"Yes."
"Excellent. It seems our intertwinement may continue. Your revenge and my imprisonment have a commonality. If I return you to life, will you promise to seek out one from my time? There is much that I wish to ask him, answers that he has discovered that may lead to my true salvation."
"If you return me to life, I'll do anything you ask."
Death chuckled. "Never make that sort of promise. This is how evil men become exalted and deceivers receive immortality. No. What I ask of you, Hero, is a contract. Your payment will be life, given to you preemptively by me, and your mission will be to find the answer of my freedom. Do you accept?"
Jim studied the decrepit figure for a moment. "If I cannot find the answer, will you return me here?"
"Eventually."
"Then tell me, where should I go?"
Death's gaping maw crooked into a smile. "There is a city in the West called Salix, do you know of it?"
"The Willow capitol?"
"Precisely. The man who killed you has residency there. He also has a friend, a priest that has shared a similar fate as you. This is the man that you must find, this is the man who holds the key to my shackles."
"I'll find him."
"Good." Death reached a hand forward formalizing the contract with a shake. "I am sorry for my death. I do hope that you recover from it."
"What do…?" Jim started, but, before he could finish, his world faded into heat.
▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪
My name is…. No. Not now. My life is not important, but my death will return you.
Fire. That’s what I remember most. Flames licked at my flesh and boiled the marrow in my bones: they split like logs beneath a carver’s ax. Can you feel it? I was screaming. I could hear the moisture of my body escape through my pores in whistles of steam. I couldn’t see, the flames had eaten my eyes and taken my sight. I needed reprieve.
I reached forward searching for…something. What was it? Does it matter? No. Maybe. I…no. But I found it. My hand tingles with wonderful distraction. The pain was gone from my fingertips, so I continued to reach forward, numbing my arm and shoulder with the same, beautiful escape. Then, I immerse myself completely, and my world goes dark.
I can see darkness, smoke, shadows. Only now do I realize that the fire was bliss, and this darkness is torture.
We are all connected.
▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪
Jim gasped, pulling drafts of cool air into his lungs. The world around him was bright, colorful, beautiful. The greens of the forest had never looked so wonderful; the darkness was gone. He examined his hands and arms and saw no burns or blisters. He was back; He was alive.
3: Dead man's request
Jim placed the onyx ring on the table for Colter to examine. The contractor studied the ornate jewelry with a practiced eye, a look of admiration unmistakable on his face.
"This is it." Colter said, pocketing the ring. "How do you want your payment?"
"Coin this time." Jim said.
"Not sticking around?" Colter asked.
"No."
Colter shrugged then uncinched the purse from his belt. He pulled thirteen gold coins from the pouch, placing them carefully on the table as he counted. But, when Jim reached forward, Colter covered the neat pile.
"I heard…something." The contractor said, looking away. "A few days back one of my…colleagues passed through here. He told me about a contract that he had priced for some outrageous sum for a buyer richer than the Elken God. A contract that he'd sold to Floydd."
Jim nodded. It had taken him far longer to get to Indrasmos than he'd first expected. When he awoke, it had taken him days to find his bearings. Somehow, after his fall from the Father Tower, after the world made of smoke, he had wound up in the foothills of the Eastern Mountains, more than twenty miles away from the city of Elodin
Still sore and confused, he'd stumbled around the foothills until he finally found a thin passage that led to a small river. It was there that he thought, thought about the world that he had been forced to experience, thought about his fall, his death. It was there that Jim realized that all that he had run from was nipping at his heels. And, it was there, that Jim decided that Floydd would be his final contract.
"I'm sorry if I worried you." Jim said.
"Worried?" Colter exclaimed. "Jim, I thought you were dead. I heard you'd been shot half a dozen times and thrown from the highest floor of the tallest tower. The way Floydd tells it, he stripped you of your Hero blood and danced upon your lifeless corpse."
Jim stayed quiet.
"Well?" Colter pushed. "Nothing you want to tell me? Jim…I thought I'd lost my friend. And when you showed up this morning…."
"I died, Colt." Jim said, in barely a whisper. "Floydd caught me off-guard. He shot me and…and I fell."
"You…?" Colter started, but stopped suddenly. "You're serious?"
"Yes."
"Jim…." Colter started, but his words faltered.
Jim looked at his friend. "I'm going to Salix. Floydd has a home there." From the contractor, Jim could feel his questions radiating, but he continued without explanation. "I could use your help."
Without hesitation, Colter answered. "You have it." He turned, grabbing at some loose papers and reading through them rapidly. "I don't know much about Salix, but I'll send feelers out immediately. It'll be an expensive ask…but I'll make it work."
"Thanks." Jim said, turning to exit the room. "I'll scout the city for a few days – lay low, stick to alleys and rooftops – that sort of thing. I'll reach out to you when I'm ready - our usual parameters?"
"I'll be there." Colter said with a smile. "Just…don't keep me waiting this time."
Jim returned the smile. "Wouldn't dream of it." He said, then opened the door and entered the streets of Indrasmos.
It would take a few days to get to Salix, Jim knew, so he stopped to fill his water pouch at a decently clean and cheap pump. He visited a few shops, restocking his tinderbox and snagging a piece of dried meat to settle his grumbling stomach. Then, he left, leaving through the Western gate and wandering toward the forest that he'd once called home.
4: Emeralds and gold
A calm breeze swept through the forest, causing the treetops and grass to sway and dance. The smell of pine and soil mingled in Jim’s nose. It brought cold memories to the surface of his mind. Cowering behind boulders and large trees for shelter; he had needed to rely on his sense of smell and sound in the black of night. It was the first time Jim had been forced to struggle and it was the first time he had chosen to live.
Walking here, in the middle of an unforgiving forest, felt right to Jim. He had struggled, fought through a hellish world of smoke, and emerged in a place that had tried to kill him before. But often the places that had tried to kill him only succeeded in shaping him, honing his body and mind into a razor sharp enough to survive. There is a pattern to places, Jim. You will either succumb, or you will overcome and be all the better for it.
Is that what he had done? Overcome Hell, climbed through the surface of the world to wake beneath the sun once again? That place, with its shadows and screams, had it molded him into a stronger being simply by allowing him to