I am a fire.

  No, I am on fire.

  No. I’m just hot.

  Buried in a mountain of hides, I kick them off one by one until I can finally see my surroundings.

  A small flame billows inside a hole in the ground. A man squats by it, staring into the embers. His dark skin, like leather left in the sun too long, clings to a frame of drift-wood thick limbs wrapped in rags and furs. A thick black beard hangs down from his face like a curtain with small bones and metal rings woven into it like a child’s art project.

  His eyes dart from the fire to meet mine.

  My hand reaches for a dagger that’s not there. I’m not bound, but this is closer to prisoner status than I'm comfortable with.

  “Where are my weapons?” I ask.

  “Be still, son.”

  “Son?”

  “Sorry, forgot have daddy issues.”

  “What? No, I don’t.”

  “Cannot escape allegation. Wear chain with daddy face on thing. Call to daddy when asleep. Guilty. Do not defend. Will make worse. Dig hole. Put self in deeper hole. That saying, yes?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Put feet in mouth.”

  “What the vrek are you talking about?”

  “You do that.”

  “I absolutely do not.”

  “Defend daddy. Dig hole. Put feet in mouth.”

  I need to get out of here. Immediately.

  Propping myself up with one arm, I sit up in the makeshift bed with a foundation of rocks and a mattress of hides. The strength flows out of my body, like a collapsing stone wall, down my chest and away. My arm buckles, and I almost lie back down. I take deep breaths to summon some of it back.

  “Careful. Magic remove disease. Still need rest.”

  “Magic?”

  “Use spirit cactus.” A hand escapes from his robe and points to a tall, bulbous plant. Long sun-bleached needles cover its green carapace. “Heal you. Will heal ugly friend next. Need one moon.”

  “You can cast spells with plants?”

  “Yes, all different. This healing cactus. Bring weak boys here for magic.”

  Ulfgar stirs in his mound of hide blankets and groans.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  “He will live. Strong weak boy. You, weak, weak boy.”

  I’m not going to argue with a man that has saved my life. He can think what he wants at this point.

  “What’s your name?” I ask him.

  “Animal call me, Krusk. Plants call me,” an unintelligible string of words escapes his mouth. “Mother call me Gary. No like. Like Krusk.”

  “Gary?”

  Krusk shudders. “Yes, Gary. No like. No repeat. Gary dead. Krusk now.”

  “Listen to whisper. What animal call you?” Krusk pulls a scorpion out of some hidden fold of his inner clothing, gives me a squint, then tosses the scorpion at me.

  It lands on my chest.

  “Scat!” I bat it off my tunic, and it lands on the packed sand nearby before skittering back to its master.

  Krusk laughs, a deep guttural bellow. “Scat. Strange name from animal.”

  “No, that’s not what it called me. It didn’t call me anything.”

  “I see. Beast no speak to you. Fine. Not usual thing. Like desert spring. Rare. Make magic with beast.”

  This is a type of wizardry I’ve never heard of. “Where did you learn to do this?”

  “Stones teach me.”

  “Stones?”

  “Yes, magic stone. Like stone man.”

  Stone man?

  Oh, Brick!

  “Where is Brick? The stone man?”

  “Stone man find Krusk, bring me to weak boys. It over by whisper stones. Listen to stone whisper.”

  All of this is absolutely bizarre, and there’s no point trying to parse through sentences constructed together like a wooden bridge with no nails. I ask him to take me there.

  “Can we leave him?” I ask about Ulfgar. “Is he safe here?”

  “Oh,” Krusk says. He sticks two fingers in his mouth and unleashes a piercing whistle. A half dozen desert foxes come careening around small dunes and cuddle into the leathers lumped on top of Ulfgar. He doesn’t react at all.

  “Make big cry if danger,” Krusk says. The foxes seem to understand.

  We leave the small camp and walk for quite a while before finally reaching Brick.

  It stands in the middle of a circle of round stones, about the size of a shield, half buried in the sand.

  “Go. Hear whisper,” Krusk says.

  I walk out into the middle of the circle. I wait for the familiar feeling of magic, an invisible energy floating through my body, but…

  Nothing.

  I shake my head at Krusk and exit the circle.

  Krusk enters and laughs. “Many voices. Hear tree. Hear others like Krusk. Circle talk to other circle.”

  He’s mad. But I’ve found that the most important thing about crazy people is not to tell them they are insane. The next time I’m at Yon’Kor, I’ll ask the wizards there about this animal, plant, circle magic business.

  The next day, Krusk is able to use the cactus magic to heal Ulfgar. We spend a few days with Krusk, learning some survival skills in this desert. He teaches us where to find woody roots for building fires and how to create small fires in the ground that don’t reveal our location in the flat desert. By building a second hole with a tunnel connecting them, the air comes down and feeds the flame. It’s genius.

  Krusk shows us some simple snares to catch desert hares, and Ulfgar takes to that skill best, the traps being similar to the ones he’s built in his homeland to catch rabbits in the snow.

  “You are ready now, boys. No more weak. Strong.”

  “Krusk, you should join us, the Blood Coins,” I say.

  “Why coins bleed?”

  “No. They don’t. It’s just a name.”

  “Blood Coins? Bad name. Bad name like Gary.”

  “I didn’t name it. My father did.”

  “See? Daddy, daddy, daddy.”

  “Okay. You win, Krusk. Listen, if you ever need to earn some marks, you can come to Midway. We could use your skills.”

  “Krusk have everything Krusk need. But thanks. Goodbye, Scat. Goodbye, ugly friend. May wind kiss back. May cloud cover hot sun.”

  Equipped now with the skills to survive the journey, Ulfgar, Brick, and I head back down the bank of the Vein toward an ancient city. An ancient city led by a man who’s a god. A god whose name is on the bottom of our contract. A contract that, if we don’t fulfill, will be the death of us all.