“Name?”

  “Danadrian.”

  “Danadrian…?”

  He attempted a smile in response to the clerk. “Just Danadrian.”

  There was a nod and a scribble on a piece of parchment with a quill. “And are you in any way armed or in the possession of weaponry?”

  “Yes, I have an old hunting spear.”

  There was a nod, more scribbling, before the parchment was spun over to him along with the quill and ink. “Please fill in your personal information before handing it in to the lady at the front desk. If everything’s in order, she’ll issue you your marker and you can start talking jobs at your convenience.”

  He nodded his thanks to the rather monotonous clerk, who stood to leave, and took a close look at the document, which thankfully was not written in the Carathiliarian symbols. They apparently called it Athniuthian.

  That hardly helps.

  City and kingdom of birth, age and a rough estimated date of birth, previous or current occupation… He felt a bead of sweat form on his forehead. How was he supposed to answer any of these?

  Kingdom of birth – The Land of Clatharia

  Age – Unknown

  Date of birth – Unknown, likely more than a thousand years ago

  Occupation – An Angelica of Mayare

  He shook his head; that was an easy way to get thrown out in a heartbeat. Whether to lie or not wasn’t even a question.

  Unfortunately, the only nation he had even a little knowledge of was the one he was sitting in right now, and there was no chance they were believing he was a local. He lacked the complexion. However, if his story was that he’d been a traveller, then he could feasibly pick any other kingdom and get away with it.

  What was it Velandus had said? He tapped his fingers against the table as he thought on their conversations, before snapping his fingers. There it was. He took the quill and wrote down an answer.

  The Kingdom of Moren.

  “Thank you for bringing that one up, Velandus.”

  Fortunately, there was also a date written on the corner of the parchment.

  756 TASW.

  So, all he had to do was create an age for himself, say twenty-eight years old, and track it back from this year. That put his date of birth in the year 728.

  That only left his occupation, an answer for which there was no real answer he could think of. He returned to tapping his fingers. Selling himself as a trader or a hunter would fall through quickly when he was questioned on the details, of which he knew none. A cart driver like Velandus? It wasn’t like he had a cart or a horse as proof. “Traveller” was not a recognised occupation in his mind.

  He glanced down, then paused. He hadn’t realised it, but his hand had been moving of its own accord and had written an answer to his question. He felt his heart beating against his chest as he read the words aloud.

  “Swordsman.”

  He looked at his hand, back to the paper, and then back to his hand. Was this…muscle memory? He didn’t have a sword, and he sure did not remember any techniques or grand moments using one.

  Then… what was this?

  He placed his shaking hand on the desk and took a deep breath, trying his best to compose himself as the clerk returned and took his document.

  At the front desk, the rather pleasant lady rummaged around looking for a marker as she explained to him how the whole system worked.

  “It’s all quite simple, really.” She said, brushing aside her unbraided hair. “We give you a marker, a small piece of metal branded with our symbol, and with it you’re allowed to take jobs listed at any of our boards in the kingdom.”

  “And of what manner are these jobs?”

  “They tend to vary, the simplest and easiest are usually running errands for people, cleaning a nobleman’s gardens, that sort of thing. If you’re interested, there are usually jobs escorting trade caravans or culling monster populations in old ruins.” She reappeared from behind the desk. “But, no offence, you might want to hold off on those ones.”

  He had finally removed his torn-up rags, which were now placed in a bag hung on his shoulder, beside the hunting spear. In their place, he wore a simple tunic and pants given to him by Velandus, on top of his boots and the cloak around his shoulders.

  “None taken. I’m not sure I’m in the market for fighting right now anyway. I will probably stick to the more peaceful jobs.”

  She smiled. “No shame in that. If I were you, I’d do the same.” She handed him a large, imperfectly circular piece of bronze. It was ingrained with simple Athniuthian for once: three vertical lines surrounded by a shrinking spiral. “The symbol roughly translates to the name of our organisation.” She elaborated when he stared.

  He flipped the marker over. “If you do not mind me asking, why bronze?”

  “It’s your rank in the Company. A client will pay you once the job is completed, but on top of that, we will pay you a bonus based on your ranking.”

  “And my ranking increases…?”

