The rain had finally stopped entirely and the storm had passed, but the voices continued to berate Gideon. He did his best to focus his attention on other things. Now in the woods, the shade from the trees offered some protection from the cloudless sky as the sun rose higher, approaching midday. Water still dripped from the leaves and needles surrounding them as they rode through the dirt path. He took deep breaths of the cold, moist air, and exhaled slowly, watching the foggy breath fade into the gentle breeze. Gideon was doing all he could to focus his senses except his hearing, which was bombarded by the booming voices of The Many.

You don’t get a choice. You will do our bidding.

Empty threats as always. He learned a long time ago to stop talking back. Arguments were made, the reasoning flawed, but the defiance was perpetual. It was exhausting. But for all the pointlessness in engaging in the conversation, the urge has always been there. Gideon felt it better to focus his attention elsewhere, choosing to ignore the chorus instead.

You were chosen for a purpose. A higher purpose.

Gideon began to hum and whistle to a tune he learned in Faust. A ballad about a man and woman falling out of love, but stuck together by circumstance. The name of it escaped him.

The fate of the world, of all known creation, is depending on you doing what you’re told.

Something pulled at his attention. The voices faded as another sound, unheard of, entered into his earshot. Without thought, he continued to hum and whistle the tune, holding onto the hope of drowning out the voices, as he looked around for the source of the oddly low singing matching his melody.

It was Taas, singing the lyrics to the ballad, horrifically off-key. Gideon stopped his melody and let Taas sing along without the tempo to guide him, only to startle the giant. It was a modest distraction by any means, but it worked. The voices had gone silent.

“You take joy from the world,” the giant bellowed, clearly offended.

“Fun,” Gideon corrected. “I take the fun out of everything.” He waved the comment off with his hand. “I owe you some credit, actually. Your singing did wonders for clearing my head.”

“If you’re doing better, can we speak more of last night?” Taas continued to ride forward, his request offered so casually, it took a moment to register for Gideon.

There was an understandable hesitation on his part; they had talked about circumstance earlier. Gideon had explained his direction more than once to his companion, from clarifications to further elaboration of details and so on. But based on his demeanor and his comments this morning, it seemed as though there was still something more specific needling at Taas for answers. But if it meant keeping the chorus of godlike chattering from overtaking his ears, he welcomed the reprieve.

“What about last night do you want to know about?”

Taas didn’t immediately answer, and Gideon didn’t prod him for a response, knowing that he would form the words in short time. “What do you…remember?”

“I told you what I saw. I–“

“Dreams, yes. But last night. What do you remember about last night?”

Gideon took a deep breath in thought, actively sorting his dreams and the memories of the two he had touched from the actual events of the night. The question was too vague for any kind of deception, but as he considered the possibility, it occurred to him there was no purpose in doing so with Taas. If he was as truly loyal as he claimed earlier, his questioning was likely more out of curiosity than anything else.

“About last night,” he started and took another, quick breath, “I remember talking with the man and his mother. His son’s weak moans from the other room. I remember laying hands on the two of them, the flow of energy.…but it’s hazy after that.” It’s not unheard of that you don’t remember the world while you slept, but it only just now occurred to him. “How did I get to the bed?”

“I took you,” Taas said sharply, and returned to his inquisitive silence.

It was a simple enough truth, but it didn’t answer the larger question that Taas asked in the first place. A dirty, slow-crawling suspicion and concern wormed around inside Gideon. “Earlier, you spoke of cost.” He dragged on the word through a thoughtful pause. “What happened?”

They rode in silence long enough for Gideon to prod his companion for attention. “Taas. What happened?”

“The…boy slept fine enough. He didn’t even wake until the sunrise. The father…he cried. He didn’t sleep.” Taas dropped his head slightly, recalling the moment. “I went to take his mother, wrap her for ceremony, and he…howled at me. He beat his fists on my chest. He pleaded. I said nothing. After awhile, he let me take her, so I wrapped her for the pyre and carried her to the yard of the Canters. He was still awake when I returned, but at least he was with the boy. “

The silence between them only got heavier the longer it stretched.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to leave you with that by yourself.”

“No,” Taas said, waving a hand. “I said so earlier. I did not know the cost. This was a look at some of the people in your wake. Even the ones you save…sometimes they’re still…” He took a deep breath to decide the best word. “Broken.”

