Things didn’t quite go according to plan. Not that the plan had been much to begin with. It had depended heavily on the cambion’s insistence that he wouldn’t be caught skulking around the castle.

“I’ll blink around, and find a suitable weapon for you,” the cambion entoned in excited whispers when relating his brilliant plan. “Maybe I can find more than one… and some armor. Then I’ll create a distraction when everyone’s paying attention over there. And swish! You’re getting out over here.”

“I don’t like this plan,” Muzio replied, grimly.

“Are we really going to escape beyond the walls? Then leave Raine here alone for who knows how long while you put together a team to come rescue her? How can you be sure she won’t be dead by then?”

Felix had also planned on scouring the inside of the castle for Muzio’s elf girlfriend, Raine. Well… er, friend. He hadn’t been told their official relationship status. He wondered, though. He did get worked up whenever he talked about her and his need to rescue her.

It was a bad idea to even suggest that the girl might be dead already. Felix had almost suggested it. Almost.

Muzio’s faith that she was alive and inside, waiting to be rescued, was unshakable.

She had been the very reason why he had been captured in the first place. The man wasn’t willing to readily admit it, but he made an emotional decision rather than a logical one.

The smart thing was to go with Muzio’s original idea:

Wait until they were in-transit to wherever they were meant to be taken. That was more likely to create an opportunity for them to employ Felix’s blink teleport to greatest effect. Potentially, even without their captors realizing it until it was too late, depending on the vehicle that was used. Muzio would use the distraction of the cambion’s escape to undo his bindings. Then, he would use his magically enhanced strength to break free of the transport vehicle.

The cambion thought this plan relied too much on unknown variables. What if they transported the prisoners in a cage he literally couldn’t break out from? How would they get it open?

“We don’t have a key to that cage,” the cambion insisted. “We have a key to this one. We should make our move tonight.”

That had been the factor that decided Muzio.

The cambion had tactically acquired a key ring earlier that day. There had been a fuss about the lost keys, but no one had thought to look inside the prisoners’ cage yet. So far, they had confirmed one of the keys unlocked his shackles. Another, thin key with an unusual cross shape undid the clasp on the back of his magic suppression collar. There were several candidates for the key to the cage lock, but they planned to try it at night since they would be seen messing with it during the day.

In the end, they never got the chance to try the cambion’s plan, anyway.

That afternoon, the priest named Sandra returned to Castello Mudalal. He brought with him an unusual escort. Eight, tall and oddly shaped people dressed in black robes with hoods that hid their faces ambled through the open portcullis escorting a horse-drawn wagon bearing two steel cages. The hooded escorts were each almost as tall and wide as Blomdorf, standing nearly at two meters.

They walked with an awkward gait, as if they weren’t in complete control of their own movements, almost as if they might fall over just from walking. The cambion wasn’t so sure they would, however. No sooner had the pair of horses pulling the wagon reigned into a stop than a pair of the strange men in black lifted a cage each and carried it toward the two waiting prisoners. The cages somehow managed to glide through the air in a steady rhythm very much at odds with the creatures’ movements. Then, at a command from their master, the priest Sandra, they suddenly froze in unison and stood deathly still. It was unnatural.

“This is going to be a problem,” Muzio muttered under his breath as soon as he realized what he was looking at.

Muzio discreetly slipped a pair of keys into his mouth.

The cambion didn’t even notice, so entranced was he by the weird sight.

Now that they were still, Felix could see that it was more than just their size and strange way of moving that had put him on edge. Their shape was... wrong. A few were hunchbacked. Several had an arm that was noticeably longer than the other, or had strange protrusions nearly poking through their robes. They had a weird presence about them too. The cambion couldn’t say what it was, but something was definitely wrong. If he peeked behind those hoods obscuring their faces, what would he find?

He sniffed the air. There was a heavy scent of incense trying to mask the smell of decomposing meat.

