With the last of his strength, Litany Jones crawled through the open door that was also closed into the place that he thought he’d never see again. Behind him the fires of battle raged as men screamed and died.

  He was wounded. Badly. It was only the magic of his mother’s line holding his intestines in place, if he was just a knight he would have bled out by now.

  Once he was through the threshold, the door closed.

  “Be at peace, Litany Jones. I’ll tend your wounds. You’re safe here.”

  Tanny closed his eyes, uncertain that he would ever open them again.

  ***

  His first sensation upon waking was the familiar scent of cedar, ale, and roasting pork. He knew at once where he was, even before the memory returned. He winced in anticipation of the pain that did not come. He touched the wound on his belly to find a scar, but one that had healed.

  “If someone else had inflicted the wound, I could have healed even that,” the Innkeeper said. Tanny looked about but did not see his savior in the darkened room. “I have other customers at the moment. Rest a while longer. You are safe. When you next wake, it will be time to eat, and then to talk.”

  Tanny nodded, and he closed his eyes. He fell asleep thinking of what he would tell the Innkeeper this time. Of the Story and the Price that he would pay for the—the whatever the Innkeeper was for saving his life.

  ***

  He awoke again. He was naked under the covers, but there were clothes nearby. A knights outfit, and a priest’s, and a commoner’s smock.

  He had a choice to make. Who was he now?

  He pulled on a pair of britches and decided that was enough. He’d face the hard choices later.

  He saw the light under the door and heard the sounds of merrymaking on the other side. He braced himself and threw the door open. The common room turned to look at him, but he was far from the strangest sight to behold, and they lost interest in seconds.

  An old orc, half faded, drowned his sorrow at the bar as he called himself a coward.

  A young Jigant in a sun dress swept the mud by the door.

  A middle aged man played cards with a dog-headed god.

  And the Innkeeper stood in the center of the chaos like the conductor of an orchestra. Now and then he went in back and returned with food. Now and then he poured someone a drink or gave them a bottle. But as Tanny walked down the Mezzanine, wincing at every step for the pain that should be there but wasn’t, the Innkeeper alone made eye contact with him.

  “Welcome back, Litany Jones,” the Innkeeper said. “How long has it been?”

  “Fifteen years,” Tanny said. “And the world has changed more than I have. Can I eat, first, or do I have to tell you my story before that?”

  “Please, sate your appetite. We’ll settle the tab before you leave, there’s no rush. What are you hungry for?”

  “Same as last time, if you would,” Tanny told the timeless being that had saved him as a boy.

  “Right then, have a seat wherever you’d like and I’ll be right back.”

  The Innkeeper vanished into the back room while Tanny took a seat in one of the corners. It seemed like there were too many corners in the room, for all the different customers sitting in one. It was sort of dreamy, like there were more people in the room than he could count or see.

  The Innkeeper returned and set the food in front of him, along with an ale. “You were too young for this drink the last time you were here. Or the last time you remember being here, at least. But I think you could use something to steady your nerves. You were on the brink of death when you wandered in.”

  “Yes,” Litany agreed. “I was. And when I finish eating, I’ll tell you what brought me there. brought me there.”

  ***

  The food was as delicious and real as he remembered, and the ale as fine as any he’d ever tasted on the other side of the door. Better, actually. Everything here tasted perfect, like some idealized version of itself that reality could only imitate, rather than the other way around.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  He cleaned his plate and sat back, listening idly as the Orc repeated his tale of cowardice, as the Jigant swept the floors, and as the others spoke in hushed tones to each other or listened to their conversation partners or simply stared off into the distance.

  “This place is busier than I remember it,” he said.

  “It gets like this, now and then,” the Innkeeper said, startling Litany. He almost called upon his magic, but there was something there between him and his power that kept him from turning the table to ash. He winced.

  “Sorry. I’m jumpy.”

  “I sneaked up on you,” the innkeeper said. “I’m the one who should apologize. I had to restrain you, just now, and that’s not something I like doing.”

  “I’m sorry,” Tanny repeated. “It’s just…it might be easiest if I just tell my story.”

  “Very well,” the Innkeeper said. “I’m listening.”

  Tanny looked around, and he realized that the Innkeeper wasn’t the only one who was listening. The room had gone silent, and everyone was leaning in his direction. He swallowed, and he began to speak.