Gideon rode up closer to Taas, noticing that the giant was advancing quicker. “All magic has a cost, and this–what I do–is no exception. That is why the land is cursed, why this world is cursed.”

“The spirits fight against us.”

“No,” Gideon corrected. “The spirits guide us and aid us. The gods pitied us. Humanity…betrayed the world.” He reached forward and scratched the short fur of his greathound. “They thought to create abominations to fill the gaps of inconvenience. The loyalty of a hound, the ferocity of a bear, the athleticism of a horse, and so on and so on. These beasts are but a small example of the curiosity that the self-declared ‘Arcanists’ felt so fucking inclined to pursue.”

“They breed true. They found a home in this world.” A weak consolation.

“At the cost of other species. When was the last time you saw a true hound? A mastiff? A shepherd? They’re dying, kept as prizes and trophies and not allowed to preserve their own kind. The more one learns about the history of humankind’s arrogance, the less you’re surprised that the gods cursed the world we inhabit. Magic will recoil without absolute precision, and only in specific circumstances. In all the lands east of the Barren Waste, machinery–non-magical machinery–fails to work, because the wildlands are forever burdened with the halting of human industry.”

“The gods made this so?” The giant asked, curious.

“Gods created the world, gods created magic, created all the kinds that exist in what we know. The gods cannot revoke what has been given. But what has been given can be damned. And what can be damned, can be damned again and again and again. They left magic among us, but they gave it purpose. A malicious, scornful purpose.”

“Ghouls,” Taas said, his beast quickening pace again.

“Another creation pulled from the what-if of the Arcanists. Created to consume the remains of war and death. Gone feral when they broke out, a disease that spread like wildfire.”

“No. Ghouls.” Taas looked pointedly at his companion and waved his hand in a circular motion, indicating the shifting shadows moving between the trees.

Gideon jerked his head side to side, trying to get a glimpse–and hopefully a count–of the creatures prowling the edges of their sight. “In midday, even. They must be hungry.”

Ahead and to the right, one of the horrors climbed onto a protruding boulder, crawling on all fours. The sickly blue-grey skin was pockmarked and oily, its limbs long, the joints sharp with spurs and spikes. Despite its stretched appendages, the body was not gaunt, but muscular in its lithe build. Long, black hair–wet from the elements and other sources, thinning from the scalp–draped the sides of the thing’s head. The ghoul’s face was the true abomination: bloodshot eyes peering out from sunken eye sockets over a cratered nose, the cartilage ripped away long ago, exposing the bony vents into its sinus cavity. The teeth were overgrown, the lips stretched and split to make room for the the mouthful of sharpened dagger tips.

It looked at the two riders, sniffing the air, ears perked and giving hints towards its nearby prey. Locking eyes with Gideon, it stood up straight and let out an unearthly howl that sounded somewhere between a lion’s roar and the wailing of a dying woman.

“Go, go!” Gideon shouted, and the two beasts galloped with haste through the rough trail in the woods.

As the trail narrowed, Taas rode ahead by a few paces, the two speeding through single file. The hood blew back off Gideon’s head, his short black hair swept by the momentum, and he looked back over his shoulders. The pack leader, the one from the boulder was a distance behind them, but still pursuing them. It was flanked on either side by two more of the things, running on all four clawed limbs. As quickly as the two rode through the trail, the pack of ghouls managed to keep up.

“We need to break these things from us!” Gideon shouted ahead. “They’re not falling away, and I don’t want to be food for these things!”

The woods started to break up, the trees thinning in their surroundings. Something roared ahead. “We have to jump!” Taas shouted back. “The hounds will make the dive! Jump!”

Before the scenery change could fully sink in to Gideon, the trees all disappeared and Taas’ greathound was leaping in the air. His own followed suit, but he himself wasn’t prepared for the maneuver and was bucked from the saddle, spinning backward head over foot. In his revolving sight, he watched as the two beasts and his companion narrowed into a dive into the pool at the foot of the waterfall. It felt like forever, but the spinning slowed as he approached the surface of the water. As he hit, his eyes were skyward, and before he blacked out from the impact the last thought in his head was that at least the ghouls didn’t follow them.