That’s reassuring…

“You and you!” shouted Father Sandra, signaling to the black-robed guards on duty. Felix hadn’t even paid him close attention, sitting there at the front of the wagon. He did not look quite the same as he had before. His skin was more oily and his eyes sunken. There were bags under his eyes, as if he hadn’t slept in the two weeks since he had been gone. His voice and manner did not betray any weariness, however. Rather, he moved with more vitality and enthusiasm than before.

“Get off your asses, louts!” the priest said, sounding both giddy and impatient. “Hurry! I said move! Gather all the men and ready to move the prisoners. We must leave at once!”

He did not spare a glance to see if his orders would be obeyed, and he strutted toward the two prisoners, wearing a greedy smile.

“Remember the first plan…” Muzio whispered into the cambion’s ear.

Felix nodded. There was scarce time to exchange any more words.

To their credit, the guardsmen in question did not hesitate once singled out, despite having been staring, as flabbergasted as everyone else, at the black-robed figures. A sergeant among them barked orders of his own, and soon there were a dozen men with electrified batons in-hand converging around Muzio and the cambion’s cage. The guards and the macabre abominations in black cloaks was an overwhelming force that brooked no resistance.

They were unceremoniously and brutally relocated into their corresponding steel cages, whereafter the giant black-robed creatures lifted them easily into the back of the wagon.

Then Father Sandra stood before them.

“Yessss, my precious-es!” the priest said in a slithering drawl while looking right at them. He brought his hands together as if in prayer, then continued as if preaching. He projected his voice, throwing up his hands and inflecting with the dramatic fervor of a true fanatic. “It’s time for you to come HOME! Yes, thou art privileged to pay WITNESSSSSS! Thou shalt see the FRUIT of my labors and weep. Oh, yes you shall weep. Then you shall see that GOD has been kind. So kind. HE hath... GRANTED us a revelation. One so beautiful, I truly can’t wait for you to behold! Ah, yes. It’s so very very beautiful...

A gob of saliva dripped down the corner of his manic grin. He wrapped up his rant in a depraved whisper.

“It’s so beautiful you'll just die…”

Then the priest sat at the head of the wagon, took the reins and a horsewhip, and minutes after his arrival, the Mud Castle was behind them.

***

“Blom-Blom! I don’t… I can’t even. What do you mean you’re done here?” shouted Mentiroso, his voice peaking in exasperation. “I’m your brother. It’s my job to protect you, remember? I do the talking and the thinking and you do the bigness and the smashing, remember?”

Mentiroso’s tactic was backfiring. Nothing he had said so far was moving the dial on his brother. His brother! Who said he wanted to leave? No, something had shaken the trust between them to its core. Mentiroso didn’t know what it was, but it was probably bad. His mind raced trying to figure out what it could be.

“You lie,” growled Blomdorf. He sounded weary and sad, but resolute. “You always lie.”

Mentiroso was taken aback. His brother was seldom so direct about his feelings. Usually, the Blom-meister was unsure of himself, easily swayed. He realized his frustration was getting him nowhere, so he shed it like a lizard’s tail, tapping into his charlatan skill to crank up the charm.

“Who said I lied to you?” asked Mentiroso, barely hesitating. He donned his charming-est smile. “That’s just my nickname, Blom-Bo. I wouldn’t do that to you.”

Mentiroso literally meant liar. It was a nickname he picked up when they were kids and still scraping to get by. His rogue skill charlatan played a role in that. One of his first bosses gave him the nickname and he liked it enough to let carry it with him even after that boss got pinched by a local police force and they moved to a new city and a new gig. His big little brother had always been uncomfortable with some of the grittier aspects of their lifestyle. And yet, a clever turn of phrase here, a smile and promise there… those had always been enough to coax him. To guide him to seeing things the right way.

Tonight, Mentiroso had a very bad feeling.

