Jessa gasped awake. She shot to her feet, glanced about the street. The fog was finally lifting, and the sun was even showing through the clouds. The street was deserted, save for a few staggering once-villagers, that strange slap and hiss coming from every direction as the things flailed in the mud. Redmun's father – Gelstadt – was gone. How long had it been? And… what the hell happened?

Jessa tried to rub the blind-spots – and dirt – out of her eyes. Redmun's spear had started glowing, and then he'd struck, and then… an explosion? Or something like it.

Are you there, Evil? She asked inside her own mind.

Here, mistress, its womanly voice whispered, oozing playfulness. As if the bitch hadn't pissed herself the entire time.

“You any idea what happened?”

Would it matter if I did? The Banshee laughed, but there was a tinge of nervousness to it. That made Jessa smile.

Beside her lay Redmun, hands and arms near-skinless, a few fingers gone. He could heal it – or rather, the Evil could, if he let it. He wouldn't though. Redmun never used his powers unless he had to.

She bent down and yanked him out of the muck. Even unconscious and smothered in dirt, she saw the strange handsomeness in his sharp features, that made him look more cunning than he really was, but less dangerous than he could be. She didn't believe much in Orth-tet or Sephelia, the Far-Gods, much less the Church's beliefs on suffering, but she did, at times, feel very lucky that they'd found each other. Not today, though.

A sleeping beauty, Mistress, the Banshee whispered. If only he could stay so forever. With the words came an image. Redmun, just as he was, only deathly pale, his lifeblood dripping from a gaping neck-wound. Jessa's hands blooded, fingernails torn from where she'd ripped him open with her bare hands. Wouldn't it be perfect?

Jessa laughed. “He doesn't bleed, idiot.”

She bent down, grabbed him about the breastplate. She's seen the dull light it hid, but it would add to his already hefty weight. Granting, she started to drag, growling at him, at the dirt she sludged through, at the things about them. It wasn't as if she expected him to do what she wanted, she just wished they'd do the exact opposite a little less often. Bastards, the lot.

At least that shade of a man, Gelstadt, was gone, but she had no doubts that he was intact. Something like that, something that radiated so much power and inhumanity, was never easily dealt with. Jessamine had met with a Lord Evil once before. Crazy dangerous, like just looking at it should make your eyes fall out. The thing that had once been a man called Gelstadt Briandry felt nothing like that. It felt worse. Like Redmun's Evil.

She shook her head. Jessa never considered leaving Redmun's side, but she sometimes wondered why she didn't consider it. “Because,” she muttered to herself breathlessly as she hauled his unconscious body through the mud, “he buys me drinks and isn't dead.” Some people might think those weren't good reasons to risk your life. They could fuck off.

Redmun wriggled away from the hands that grasped him, sloshing into the mud. Jessa stood over him, hands on her hips. She didn't look happy.

“What happened?” he asked, his mind grasping for memory but returning with nothing.

“Your damned spear blew up, Redmun. Blew up very nicely,” Jessa said, wiping a combination of sweat and filth from her brow. “Took some of your pretty hands with it.”

He looked, and his stomach tumbled at the sight. His left hand was almost gone. The bones remained, but the flesh on the left side of his hand, and each of his fingers, was missing. At least the wound was cauterized, as every single wound Redmun received was, no matter the source. It was never easy to see his own horrible wounds, and wasn't made easier to know that it didn't really matter. As long as he gave in to the Evil a little, and healed himself.

“Evil,” he muttered angrily as he stood. “What the hell is your problem? Did you know that was going to happen?”

He listened intently for what he was sure would be a useless, taunting, faux-friendly response. None came.

Redmun let out a weak breath, and followed it with a string of curses. No. Don't let it get to you. He breathed deeper, trying to relax. “Well, that wasn't so bad, aye?” Jessa harrumphed, but at least she smiled.

He glanced around. They were a few hundred meters away from Potsdoor, or what used to be Potsdoor, and the mist had lifted. Jessa had been pulling him west on the grass beside the road, towards Potsdoor peak. To his right, he could see the Marsh, still covered in eternal fog. Opposite that were steep rises in the earth that would have been rock-faced if it weren't for the coating of vines upon them. No need to ask what happened to the horses.

“Did you see it? Did you see Gelstadt?”

“No, Redmun. Gelstadt wasn't there when I woke up. Left us alone, thank the Far-Gods, the Earth and day itself.” Her lips pressed thin, and she looked like she was going to continue, but didn't. Then she shook her head, and shrugged her arms out violently, spraying mud to each side. “What now, Redmun? Got no horses, shit-all food, as much water. Where do we go from here?”

“Good question,” he muttered under his breath. No real weapons or a map, either, and no idea where Gelstadt had gone. Thanks to the Evil, they'd finally caught up to his Father, only for him to slip through their fingers! Years of tracking, searching, wandering: wasted. “I guess… we should tell someone about Potsmouth.”

Jessa nodded, and chuckled a little. “Yes, I suppose we should at that.” Redmun gave her a smirk back, but didn't feel much like laughing. They'd failed to save anyone. And it's all because of you, he thought. The Evil said nothing. “Lutmouth's closest, I think. Especially since we don't need to worry about horses anymore.”

“Right,” Redmun nodded, and peered up the cliffs. They'd have to scale those, first.

They approached the cliffs, and from there Redmun could just see the rooves of Potsdoor, a distance away. He'd seen the aftermath once before. Those things that had eaten and become the villagers would eventually collide, creating a mass of silent caricatures of dying humans. There they would stay, unable to move or think or feel. A hollow memorial to Potsdoor, until it just faded away. It would take weeks, maybe even months, for the ground to be safe again. Just another village wiped out in the Forsaken Continent. Potsmouth's horrors wouldn't even be remembered, merely recorded.

But the Evil that had caused it – perhaps even a Lord Evil, Redmun suspected – walked free, wandering ever since Gestaldt Briandry set it loose upon the earth.

“Gestaldt,” Redmun said, barely whispering the word, tasting it. Rose had never told him his own father's name. Then he sighed, and realized where they were really headed. “Rose will want to hear about this.”

Jessa, who was already above Redmun, turned her head slightly, before grunting acknowledgement. It would be a long journey to Khelvorias, but the destination would be worse. It was time to go see his mother.