When Heroes Die

“If the Fae offer to renegotiate the terms of your bargain, it is evident that somewhere along the way someone’s plans have gone awry. Pray that the mistake is not your own.”

– ‘Essences of the Fae’, written by Madeline de Jolicoeur

Arlen ran through fields of frost, sheets of ice cracking underfoot. Panting, he made his way through the lands of the Fae. Despite his haste, he was careful where he stepped. Glaciers were treacherous underfoot. The light of the moon overhead lit the way, but once he reached one of his other exits, he was free to start anew.

He was safe for now, but he would need to move fast from place to place. This was not to plan, none of this was to plan. Slowly, he was to amass a wealth of souls, then be free of his bargain. He had not anticipated the arrival of the Rogue Sorcerer, and the demon was certainly outside the scope of his vision.

It was not until he had already captured the girl that he realized what she truly was.

It was no matter, they could all be poured into the mould with time. The demon offered so much promise. He had imagined her to be another one of the many characters painted onto the background of the world, if one more disarmed by luck than most. That impression had faded the moment he had laid claim to the essence of her. With her alone, he could have escaped from the deal he made. Her essence was worth more than thousands of souls.

It made him question commonly held wisdom. Both heroes and villains decried the use of demons, claiming them to be the instruments of the utterly mad. But the girl had seemed no less human than anyone else, only she could be put to far greater use.

A crackle of broken ice from behind him. He froze stiffly. Turning, he came face to face with the vulpine features of the Prince of Nightfall.

“My lord,” he bowed obsequiously, his forehead chilled as it brushed up against the ice on the ground below. It rankled to submit himself like this, but he had no illusions as to the relative differences in their positions.

Eyes to the ground, he could see the shadow of the creature as it prowled around him in circles.

“The terms of our agreement necessitated that you were to provide a single soul a month for the span of a single score of years. You have missed this month's payment. I find you in violation of the terms,” the Prince almost seemed to purr.

The Artist knew that excuses would not save him here. He swallowed a gulp. He would need to offer something that cost him dearly to earn the creature’s interest, else he would lose his soul.

“Would you be amenable to renegotiating the terms?”

The creature let out a bout of fey laughter. It echoed eerily against the air.

“And what is it that you would care to offer me to stay your fate?”

“A century, not a score of years. This I offer to you for my failure to pay.”

It was a steep price to pay, but it wouldn’t upset his plans. One soul a month for a century only consumed but a fraction of his time each day, allowing him to focus the body of his efforts elsewhere.

The creature paused in its pacing.

“Five souls a month for the span of twenty years, should you wish to be free from your fate,” the Prince offered.

The Artist couldn’t help it, he gulped. It would be hard to avoid notice given those terms.

“Perhaps-”

“These terms are no longer negotiable, unless you wish to default,” the Prince interjected.

Arlen tried to protest once more, but found his mouth clammed shut. He started to realize just how costly his mistake truly was. Perhaps he could ask for further clarification and maybe find his way free?

“As before, would you be amenable to equivalent payments?”

“Should the wares you offer hold value equal to that of over a thousand souls, I would accept it in lieu of payment,” the fox offered.

“Would the essence of a demon qualify?”

“In the event that you manage to trap the Princess again, I would accept her readily as an alternative,” the Prince sounded amused.

Princess? Was she perhaps a beast of hierarchy? She was certainly not a member of the Fae courts, he had a sense when one of them approached. It was one of the peculiarities of his Name. An engrained compulsion to submit. No matter, another demon should also suffice.

“Bargain struck, then,” the Artist whispered, a sense of foreboding building within him.

“Bargain struck,” the Prince agreed. From his position kneeling in the snow, the Artist could hear the creature’s grin.

Arlen stood up as the creature walked away. It disappeared moments later. Brushing the snow off of his outfit, he started to move towards one of his many existing exits. The terms as agreed upon were too risky for him to dare meet, but he had plans for how to escape his fate.

The Prince of Nightfall was willing to accept demons as an alternative form of payment. Finding them would surely be challenging, but after his first encounter with one, he was confident in his ability to contain them. Now it was only a matter of beginning his work anew.

Running off into the depths of Arcadia once more, he realized that this time he might have put too much paint on his brush. Were it not for the timely arrival of the Princess of High Noon, his life would surely have been blotted out.

The lands of Summer passed him by as he continued to move between dense jungle foliage.

Much to his dismay, the demon of absence did not share either the malleability or compliance of the demon girl. Arlen had expected it to start shaping the landscape within its prison, much like the girl had. Unfortunately, once the bindings on it had been shattered, it had begun to consume the prison instead.

It had only now occurred to him that perhaps he should perform further investigation into the different types of demons, for it seemed likely that not all types would function the same way. Finding more of the same class as the girl was likely the best course of action. The most expedient solution would be to just recapture the girl. Much to his irritation, it was unlikely she would allow him to do so.