“Remember, bro. It’s you and me, then everybody else, right?” Mentiroso continued, laying it on thick. “You can’t trust anyone but--”

“Shut up,” Blomdorf said.

“What?” Mentiroso said, laughing awkwardly. “Blommie Boyo, why are you being so mean? Won’t you tell me what’s the matter so we can talk about it? You’re leaving me in the dark. First you say you’re leaving and then--”

“I SAID SHUT UP!” shouted Blomdorf, causing Mentiroso’s smile to vanish, and forcing him to take an unconscious step back.

Blomdorf’s own aggression seemed to have startled him.. He continued, but this time almost in a whisper.

“I saw...”

This confirmed Mentiroso’s worst fears.

In truth, he was already going through his mental checklist of untruths, half-truths, and outright bald-faced lies he had told his brother over the years, in an effort to pin down the catalyst for this breakdown. It was the first time Blomdorf ever outright bucked against his brother, and in a way he felt oddly proud of his brother, but also very off balance.

He decided a probing strategy was in order.

What do you think you saw?” Mentiroso asked, measuring his tone carefully.

The near-giant tsked, and resumed packing his bags, shaking his head and muttering to himself. This was how Mentiroso had found him not ten minutes ago after returning from a round of drinks and cards with his fellows at the tavern. He had been packing and unpacking, clearly distressed.

Blomdorf and Mentiroso did not have many possessions, really. Blomdorf could fit everything he owned and cared for into a single rucksack on his back. That usually contained their camping equipment, changes of clothes, blankets and rations, miscellaneous loot, and until recently, an inordinate amount of magically preserved fish for his pet cat. Blomdorf had eaten all of those in a weeping fit after waking up from his fever and having a chance to finally mourn.

Their dwelling in the Mud Village had some basic furniture, but they had never acquired anything they cared deeply about. Even if they didn’t get to live in it all that often over the past year, since they were off on raids, it was still a nice place to live, Mentiroso thought.

It was more barn than house on the outskirts of the village, but it accommodated Blomdorf’s size nicely. There was enough space that they could build a fence and keep animals... which was actually one of the promises he had made to his brother and never kept. That wouldn’t be enough to cause his brother to go off like this. This was something else.

He watched his brother in silence, studying him. Usually, Blomdorf wore his leather armor, but even that was stuffed down the sack now, leaving the large man in a loose brown smock, canvas pants and tattered boots. For the first time in a long while, Mentiroso thought he looked less like a bandit with their mismatched stolen armor, and more like an ordinary traveler, if a somewhat large one. Yes, Blomdorf had been changing. The most recent changes had been, by far, the most drastic after he recovered from the blight fever. How could he have let it get this far?

Blomdorf finished packing. The awkward silence between them was starting to make him anxious, and he began fiddling with the straps, unwilling to meet his brother’s eyes.

It was Mentiroso’s cue. Maybe he could seize on this uncertainty and turn things around.

“Blom-Blom? What do you think you saw?”

“Always with the words!” Blomdorf spat, throwing his rucksack on the ground. The uncertainty was still there, but it was competing with his anger and the anger was winning. “You’re smart. I’m dumb. I know… That’s what you always think. Why you always twist what you say. What do I think I saw? What I saw, I saw.”

Blomdorf started pacing the length of the house. Despite its barn-like size, Blomdorf could cross it in a few strides. The entire house really had been a barn, once upon a time. There were no walls on the interior. Just two beds. One much larger than the other. A pair of chests at the foot of each bed. A fireplace with a stew hanging over it. An ogre-sized table table and two chairs to sit. Simple.

Blomdorf suddenly reached for the table, picked it up and threw it across the room, shattering it into splinters against the chimney wall of the fireplace, the only part of the house made of stone.

Mentiroso ducked. Even if it hadn’t been aimed at him, the noise itself had startled him, along with a half dozen splinters that bounced harmlessly off him.

“You said all they were taken when I was sick! You said they were gone,” Blomdorf shouted.

