Pain.

Cold, dull, constant pain filled him. It was unrelenting, uncaring, unending. His whole world was a black expanse of pain. It was an improvement. A grim smile ghosted across his lips, cold and dull was better than sharp and burning. He eased one eye open, wincing at the harsh blast of light that drove through his head.

He let out a breath, and opened the other eye. He was lying on a rough wooden table in the middle of a small room. A counter sat across from him, beneath the window, and piled high with bottles, jars and delicate looking tools.

A door on the opposite side of the room creaked open. “You finally awake in here?” said a thin dusty voice.

Tallis turned his head and found a gaunt woman standing in a doorway. Her hair was the iron grey of a stormy sea and pulled back into a tight bun. Her cheeks were sunken, her eyes were rimmed with dark circles, and deep creases lined her face. If she had said that she had spent the year dead as a tax dodge and only just now come back to life, Tallis would have believed her.

She handed him a glass of water. “I’m glad you pulled through. Your father won’t kill me now.”

Tallis took the cup from her, it seemed heavier than it should have been and he couldn’t stop his hands from shaking. He brought the cup up to his lips and drained it. It was the best thing he had ever tasted. He passed the glass back to her and coughed. It felt like he had a pound of sand in his lungs.

“How are you feeling?” asked the old woman.

“Like I’ve been shot and drug behind a horse,” he said. His voice was dry and brittle, more of a croak than anything.

She leaned over him, lifting the edge of a bandage that had been wound around his chest. “Is that how you feel, or how you got injured?”

“Let’s just go ahead and say both.”

She guided him to a sitting position and coaxed him onto the floor. His legs were rubbery but they held his weight. Taking his shirt and vest from a closet beside the door, she handed him the shirt and shook the vest, cocking her head as it made a faint ringing.

“Faemetal?” she asked.

He nodded.

“You’ll have to write whoever made it for you a thank you letter. It saved your life.”  

He took the vest from her and put it on. The gentle weight of it was comforting. It left him feeling safer.

“There’s not much else I can do,” said the doctor. “Give yourself a few days rest and I imagine you’ll be fine.”

“Sure,” he said, dejectedly. Where was he going to go for a few days? He had no money, no one knew, hell, he didn’t even know where he was. “This might sound stupid, but my father didn’t say where he was staying did he? Last I heard he was on his way to San tempes.”

“He’s been in my front room for two days.”

He nodded his thanks to te doctor and hurried through the door. The front room of hte doctor’s office was home to a counter with a ledger and a cash register atop it, rows of shelves stacked with glass bottles filled the left hand wall, and a low bench sat on the right. Ed was laid out on the bench with a white hat resting over his eyes.

Tallis stepped around the counter and shook him awake.

Edward woke up with a start and bolted upright, clenching both hands into fists.

“Simmer down, dad,” said Tallis, taking a step back. “It’s me.”

A tear rolled down the older man’s cheek and he wrapped his son in a hug. “I didn’t think you’d ever wake up.”

Tallis pried his fathers arms away. “Just go easy. I feel like I’m mostly held together by twine and hope right now.”

Ed stood with a groan, rolling his shoulders. Something let out a sharp snap as he came to his feet. “That’s pretty good,” he said. “Most things I ever built were held together with twine and hope.”

Tallis shuffled towards the door. “Most things you built fell apart.”

“They did not.” Ed did a good job sounding offended but he couldn’t keep the smile from his face.

“They did so.” Tallis opened the door and pushed out into the street. “Norman always put them back together when you weren’t looking.”

The music of the city slammed into him, and he stumbled, buffeted by the cacophony of voices, the smell of horses mixed with fresh baked bread, and the blinding glare of the sun. He put a hand out the wall beside him, steadying himself as the energy of the place crashed over him. It was certainly different from Tuath Den. After so many weeks in the Faelands he’d forgotten just how many damn people there could be in one place. He’d missed it. Ed led him through the warren of brick and adobe, passing shops, smiths, farriers, and houses in every colour imaginable. The current of humanity buoyed them along and Tallis drifted easily on the tide.

Ed pulled him out of the main current and into a tributary stream. The buildings crowned close here, leaning against each other and blocking out the sun, leaving the alleyway in shadow. After spending so long in the Faelands the half light was a relief. Gloom was all his eyes had dined on for weeks and the noonday sun was overwhelming. The alley sloped down towards a rusted grate and thin runnels of fetid water pooled in the gutter.

