The guards tossed me unceremoniously to the floor. My face hit with a smack that left my head spinning. That went well. I struggled to my hands and knees, only for a guard to crack me on the skull with the butt of his spear. Stars flashed across my vision, and I collapsed back to the ground. I rolled onto my back and found myself looking up at a man in a dark robe. He looked about how you’d expect for an evil wizard, but his staff was rather interesting. It appeared to be a roughly carved tree limb, with jagged protrusions where branches had been torn off. The wood was entirely black, and the tip was banded with a dark metal that was probably meant to look like Mordite. An arrogant weapon, but a dangerous one nonetheless. I would have to deal with this man carefully.

I rolled back over and attempted to rise again, then thought better of it as my vision darkened. “Wise wizard, I bring you a message from the great Narrator Nameless.” I said hoarsely. The wizard may have raised an eyebrow, but I was hardly in a position to see it. “Nameless? The great Narrator? He sent you?” The wizard’s voice was dripping with condescension. “Indeed!” I said in what was meant to be a cheerful, confident tone. “He warns you to release your prisoners and scourge the land no longer. If you continue in your evil ways, he will have no choice but to…” The wizard was laughing. I paused, confused. This was… not how I had expected my ‘news’ to be received. “Nameless is dead.” Said the wizard. “And even if he was not, why should I fear him? Even with the aid of the Enullers, even with a Mordite blade capable of slaying the Witherlord, even with the Witherlord bound almost entirely by the Skeins he failed. Why should I fear someone so pathetic?”

Muttering something impolite under my breath I shoved myself up onto my knees, ignoring the darkness that pressed in around the edges of my vision. “I think you’ll find that Nameless is far fr-” A sound rang through the underground labyrinth. A horrible sound, a sound beyond the power of words to describe. The sound of a heart breaking.

The wizard sneered at me, clueless as to the horror I had just experienced. “That Nameless is what? A failure? A weakling overthrown by his own avatar?” His sneer widened. “Oh yes, I know that it was Moniker that did him in. Vengeance for what he did to her, no doubt.” I opened my mouth, trying to find some way to rebuke his words but… it was just too much. It was then that Galbus entered the room. His eyes were those of a man hanging on to a cliffside by a handful of grass, and death was behind them. The guards moved to intercept him and were too slow. He cut through three men in an eyeblink, True Love slashing through weapon, armor, and flesh alike with no more difficulty than the air of the chamber. The wizard raised his staff, mouth opening in the words of a spell, but his staff was split in two before he could utter a syllable.

Galbus held his Blade a hair’s breadth from the dark wizard’s throat. He leaned in, three words tearing themselves from his lips. “Where. Is. She.” The wizard gulped, frozen in place. “I-I don’t know who you’re speaking of. Who are you looking for?” True Love moved closer still to the man’s throat. “My betrothed. Your men took her last night. My Blade should have led me to her, but all it could find was a room filled with ash. Tell me where you’ve hidden her and I might let you live.” Galbus’s voice shook with barely contained emotion, but True Love’s point never quivered. “Please.” The wizard begged. “Please, I did not know she was so important to you!” He tried to back away, but Galbus moved forward, forcing him against the wall of the room. “Where. Is. She.” The wizard whimpered, eyes fixed on Galbus’s half-crazed stare. “Dead.” He finally whispered. “I… did not need so many subjects for my experiments as I thought. Ordered the men to kill the extra and burn their bodies. Please, I will do anything. Do not kill me.”

His plea fell on deaf ears. Galbus sank to the floor, and this time I not only heard but saw his heart break. I can honestly say that in all my life, only once before that day and never after have I seen anything near to matching the pain I saw in his eyes. The glow of True Love’s ruby winked out, dead as its master’s beating heart.

The wizard stared at Galbus, then slowly slid along the wall past him. As he realized the man was too stricken with sorrow to kill him, the wizard’s sneer returned. “Weak.” He laughed. “So weak. Why care for the worthless lives of others? Nothing truly matters except for power.” He went to gesture to his men, to have them kill the helpless, grieving man on the floor, then stopped. He looked down at his chest in surprise, staring at the knife embedded to the hilt just where a normal person would have had their heart. He looked back up, took a step towards me, then fell dead to the floor. I looked down at my hand, which held a second knife ready to throw. Shaking myself, I leapt from the floor and threw the knife at the guard that held my sword.

I sat beside a pile of corpses, wiping the blood clean from my sword. In the other room, Galbus sat alone as silent and still as a corpse. I stared at the blood staining the rag I was using. A blade can kill and harm without remorse, but neglect to clean the blood away and before long that blade will be rusted and useless. A pitiful, worthless thing, to be hated and despised by all.

“What would you give to undo your mistakes?” The voice came from the darkness of the corridor. A pair of glowing eyes appeared in it. “What would you do to change the Ending you have been given?” Into the flickering torchlight of the chamber stepped Eof. “What is he who was once Nameless willing to risk so that this Thread will be safe?”