"THE BAND, ELWOOD! THE BAND!"

"The band? The band… the band? The band!"

"Praise God!"

"And God bless the United States of America!"

"It's not a question of someone taking it personally," Kles said, kneeling over the broken body. He pointed at the mass of gore that was once the face, his finger just a few inches from it - "That's as personal as a kiss right there. The question, rather, is who would go to such trouble, and to what end?"

The captain stood again, taking his chestplate from his page who held it and strapping it across his body once more, the dull brown Ikanan armor hiding his paunch - "Tell me about the girl."

Joni, still sick in the pit of his stomach, tried to lead the captain across the room to speak with him – to no effect. Kles's feet were planted, himself quite comfortable with his surroundings. Joni returned, trying to block the gruesome sight with the captain's body - "Uh… came up at her usual time with the bathwater. He's particular, or was – says she has the best touch."

Kles laughed, drawing gazes from the aides who swept the room for evidence - "Yeah, that's one way of putting it. So how long does it usually take her drawing the water and getting up here to bathe the old man?"

Joni's brow crumpled and he put a hand to it to calm himself - "I mean usually she's just an hour or two. He liked her to take her time with it." His hand fell and he glared - "And yeah, I'm not stupid, I know what they got up to. I've had a woman myself-"

The captain killed that train of thought mercifully quick - "How long was she today? I've walked this path before – a girl carrying water from the river could make this in minutes, sprinting back minutes less."

There was an implication in that, Joni could tell – indeed he was not stupid. At last he had the nerve to take the captain by the arm and draw him to a corner of the room, even as the page tried to get between them. In the end Kles calmed his second and turned to Joni once more - "Say your piece, boy."

"Do you think she did this?" Joni balked - "You do, don't you? Ela's a nice girl, a small girl, ninety pounds soaking wet – she couldn't do… that." He pointed to the bloody mass.

"Others could." Kles shooed his page away, giving Joni a confidence he didn't want told in a voice louder than a murmur - "When I was your age and this land was less settled than it is, there was a band of whores and widows who styled themselves witches of Ikana. Claimed some magic bond with the Gibdos, kept them in cellars, fed them, got them ornery and accustomed to manflesh. Blood magic. Real blood magic. They got that blood from the travelers who bedded with them, or any other poor bastard who looked like he had too much blood for his own good. The luckier travelers threw in, became their bodyguards, their enforcers."

The air was serious and Joni felt close to choking on it - "That wasn't just a rumor?"

Kles put an arm around his shoulder - "We hanged and quartered most of them. Fed the dogs to bursting. Sold some that we didn't give justice, money was short. That was a mistake. Magic does not die, even in a heart that holds it. There's two killed bodies in this room – one was killed live, and the other..." He tilted his head toward the grey mass that still smoldered in the fireplace.

Joni was overcome with sudden weakness – and not just from the captain's words. He had hitched to Sakon early, when still a boy – a boy could learn much from the old man, about accounting, tenancy, taxation, arbitration between rents and businesses. He had learned the necessary parts of the job as well, forgery, counterfeiting, wordcraft, upselling. Only a few nights prior he had helped erase the signatures on a cadaster to justify evicting a clan of families in the lower valley who had become problematic. His education, legitimate and illicit, was unfinished. His time with his master was not done.

Now he felt a target growing on his back, and that the shot had missed him by only inches. Had he been here last night, looking over the books, perhaps the Gibdo that now burned in the pit would have a piece of him in its gut.

He swallowed - "Who's to say who did it? Maybe it was just someone looking for a glorious kill."

Kles rolled his eyes and turned the man bodily toward the fireplace, like he knew his thoughts - "That is not glory, Joni. That is a symptom of a mechanical mind. This room is filled with revenge. Maybe it's not my witches – they're long forgotten anyway. But it's someone who has no compunction lying down with the dead. This is a land of plenty now – some will come to raid it. And if they make use of cursed creatures to win out over us, then it's a crime against nature as well as our laws."

Joni was weak in the knees once more - "What can we do?"

"I'll talk to the girl." The captain beckoned his page near once more - "She'll probably hang if I'm being honest, for the peace's sake. I'm naming you holder of this estate until we can determine the rightful heir. The town fathers will meet tomorrow night to discuss this affair – be present and be silent." He planted his helm on his head, taking spear to hand, both from the boy beside him - "One last thing – have you seen Fallon or his kin?"

Joni shook his head.

