(#6) They Sank to Join Them

An old friend returns. Events at the temple do not go according to plan.

Cork stepped into the light. Dalian felt Lynch’s gaze on him.

“Snake,” she muttered. “You played me.”

Dalian was too shocked to care. “I saw you die,” he said to Cork. “I saw…”

The bald man did not respond. He didn’t even appear to recognize them. His eyes were vacant, his face expressionless. Dalian couldn’t fathom how this was possible. I saw this man ripped in half. Cork’s body was obscured by the robes, but he stepped forward with ease. He didn’t just appear alive, but perfectly healthy. 

The client spoke. “Your man came straight to me. He told me how you sent another—this man—to waylay them, how his partner turned on him besides. How you tried to take the skull for yourselves. Your plans to swindle me, sell it to the Baron. He told me you’d tell these stories. Tales about living Ekkians. Things in the dark.” 

He paused, cracking his knuckles. The arrogance of your lies is staggering. They are gone. Were they not, filth like you would not be the first to learn otherwise.”

The little man chuckled, then. “Lucky thing, for this man Cork, he knew well enough not to partake in your schemes.”

“He’s lying,” Dalian hissed to Lynch, keeping his eyes on the client. “He’s lying through his teeth. I don’t know who that man is, but it can’t be Cork. I watched him die. Orchine too. I saw the Ekkian.” 

The other robed figures were fanning out behind the client, drawing handblades. There were eight of them, plus Cork and the client. Bad odds.

Alfred Kubin (`1900) The Eternal Flame

“If he isn’t, you’ll be dead by the time the sun rises,” Lynch muttered, low enough that only Dalian could hear. “But for now, we’re on the same ship. All hands to bail.”

Dalian gripped his bow loose in his left hand, his right fingering a shaft from his hip quiver.

“So what now?” Lynch called to the client, her voice echoing around the cavernous chamber. “What do you ask?”

“Now you learn,” he said. “That one does not plot against the servants of Sent.”

“I’ve learned the only lesson anyone ever needs to learn about gods,” Lynch called. “Your Sent or otherwise. I learned it back in Astar, it’s held true since.”

“And that was?”

She brought her wrist-mounted crossbow up. “Fuck the gods.”