The dense greenery gave way to dead shrubs and frozen ground as he crossed the boundary between Summer and Winter. His jogging slowed to a walk. The lands of Summer were not safe for him to tread, considering the bargain he had made, but in Winter he could freely move.

Provided he did not default on his payments, he could call the lands of the Winter Fae home. It was then that the sound of the breaking of a branch behind him forced him to still his movement.

From just outside his perspective, the figure of the Prince stepped into view. Before he could even react, his head slammed onto the frozen ground.

“My lord, to what do I owe the pleasure?” he croaked.

To his knowledge, he had kept to the letter of his agreement. Why is it that the Prince’s visage seemed as cold as a winter’s gale?

“Your debts for the past three months are due,” the creature declared. “It is good that you have appeared before me, rather than run from fate.”

“This is not the case, I have stuck to the terms you offered me,” the Artist protested, raising his eyes. It was the truth, he could not lie to this creature.

The being looked down at him, puzzled, then let out a merry laugh.

“A fine jest this is, a gift that is not a gift. But even should you have succeeded, the essence of absence is no Princess. You would not have escaped from your debts.”

The artist licked his lips, dry as they were with the cold. He was about to ask for clarification, when the Prince began speaking once more.

“In my eyes you have breached our agreement, and yet in yours you have not. For this and this alone, I shall be merciful and stay your demise.”

That was fortunate. Arlen doubted that if it came to conflict, he could beat the Prince in a fight.

“Thank y-”

“That does not mean there shall be no consequences. I believe that an amendment to our agreement is in order.”

“What is there to amend?” the Artist asked.

“Three paintings you shall gift to me. Three landscapes, seeped deep in souls. The first shall be a place of loneliness. It should rise up high, peak jutting above the clouds but stand with no kin to console it. The second shall be a place of mystery. Hidden, shrouded, with many secrets to find. The third shall be a place of comfort. Warm, inviting, nestled away in a cavern most dark,” the Prince paused.

“What else?” Arlen knew there would be a catch. If this was all the Prince wanted, it would be easy for him to finally be free.

“The full payment owed shall be divided between all three paintings. The task must be done by the end of three years, or the debt will finally be claimed.” the Prince finished.

The term seemed ludicrous, impossible. Three years to gather over a thousand souls, divided between three paintings. There was no way Arlen could manage undetected.

“Could the timeframe perhaps be extended. Say thirty years and twice the number of souls?” he choked out.

“I have no interest in changing the terms. Twice you have failed to give what you agreed upon. Twice I have stayed my hand. There will be no third offer. Three paintings you shall gift to me by the dusk of the third year. They shall be handed to me all at once, or not at all. Fail to deliver, and your soul is finally forfeit.”

Scrambling for a counteroffer, the Artist recalled the Prince’s seeming interest in the girl. “Would the demon girl be an acceptable substitute?”

The Prince’s lips twitched, as if he considered it a particularly amusing joke. “The first time I ever stepped into Creation, I found it a brutish, ugly thing. A pale imitation of Arcadia painted with lesser pigments. While my fellows rejoiced across the fresh playground, I began to withdraw.”

Arlen said nothing, not knowing what to say. Disrupting the Prince seemed unwise, even if this digression had nothing to do with their existing arrangement.

“I paused after coming across a fox,” the Prince continued with a smile. “It had fallen into a trap. A snare that caught its foot. It knew it would die, if it remained there.”

“What happened then?” the Artist asked.

“It chewed off its foot, and it escaped,” the Fae answered.

“Forgive me, Prince, but what does this have to do with my debt?”

“Provided you capture and bring her to me, you may also walk free of your debts,” the Prince of Nightfall answered, grinning at him. “Chew off your own foot, little painter. Let’s see what pretty pictures you can paint with your own blood.”

A chill ran down Arlen’s spine.

The Artist did not have a good idea on how to see it done, but if the opportunity presented itself, he would try regardless. Containing her the first time had seemed trivial at first, but that was before she became aware of the attempt. No matter, catching a single demon was likely easier than painting thousands of people and escaping notice. He would pursue knowledge on the subject, while whittling away at his debt.

As the creature left, Arlen started making his way to one of his gates in Procer. Staying out of Callow seemed like a smart idea until he had recovered from the fight.

Arlen walked between the tents on a battlefield near Lange. He had struck upon the idea of working as a medic’s assistant, helping to dress wounds during the ongoing civil war. He was just another faceless member of the masses, and it allowed him easy access to the blood of so many soldiers.

Arriving at his tent, he set out his easel, fixed a canvas to it and loaded up his brush. Then he began to paint. First came loneliness. For this he painted a solitary peak, jutting up high above the clouds. The shape of the mountain was unnatural, with a sheer cliff face. A single path carved through it, a gorge leading from top to bottom. At the precipice, shrouded in fog, the vague shape of a building hid.

