough to usually get into such places
uninterrogated. Near the common room's hearth, Thomas stopped to
kneel face to face with Erskine.

"Wait for me here, if you would."

Erskine sat.

Thomas stood and followed David up the stairs, spied which room
the jester went into, and then hid himself away around a corner
until hearing the door open and close again a while later,
followed by the opening and closing of the door to the bathing
room. Thomas skulked down the hall, eased his way into the
jester's room, and took quick stock of the jester's equipment,
which had been strewn on the floor near the foot of the bed.

There were the balls, though Thomas cared little. In addition to
his favored river stones, Thomas had procured through legitimate
means a set of twenty colorful weighted balls. There was the lute,
and although he was tempted to steal it and learn to play, it was
not what he had come for: he could get a lute in any city, if he
saved his coins. What he had come for was the pair of devices that
the jester had not tossed onto the floor, but had placed carefully
on the room's little desk. Thomas hadn't seen them during the show
all those years ago, but he had been watching keenly this time. In
each of David's sleeves had been some type of apparatus that lit
the balls on fire, only for a second as they left David's hand,
and going out in time to be caught again safely.

Thomas nabbed the devices, fled the room, darted down the stairs,
and walked briskly out of the inn, giving a c'mere wave to
Erskine, who wagged, stood, shook as though flinging water from
himself, and followed out at Thomas's side.

Early the next morning, Thomas awakened at his and Erskine's
latest riverside camp. They'd found a secluded spot east out of
Tinst, in a dried up divot of dirt where the river used to flow,
but didn't anymore, finding an easier route just nearby. They
hadn't need of a fire for that night. Thomas had spread out a
blanket and laid on his back and Erskine had burrowed up against
his side, and the two had slept warm enough.

First thing that day, Thomas beheld the new gadgets he'd stolen.
He sat in the divot of dirt looking the things over. Each one had
a cuff to hold the device to the wrist. Besides that, there were
also a few little tubes connecting a few little opaque tanks.
Thomas held the device up to his left ear, and shook it to hear if
the tanks were filled with anything. As he shook it, his hand
slipped on the device, pushed a toggle, and snapped one of the
tubes--the next thing Thomas knew, the entire left side of his
face was on fire, sizzling and smoking. Screaming, Thomas dashed
to the river and leapt in.

Afterwards he laid on his back on the riverbank for a time, trying
to take deep steady breaths, trying to push down the pain. Erskine
tried to lick him. He held the dog at bay, but thanked him all the
same, and stroked him comfortingly.

When the burned Thomas felt ready enough to travel, he went and
packed up the meager camp, kicked dirt over the pair of cuffs, and
made the hike back towards Tinst. In the suburbs thereabout, he
found an apothecary and purchased salves suitable for his burns.
"A lesson indeed," the boy muttered as he counted out sixty silver
and change for the witch.

Though not eager to stay in the city proper, where his thievery
might quite well be deduced, Thomas decided to spend the time it
took to heal camped near enough to the city, in case anything
about his condition did take a turn. Thomas rented an inn room in
the suburb of Wrelt. He and Erskine shared a bed and three square
meals a day. They went on walks and played fetch in the field
behind the inn. Each night by the hearth, Thomas picked the
brambles out of Erskine's coat and brushed the good boy, while
Erskine rested his chin on Thomas's knee, or in the crook of the
young man's elbow.

A booked performance hall in the Capital City of Verruskt
Thomas Faern might be 25
Erskine Faern might be 12

Though far from the only act of the show that night, Thomas was
more than eager to rise to the occasion of being chosen as the
closer. He still enjoyed juggling the river stones in his idle
time, but he had graduated from that in his public performances.
Torches, axes, hammers, and swords were in his repertoire, to name
a few. In among all of these, Thomas also juggled seven shoes that
had been volunteered from seven members of the audience, and a
hairpiece more-or-less volunteered that he had taped around one of
the hammers to give it the needed weight to throw in the enormous
arcs of this final routine. In closing as all of the items fell
back to Thomas for one final time, the juggler threw each shoe
back to its owner, threw each sword at a target behind himself,
let each torch go and ignite a fuel-soaked pyre, let each axe fall
and chop a log of wood, and let each hammer crash up through a
colorful pane of sugarglass suspended at the ceiling, making the
glittering pieces come raining down over the stage. The audience
erupted as the glass dust came down, and showed no signs of
quieting as it settled. Thomas stood looking out at them, beaming,
catching his breath. He beckoned the owner of the hairpiece to
come on stage and collect it. The owner came up. Thomas guided him
to face the audience, and together, the two of them bowed.

