His grip failed, and Farris felt weightless for the instant his hands fell away from the Cliffside.

Just a child.

Farris braced himself for a long plummet to the ground, but he fell no further. Something strong wrapped itself around his wrist. For the first time since he set his hands against the stone, he looked up.

A large Human leaned over the edge of the cliff, his mouth open in shock.

“Yarlaith!” he cried. “There’s another one here. Alive! And a Simian!”

***

Farris woke up drunk, not quite sure where he was. At least he felt drunk. His memory was hazy, his thoughts seemed slower than usual, and he certainly didn’t know where he was.

He raised his head. He was on a bed in a small room, with one window opening out to the east. The Teeth of the Glenn were barely visible through the dusty glass.

Farris sat bolt upright, suddenly aware that the pain in his leg was gone. His muscles no longer ached, and even the grazing across his knuckles had vanished. Apart from a slight sense of light-headedness, he felt perfectly healthy.

A wooden shelf bolted into the adjacent wall gave him a hint to where he was, with glassware and alchemical solutions racked neatly on its surface. Translucent screens separated his bed from the rest of the room, but a moving shadow on the other side told him that he was not alone.

Farris was about to call out, but a sharp scream cut him off.

The cry went on until the voice went hoarse. It was a man, a young man, by the sound of it. After a short breath he called out again, more agony in every note than before.

Then he went silent.

Farris tentatively removed himself from the bed, spotting his few belongings folded neatly by his feet. He pulled a plain vest over his head – what had once been an attempt to dress as Chester. After he put the rest of his clothes on, he checked his leather shoulder-pack. Its contents were still inside, undisturbed.

“Ah, you’re awake. I’m sorry about that racket.”

Farris turned to face a man in white robes speckled with blood. He was short, even for a Human, with wiry strands of dark, grey hair in tufts across a balding head.

“What did he do to deserve that?” asked Farris, nodding towards the other bed.

“Ah,” said the man, rubbing his hands together and casting his gaze to the floor. “Another patient, a mage, from the field. He… lost an arm.”

“Fionn…” whispered Farris. “How is he doing?”

The man shook his head. “Not well. Not well at all. Did you travel with him and the others?”

Farris quickly played out a dozen scenarios in his mind. To tell the truth could put the Crown one step closer to figuring out his role in the ship’s crash. Assuming the king’s men were looking for an answer, or even had any influence in this town, or settlement, or wherever it was he had landed himself.

“Where am I?” he asked instead, stepping past the man to take a closer look at his surroundings. It was indeed a clinic, the man clearly a white mage. However, a portrait of a woman hanging against the opposite wall held Farris’s attention while the healer spoke.

“This is Roseán, a village in the Clifflands. We’re about half a day on foot from Point Grey to the east. My name is Yarlaith the White, and I am the one who has tended to your wounds. Are you feeling well enough to walk?”

“Who is she?” Farris asked, pointing up at the picture. His arm was trembling, not from fatigue.

“Ah, Lady Meadhbh of the Trinity,” said Yarlaith. A flash of confusion appeared in his eyes.

No… no, it can’t be.

“I need to clear my head,” said Farris, slipping past Yarlaith towards the door. “How much do I owe you for the treatment?”

“Free…” muttered Yarlaith. “Free to all who walk in the Light of the Lady.”

“Thank you,” said Farris, bowing ever so slightly to his saviour.

Though I’d rather be free of Her light entirely.

As he walked out through the old cottage into the fresh autumn air, Farris tried to recall the vision he had seen at the bottom of the cliff. The beautiful woman with the terrible smile.

No, it can’t be her. She doesn’t exist. By Sin’s stones, She can’t possibly exist.

Chapter 2:

The Bear and the Beadhbh

Fear had claimed the young mage many times before, but it rarely strayed from his dreams. Hours had passed since he last saw light, and he could no longer tell if he was asleep or awake. He prayed to the Gods that he would not dream, but when sleep eventually took him, it was clear that the Lord had not listened.  

***

The road from Yarlaith’s clinic followed an irregular path, meandering through the village as if its buildings were rocks in a river’s path. To the east, the sun had begun to set over the Móráin Sea, casting long shadows that seemed to grope the land below. Farris set his sights southwards, where the road opened up to a wide cobblestone square, with large buildings of red brick and black slate contrasting with the houses of wattle and daub he passed.

Maybe there’ll be a tavern, thought Farris, some excitement rising in his chest. I could do with a drink.

One of the buildings towards the centre of the square was large enough to be an inn. Farris squinted to make out its name, barely noticing the bottleneck of villagers outside the chapel to his left.

He picked up his pace, careful not to make eye-contact with those leaving the church.

How many died, four? Five? He tried to shake the thought from his mind, but the image of little girl alone in the field remained. Skies above! What where they doing there before sunrise?

Regardless of why they were there, it certainly wasn’t the peasants who brought doom to the Clifflands. Only one man could take the real blame for that.

“King Diarmuid Móráin,” he whispered, a vain attempt to drown out the voice in his head that roared, ‘Me!’

“Look at that! There’s that Simian fella ye saved from the cliffs!”

Before Farris had a chance to make sense of the words, he found himself confronted by two young men in black tunics, both thick with muscle and perfect mirror images of one another. One reached out to grab Farris’s hand, and shook it vigorously with little effort on the Simian’s part.

“Good to see you’re well! Gods, I’ve never seen one of your kind before.”

“He’s always been afraid of Simians,” the other said, taking Farris’s hand in an equally firm grip. “Good thing he didn’t balk at the sight of ye, else we’d be scraping you off those rocks!”

Farris faked a smile. “You have all the thanks I’ve got to give.”

“Tell us about the troll!” said the first man. “What were ye doing in the Glenn, of all places!”

“Please,” said Farris, emphasising the weariness in his voice. “I’m in no state to be telling tales right now. I need to be alone.”