I did end up sleeping in the small little house that Christen and Rico had been staying in. The house was warm thanks to Rico's fiery powers. Outside, hail turned to rain and turned back to hail. I wondered if the weather would pass, or if snow would come and cover the small village. I wasn't looking forward to the winter. Of course, I never did.

It was still dark out, and there were many hours until the sun decided to come up. I, however, couldn't sleep. As I lay on the floor, a ratty old blanket thrown over my shoulders, I tried to will elusive sleep to me.

I was right.

I turned over on my stomach and rested my head on my arms. Of course I was right. I was right about her fate, and I was right that I would be paid to kill someone in this town. I hated being right. Being right today meant that Ridia had to be killed. Did I leave her alone in Teans for nothing! I remembered the night that I left. I tried to forget it, but it passed into my eyes, like the brightest sunlight through closed eyelids. It was raining on that night too. Not this terrible freezing rain that now this small village had to contend with, but a real downpour in the early fall. I had left her asleep in the room I had rented at one of the local inns, while I snuck Dawn and Dusk out of the stables. I took my caravan, and went all the way to the Thieves village, and stayed there for the winter. I made some money by selling some weapons that I had collected, and spent most of my time trying to keep warm, and drinking. Thankfully, I had a contact there, Rosa, who offered me free booze because of a job I did for her once.

I couldn't stay in the village forever though. Spring came, and the snow melted. I took Dawn and Dusk, and traveled back to Teans. Why not? It was spring, and there was bound to be a good and interesting load brought into the harbor. Maybe I would see Ridia, see that she had new lovers now.

But no, no one knew what had become of her. One night, some of the women on the streets said she just got up and disappeared. It was likely she died though, or killed herself. In the early fall, she had grown melancholy. She didn't eat, she wandered the streets in the day and night. She didn't even take customers.

I felt my fists clench under my head. No, she didn't take any jobs, but she went and got married, didn't she. I wondered if she had loved the man she married, or if she had only married him for the money he had. Did she marry someone over on Raxos? Did she kill him herself, or did he die of natural causes?

I sat up and looked over at Christen and Rico. They were both sound asleep. Christen was sleeping on the small bed with the hay mattress, and Rico, like myself, slept on the floor.

I pushed the blanket off me, and took my cloak up from the floor by the fire. It was dry now, thanks to Rico. I threw it on and left the small house, opening the door as little as possible, so as not to awaken Christen and Rico with the cold outside.

I slipped out of the small house and into the cold night outside. It was raining now, not hailing. I walked into the shadows and walked through the few houses that lay around the one we were staying in. Ridia's house was only a short walk away; she had showed it to us the day we came into the village, telling us where we could find her if we needed anything.

Silently I slid up against the wall of the house. I wasn't much concerned with being caught, because the pouring of the rain must have drowned out any of the normal little noises that would have bothered me, such as the roaring sound of my breath, the creaking of my bones as I tried to be slow and silent.

The rain is friend to assassins and thieves.

I huddled in the darkness, letting the rain drip on me. The eaves offered little protection from the rain, so I stood with my hood up, letting the rain drench me.

I heard something from the inside.

I pressed my ear against the wall and listened carefully. I heard a rattle, perhaps a cup or something. Maybe Ridia was preparing herself a hot drink before she slept. There was no fire today, so there were no stories for her to hear. I walked over to the window, and looked in. The glass-less windows tried to keep the cold out with thick curtains. Her curtains were open a crack, and I could see her sitting over a piece of parchment, writing something down next to a brightly burning candle.

Soon, she would close up the window, put a panel of wood in the way while she slept.

the wind that blew the rain all about picked up, and blew the curtains into the small house, killing the flame that glittered on the table. Ridia gave a small yelp, and I heard her stand up in the darkness. I suddenly felt a great force, as though a large rock were slamming into me. I fell backwards on the wet ground, gasping for breath that the force had pushed out of me.

“Who's there?” Ridia called from the house. A moment passed, and a flicker of light came from the window. I slowly got to my feet, breathing slowly.

“Stiri?” Ridia was at the window, guarding the candle with her hand. “Stiri, what are you doing! Are you ok?”

“Fine.” I muttered.

“I'm sorry! I was trying to keep the wind out.”

“Wonderful use of your power.”

“Are you sure you're ok? Come on in... Oh, just wait a moment.” She took a large panel of wood and fitted it into the window. A moment passed, and she came out of the house and around to the now closed window. She grabbed me by the arm and pulled me out of the rain and into her house. She closed and locked the door behind her, then went to the small fire-pit in the center of the house and coaxd dying embers to life. After a few moments, a warm, bright fire roared. Ridia took my cloak and laid it on the floor next to the fire.

“You're soaked.” she said. “Sit by the fire.” I was soaked, and I was cold as well, so I obliged, sitting on a large, yet threadbare rug by the fire. I watched her as she worked with an old, dented kettle, boiling water for some tea. I reached for my flask and went to take a drink, only to realize that I had emptied it within the course of the day. I sighed and tossed it on my drying cloak.

“You must have been outside for a while to get so wet.” She said. I shook my head.

“It's raining really hard.”

Ridia nodded. “I suppose so. I hardly heard you until my magics hit you.”

I stared at the dented pot warming up over the fire. “I had heard you married into money-” I sniped, “I would have thought you could have afforded a decent pot.”

“Oh...” Ridia said, “That's why you're here.”

“No. I'm here because I couldn't sleep, I was bored, and everyone else in this tiny little town is asleep. Also, there seems to be a lack of pubs here.”