“Who?”

“I saw him tonight. The black man had him in a cage. He was at the castle all this time. I told you I wanted to talk to him. I could have…” Blomdorf trailed off, finishing once more in whispers, his eyes flooded with tears. “But you said I couldn’t because he was gone.”

Mentiroso’s mind raced. Of all the things he had been playing out in his head, he hadn’t expected this. The pieces were coming together now.

One of the first things Blomdorf asked once he recovered from the blight fever had been to pay a visit to the beast-kin boy they had picked up during their mission. There was a connection between him and the missing Mr. Blinky that his brother didn’t seem capable of explaining. Blom-Blom seemed to think the cat was gone but not gone at the same time.

In the end, Mentiroso didn’t understand it. He assumed Mr. Blinky had been an unfortunate casualty of the sudden mini monster surge they had fought during their last camp, the very one where Blomdorf had been wounded. He knew Blom-Blom cared deeply for the cat, and even if he didn’t see the connection between the cat and the beastkin, aside from the odd coincidence that their coats had an uncanny resemblance.

On the inside, Mentiroso couldn’t help laughing at the irony. When his brother had asked to see the beastkin after breaking his fever, there had been no reason to lie. As far as he knew, the beastkin boy had been placed with the children, who had been taken away while Blomdorf was still in bed. That this was not the case, he was only learning now. A fact which he related to his brother now.

“I don’t believe you,” Blomdorf said, pausing before using his brother’s nickname in its original language. “Why should I believe the mentiroso?”

“Blom-Blom, I didn’t know the kid was still around. Why would he be leaving with the priest? He only takes the adults.”

Perhaps because this was a rare moment of true candor from his brother, the near-giant could sense the pure lack of deceit. It was almost enough to turn things around.

“You didn’t know?” Blomdorf asked innocently, his animosity starting to fade.

Mentiroso could feel things going his way again, but then he got cocky.

“Would I ever lie to you?”

This rekindled something in Blom’s eyes and he stepped forward until he was towering over his brother. There was a sense of menace that Mentiroso wasn’t used to feeling from his brother. And for the second time in just a few minutes, he felt afraid of him.

“You hurt the pretty girl. You and the Captain and everyone else. You always said we work for bad men... but we never become bad men. You lied.”

There was a long moment of silence between them.

The ruined table had caught fire where some of it had landed in the smoldering fireplace. It was spreading. Mentiroso let his eyes drift toward the fire.

He felt sadder than he ever had in his life. As he watched the flames, his own words from when they were kids echoed in the back of his mind: ‘Don’t you worry Blom-Blom. We’ll be rich one day, and all our dreams will come true. We’ll have a big house, our own land. More food and money than we know what to do with. Then we can put all the bad things we did behind us and forget them. We might work for bad men, but we’ll never be bad men. It’s you and me against the world, brother.’

They were words he said many times over the years. He wasn’t sure when he stopped believing in them, but he was sure he had once. How long had it been since he stopped seeing himself as the hero in his own story? At that moment, he wished he could take it back, undo some of the stains on the pages in his soul that were now part of his narrative. If he was being honest with himself, he would admit that for so long now, he treated his brother as nothing more than an accessory, a sidekick to his own rags to riches tale.

“So you’re leaving me?” Mentiroso asked softly, still staring at the spreading fire. If it kept going like this, it would probably take the house with it too. He took a look around at the accumulation of all their years of toil. What riches did he have to show for any of it? Would it really be any great loss if it all went up in flames?

He wiped his cheek and felt wet. He wasn’t sure when the tears had come, but he didn’t care. In a corner of his mind he mused that crocodile tears were an effective manipulation tool, but he hadn’t even known he was crying.

Blomdorf took a few steps back. He seemed uncertain again, but this time Mentiroso didn’t have anything to say. He wouldn’t take advantage. If his brother wanted to leave him, then let him.

