I have watched it, as it forgets its purpose; it would want my gifts without its service.

Everything started at the heart. Steady beating against a void, so that even though she was blind against darkness, she could almost see into her own sternum. Palpitation so clear that it was visible to her mind’s eye. Each throb a jolting reminder that she was still alive.

Next were her veins. Up her neck. To her ears. Across her mind. Down to her thighs, up her back, in her feet, arms, hands, and fingers; the warmth of her blood brought form to her figure in the cold, like she was sunken in a snowbank and her body was made of wireframe pipes pumped full of boiling water. Beyond that silhouette there was only numbness and cold.

At first it was euphoric. She was floating in the aether. No company save her own mind. Unburdened by the useless constraints of physicality. A being of pure liberated intellect. But only at first.

Everything started at the heart. Poison entered her bloodstream. One beat, a stinging in her veins; another, all throughout her body; the next, like fire circulating back into itself, like there was nothing left but fire, like the iron in her blood was trying to pull free from flesh she still couldn’t feel.

Then she felt everything. Trauma in her stomach. Burning itching across her skin. The overwhelming impression that her body wanted nothing more than for her to die, and that her thinking parts needed to be punished for taking the working parts to their brink.

She had only felt this way once before, when she was eight years old. She screamed then, but then the pain was worse. This time she only groaned.

She threw up. She used her right hand to brace herself, and her fractured forearm gave under her weight. She fell onto her face. Whatever it was that came from her stomach was neither food nor water. It was thick, gelatinous, and solid as it coated her legs, and the pain in her gut grew so much worse once it was all expelled.

And she had no idea what it looked like, because she was still blind. Even as the sounds of fighting and screaming and yelling came to bear around her, even as she tried to sit upright, she saw nothing whatsoever except blackness.

Its ruination suits me.

There were hives across her face. Swelling down her throat. Then she felt a jolt, a shock arcing between her arms, and suddenly her vision returned—

And all she saw was the blue crystalline face of a manawyrm.

Yet its death would end this shard.

The pain was too terrible. Eris couldn’t respond. She doubled over. Now it was in her ears, the thundering of silent drums in rhythm with her heart.

I am assuming control of it.

Darkness returned. Then…

“Miss! Get up!” Tiny fingers wrapped around her right hand and pulled. She yelled in pain and they let her go. The same voice, the voice of a Boy, called again, “You’ve got to get up, miss!”

Someone else grabbed her other shoulder. “Stand up, there you have it. Huber, help me here,” she said. That was the creaking old voice of Grandmother. Another small set of fingers wrapped around her waist. “Can you walk?”

“Yes,” Eris said. Her mouth bubbled with more bile. She took one step and fell down to her knees. “I cannot see.”

“We’ll get you out!” Boy said.

They heaved her forward. Another few steps.

“Okay, we’re at the lip,” Man, the final halfling, said, “you’ve gotta step up onto the ramp.”

“Eris!” Aletheia said. Her voice echoed through the cavern from some way off. “Look, she’s okay!”

“I am not okay,” Eris muttered. She stopped again to vomit.

“Keep moving!” Grandmother said.

They dragged her up a rickety catwalk. She stumbled with every step. In moments of agony so extreme, agony incomprehensible in times of comfort, seconds lost all meaning. Sensations usually ignored became foci for the attention. A minute became eternity. So it was that Eris noted the last few moments of battle she overheard on approach seemed, to her, to happen over the course of a century.

The clamor had quieted by the time she felt stone underfoot. She stumbled forward, her weight too much for the halflings to hold, heard the jangling of mail and a sword, and was caught in a man’s arms.

“Eris,” Rook said. He smelled like blood. For a moment he held her, and for a lack of anything else to lean against she embraced him, trying to catch her thoughts. He added, “You look well.”

She threw up on him.

“Let’s go out of here,” Boy said. “Come on!”

Rook pushed Eris away slightly, not apparently concerned overmuch by the new stain. “We have to look around first.”

“No!” Grandmother said. Her voice was scolding, but she spoke at a whisper. “There might be more!”

Astera’s voice came next. “Have you seen more?”

A pause. “We were—but what about that door?” Man said.

“We tried that door. It’s locked, sealed tightly,” Astera said.

“Please, I want to go home!” Boy said.

“Rook,” Astera said, “who knows what things they’ve gathered here. We have to look through it all. Things taken from the village. Surely there aren’t any more than the ten we’ve killed here? What would they eat?”