  “Your rank increases the more jobs you do, and the higher the quality when they’re reported. With that, the Company can see you as a more reliable partner for future endeavours. You bring in business, and the more business we have, the more we can both benefit.”

  He frowned. “How, if I may ask, do you make any profit out of this?”

  “Everyone asks that at some point.” She smirked. “We were established by the crown some whatever-many-years-ago, so they provide us with funds the more useful we are to the local populace.”

  “Ah, I see.” He wasn’t entirely sure how that worked, so clearly his mind had never been the best at economics, or it was simply another aspect he had lost. He looked around the room. “So I can take any job?”

  “As long as you and I both feel you’re prepared for it.” She said with a smile, helpfully pointing him towards a board where well over a dozen pieces of parchment hung, advertising various jobs. As he inspected them closer, he noticed a clear disparity in payment. Those who did the harder or more dangerous jobs were paid almost as much as several days’ worth of the smaller requests. But there was little doubt in his mind that if he attempted any of those, he would end up dead in a ditch somewhere.

  After several more minutes of deliberation, he pulled down a request from the board and placed it on the front desk. Well, it had been one of her examples.

  .   .   .

  “My name is Danadrian, and I came at your request from the Company of the Gethanhol.” He tried to nod as respectfully as he could to the silver-tattooed woman before him.

  Her response? Refusing to meet his eyes. “I assume you have identification?”

  He resisted sighing and pulled out the bronze marker. At the sight of it, the woman looked noticeably calmer, her shoulders slumping. “You’ll find some tools in the yard behind the house; do you think it’ll take long?”

  “It depends how much work there is.”

  He followed her around the back of the small home, where he saw a large, but overgrown garden, close to being reclaimed by the forest itself. It had weeds covering the dirt path, flowerbeds competing with each other for space, and the light of the Sun itself being blocked by the largest plants in some places.

  She pointed out the tools to him, a single spade, rake, and set of shears, all a bit rusty at the edges, that were piled in a corner.

  “My husband used to handle this sort of thing, but ever since the fool got into a brawl at the Hunthorde Inn a few months back and hurt his back…” She clicked her tongue. “Well, my family is coming to town tomorrow and I’d rather they didn’t see our garden looking like a site of the True Chaos. If you can clean this up by the end of the day, I’ll pay you three silver selivara extra.”

  He nodded. “I will try my best.”

  And I doubt that sort of bonus comes around often.

  Despite the lingering fatigue weighing him down, he got to work. He used the edge of the shovel to scrape away as many of the plants invading the dirt path as he possibly could. After that, he attacked the weeds growing over the sides of the small home.

  As the Sun slowly crept towards the horizon, he began to think. This was a slightly mortifying experience for an Angelica, Fallen or not. A former servant of the Light, now having to clean gardens, gardens of Derumani worshippers, no less.

  He mulled over those thoughts, aggressively cutting down the largest plants that obscured the Sun from view and unearthing their roots with the very last of his strength he could muster. He wasn’t sure if he could ask the owners for water or food, or if they might take some of his pay if he did, so he opted to quietly continue his work until it was done.

  When it was done, and the garden looked rather good, and not like an overgrown ruin, he staggered over to the doorway and planted the tools against the wall where he had first found them. He knocked on the door, then glanced up at the sky. The Sun was already obscured behind the trees as dusk covered the land.

  The door swung open, and he was met with the stern face of a grey-faced man, covered in bright red tattoos. The look he was given was less than cordial.

  “Good afternoon. I just finished-”

  He was interrupted midsentence as the glaring man thrust a pouch into his chest. After he grabbed it, said man barely wasted a beat before slamming the door shut without so much as a word.

  He counted the selivara in the pouch but came up three short. The additional payment on the condition that he finished today wasn’t included. Frowning, he lightly knocked on the door again. This time, it was thrown open almost immediately.

  “Sorry, but your wife promised three extra selivara if I finished today, and-”

  The man interrupted him again by pointing his finger west. “What’s missing there?”

  He followed his gaze and frowned. “I don’t-”

  “The sun. The condition was that you finish today, and as I’m sure you can see, there isn’t much day going around right now.”

  The… what? What sort of logical conclusion was that?