Kles sighed - "We find them, your girl will have some company on the gallows. We're growing an empire, Joni – can't tolerate those who won't step to the beat, no matter their station."

He nodded his exit to his aides – six of them loaded the body into a shell and carried it out after the captain, shrouding it beneath a purple silk like to beautify the damage. The rest stayed behind, continuing their search.

Joni found a chair and sat – for now it was his chair, and his chamber, and his home. His last conversation with his mentor had been on the proper means of fishing in the river, and it had been an unfinished talk at that – now the last of him was being mopped from the floor by a bucket boy.

He knew the same score Fallon had known, deep inside him – but he had not the same will. Instead he went to a chest in the corner of the room, one laden with riches, and slipped a few rupees into his pockets. An emergency fund, for when the good times ended – no one would think lesser of him for such precaution.

They were in a land of scavengers, after all.

Kafei found the camp when the day was still young, unimpeded in his travels by any man or creature – he had passed some nejiron hunters in their station, scraping fresh hides, but no one had paid him any mind. He descended the wall that separated upper and lower Ikana, the long trek from the canyon into the heartland of Termina ahead of him.

The graveyard path stood to the north – he followed it a short ways, down the track of the giant faded hoofprints, to a gap in the rock wall. Bombchus scurried across the rock faces above him, dust spilling down. He wore his recovered mask as a hat against the shade, its dulled face reflecting the light it was meant to imitate.

The camp was bare and simple – a ring of faded wooden fencing, some wire across the ground to defy snakes, a trench to trap any other creatures and for the rare instances it stormed. To a side was the charcoal pile, that which earned them a livelihood at the market where the old observatory once was.

The shed itself was a broken ornament of a distant place – misshapen flanks of black metal, rimmed with jewels and sharp colored paints, stood in a loose confederacy of mutual support, any one part as essential to its outer balance as any other. Its parts were never meant to be a house, and it was only from being set into the rock with much mortar that it did not collapse immediately. He ducked the cloth that stood for a door and entered the living quarters.

The space could accommodate a fire, its beneficiaries, and little else. The essential functions of life had to be performed outside – this was a metal tent more than a home. Above the smolder of the fire, though, at the mouth of the inner passage, was a reminder of its former glory – a great fearsome horned mask, both goat and man, set there as ward against cursed intruders, which this land produced like others do grass.

Within the passage there was no sound – often Kafei would leave and arrive to hear the same distant tapping, the pickaxe driving into rock without ceasing, for hours upon hours. Its silence now did not mean the passage was empty, so Kafei leaned forward to call out, and see if his partner was there contained.

No sooner had the first syllable formed in his mouth than did the far end of the tunnel alight, and a split second later the sound of the blast reached him, deafening him for an instant. He winced, pulling his mask off and throwing it down in the space that made for his bed, and put the broken remnants of the keaton mask beside it. He ducked and entered.

As he moved inward, hunched all the while, he heard the clanging resume. Before long he could see the sparks that came from the wall with each drive, and the shadow of the form that hid them when they fell before it. Without a lantern at that end there was little else to see – Kafei took the one at the midpoint, lit it with the flint that hung from beneath it, and proceeded once more, watching as the form of his partner came into view.

His figure was brawny now, from years of effort in this passage – shirtless, his muscles stood out in the contrast of the lantern light and the cave shadow, dusted over with the debris of his effort. His long orange hair he wore tied at the back, his fine beard clinging to his neck from the sweat of labor.

Decades in the tunnel had numbed them to the sense of magic that stood all about them, the electricity in the air that had invited this enterprise. Too it had numbed them to the youth it bought them – even as they both were ageless, they felt like old souls, worn down by the effort of dredging a dead land. So there was no greeting, no report, no acknowledgment at all until Kafei set the lantern down and his partner halted him without looking - "Not there, some powder spilled. Hang it."

As he did the man's bidding, Kafei found the bottle of rock liquor his partner used so often for sustenance. He took a long swig, swallowing it without so much as a squint even as the alcohol scorched his tongue and throat. He made a seat of a blast hole – strong enough for liquor perhaps, but not for his words - "Did it."

The miner made a last strike, read his fingers over the wall to test the magic within, then finally set down the pick and fell to stretching, as much as he could in the tight chamber - "And the mask?"

"Found it. He fought me for it."

"All these years later?" The partner sat across from him, taking up a rag to wipe his brow, pulling his gloves off, gritting his teeth at a knot in his sizable arm.

