‘Put down your weapons,’ I said, keeping the Sisyphus Artifact held above my head for all to see. Some of the cultists did, some of them didn’t. ‘Put down your weapons,’ I said again, this time taking on the air of command.

  Only a handful, now, still held theirs, but I’d done enough that the attack was over; even if those few remaining sceptics tried anything, there were more than enough cultists presumably now on my side.

  The loud-mouth cultist who’d started the attack was one of those still holding his weapon, adjusting his grip on his mace as he stared me down. ‘What about Yusef? He gave us a direct order. It’s him we follow, not—’

  ‘You want Player blood on hands?’ Lillya demanded of him.

  The man seemed lost for words.

  ‘Hmm?’ the orc pressed him. From the man’s darting, wide eyes, I could see that this simple question had taken the wind from his sails.

  ‘He has a point,’ Hualya said. When the orc turned on her, she hastily put up her hands. ‘I’m not saying we attack again, I’m not. But what do we do now? Do we return to Yusef and explain that we failed? Or, worse, that we disobeyed?’

  It was Lillya’s turn, now, to not have an answer. I saw the woman lick her lips before finally replying, ‘We will think about this.’ From the expressions worn by her fellow cultists, this wasn’t a good enough answer for some, but it was the only answer they had.

  I cast a look back over my shoulder at the rest of our party, who were stopped some way ahead of us, but making no effort to join Val and I’s side. Sensible, really; they didn’t know what was going on, and there could be another attack at any moment, for all they knew. I’d have to let them know what I’d done, but before that…

  I turned to Val, expecting a grimace on her face, or some visceral reaction to the reminder that I was the son of a Player. But instead, when I turned, she simply returned to healing the wound on my shoulder once more. ‘You OK?’ I asked her.

  ‘I’m OK.’

  ‘With what I… with what I did, I mean.’

  Val nodded, sparing a second to look up at me. ‘I know.’

  ‘You’re OK?’ I repeated.

  ‘I’m getting there.’

  Lillya approached before we could move this very stilted conversation along any further. ‘They not happy,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah, I got that,’ I replied. ‘You think they’re gonna attack again? I mean, we did kill half their friends.’ I was probably good to get that point out there.

  The orc shrugged. ‘Not really friends. Yusef not like us get close. If we close then maybe we not report heresy.’

  ‘Seems like a lovely guy,’ Val said.

  To this, Lillya had no response.

  ‘We’re going to need to ask you some questions,’ I said. ‘About Yusef.’ I left out the part about “so we can kill him”; I didn’t think that would go down so well, even with someone who was clearly having doubts.

  Lillya nodded, then glanced back at the others in orange robes. ‘OK. Not here.’

  I agreed, as we didn’t want anyone else overhearing. Worst case scenario, they attacked us again for it, and even the best case was that they’d report it back to Yusef. I opened a portal next to us, and we stepped through it, appearing next to the rest of the Slayers.

  ‘Care to explain how you ended their attack?’ Corminar asked. ‘I assume it was not simply your supposed smooth talking?’

  Arzak glanced down to the artifact, still in my hand, and she understood immediately. ‘He prove he son of Player.’ Her eyes flicked to Val, who shrugged.

  ‘He did,’ the witch replied.

  I turned to Lillya, wanting to move the conversation on. Corminar and even Raelas knew enough of all this that Val’s reaction would prompt further questions. Admittedly, Tokas and Lambkin were in the dark, the latter of which had eyes bulging at this new piece of information. ‘Lillya, you know you’re in a tricky position here, right?’

  The orc in orange nodded. ‘We go back to Yusef, he kill us. We fail him. But will not kill you either.’

  ‘So I have to ask,’ I continued, ‘what do you value more, your loyalty to him, or your life? Cos if it’s the former, then by all means, go back to him, get killed. I won’t stop you. But if you quite enjoy living, then maybe you can adjust your faith ever so slightly and worship Players in general, rather than him specifically?’

  Val opened her mouth, and I knew exactly what she was about to say—that Players shouldn’t be worshipped, that they were evil, and so on. But I shook my head at her; she was right, but with people as far gone as Lillya, it was best to take this one step at a time.

  ‘I need…’ Lillya shook her head, then pulled up a shirt sleeve to reveal a gaping wound.

  There was an opportunity to win some goodwill here. ‘Val, would you…’ I said, gesturing to the orc’s arm. The witch nodded and set about working.

  In the meantime, I saw Corminar approach a figure in orange who had wandered closer to the camp. Ted, watching on, apparently hesitant. As Corminar grew close to the enchanter, the elf stood up straight, making an effort to stand over the young man. I couldn’t hear quite what was said next, but I could see Corminar growling it, and I could see Ted’s head shrinking down between his shoulders. A moment later, the elf pointed back to the rest of the cultists, some way away, and wandered back over to us.