After a long, long… long silence, Blomdorf worked out what he had to say. He went over to the chest at the foot of Mentiroso’s bed and kicked it open.

He threw his brother an empty rucksack.

“We can start again. This time, we never work for bad men ever again.”

“What will we do?” Mentiroso asked, shocked to hear himself giving Blom the lead for the first time in his life. It was enough of a shock that he nearly tried to take back control and steer things in a different direction. “Do we really need to leave tonight? Where would we go at this hour? I mean, Blom-Blom, can’t we wait until morning?”

Blomdorf took a deep breath and sighed heavily. He looked more steely resolve than Mentiroso had ever seen him.

“You can come, or you can stay.” He took his rucksack and slung it over his shoulders. Then he picked up his heavy club that was leaning against the wall. Whatever Blomdor’s plans were, at least he wasn’t naive enough to think that he wouldn’t need a weapon to defend himself. There were still such things as monsters and… well, there were bandits. “I leave tonight.”

Knock, knock, knock.

Before Mentiroso could answer, they were both surprised to hear someone knock on their door three times, then let themselves in.

It was a man with an unusual physical build. He had the traditionally stout build of a dwarf, only he was taller and had no beard. A half-dwarf, most likely. He looked to be of middle age, but strong and hale. His eyes were filled with intent and cunning, and he wore a confident, knowing smile. He was dressed in a green and black tunic over a padded chainmail shirt. A heavy belt wrapped around his waist, from which, tucked in a belt loop, hung an ornate silver mace.

“Blood and ashes!” the half dwarf cursed happily, taking a peek behind Mentiroso. “You lot started the party early, didn’t ya? Did my lady already tell you I was coming?”

This broke the spell.

The brothers exchanged glances.

Mentiroso couldn’t believe it, but he took his cue from Blomdorf, who nodded for him to take the lead.

“I’m sorry, but who are you?” Mentiroso asked.

“So then she didn’t tell you,” the half dwarf chuckled. “You lot just set your house on fire for fun, then? And you have your bags packed. Well, the big one does... Looks like you still have an empty bag to fill. Well, hop to it, then! I suppose it can’t be a coincidence my lady chose the both of yeh, but you’ll forgive me for being something of a rush.”

“You didn’t answer my question, ser,” said Mentiroso. “Who are you and who is this lady of yours?”

“Right!” said the half dwarf as if remembering something. “My lady said to follow her instructions exactly as given, but ah dinnae ken…”

The half dwarf reset and started talking as if he’d only now just walked into the room. Also, he spoke as if he was repeating something that had been dictated for him to say.

“Greetings! My name is Johan. My lady Sly Silvestri of the Naked Heart has been made aware that you brothers have recently come in need of employment. She is in urgent need of your services, and would like to hire you on the spot, tonight. You will be handsomely paid.”

He resumed in a more normal voice, albeit filled with good humor.

“I added the part about the lady of the Naked Heart,” he chuckled. “She needs a solid title, I tell you, and even if I did just make that up on the spot, I think it’s pretty good. I might be forgetting something... Ah, yes! She wishes me to assure the big one that to work for her will be in service of the good guys, putting paid to bad men. She wanted me to tell the scrawny one that while my lady can’t promise you’ll be forgiven, this opportunity will grant you a chance at redemption. Which she wishes me to remind you is more than anyone can ask for. Also, she says you’ll get to play with fire. Which, now that I see where your house is headed, doesn’t seem as strange a thing to say as I first thought, now does it?”

Mentiroso stood slack jawed. He had so many questions.

Thankfully, his big little brother was showing his boost in confidence might turn out to be more than just a fleeting thing.

Blom-Blom took the initiative, picking up Mentiroso’s trunk and slinging it over one shoulder. With his free hand, he shuffled his brother and the newcomer out of the house that would soon be engulfed in flames.

“Pure dead brilliant!” Johan shouted with glee. “To work then!”