“Your friend’s gone blind,” Grandmother said. “Isn’t that reason enough to take us back?”

“She isn’t our friend,” Astera said.

Rook finally left Eris. “Here,” he said, “Aletheia, take another torch. Can you lead them back to the tower?”

“Yes. I can,” Aletheia said.

“Go. We’ll follow.”

Eris could stand no longer and slid to the ground with her back against the wall. She felt all her skin consumed by rashes, all her veins still filled with poison. Her throat was swollen shut, burning, and her mouth lined with hives. Yet the worst was still the pain in her gut. That was what forced her down. “What has happened?” she gasped.

“You missed the fight,” Astera said.

“I killed three.”

“At what cost?”

Rook spoke up. “They showed their nature when I killed their chieftain. They routed and we finished them off. Guin’s is hurt and Zyd lost his bow, but we’re okay. They’re looking through their treasury now. Can you see at all?”

“I need to return to Kaimas,” was all she could manage. Then she remembered. “My arm. It is broken.”

“Let me see,” Astera said, a hint of discontent on her voice. Eris felt large elven fingers grab her arm and pull, gently. Rook departed to aid in the looting of this place while Astera quickly set Eris’ forearm with what little they carried for medical supplies. She was quick, firm, but gentle, well-practiced as a medic.

Eris did not thank her.

Footsteps approached.

“Didj ya sie tha sord?” Guinevere said.

“Astera has it,” Rook said.

“Et’s a fien sord.”

“I want it!” Zyd said.

“Later. How is she?”

“Her arm will heal,” Astera said. “But she has spellsickness. An allergic reaction to the mana in her veins, from overcasting. Humans must be careful with how they push themselves.”

“She ez gloowen liek eh duur! Weal she bee okae?”

“It’s too early to say.”

“Take her pack,” Rook said, “there are a few things left. Can you carry hers and yours, too?”

“Yes,” Astera said.

“Go, I’ll watch her.”

Eris blinked. Her eyes were greeted with the dim orange glow of a torch in Rook’s hands. All around her was the black blood of bugbears, pooled at her own shins, and the body of their leader. She hadn’t noticed.

Her veins radiated green light.

Off the ground she saw only shifting shapes, but one, short and slender and topped with yellow hair, was unmistakably Guinevere. She bled from her abdomen.

“Agh! Tha damm-ed bannedage kyps cumen oaf.”

“Not this again,” Zyd said. “Fine. Let me see.” A few moments later: “You’re going to need more than a bandage. That should be okay for now, if it doesn’t get infected. Again.”

“Ieh kent help et, tha cott’s riat awn—”

A banging cut her off. They all fell silent, attentions pulled at once to the door on the near side of the pit, across from where she had fallen for her rest. It was too far for her to make out any detail; she only remembered seeing it upon her entrance, another magical portcullis like the one Rook opened earlier with Guinevere’s axe.

The silence was broken by earthen screeching.

“Astera!” Rook shouted. The elf came bounding back around the corner in an instant, and just as she did, Eris heard the voices of bugbears beyond the blurry darkness.

She tried to stand, but it was impossible. Her stomach roiled. Fighting on was too hard. She was ready to die. The pain was too overwhelming. After so long like this already—had it been hours or minutes, she couldn’t say—she was certain she would not survive. Nothing could be done about that now, and nothing the bugbears did to her could be worse than what she felt already. Dismemberment was an appealing prospect.

The rock floor felt as soft and inviting to her head as a halfling’s bed.

Rook grabbed her left arm and heaved her with the strength of an elephant. His grip was an iron vice.

“Run!” he said. Eris tried, but she was very slow, no strength nor will to pursue. She stumbled like a lame mare after him, not fast enough. So he picked her up. Eris was not light; thin as she was, she was still a large woman, but he heaved her into his arms anyway with a grunt. That was faster than dragging her, but only just. Astera bolted past them. So did Zyd. Meanwhile the shouts behind grew louder. A bugbear was not a swift creature, but it would catch them presently, catch her and him both if he didn’t leave her for dead. And he should have. She would have left him. Her life was not worth his, nor was his worth hers.

“Yoore tae damm sloo!” cried Guinevere. “Yoo wooent bee tha last wans oat awn ma whatch!”

The barbarian had been past them, already at the door to the tunnel, but she fell back toward them now, back toward the bugbears, and she raised her axe. “Guin, go!” Rook said, but she didn’t listen. She ripped a necklace from her throat, a silver pendant which Eris had never before noticed, and tossed it to Rook; it landed on Eris’ chest.