  “Sorry, but I’m pretty sure that-”

  The next thing he knew, he was gazing at the sky as he fell backwards, a now all too familiar sight. He collapsed on the dirt path he’d cleared and felt pain jolt across his back. The man’s voice continued to spit at him.

  “Bloody hithnadrr. Honestly, might as well have hired a Demon to get the job done.”

  The door closed with a crash.

  He lay there for a moment, sighing, before pulling himself up and brushing the dirt off his back. Multiple falls were starting to do a number on it, so he prayed that whatever bed he found tonight was at least marginally soft; at this point, anything would do.

  And speaking of which, he needed to find an inn to stay the night in. Apparently, the Company Hall had an operating tavern and rooms for hire on its second and third floors, but Velandus had warned against it; since most foreigners passing through chose it, the cost was far beyond him. Instead, he wandered the streets, where many still walked in the dusk, and asked about a cheap inn he could afford. Quite a few ignored him outright or told him no uncertain terms to shove his questions in an unsavoury location. Taking what the few that did talk to him had said and thinking back to what his brief employer had mentioned, he found himself standing outside the Hunthorde Inn.

  Light and sound trailed out the windows and doors as he walked in. Clicking glasses and tankards mixed with laughter and ever-present chatter. Carathiliar flooded the room, meeting in groups at the dozen or so tables that covered the common room or jostling one another by the bar at the end of the room. A few wearing simpler clothes moved between them, handing out drinks and food to the waiting customers, often pausing to talk with them as they did. The smell of chicken and roast boar wafted through the air as one of the barmaids saw him enter and called to him.

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  “Good evening, sir, what’ll it be? Food or drink?”

  He nodded his head politely. “Uhh, I was told there are rooms available for hire?”

  “You’ll want to talk to Alwyn, he’s at the back there.”

  She indicated a lithe figure who had already begun walking in their direction. He ducked around the tavern-goers and exchanged laughs with them before he smiled towards Danadrian. “Ah, a foreigner. Welcome to the Hunthorde Inn. Innkeeper Alwyn Heldreth, at your service, mister…?”

  “Danadrian.” He shook the outstretched hand. “I wish to hire a room, if you’re willing, of course.”

  “Oh I’m always willing for customers sir, grey, white, or green.” He smiled. “My cheapest room is ten copper bonara per night. The walls aren’t too thick, but we had the beds cleared of bugs recently and breakfast comes included.”

  Danadrian swallowed his pride. “That sounds perfect, Innkeeper Heldreth. I may be in town for a while, so any room would be splendid.”

  “Pay me in the evenings, and the room’s yours for as long as you need it. Now, could I interest you in a meal?”

  He accepted and found himself sitting at an unoccupied table, where he was swiftly brought his first proper dinner. It was interesting, the Carathiliarian meals were set up with various small bowls that divided the different parts of the meal. In this case, there was a bowl with lukewarm soup, one with diced up vegetables, and a third with tiny slices of meat, beef he learnt once he’d tasted it. That, along with a small glass of water, only amounted to six copper coins, bonara. For a meal that he would have paid double for if given the chance. Perhaps it was because he didn’t have a lot to compare it to, or because it was his first warm meal he could remember, but while he sat there and consumed it with vigour, he thought he might remember this moment for however long he lived.

  He said as much to the innkeeper as he made his round through the common room and passed his table. He was flattered by the comment, and paused a moment to chat with him as the same barmaid came by the collect his finished meal and refill his glass.

  “Innkeeper Heldreth, and I mean no disrespect, how you run a business successfully with such… conservative prices.”

  That got him a laugh from the good-natured innkeeper. “Not many people ask me that while they’re sober. Ha! It’s true this is probably the cheapest inn you’ll find in Fordain, and I humbly declare that you get triple your coins!” He shouted that last part to the room, who cheered in response and raised their mugs and glasses to him. Even the drunkest took up the call to rakishly shout approval.

  He looked back at Danadrian with a wink. “It’s about reputation, you see. You get a lot of travellers and customers when your prices are low. Sometimes that can offset the obvious fact that it’s cheap for them, so the individual coin is slow.”

  “A lot of travellers come here?”