Kafei only nodded in reply.

The man reached for his rock liquor – Kafei handed it, and with a long swig he regained his energy. He corked the bottle - "Where is it?"

Kafei pointed to the exit with his chin.

"You didn't think to bring it down here?" His brow tightened.

Kafei leaned back, resting against the least awkward part of the wall - "Truly, do you want to see that thing before it's time?"

Those eyes always held some of their old mischief, even under the pressure of their effort. Now that cunning sparked, and with it, for the first time in a long while, a familiar grin crept across the Salesman's face. His turn to point with his face, at the wall he was working on - "But it is time. We're in the final feet. Why else would I have sent you for our prize?"

"True enough." Kafei watched their shadows dance across the wall as the lantern gently swung, the silhouette of his form coursing up and down the uneven rockface in a rolling pulse - "The girl sounds like a real catch from what you've said of her."

The Salesman was skeptical all at once - "Yes, and you'll do well to lid up that easy manner when we do make our entrance. Fountain fairies might look meek and underdressed, but it's for the same reason poison berries have the brightest colors. Her magic will skin you at a word."

"If my ill manner is enough to earn a skinning, I can't imagine what breaking her wall down will do."

The Salesman stood once again, unbent even under the low ceiling - "Oh, but she knows I'm coming. I can feel it. She's known almost as long as I've been here, since I was first sounding her out through the stone. She knew me starving, barely able to lift the pick. She'll know who I am, and she'll know I come in the deepest respect. And for the truest cause."

"Will she now?" Kafei scratched himself - "Another thing, my true mask got broken in the fighting. I'd appreciate having it set."

The Salesman took the pick in hand once more - "Tonight perhaps. I want to blast at least twice more, I might be all night. You wanna be useful, go scrounge some wood from the cemetery or grind a bombchu for powder. I don't say it to shoo you, we'll need both to fix your mask."

That caught Kafei's attention - "You're gonna scorch fresh wood into it? No other way to heal it?"

The Salesman glanced back at Kafei - "People get healed, boy. Masks get fixed. I can do both, but I can't do the one for the other." He raised the pick once more and drove it.

They were woken a few hours before morning by the blast. The Salesman sprung to his feet, grabbing his pistol from beneath his bedroll – Kafei readied as well, pulling on his repaired mask, knife in hand a moment later. Outside all was still – and the stillness of night, not the willed silence of ones waiting to make an ambush. A bombchu scurried away from the trench, intimidated by the sounds within.

Drowsy but not defeated by sleep, the Salesman glanced across the small chamber, spying anywhere the sound might have come from. He gritted his teeth - "What was that sound? Not lightning, it isn't the right time of year."

Kafei sighed, dropping his head back down to his pillow - "The lantern. I forgot to bring it back, it must've eaten the powder."

With an answer, and a common one, the Salesman felt ready to lower his guard, much displeased - "That's a lantern you owe me, boy. And if my pickaxe is much damaged, I'll take the equivalent straight out of your ass."

Eager to regain sleep, Kafei rolled over and spoke to the wall - "I'll hit the observatory market when the next caravan's going through, pick up some provisions if you can give me the days. And yeah, it'll be out of my end-"

With the boy rolled over the Salesman had to hush him verbally - "Quiet!" His attention returned to the tunnel, body pressed against the mouth of the gap. Kafei sat up, watching him, smarter than to ask what he was doing. They kept still as one, watching the dark within.

And from the center of that dark came the sound of crumbling, and a pinprick of bright blue. The Salesman's eyes went wide, and like in reply the gap opened further, a blue circle with white in its middle now, and rushing at them like a deluge. He turned and ducked - "Get down!"

Kafei covered as well, pulling his bedroll over his head. The force came all at once, deafening, countless tiny bodies of pure magic overwhelming the chamber, snuffing out the fire, fleeing forth into the night before returning all at once, to report the earth still dead and the intruders well humbled.

Only when the noise ceased did Kafei emerge once more, first meeting the Salesman's eyes, then following them to the cave mouth once more, now lit within by the glow of the fairies that lined it. Magic beckoned from their midst, a whirlpool of pure primordial will – it was easy now to stand, sleep the furthest thing from Kafei's mind.

The Salesman took the lead, Kafei watching from behind his shoulder. They made their way down the passage of sixty years, from well worn pathway to uneven footing to the fresh-blasted scree, until finding a gap that could be comfortably ducked. They entered.