Then Guinevere sprinted in the wrong direction.

“DOTURS OFF RAGOM FYND GLOARY FUR HUR TRYB IN BATTUL!”

And from the sounds of it, it was, indeed, by her own standards, a ‘gloarious battul.’ But Eris would never know for certain, because she didn’t watch. Her head remained limp against Rook’s chest. He didn’t look back, either, even as came roaring, the clashing of metal, the pattering of marbles against the ground, shouts and cries of injury, and then the guttural roar of triumph.

They moved as fast as they could into the tunnel. Past the guardpost. Through the bends. To the door—

There Astera was waiting for them. In her hands she held a silver-bladed longsword, the sword carried by the bugbear chieftain—the Dwarven sword.

“Close it!” Rook ordered. Astera obeyed. She held the sword against the wall, and just like that the door slid itself shut. That would buy them a few moments. Then it was up the stairs, past the hatch, and into the tower. Once there he put Eris down. She curled up upon herself against the wall, and she saw, like a lantern, the green light she gave off against the masonry of the tower.

Her eyes closed.

It was more than pain in her stomach. It was like she was being torn in two from within by something invisible.

Rook and Zyd threw the hatch closed. The chains were still nearby, but the lock was missing.

“There was a lock! I swear, it was here somewhere!” Zyd said. “We left it right here!”

“They must have taken it!” Rook said.

“They’re bugbears, they’re not that smart!”

“Then find it!”

No trace.

“Let’s just blow up the whole tower!” Zyd said.

“That’s beyond my capabilities,” Astera said.

“Think of something,” Rook said.

“So who cares if a few more villagers get eaten?” Zyd said.

“They would take us first!” Astera said.

“Not if we hide—” Zyd started, but then there came the turning of a latch. Eris rolled over to see: Rook and Astera pounced onto the hatch to keep it down with all their weight. Zyd fumbled with the chains, but there was no way to keep them bound.

“Wrap the chains!” Rook shouted. “Astera, weld them together!”

The elf set about her task. She let Zyd hold the chains bound in the center where the lock once held all together, then channeled hot fire to melt them together. Sparks flew onto Rook’s viscera-soaked pants, and for a moment it seemed to work, but the spell lasted too long: the chains were burned through, and they fell impotent to the ground.

Rook was shoved off his perch. The hatch opened. He drew his sword, stepped forward, and kicked the bugbear that stormed up the stairs; he thrusted his sword once, and with Zyd and Astera’s help pulled the hatch back down, piling all their weights on it again.

“Think of something!” Rook said.

Eris thought of something. She was prepared for this. She knew a spell—a spell the elf, evidently, lacked. It would be perfect. It would solve every problem. It would save their lives. And to cast it now was impossible. She would kill herself trying. Yet if there was anything Eris was resolute in doing in this life, it was demonstrating her superiority to others. That was what gave her conviction. And besides, death no longer seemed so terrible a prospect, compared to prolonged pain.

She stood. She swayed on her feet as if the mountain below was a ship at sea. She looked at the hatch. She thought back to her spellbook. She concentrated on the magic in the air. She breathed in every last ounce of mana she could muster from the room—and she sealed the hatch shut. She imagined wax draped over its exterior and all its latches frozen; she visualized the gaps in its stone filled in by earth; and she commanded it be done forever, as a spell never to be lifted except by means of more magic or the destruction of the portal entirely.

That was her spell. That was the order in the mana as it flowed from her mind and into the tower itself. And with that order, the pounding stopped; the hatch became stuck, suspended completely, in place. The tunnel to the bugbear lair was sealed.

And she once again passed out.

The best part of death was that one did not, in most cases, have to endure the misery of being a corpse for long. The same could not be said for magicians with spellsickness. No fatal injury could be worse than how Eris felt as she awakened between the sheets of a room in the Ancient Cheeseman. She was covered in bruises, swells, and shards of jade, her forearm was broken—now set properly—and she was starved halfway to death, but none of these things registered above notice as she laid limp in bed. All she felt was that her body was attempting desperately to rectify the deplorable fact that it was currently alive.

And it never got better. It never let up. It never went away. For days at first, then weeks, then months. Day after day after day. Always the same. Her broken arm healed well before her Essence was replenished; dexterity restored, yet the same agony in her stomach, rashes across her skin, hives in her throat and mouth.