  I watched Ted slink away as my elven friend approached. ‘You let him live?’ I asked.

  Corminar nodded. ‘I told him that I spared his life, but in doing so, I invoke the power of the Dawnwood. I place upon him a blood debt, his essence bound to mine until he saves my life as I did his.’

  I raised my eyebrows. It wasn’t a voluntary reaction. ‘And… that’s a thing? A blood debt?’

  Corminar smiled, and for a moment I glimpsed the old Corminar—the one from before he’d watched his home fall to the enemy. The one… not completely unbroken, but at least far less broken than he’d been since then. ‘It is not,’ the elf replied. ‘But he does not know this.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘We might live to regret that.’

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  ‘He is my charge now,’ the elf replied. ‘If he causes issues, I will deal with him, but I believe there might be something within him worth saving.’

  ‘I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.’

  Corminar smiled. ‘Perhaps one day, I will be able to demonstrate. Until then, though…’ He gestured to Lillya, freshly healed, being helped back to her feet by Val.

  ‘It’s time to talk,’ I told her. I made an effort to keep my voice calm, and gentle. We were all friends here.

  What came out of Lillya’s mouth next, I did not expect. ‘I have doubt about Yusef anyway.’

  I glanced to the others, who also remained quiet, this silence apparently intended to urge Lillya on. But the orc needed more prompting. ‘You… have doubts? You don’t think he’s a Player?’

  Lillya shook her head furiously. ‘No, not this. I know he Player. My doubts about his prophecies.’

  My mind flashed to Lore. Clearly Yusef’s prophecies were convincing enough to my friend, and he currently was the sort of guy who would know, considering he was dealing with some of his own. ‘They’re not coming true?’

  ‘No, I…’ Lillya gulped.

  ‘You can tell us,’ Arzak said, catching the other orc’s eyes. ‘We might help.’

  Still, the orc in orange looked hesitant, but she was smart enough to know that there was no other way. She couldn’t return to Yusef, and Yusef wasn’t the kind of guy to let betrayal go unpunished. Her only hope of survival was for us to kill the head of the cult before he killed her. ‘I think his gift of prophecy flawed,’ Lillya finally said.

  ‘They’re not coming true?’

  ‘No, they come true, but… how say this? I think reason he know all he know is because of spies. He have thousands of spies. All report information to him. Each of them not contribute so much that they suspect him, but contribute enough together that he knows all. Enough information make his Divination look powerful.’

  Ah.

  Arzak and Lambkin nodded, and Corminar and Val were considering this thoughtfully. But across the group, I met Tokas’s eyes. From the look on the tiefling’s face, I knew we’d reached the same conclusion. We’d been the only ones within the town, before the trap had been sprung. Only we had experienced the truth, rather than simply knowing the key pieces of information.

  ‘OK,’ Arzak said, ‘so he supplement Divination with spies. Not all-powerful, then. We stand chance.’

  ‘No,’ Tokas and I said at once. The tiefling immediately hesitated, yielding the floor to me.

  But I shook my head. ‘No, Tokas. You tell them. You understand this more than me.’

  The tiefling gulped, but then drew in a deep breath to speak. ‘Don’t you see? He’s fooling everyone. He’s fooling his followers, his enemies… maybe even the Council themselves. He’s a…’

  Tokas shook her head to herself.

  ‘I need to go back a bit, to explain this properly. Do you remember, a few days ago, I asked to see a map?’ Before anyone could answer, she continued, ‘It’s because I had this suspicion even then. It’s because I felt Illusion magicks in the air. I almost wondered if that village wasn’t real, or if it wasn’t as big as it looked.’

  Val shrugged. ‘OK? We know there’s been some illusions at play, we just saw a whole town disappear in front of our eyes.’

  ‘But that’s my point,’ Tokas continued, ‘it might not just be one town. How many traps did he lay for us? Did he really think Lillya would be successful, or did he have a backup plan? And a backup plan for that backup plan?’

  ‘We don’t know that he operates like that.’

  Tokas held up a finger to beg to Val’s patience. ‘Oh but we do. That level of Illusion magick, that is extreme. To create illusions of entire towns? You would need dozens of skilled illusionists. Or…’

  ‘One very powerful person who has been training in Illusion their entire life,’ I finished.

  Tokas nodded.

  ‘You’re saying…’

  ‘I’m saying Lillya was right to have doubts about his prophesies,’ I said. ‘But not just because he’s supplementing them. Because he’s never foreseen anything in his life.’

  The orc in orange almost choked at this.

  ‘All these prophecies? Everything he’s seen coming—our presence here, our attacks—it’s because his spies told him it was coming. He’s had people watching us this entire time. Dozens of them. A whole church desperate to tell him even the slightest piece of information that might help him, that he might reward them for. He’s not a prophet at all. He’s a false prophet.’

  Tokas nodded. ‘He’s a con man.’