Within was order, tile and water, pillars to mark the boundaries of the fountain and the constant descending aetheric screen around the perimeter that separated the confines from the endless magical abyss without. To one side was the true entrance of the fountain, undisturbed, well sealed by fallen rocks. And in the fountain's depth, up to her mid thighs in the blessed water, was the fountain fairy herself, in a simple white dress, skin without blemish, hair to her shoulders. She looked like any village girl out for a bath.

The Salesman grinned wide, eyes full of realized ambition. He strode to the edge of the pool and cocked a leg forward, bowing curtly at the waist - "Great fairy, I beg your pardon for troubling you these last decades, and thank you for the magic that spared me and my partner the indignity of old age, when I have so much still to do!"

She was gracious in reply, answering the bow with a curtsy, deflecting her gaze like a newly wedded virgin - "Thank you for your kind words, stranger, but I must tell you I am not a great fairy. I am only a lesser one, a caretaker to these grounds and the beings within it. Ikana's protector is the great fairy of kindness, and her fountain is elsewhere."

Her words were little ward to the Salesman's relief – he stepped yet closer, eyes on the pool. He glanced at her, a finger pointed at the water - "May I?" When she assented, he knelt, first testing the water with a hand, then kneeling forward to drink from it. When he stood again it was with greater power than his body had capacity to hold, and he shook from it, muscles tense, shaking his head vigorously.

His wits soon returned, now honed by the magic he had drank - "For my desires, rank makes little difference. I have a great request to make of you, and I only hope you can respect the time I have taken to ask it."

"Your ambition is honest and true, I can see even now." She brushed her hair from her face, otherwise still as the pillars that ringed her - "I await your request."

The Salesman looked back to Kafei, and seeing him empty handed shooed him back toward the tunnel - "Go get it!" The boy disappeared within – a few moments later he returned, holding his marriage mask in hand. He passed it to the Salesman, who himself waded into the pool and presented it to the fairy.

"This is a fine mask," the Salesman said, selling for the first time in years - "It is full of the memories of a young man, in love, eager for the future. For this reason I know it contains immense power, and it is that power I seek for you to awaken."

The fairy studied the mask, fingers running over the gouges in its face. She washed it in the water, and it emerged fresh as the day it was made, paint renewed, scars absent. It glowed with its own color, internal, like that of a soul. She returned her gaze to the water at her side - "It is indeed a powerful mask, and would serve powerful ends. Might I ask what your end shall be?"

"To undo the trouble of these days."

"None can undo what has been done."

"To correct it, then. The words don't matter to me – I only seek to bring justice to the bastard king of this land."

"Kingship, then. By what measure is he an unfit king?" The fairy ducked her head further, like her words shamed her - "This land is dead by his hand – by the laws of all folk and fae, he has conquered it, and a conquering lord is within his rights to administer justice. He sits the Old Blasphemy, the font of Ikana's curses. Even the old king in his fortress only lives by his lord's command. Though he be cursed, and by that merit a threat to you and me both, he is in his divine and ordained right as king. What right have you, kind sir, to challenge him?"

When only silence filled the air she spoke again - "I apologize if I have offended you, sir. I am of magic and thus must speak the law. I am bound to that much."

The Salesman shook his head, an impatient smile now - "No trouble at all, dear. You couldn't offend me if you tried. I was less than honest with you, in fact. I do not seek to challenge his station – at least not directly. It is only that he has that station because he took something of mine."

That brought the fairy's eyes to his at last, and though he could read that fear the Salesman could not know its depth - "Then it is true. The mask was yours." The other fairies that circled them stilled, attentive to the exchange.

He steeled himself - "The mask is mine. It always has been. He took it from me – I want it back." He nodded to the mask she held - "I know that one holds only a fraction of the power of the other – a slingshot against an arbalest, to be sure. But I'll need an advantage to even get in the door." A few steps closer - "You consigned the people of this land to slavery with your words. Tell me it is not my right to take back my property, by the same merit."

A long moment before she could reply, and with reverence in her voice - "No. You are right, sir. You are a curse-seller, and the curse of this land belongs to you."

"Spare me the shame. I only want my mask back."

"It is not shame to speak the truth. I have offended you, sir, greatly. All that has become of this place is your doing. You are the true master of this land." She knelt at once, chin just above the water. Too, the other fairies found the pond's surface.

It was no small thing she spoke – indeed a fairy could not lie. If she called him Termina's master, then by some unseen measure of magic he was just that, even in his poverty.