“It’s not glamour, but it’s ours for now,” said Edward. He turned to his right and leaned on pale door recessed into the wall. It croaked like a dying man as it opened, but a soft peal of laughter and the smell of fresh baked bread wafted into the alley. Ugly on the outside but inside was a home.

It was a cramped space, and sweltering with the heat of the oven. Two cots had been pushed together against the far wall and an overflowing trunk sat at the foot of the bed. A rough table for two sat on the right side of the room and a small oven sat on the left. Norman hunched over the oven, shielding his eyes against the heat and muttering curses at the bread inside.

“I brought you something to help with that bread,” said Edward.

Norman grunted. “Yeah? Did you finally bring home a new husband who knows how to cook?”

“Something like that.” Ed shrugged.

Norman turned with a scowl that melted into a beaming smile as soon as he caught sight of his son. “You found him!” His voice rang out in the small space, echoing off the walls, loud enough to hurt. The hug that followed nearly ground his bones to dust as the big man lifted him off the floor.

“Dad,” Tallis wheezed. “Can’t. Breathe.”

Norman set him down, and Tallis shuffled over to the oven and squinted inside. “What did you do to my bread recipe?” The loaf inside was in a bad way. It looked like someone had punched it flat. It was doing it’s best to rise but didn’t have the strength. He grabbed a pot holder and pulled the pan out of the oven. “Shhh, it’s okay,” he said to the bread. “We’ll put you out of your misery.”

Norman gave him a playful swat on the arm. “It’s not that bad is it?”

“Let’s put it this way, I learned some magic while I was away but I don’t have the spell that would save this bread. I don’t think anyone does.”

Ed made a fist and knocked hard on a blank section of the wall. Something clunked behind it an a section of the wall swung down, revealing a hidden compartment with a small box of crystals inside.

“We’ve fallen into a bit of that too,” said Norman. “Seemed like the next natural step after fleeing the county like a bunch of no good Faerunners.”

“Hey!” Tallis snapped. “You could do a lot worse than being a runner. They’re good people.”

“We might as well join them officially,” said Edward. “We’ve been acting as middlemen since we got here. It’s been tough to make ends meet.”

“I’m sorry,” said Tallis. “I’m sorry for all of this. You deserve better.”

“Don’t worry about it,” said Norman. “Really don’t. When we first got together we didn’t have a pot to piss in. This place is warm, mostly dry. We could do a lot worse.”

Tallis turned to the small cupboard next to the stove and found just enough ingredients for another batch of bread. “At least let me help a little, I think your recipe is off.”

Norman made a disgruntled sound. “I don’t think so. I wrote it down and everything.”

“Yeah, but it’s northern bread, we’re a lot further south now. You need a southern recipe.” He mixed the dough and poured it into a frying pan, cooking up the recipe like pancakes. “Learned this one from a Changeling I met. Great guy, and an even better cook.”

The flat rounds of bread finished in a few minutes and Tallis set them on the table.

They sat and traded stories while they ate. When the fry bread was gone Ed gave him a hard look and pointed to the gun on Tallis' hip.

“What’s the story with this?” he asked.

Tallis took the gun and checked it over. It was a little dusty but seemed no worse for it. The slide rolled back smoothly and it didn’ have any unusual shakes or rattles.

“You some kind of gunslinger or something now?” asked Norman.

Talllis slipped the gun back into his holster and a half smile lifted the corner of his lips. He felt underdressed without the gun on his hip. “I think I might be. I’m not much of a shot but... “ he let the sentence trail off, thinking about the raid on the fort. “... Well, things got more than a little hairy.”

“At least all that’s behind us now,” said Norman. “Things can start getting back to normal. With the three of us here maybe at least one of us can get a real job. We can get out from under this magic shit and be done with it all.”

“I don’t think we can.” Tallis shook his head and explained Cold Iron’s plan to unleash the Devils on the city. If his friends hadn’t been able to stop them then the demons would be on their way here, and innocent people would get killed.

Ed walked to the hidden compart and picked up the box of gems. “Let’s get rid of all this then.” He kicked the door open and swung the box back like he was going to heave it into the street.