Ridia smiled. “I'll get right on that.”

The pot began to rattle and whistle. Ridia took it away from the fire and poured some of the boiling water into a cup. She mixed some tea leaves into it and handed it over to me. I sipped it, though it was too hot for my liking.

“Why did you marry?” I asked finally.

Ridia paid the closest attention to the cup she was pouring water into for herself.

“Why do you care?” she finally said.

“I don't, I just don't think you should accuse me of leaving you when you went right on after and got married. Tell me, did you love him, or were you just whoring yourself out for a longer period of time?” The last words slipped out angrily, like acid spitting from my tongue. I hadn't meant to say them.

The kettle slipped, and some hot water poured onto the wooden floor. Ridia took a rag from a pocket of her dress and cleaned it up.

“I... I was doing what I had to do, Stiri.” She snapped. “You certainty didn't seem to care what happened to me, so I did the best I could.” She lay the rag out on the floor to dry. “... No, I didn't love him if that's all you wanted to know.”

“Money or power, then?” I asked as I stared at her over the fire.

“Life.” she said. “On one of the islands. I had missed the ship leaving the town. Then the lord there captured me. It was a poor place to be stuck. Apparently, only nobility and the royal family there can wield magic power. All others are killed. So, I was put in the stockades.”

“And you seduced someone? Became nobility?”

She smirked. “In a sense. One of the nobles there liked my face, and had no wife or children. He offered me my life if I would live with him as his wife and try to bare him a child.”

“So you have a child somewhere?”

She shook her head. “No. Not all the nobility liked the way he saved me. They plotted to have him killed. They didn't hire an assassin though, they soiled their own hands. When they came to kill me, he kept them away so that I could leave. I took some gold, some jewels he had given me, and fled. He was slain. I hid until I was able to leave the island.

I looked over at the small table with the bit of parchment sticking off an end. “You couldn't read or write last I knew you.”

“It's a skill they teach all the apprentices in Raxos. It's useful for writing down spells, potions, alchemy.. and stories.”

“Stories?”

Ridia stared into the flames for a few moments, then stood up and walked to a shelf with a few old books, From between the pages of one, she pulled out several sheets of parchment paper. She came back over to the fire, sat down next to me, and passed me the papers. I gently took them so as not to rip them, and looked over the written words. Foster had made damn well sure I could read when I was younger, though I hated the hours he kept me before the fire with some large book before me. The memory still made my head ache.

Ridia's writing, unlike the writing in the books I had read, was clear and crisp, with large looping letters.

Invulnerable, the assassin stood before the dozen lords and their guards. Fearlessly upon his black steed, he faced down the terrified men. Their brave hunting dogs cowered in his dark presence, smelling the blood of hundreds of slain men off him. Moving like a leaf on the wind, he flew from the saddle, and to the ice-laden trees overhead. Icicles like daggers fell from the heavens, striking true and hard into the breasts of the men. In any other hands, the ice would have shattered, but for Stiri, the Ice-born assassin...

“Ice born.” I said. “That's a new one.”

“It's only one of the many... tellings of that story.” Ridia said. “But I liked that. 'Ice-born'”

“Stiri, the Ice-born.” I said, trying the title out on my tongue. “Interesting. Shame I hate the cold so much.”

“I don't think it matters.”

“You know the real stories.” I said, passing the parchment back to her. “Why do you have these?”

“... I like to hear your stories. And when I can't hear them, I read these to myself. Sometimes...” She stopped and looked down at the parchment for a moment, a tinge of red colored her face. “Sometimes, I could hear you, laughing at the stories, correcting them.”

“Let the people believe any fantastic stories they want.” I said, “It's all the better for business.”

Ridia set the parchment down and turned to me, “What if it was a story you didn't like!? What if it was a story of failure, or weakness?”

“I can't help it if such stories enter the world, save for avoiding failure and weakness. At least under the guise of Stiri.”

“Guise?”

“Name.”

“And under any other name? If you weren't Stiri for a while?”

I shrugged, “Really, what would I be then? I've always been Stiri.”

There was a long silence as we stared into the fire. I itched under my skin, and the tea I sipped on was too hot, and bitter for my liking. I wished I had my flask. I wished I was outside, I wish I didn't have to go outside again. But where does wishing get me?

“Tell me one of your stories.” Ridia said, “One I've not heard before.”

“I don't know what you've heard, and what you haven't.” I said. “Likely, you've heard them all before, a thousand times over...” and I had heard my own stories more than that. I lived them, I breathed them. “You tell me... One of your stories... About Raxos... About a place I've never been, about people I've never heard of.”

“I don't feel like telling such a story.”

“Then just tell one. Any one.”

Ridia sighed. “Theogony?”

“Whatever is your wish.”

Ridia nodded and sipped her tea. She licked her lips carefully before speaking.

There was a time when nothing could exist, save for mighty Death. Nothing could remain for more than the moments in which they came into being. Nothing was seen, nothing was thought. This was the time of chaos. From the chaos came the Eye of the Worlds. It gazed upon the chaos and from that formed all things existent. Pleased with what it had done, it tried to make more, but whenever it took it's eye from something it had created, those things disappeared, and became chaos once more. So, the great eye plucked six eyelashes from itself. These lashes fell into the world that it had created, and by the great power of the Eye of the Worlds, they became gods and goddesses of the elements that made of the world. Sky, Sea, Sprout, Flame, Earth, Stone. These gods cast their eyes on the earth, and by their will it stayed while the Eye of the Worlds explored the chaos that had born it.