Reaching to his side, he grabbed a vial of blood and opened it, then lightly dabbed some of it on the brush. The colour seeped into the unicorn hairs, then seemed to vanish entirely. Turning back to the landscape, he felt the shape of his Name as it rose up within him.

It was a mosaic. His mosaic, painted out of the hopes and dreams of everyone he had claimed them from. Reaching out with his brush, he added lines to the cliffs.

“Impart,” he spoke softly.

Something intangible ran down the brush and entered into the painting. It was his first bestowal, the first claim he had made to power. It took the very essence of a person and imbued it into the paint. Someone somewhere else in the camp had entered a dreamless sleep from which they would never wake up.

As he continued to paint, he mused over his dilemma. His plans to canvas the many battlefields of the civil war were making good progress. Many of the deaths were excusable as something else. Even better, by maintaining the route he had sketched out, it was possible he could pay a visit to the same armies repeatedly once enough time had passed between visits. Simply by moving from army to army, it was likely he could meet the demands of the Prince.

Two of the three pieces commissioned by the Prince of Nightfall had been completed when disaster had struck. Arlen was in the process of inking his exit on a tree, ready to move on to the next battlefield, when a feeling of wrongness came to him. Alert, he scrambled to complete the passage, then a word rang out from behind him.

“Shine.”

He dove through the partially finished doorway, his precious paintings cradled carefully under his arms as he did so. Panicking, he touched one of his other works and spoke.

“Manifest.”

Paint came to life, animated by the force of one of the souls he had taken. He could hear their tortured shrieks as they were forced to obey his whims. The veil that his paintings placed over their eyes was shorn away, and the true terms of their sentence made clear to them. No matter, even knowing they were merely fragments of his mosaic, they would serve his whims regardless.

Three painted tigers launched themselves at the old man that stood on the other side. Another beam of light slammed into one of them. Judging by how the fight was progressing, he would dispose of them quickly. The victory of what Arlen assumed to be a hero seemed all but assured, but he had already succeeded in drafting his escape.

Hurriedly, the Artist slashed his brush across the entrance, breaking the connecting lines. It shimmered for a moment, then vanished. Breathing a sigh of relief, he turned around and took in the snowy wasteland, lit only by the light of the stars. There was no moon out in Arcadia this night. Travel would be dangerous, but it seemed that for once fate had been on his side.

He had escaped with his paintings and only lost three souls in the process.

Arriving in Callow once more, Arlen did little to suppress the frustration that was bubbling up inside. He passed between the gates, ignoring the splendour above him. Usually a scene like this would move him to paint, but the joy had long gone out of the process.

He had made so much progress. After the first commission had been complete, he had quickly progressed on the second. A mountain lake with an island in the centre, covered with mangrove trees and ruins. Darker colours were used, and it was shaded in a way to hint at something hidden deeper within. Despite how many soldiers had fallen into endless slumber, the connection had not been made.

Then the old man had shown up.

He was unsure how the hero had done it, but news of his actions had reached every battlefield. They had all been warned to beware of a travelling artist. Camp followers were carefully checked for the possession of brushes or oils, with what seemed to be a tacit agreement on all sides of the civil war to ban the ownership of both.

He had risked sneaking into some less well defended encampments, but after losing an ear in an escape attempt and almost losing one of the Prince’s pieces, he deemed it no longer worth the risk. He had tried the larger cities next, only to find out news of him had spread to them as well.

It was only through careful questioning, he was able to discover the Name of his opponent. The Grey Pilgrim. The man seemed to have great influence with the church, enough to spread news of him from one side of the Principate to the other.

So he had left once more, returning to Callow. Much time had passed since his departure and he was short over three hundred souls. Were there a war in Callow, claiming the remaining lives while remaining unseen would be an achievable task. To his dismay, Callow was stable. The Calamities ruled with an iron fist, and disappearances on the scale he needed would be quickly noticed.

And now the third painting loomed like an executioner’s axe overhead, all but ready to descend. It sat incomplete. The finished landscape was supposed to be an underground city carved into the walls of a cave, but only the barest outlines had been done.

Moving from inn to inn, the Artist looked for a place to stay. Moving between armies had necessitated that he put a stop to the previous life of luxury he had lived. It was one more slight among many and meant that he could not afford to stay at the wealthier parts of town. Finally, after half a bell of searching, he found acceptable accommodations in an out-of-the-way inn. It was secluded down a narrow alley that he likely would not have found were it not for the cacophony raised by a bard. Aside from the owner, they were the only other occupant.

He had offered to paint her. An actual painting, not a trap for once, since he couldn’t afford to risk his current home.

All she had done is shook her head and give him a drunken grin.