A flash of crimson caught Tallis’ eye and he swiped the box out of his father’s hands, setting it gently on the floor. “Careful,” he said, taking the redstone out of the box and slipping it into his pocket. It was already warm. “You’ll blow out the whole block if you’re not careful. Especially with redstone in there. And let me tell you, I’m not going through dying again. It was a pain in the ass.”

Ed turned around slowly. “What do you mean again?”

Tallis unbuttoned his vest and shirt and tore off the bandage wound around his chest. Whatever lump of Fae goo had been jammed into the wound had done its job well. In a few more days you’d barely be able to tell that he’d been run through by a demon. “I mean, I know how easy an Eastling Devil can take a man down. They only needed one swipe. And that was it.”

Norman stood with a huff, knocking his chair over in the process. He stomped to the door and slammed it shut. “I,” he said, his voice a low growl. “Have had enough.”

Ed and Tallis both stared at him, not understanding.

“I’ve had enough,” Norman said again, louder. “I’ve had enough of sitting around while my boy gets hurt.” He put a hand on Tallis arm holding it away from his side and plucked the pistol out of his holster. “I am done with guns.” He put the pistol in the crate of magic gems and put the box back in it’s hiding place. “I am done with magic.” He locked the hidden compartment and bolted the door. “I am done with all of this. We are not going out to fight monsters. We are not going out to get hurt again. We are not going to play heroes. We are going to sit here, and be quiet and safe and we are going to wait for all of this to blow over.” He picked the chair back up and placed it in front of the door, sitting down and folding his arms over his chest. If anyone wanted to leave, they’d need to go through him first.     

"Dad, please," said Tallis. "We don't have time for this. I don't know how long I was out of the picture, Cold Iron could be here with their pack of Devils any time."

"Too bad," said Norman. "We'll just have to wait here until they leave. Weather the storm."

"This isnt the kind of thing you can just wait to go away. Plus, they hunt magic. They'll sniff us out here. They'll kill just for being in the way. And that will happen all over the city. You said there were runners here right? We need to warn them or they'll get killed."

"And that's worth you getting killed?"

Tallis paced back and forth across the small space. it took Him all of four steps to make it from one end of the room to the other. "Yes. Maybe? I don't know! If we can get out ahead of this no one has to die. No one has to get hurt."

"I don't want you putting yourself in danger, Tallis. It's not worth the risk. I won't let you get hurt again."

Ed caught Tallis by the shoulder, stopping his pacing, and pushed him towards the remaining chair.

"There's one thing I need to know. Did you really see the other side? You saw Death's Tower?"

"I saw it, climbed it, and met the man at the top. He gave me a real creepy feeling."

Ed sat on the cot with a chuckle. "He's death, Tallis. One aspect of it anyway. If he didn't scare you I'd be worried. How'd you get out?"

"He offered me a deal." Tallis shrugged. "I didn't take it. He gave me one chance at being normal and I threw it in his face. I don't think he liked me much."

"I don't think he likes anyone."

"The other one wasn't so bad though. They said they wanted to see my story end the right way. I think I have them to thank, really. I wouldn't be surprised if they sent me back just to spite the man upstairs."

Ed cocked an eyebrow. "We may have met different people. I had a meeting with a guy who called himself the Hunter at the top of the tower. Although, I'm half convinced everyone there is each a piece of the same person."

Tallis frowned, remembering what the story teller had said about the Hunter. "So how'd you get out?"

"I beat him at cards."

"Huh. No one I met seemed like the gambling type to me."

"That's what he said. I picked the game and told him it was impossible to cheat. That it was a game of thinking and strategy rather than luck and that there was no way someone with his foresight would lose." He paused and a thin smile ghosted across his lips. "So of course, I cheated, and that was it. I've spent twenty years looking over my shoulder waiting for him to come for me, but every time I think my number is up, something comes along and bails me out. Its It's like I have something or someone watching out for me."

"Maybe you do," said Tallis with a shrug. "I can imagine there are worse things that could happen when you literally cheat death." He turned towards Norman. "Can we please leave now? Both of us have died before and come back stronger than ever. We'll be fine."

Norman shook his head. "No. I'm going to sit and let either of you get hurt or worse again. Not a chance."

A massive boom rolled through the city, rattling the door in its frame and sending dust raining down from the ceiling.

"I'm sorry, dad. I don't think we have much of a choice.