Rook was her nurse. An unwavering attendant. He brought her every meal and a dog to sit at her side before each dusk, and books from the library, which only rarely did she have the fortitude to read. It was better treatment than she deserved, she was well aware. The one advantage of the arrangement was that when she tried, it was possible to read by the light of her own body beneath the covers. Who knew Eris was an optimist?

He reported to her thus: that a grand procession was held in their honor for the recovery of the three halfling captives, that they were showered with rewards, that they had recovered a modest bounty from the lair itself, and that only after, from a slip of the tongue, did it come to be known it was all Zydnus’ fault in the first place. He had told his father who told his wife who told everyone in town, it seemed. So had their honors been stripped, their rewards revoked, and any prestige lost. It was only through the generosity of halfling hospitality that they were not driven out of town.

Eris did not care, so long as their spoils proved enough for her to stay comatose. For now they did.

She never slept well. It was on one of endless restless nights that she noticed it, on the nightstand beside her bed. The moon shone in through her streetside window and the white rays lit up against silver.

It was a necklace. The symbol inlaid, in expert craftsmanship, was a northern one: the necks of three horses conjoined at the neck. At first she thought it was a gift, or part of her share of the expedition, but presently she remembered. It was Guinevere’s necklace.

Guinevere. With nothing to do but think, Guinevere had been close to Eris’ mind. Stupid, savage, uncouth Guinevere. What had she been thinking? Was it her own wound? Had it been worse than it seemed? Or was there something else? That same sentiment which Rook expressed to her that night around the campfire; the placement of a ‘friend’s’ security above even one’s own life?

Yet Eris neither knew nor liked Guinevere. They had only gone on one prior expedition together. True, it was a bloody one, and they had spent much time together in the months since, but they were hardly battlesisters. Eris felt no guilt, nor especial gratitude, toward this woman she hardly knew for her sacrifice, only confusion. She truly did not understand why anyone would do such a thing.

But then anyone who would was clearly a fool, and the world was no worser for her loss. So Eris told herself. Yet she kept the necklace—and she wore it often.

The luminescence in her veins faded in October. She measured time by the color of the leaves in the carefully manicured trees outside her window. The same night it faded altogether, and she noticed the rash on her arms banished, she received a visit from Zydnus and Rook.

“The general coffers have run dry,” Rook said. He spoke soberly.

“You’ve bankrupted us!” Zyd said. “We’re broke. It’s your fault! If you hadn’t taken my lantern none of this would have happened.”

If she stayed still the pain was not quite so bad. She sat at a table and rested her head against the window. “If you had possessed the good decency to die when you fell in the lizard’s pit, none of this would have happened,” she said.

He looked away from her. She felt a pang of smug gratification as she realized he knew she was right.

“Placing blame won’t help us,” Rook said. He placed a hand on Eris’ shoulder. “Can you travel?”

She shook her head.

“Great. Leech!”

“A merchant wants us as bodyguards up to Swep-Nos. If we leave money with you, can you look after yourself till we return?”

“Mercenary work,” Eris said, “how dignified.”

“Yes or no?”

She sighed. “Yes.”

“And don’t expect to see any of my share!” Zydnus said.

She never got used to the pain, no matter how constant it was. It never became easier. Her patience for their halfling companion was thin. “I do not want your charity, or anyone else’s.” She glanced to Rook. His eyes were sunken, his beard thicker. He looked older. “You should not have dragged me back here.”

“Why not?” he said sincerely.

“Because you do not owe me the favor, and I will not repay it.”

He smiled. “I don’t need to be repaid.”

“Then why?”

“To speak to you like an honest man: I see legions of doors in my future, with hordes of orcs behind, all needing to be bound shut. Therefore I do my best to keep you alive.”

She was not in a state to discern whether or not he was joking, but he gave himself away. She might have laughed but for misery. “I do not understand you.”

“I’m very simple. I take care of people I like and punch things I don’t.”

“Here I thought I had given you ample reason to dislike me.”

“Luckily I find your misanthropic act to be charming.”

“My misanthropy is not an act!” she exclaimed, almost doubling over as the shift in her seat felt like a punch to her stomach.

This seemed to be the response he had wanted. “Then maybe I just have bad taste. Luckily you’re also beautiful, well-read, and your magic is at least as useful as a tinderbox.”

“Are we leaving or what?” Zyd said.

Rook stood. “Get well, Eris. I’ll be back soon.”

“Or stay sick forever and retire,” Zyd said. “That’s fine too!”

“I hope you slip and break your neck,” she said to Zyd as he left her room, and the smile on her lips was the first she’d managed all month.