  ***

  “I told you last time I was here that, when I got back and I told my story, they would probably burn my step-mother for being a witch. I was right. What I wasn’t expecting was them to burn her daughter too. I feel bad about that, but her mother had started training her in the blood-witch arts using power she stole from me and my father. I didn’t know it last time but my father has power in his blood too, just not as strong as my mother.

  “So. I’m responsible for my sister’s death. And I’m still not sure how to feel about that. Bad, mostly. But then when I feel terrible, I remember the night that they burned her and her mother. And I remember the way that the fires had skulls in them as the demons they’d conjured and contracted were sent back to hell.

  “And every time I remember that I still wonder if I did the right thing. All I did was tell the truth. I saved lives, they say, but I don’t feel the better for it.

  “And my father never looked at me the same again after that.”

  Tanny looked at his drink, then at the Innkeeper. “If I’m going to tell the rest of this I need something stronger than ale.”

  Without a word, the Innkeeper produced a bottle and poured him a drink. It burned going down Litany’s throat and lit a fire in his belly that refused to let him forget it was there, even as it spread through his body.

  “That drink, it’s magic,” he said.

  “As much as you can handle,” the Innkeeper said. “And that’s more than you think it is. When you’re ready. I’m listening.”

  Tanny looked around and realized that the room was empty. “Where did they go?”

  “They’re still here,” The Innkeeper said. “But I thought you could use some privacy. Like last time. I can bring them back, if you’d like. They’re still here, they’re just…lower.”

  Tanny didn’t understand, but he decided he didn’t have to. “So. Father, for five years, didn’t look at me in the eyes. But Mother and he both ensured that my education continued. I learned the scriptures. I learned the sword from Father’s friends. I hadn’t made my mind up yet, the priesthood or the sword. But then the world changed.

  “His name is Uttico. We don’t know where he came from or why. But he came in and mutilated almost all of the men of the castle, leaving them blind. Leaving half of them eunuchs. My father—my father will never have another child.

  “I looked into Uttico’s three eyes and I pissed myself, even as he turned his gaze from me and said ‘next.’ He judged me in that moment, and I was barely worth a moment of his time.

  “But I heard the screams of some of the older boys. Of all of the men that I’d trained under. And then it was over. And Uttico left without explaining himself. Or so I thought at the time.”

  Litany drank more of the fiery wine and coughed. The liquid burned his nostrils, and he thanked it for the pain.

  “Of those who escaped mutilation, the king gathered us all into a host. We conquered the surrounding lands under the blind king and brought six kingdoms under one banner. We thought that Uttico had left as he had come, a force of nature. We didn’t know that the blind king was following his orders. It didn’t matter. My choice, my time to waver between sword and scripture, that was over. I was a man of the battlefield.

  “I’ve seen terrible things. I’ve been ordered to do terrible things. I think back, some days, to the goblins. I thought they were monsters. Their hunger is tame compared to the sins of men during wartime.

  “I’ve been ordered to do terrible things, but on my soul, I kept my honor. I swear, I kept my honor.”

  He wavered, there, thinking of the things that he’d seen. He’d refused orders, only for another to carry them out. He’d executed superiors, and only the power in his blood had spared his head from the chopping block. The officers who led the army knew not to test his moral compass.

  But the common soldiers enjoyed no such privilege.

  That he kept his honor was a lie he told himself, but the Innkeeper did not call him on the self-deception.

  “So. Ten years of fighting. One battlefield after another. And then the betrayal. The blind king was forced to reveal that he had been bewitched by Uttico and was separated from his head at the block. His son, who is ten years my junior, held the axe himself. And he led the host of twenty thousand through the twisting realm to the kingdom where Uttico held court.

  “The battle was over in minutes. I was bleeding out when I saw your door and crawled through it. Thank you for saving me again.”

  The Innkeeper cleaned his mug quietly, listening intently.

  “You have paid for my intervention with your story, just as before, Litany Jones. You have a decision to make.”

  “And that is?”

  “It rests in the room where you awoke,” the Innkeeper said. “Who are you, Tanny? A man of the sword, the cloth, or the fields? I’ll not make the decision for you.”

  Tanny nodded. “I understand. I…I need time.”

  “You have time,” the Innkeeper said. The room filled with blurry images as the other customers came back into focus. “But time has a way of slipping away when you think you have it in abundance, Tanny. When you make your choice, let me know where you wish the door to open, and I will send you there.”

  Litany Jones nodded, and he thanked the Innkeeper, who left the bottle of fiery whiskey as he returned to the bar.

  And like that, Litany Jones became one more ghost in the many corners of the Inn.