But that poverty drove him more truly than any fancy styling. Patience wearing thin, the Salesman clenched his hands into fists - "Will you assist me, then?"

"I am bound to the land and its law. I have no choice. Yes, I will render your mask into an artifact, and serve you in whatever other fashion you deign to apply. My whole self is at your-"

"First thing, quiet. Second thing, work. Quietly."

"Yes sir. Give me an hour." She clutched the mask tight and fell back into the water, and though it was shallow and clear she was nowhere to be seen.

The Salesman was tapping his pipe out against the sodden knee of his trousers when the fairy emerged once again, holding the mask forth, water spilling from its face. "My lord!" she said, making him wince at the station he had never asked nor sought - "The work is finished!"

Kafei waded out to take it, and when the Salesman nodded the fairy handed it across. He held it for only an instant before dropping it to the water, hand jerked back in pain - "Gods that smarts!"

Again the fairy retreated her gaze - "I apologize. Its power is potent, hard to contain. It is a weapon through and through."

Kafei managed at last to lift the mask and take it away, gritting his teeth all the while. Joining him, the Salesman now put a hand to the wood - he too reacted with it, pulling away his stinging fingers. He looked at the fairy, clutching his hand - "A weapon, sure. But which way is it pointed?"

"To my shame, my lord," the fairy said - "It will take a warrior to truly use this weapon. While you are the rightful sovereign of this land, you are indeed a curse-seller, not a warrior. Thus its touch will do you damage, as it will any other not built to do battle."

Kafei himself could no longer stand the pain, throwing it to the floor and moving away to heal his hands in the fountain. He glanced at the Salesman - "There's no way I can wear that either."

Frustration overwhelming him, it took an act of will and self-reflection for the Salesman to return to the negotiation - "Alright, so be it. A king shouldn't fight his own battles anyway. Fairy-slave-thing, I have need of a warrior to wield the useless weapon you've handed me."

"If it be your will, then it is done." She turned her head to the great expanse above, gesturing to the fairies that circled there – from the center of the flux came one alone, unique in its color, a dark sanguine hue. It fell to the Salesman's side at once, humming with energy, its wings gently fluttering.

He glanced at the girl, disbelieving - "One fairy? I could've smashed some pots to get this."

Apologetic as ever, the girl explained - "This one at your side is unlike any other, your lordship. Like you, he has made much effort to enter this place, and to much the same purpose – he too stands defiant of the one atop the Tower, and he too shared his company."

Remembrance came, sudden, personal. The Salesman looked on the fairy at his side now with much more care - "...yes. Yes, I know you. You were the last thing I saw before… before I was robbed."

The fairy went on - "Tael will be at your side, to stand in your service until you find your warrior. He will be needed when you find him."

"And why is that?"

Another silence from the fairy. She shielded her eyes now with a hand, almost sobbing - "I fear the displeasure of my lord."

Angry already, the Salesman reared back, fury in his face - "Why would I be displeased, girl."

Her lithe figure bent with fear, she managed the words as little more than a whimper - "Because the warrior lies dead, my lord, but you must wake him. And because you know him."

"No."

"There is no other, my lord. It must be him."

"Not him."

Tears now in the girl's eyes - "My lord, I beg your forgiveness. There can be no one else-"

"No, no, NO!" He bounded back from the pool, tense, furious - "I am your lord, I demand another!"

She sank, sobbing openly.

Kafei, standing outside the pageantry, was beyond confused - "What the hell is going on, man?"

The Salesman was deaf to his words, and loud with his own - "It's the mockery of all my effort, isn't it – the jest at the end of the whole sad play, to have to go back to one buried in time and dig him out, to undo sixty years of my own effort and his own death just to play hero to the hero. Him! He, who broke his damned contract, who left me to fend for myself in this desert, against teeth and blades and bombs and every kind of danger known to man! You're telling me it's him?! That he's the only one who can use the damn thing?!"

One word from the fountain, through the tears - "...yes."

"I REFUSE! I will not advance some sick fancy of a land I put behind me! This isn't Hyrule, there's no Hero of Time here! He had his chance to put this right, to get me my mask back, and he spent it! Twice! Let him rot! Hang whatever laurels you want on me, give me whatever ancient kingly magics there are, but you do not tell me I have to go back and serve the gods I forsake, or HOMAGE THEIR FUCKING ERRAND BOY! He is dead to the world! Time forgot him!"