  “Almost as many as the Company of the Gethanhol, but they charge silver for their rooms. Old Gwenyth there would rather die than compare us, but we’re also the most welcoming to… well, people like you.” He gestured to Danadrian’s slightly tanned skin. “Meaning no offence of course, but if you stick around these parts long enough, you might hear some rough terms being thrown at you.”

  He chuckled, though it lacked humour. “I already got that covered.”

  “Some people have their heads screwed a little too tight, they give us folk a bad rep, throwing out names and such. The Company’s probably got the most outsiders in town, and even then they’ll find it hard to avoid ire.” He stood from his seat and clapped Danadrian’s back. “But as long as I’m innkeeper, there’ll be no such words spoken under this roof.” He left with a wink and a smile, leaving behind a conflicted former-Angelica.

  The Carathiliar were not all of one mind. Of course, he’d met Lethandirr and Jerakun, innocent and simple as he was, but his experiences having entered Fordain had left a pretty poor impression of their race as a whole. Their attitude notwithstanding, the Karatinian UnOrder still held a great sway over his opinion in his mind. How good could they be, in actuality, whilst still revering the God of Chaos? He looked around the room.

  The barmen and barmaids wandered around, offering refills to drinks, bringing food, and even with a few mishaps of toppled bowls or spilt ale, they went about their jobs unharassed save small harrying by only the drunkest. The patrons mingled around, showing off weapons to their friends or telling stories to try and impress a woman, and true to the innkeeper’s word, he saw close to a dozen light-skinned foreigners interspersed across the room.

  They weren’t the first he had seen; in the Company hall, there had been the largest group of them by far, but he found there that they kept to themselves and their own small groups, and were in a way as standoffish to the Carathiliar as the Carathiliar were to him.

  Here, that was not the case. He saw a group of women he was told came from a land south of here, the Kingdom of Floraine, talking earnestly with their counterparts in the corner of the room. They were apparently scholars, so he assumed they were trying to document aspects of the Carathiliarian culture. In another part of the room, a burly man with muscles that might be larger than Danadrian’s own head was arm wrestling an equally strong hunter. Apparently, they had been going at it for hours already.

  He remembered the dark looks he kept receiving, the mutterings of hithnadrr as he walked the streets, his expulsion from his first job’s property via throwing, their rituals of blood and decadence.

  Then he compared it to the room before him, where, through ale or the goodwill of an innkeeper, such things were left forgotten, if only for the night.

  And he found himself disturbed.

  The line of thought he was beginning to follow felt all too… treacherous. And that made his heart feel cold.

  He remembered falling through rain clouds, wind buffeting him as the ground spiralled beneath. His arms, of which there were fewer than half that he was used to, unconsciously reaching towards feathered wings that no longer existed.

  So he stopped thinking about it and ordered a single mug of mead. Then he talked with the innkeeper a little more, quietly took in the atmosphere and his first night in a warm building, before retiring to his small room at the back end of the first floor. The bed was only just big enough to fit him, and the walls couldn’t quite cover the sounds echoing from the common room, but just the fact that he had a pillow beneath his head when he lay down was enough to make it all worth it.

  .   .   .

  He slept like a rock, it seemed. It was well into the morn when he woke up and went to receive breakfast in the common room, which was mostly leftovers from the night before, though with the addition of sliced-up apples and porridge if he wanted. Once he was done there, he greeted Innkeeper Heldreth and left the already-bustling common room to step out into Fordain.

  He avoided the main road that cut through town and instead used small roads and alleys to get to the Company hall. Doing so doubled the time it took to get there, and he got turned around several times in the process, but he felt it was worth it to avoid the morning rush.

  Once there he received his payment from the receptionist, which was several copper pieces, before checking the job listings for the day. Cleaning and repair jobs were the most common but also paid the least. For that reason, it was only bronze ranks who bothered taking them, as they were either underqualified or underequipped to take on more dangerous opportunities.

  But he had to agree with the common assessment. It was hard work for little pay, and unless you were exceptionally good at cleaning and gardening, you were only getting one job, maybe two if you were fast, finished per day. Taking into account whatever costs the average person had, you could barely get by on that sort of income.

  He shifted the weight of the spear that hung via a strap on his back. He could definitely consider other jobs, though. Exterminating pests, for example, paid much more than just cleaning, probably because anyone with rats in their cellars tended to pay more for a swift resolution to the problem. There were also contracts to guard merchant holdings or caravans in the area, though those were several days to even weeks long, or hunting assignments to cull any growing packs or groups of dangerous wildlife.