Thomas felt transcendent as he left the stage. And although coming
down from the most exceptional performance of his life thus far,
he felt a deeper happiness swelling in him as he neared his
dressing room.

Pulling aside the curtain, he smiled down at Erskine, who was
resting on a pile of folded blankets, wagging up at his friend.
Thomas came and sat there on the floor with Erskine, back against
the dressing room wall, staring blankly at the ceiling as he pet
the old dog.

Eventually, Thomas's gaze lowered down to the full-body mirror
that was across the dressing room. He looked at himself. His upper
body was very muscular. Half of his face was disfigured and
immobile from burn scars. The other half of his face, he had
decorated in tattoos: a little star below the eye, the name FAERN
spelled out in an arc above the eye but under the eyebrow, three
imperfect circles in a triangle on the cheekbone, and a canine
noseprint on the cheek proper.

Thomas lowered his head down to Erskine. Erskine licked the
human's forehead with care. Thomas stroked the dog's scruff
likewise.

A road north of the Capital City of Verruskt
Thomas Faern might be 25
Erskine Faern might be 12

Thomas and Erskine slept soundly, cuddled up in their little tent,
which they had pitched to the side of the trade road.

Thomas awoke with a start when Erskine let out a loud bark.

Bleary-eyed, Thomas rested a hand on Erskine's back. "What do you
hear out there?"

The hair on Erskine's back was raised. He released a string of
barks, body tense, facing the tent door. At a pause in the barks,
Thomas strained his ears, but could hear nothing outside.

Clearing the sleep out of his eyes, Thomas got to his knees at the
tent door and began unfastening the little knots that held it
shut. After pulling the last string free, Thomas moved the tent
door aside, and found that his face was an inch away from a bear's
face. The bear fully eclipsed the view of the world outside the
tent, and was raising a paw to strike.

Erskine bolted past Thomas and latched onto the bear. Thomas gave
a wordless, mourning shout. The bear roared and spun around away
from the tent, swiping at the dog that was attacking it. Erskine
yelped but did not stop. The bear and the dog's struggle brought
them onto the road, well lit by the full moon on that clear night.
Thomas ran to his pack that sat against a nearby tree, and
retrieved an arsenal of swords. He hurled them one after the
other, and then the axes, and then the hammers, until the bear was
motionless. But the damage had been done. Thomas held his friend's
lifeless body and wept.

The shallow waters of the land of death
Thomas Faern might be 30

Walking through the shallow waters for fifty days and nights was a
balm, not a burden. For Leigus seeking Tinira, perhaps this had
been the difficult part. They had lived quite near the land of
death to begin with. Thomas had crossed an ocean and three
continents. But it was worth it. He had arrived.

On the close of the fiftieth night, Thomas came face to face with
a figure in the grey whose white robes were decorated with the
black symbols of the death queen, whose face was a skull, whose
hands were bones.

An ancient wind blew from behind the skeleton, passed through
their bones, and brought their message hissing faintly to Thomas's
ears: "A life for a life. What will you sacrifice?"

Thomas gave a sendoff to his life as a juggler with a final trick.
He drew an axe from his belt. With his right hand he tossed the
axe in the air, where it spun once as it rose, once again as it
fell, and then chopped off the selfsame hand which had thrown it.
Then he drew a second axe, and in the same fashion, cut off his
left hand as well.

The wounds on his forearms seared shut. In the shallow waters, his
hands floated to one another, and formed together. They grew, and
took the shape of a barrel of a canine chest. Four legs. A head. A
tail. Long brown fur.

The servant of the death queen turned and floated away on the
shallow waters, into the grey fog.

Erskine, anew with youth, barked playfully at Thomas, head down,
haunches still in the air, tail wagging. In tears, Thomas dropped
to his knees before Erskine in the waters, and rubbed the dog's
coat up and down as the dog licked the scarred man's face. "I
missed you, friend," Thomas said, and repeated it again and again
as he and Erskine were reunited. "I missed you, friend."