He fell to his knees, hysterical now - "Time will forget his land too, oh yes! Time will bury his land beneath the waves, he and his gods! He's already dust on the wind, his days long destroyed. I could leave him buried if I wanted! I know I could!"

Emerging once more, the fairy offered a reply, weak in tone but strong in words - "...yes, my lord, you could. It is well within your right to refuse the warrior. But he is the only one who can wear the mask, and thus protect you to reclaim what is yours. You may either rule this land in secret, with I your only subject, or take what is yours with your first and best servant at your side."

Head sunken, furious form collapsing into despair, the Salesman rested in his defeat, feeling the weight of years come to bear. All that he had left behind was calling to him, all the effort, all the waste – all the potential as well. And all wrapped in the form of a livewood body, hidden somewhere to the west, where the desolation still bloomed.

Kafei knelt beside him, pulling his mask up to whisper - "I have no idea what the hell is going on, but you need to make a decision. Is this about your old partner, the Deku kid?"

"The hell do you think?" The Salesman straightened up, still kneeling, staring off into space.

With the closest he'd get to a confirmation, Kafei bent, grabbed the Salesman's pipe from where he'd dropped it, and pressed it to his chest - "So are we gonna go get him back or not? Cause if we don't you just wasted both of our time. She might call you a king but I wouldn't have any compunction kicking your ass if you aim to bitch out."

The silence was answer enough.

As he wrapped his kit, Kafei felt confident to speak his mind - "So that thing in there was gonna skin me at a word? Looked about ready to faint if a strong wind blew through."

The Salesman watched the embers, feet planted on either side of the fire, lips apart and eyes heavy-lidded. He nudged a piece of charcoal with his toe - "It's like she said, she's a lesser fairy. She can dream of skinning you one day instead."

"Sure got under your skin anyway." He paused in his work to look at the Salesman, incredulous - "And what was that king shit? You telling me if some guy took that mask off me and used it to wreck this place, then I would've been the… shit, I dunno, the secret dark emperor or whatever you wanna call it?"

"Maybe so."

Kafei leaned over the bedroll, allowing himself to rest at last - "You don't seem too pleased at getting your throne."

Perhaps it was Kafei's resting that finally put a spring in the Salesman – he pulled back from the fire and began to wrap his own things. He answered - "I just want my mask."

They returned to work silently, done before long. When the were finished the sun was risen, coloring the sky but not yet lighting the ridgetops.

Kafei jumped up to tap the snout of the steel goat's remains, for good luck, before joining the Salesman outside - "I gotta ask. And I'm not happy imagining this, but it's been on my mind. This is the kid who was with you when you… you know, avenged my wife. Right?"

Only a nod from his companion, still a dead man walking.

Kafei went on - "It was the girl, what was her name, Sweetness, Sage-"

"Honey."

"That's right. I don't know why I thought an S name. And the other one, the guy with the sword. You handled them both?"

"Yes." He remembered it well – the way the girl glared at him, on her knees, face broken, throat spent by his knife. Primordial anger in her last moments, before all sensation left her.

"How did he handle himself? The kid, I mean. Was he useful to you?"

He remembered how the boy had hesitated, knife in hand, no motion toward Honey, broken by fear. She had even told him he could leave – it was only that flaw on her part that earned him the chance to end her.

Where was he now, if not hesitating? For sixty years the boy had hesitated, letting time wash over this land, letting all those they had met and fought for grow decrepit, or be claimed by the monsters that remained to scour the country. There was little love left in him for one who had so severely broken his oath – even if it was from death he could not forgive it.

But he could swallow it for the breadth of a few words - "He's competent."

Kafei nodded - "A secret king, and competence. You think that's enough to take on hell in one person?"

The Salesman nodded as well, a small smile on his face - "Someone told me once the best leader is the one you don't know is a leader. I'm a king to fairies and fine things, in other words things that would die at a gust of wind, just like you said. And this boy? Where I'm from he's a hero to everyone, but no one knows his name. He can pass in any company, save them as the will of time dictates, and vanish with no footprint to mark his passage."

He turned around, eyes up - "That's two of us who lead without being seen. And I see you!" He raised a hand to point, at the orange eyes that watched him from the top of the Tower - "Oh yes! It's happening! You think you're safe now, but you wait! I'll get mine!"

With Tael out to lead them, they made tracks, fleeing from the sun and the eyes on their back.

It was the day of the Carnival – sixty one years on.