  He wasn’t alone at the board and had to move around the groups of people moving in and out to see the board. As he did so, a series of gardening jobs caught his eye, placed in the bottom corner of the board. At a glance, he assumed they were the same as the rest, but instead found that they were issued by a trader. Trader Deana wanted several ruins outside of town to be inspected, cleared of shrubbery and/or foliage, before she picked one to be repurposed into a trading outpost.

  That was intriguing, so he went to the receptionist to ask her about it.

  “Oh, the ruins? Yeah, there’re quite a few of them in the forest, you get all sorts trying to scavenge them for treasure.”

  “Whose ruins are they? I mean, I assume they’re Carathiliarian, so why are there not more attempts like this to reclaim them?”

  She frowned and pursed her lips. “You know, I really don’t know who those old piles of stone belong to. As for your question, there are. People like this Trader Deana are a dime a dozen, trying to build something on top of them, and most of the time it doesn’t work out.”

  “How come?”

  “Cause it’s the Crynmon Forest. Unless they chose the few spots close to towns or villages, they’d be at the mercy of the wilds. There’re all sorts out there, boars, wolves and bears.” She groaned, “Tuffhorns. You get the idea.” She nodded to the job listing he’d taken, “So, gonna take the contract?”

  He took another look at it. It specified that the first location to be cleared, and the closest, was still half a day’s walk out of town. He considered what time it was now, and that he’d need to prepare for several days back in the forest. There was also the allure of a warm bed, which now had a powerful hold on him that he tried in vain to overcome.

  He shook his head. “Not today, but can I reserve it for tomorrow? I’ll be here at early light to collect it.”

  The receptionist nodded. “Of course, I’ll reserve it for you till then. Though I am now contractually obligated to inform you of the dangers associated with a contract outside of the town’s borders.”

  She ducked her head beneath the desk before reappearing with a long scroll of parchment, from which she read a startlingly long list of the hazards and dangerous scenarios he might find himself in when he took the contract. These ranged from wild beast attacks or bandit muggings to encountering necromancers wanting to use his body as a puppet or getting uncomfortable rashes from local weeds.

  After that was done, and he and the receptionist shared a laugh over some of the more absurd warnings, he took a simpler job to occupy his day and fill his pockets a little more. This job was one of the aforementioned pest exterminations he’d made a mental note of earlier. An old lady had brought it in just this morning after reporting that a colony of rats had arisen in defiance and rebellion in her basement the previous night.

  When he arrived at her home just off the main street, she gave him a rather worried look that he was unfortunately growing used to. He assured her he was from the Company and showed her his marker before she let him into the house and led him to the basement. There, he realised why rat problems were sent to the Company of all places.

  His impression of rats had been, up until this point, of the small rodent creatures barely the size of his hand. Kind of like mice. He had that notion swiftly tried and executed when he walked into the basement, made a lot of noise and tapped the butt-end of his spear against the wall, and had a creature the size of his head leap out at him.

  Carathiliarian rats were a breed of their own, he learned, and were a much bigger problem to a small household, especially an old lady living by herself, than he had given credit. A thrust of his spear struck the beast dead, but then another reared itself from behind a box, and another ran at him from within a chewed-out barrel.

  He may have had a weapon, but they fought back, and there were a lot of them. It was all he could do to stop them from attempting to eat him alive by smacking them away or piercing them with his spear. Which was, he noted, not as easy to use in an enclosed space, and every strike he missed would send a reverberation through the shaft that made his arms shake.

  He really wasn’t as good with the spear as he’d hoped to be. He had no memories or teachings of how to use it, so he simply did what felt logical when stabbing at the little monsters. He felt he was adequate at best.

  He spent the rest of the day in that dingy basement, coaxing out rats and meeting them in duels of honour and death. When he finally emerged, certain that he had snuffed out their burgeoning colony, his tunic and pants were stained with the blood of his foes, as were his hands. Coincidentally, it seemed the son, or some other relative of the old woman, had come by while he was done there and was very unhappy to see him there. Even more so when his mother screamed at the foreigner covered in rat gore.

  He was chased out of the house, though not before receiving his pay. He looked up and saw that the Sun was dipping towards the horizon, leaving the world in the orange haze of dusk. The evening rush along the main street was in full swing, so he waited at a corner until it died down, receiving stares as he did.

  He couldn’t walk five steps without hearing “Hithnadrr” being thrown at him. The respectful muttered it or simply glared at him. The less courteous said it to his face before stomping off, or shouted it at his back when he walked past an alleyway.

  Is this seriously what it’s like for every foreigner? Really? Every single one?

  How the other outsiders in the Company were able to function in this town was beyond him, and Fordain was on the smaller side. He imagined what it was like in Tandrias, the capital of the province, or even the capital of the kingdom itself, and shuddered. He hoped he didn’t end up there, at least not like this.

  If his punishment was to land in this kingdom of chaos-worshippers, then the constant demeaning was just the cherry on the cake.

  His stomach rumbled at the thought of cake. He sighed, “Even if I found a place that sells cake here, I doubt I could afford it.” Whatever food the Hunthorde had tonight would have to do. He hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and staring at rat entrails had dampened his appetite for a while. He’d heard talk of a market that ran on this late, but he wasn’t willing to spend the coin.

  As he daydreamed over thoughts of eating cake until he felt sick, he passed a small shop with a large glass window. By happenstance, his eyes glanced in its direction, and he realised something. Despite being surrounded by windows, he’d never actually seen his reflection. Well, now he did.

  He froze. His throat tightened like rock. The hand he’d been wiping on his cloak began to shake, as did his vision.

  There was an image in his mind of Angelica, which he knew to be true. That knowledge had remained. And it was the regal, immortal beauty of his kind. Beings of Light who served the most beautiful Goddess, who wore lightly tanned skin with eyes as bright and golden as the Sun itself. It was said that even the blind could tell when they sat before a man, and when they stood before an Angelica.

  But the face he looked at, which shook with shock and horror, was dirty and bruised. His long hair was as tangled as the rat’s nest he had found in the corner of the basement. It should have been light-brown, but blood and dried mud made it several shades darker. Edges of his face were splotched with dirt and rat blood. And his eyes were an impure, pale yellow.

  Forget angelic, forget even presentable, he looked like the walking corpse of a man that had crawled himself out of a gutter. He had told the Company that he was in his twenties, but the man reflected in the window looked rancid enough to be forty.

  The Panic returned, taking hold of his mind and sending him spiralling into a frenzy. He tried to reach for the brooch, but his arms were shaking too much. Despite the cool air of the dusk, beads of sweat ran down his back.

  This is why they look at me with fear and mistrust.

  What a shameful display. Angelica? Fallen Angelica? There were mere mortals who put him to shame. What was ego and pride in the face of this? He looked into his own eye and saw only disgust and disappointment mirror back to him. How apt, he thought as his breathing became ragged.

  Then, his eyes focused beyond his reflection as a glint of light caught his eye. The last flicker of the Sun sending a ray through the glass and onto the display sitting in the small shop. Dusk faded as he gazed at a small, golden scarf, simple and without adornment.

  He remembered a prayer which echoed through his mind.

  To Elnuway of the Dusk, last to bear witness, hear my words as an Angelica of your mother, Mayare. Guide me through the Darkness, and if I should fall, raise me up so that I may become a better man. Bless it be.

  He coughed out a breath and stumbled back. He was back; he was present again. The Panic receded. He rubbed his eyes and looked back at the scarf. There was an Athniuthian symbol next to it he couldn’t read, but beneath that, in small letters, he could just make out that the price was one gold decimara coin.

  It was a steep price, no doubt the dye and material were either rare around these parts or imported from elsewhere, he’d not seen many Carathiliar wearing gold clothing. And if he remembered correctly, it was thirty selivara to the decimara, which would take Light only knew how long to gather with his slow work and other expenses.

  But the thoughts of gorging himself on cake now seemed less appealing. It was a small thing, but he was drawn to it in the same way he’d been drawn to the brooch he now wore on his chest. More than the fact that it calmed him, more than what it symbolised. If he was to be punished, if he was to wander a land with so many against him on principle, then let him do so proudly, with the colours of his Goddess by his side.

  Bless it be.