The Trickster led Denholm through the night, his lamplight an ever-present beacon to follow. He slunk effortlessly through the tangled forest, the complete opposite of Denholm’s constant stumbling caused by roots and lumps catching his feet.

  “Do you have any water?” Denholm asked after what might have been an hour of following the Trickster in silence.

  The Trickster didn’t answer him right away. Yet, a few minutes later, though their track had not deviated, they miraculously came upon a stream. Convenient. Uncomfortably convenient. The Trickster simply stopped and waited until Denholm was finished drinking from his cupped hands.

  “Thanky–” he tried to say, but the Trickster had already picked up the course again. Denholm struggled to keep up, and stayed quiet after that.

  A long time later, they at last came upon somewhere that wasn’t simply more trees. In fact, though he still couldn’t see past the small cone of lamplight, the ground had turned grassy and smooth again. Another grassy glade? Well, Denholm certainly wasn’t going to gripe about that. He could hardly walk through the Darkwood without hurting himself. And certainly, if he was meant to fight a god, he would like it to be on sure footing.

  He tried to see further, but it was all black. So much so that something seemed wrong about it. There weren’t even vague shapes of hills and valleys. It was like the entire world was just gone anywhere that was outside of the lamplight. When he looked to the sky, it was the same. It could just be a cloudy night, he supposed. But maybe it was something else.

  After a short walk more through the far kinder grasslands, the Trickster abruptly stopped. So abruptly, Denholm almost knocked his head into the lantern. If there was one thing that unnerved him more than anything, it was how unlike a person this Trickster moved. There was never a pause to take in the surroundings, never even a turn of the head. Just a straightforward, calculated march. Which made it quite the suprise to see him now standing motionless, the lantern swining on its hinged handle in the breeze. Denholm had forgotten how much he loved the feeling of wind on his skin. The Darkwood had been completely windless.

  For the first time in hours, the Trickster decided to speak. “Be ready to use the knife I gave you. The goddess is dangerous. If you let her speak to you, she will manipulate you into joining with her. I assure you that it would be more painful than death.” There was something strange behind the voice, like a low, hissy giggle. Denholm didn’t have the time to question things, though.

  He tightened his grip around the hilt and nodded. “I can do it.”

  “You will do it.” Something resentful bled through the voice this time.

  “I will do it,” Denholm said quietly.

  “And afterwards, we will both have what we want. Your debt to me will be repayed.”

  “Debt?”

  The masked Trickster's only response was to continue on walking. Only, for the first time, he changed direction.

  Denholm followed him, making a few practice swipes with his dagger. Their new path took them down a sloping hill, and something seemed familiar about it, but Denholm couldn’t place it. He supposed it was just the fact of him being on grass again that reminded him of the Glade, but something more itched at the back of his mind, something about the way the air smelled. Every so often, a waft of something sweet touched his senses.

  One time, Denholm sniffed the air, trying to get a better sense of it. For some reason, it caused the Trickster to look over his shoulder back at him, the first real reaction he’d got from it.

  Once they reached the bottom of the hill, the Trickster stopped and turned to face him. “Her domain is close now. I must remove my mask so I may remain hidden from her.”

  As he pulled off the white mask, Denholm shuddered. Underneath, there was… well, not a whole face. Only a pair of eyes floating in darkness, and those eyes were set vertical instead of horizontally like a normal person’s. He, it, or whatever the dark mass was, then held out the mask towards Denholm.

  “Take it. As long as she does not know your identity, she will not be able to hurt you as easily. This is the opposite for humans and Tricksters.” He proffered it closer. “And thus, you must wear it.”

  Denholm tried to think of an excuse, but fear swallowed him. He couldn’t help but simply do as was asked of him. Anything to avoid angering the dark mass that he now saw the creature guiding him for. It fit badly on his face at first, but it soon cinched tighter of its own volition. So tight that when Denholm tried to pull it back off, he found it resisting him.

  “Stop. Stop doing that,” the Trickster hissed.

  Denholm’s fingers froze, and then his hands dropped to his sides again.

  His breath was hot against his own face as he was led on yet further. Around the two of them, the small circle of grass the lamp gave light to was changing, both in color and in texture. It wasn’t long before what they walked upon was something that looked like raw flesh in various shades from pale green to almost crimson. It was a tangled gnarl of layered fleshy bits, wispy and overlapping, like a mat of lichens and mosses. Under his feet, however, it still felt the same as normal grass–though if anything, that bothered him even more than if it had drastically changed in feel. He wanted to vomit looking at it, so he forced himself to focus on the Trickster's dark silhouette in front of him instead.

  Eventually, another light came into view ahead of them. An isolated mote, not unlike their own patch of lamplight. Inside it was a lady… that was the first word that came to Denholm’s mind. Not a girl, not a woman, not an evil goddess either. A lady. She sat at the center of her circle of illumination, a dejected expression on her features, her hands picking anxiously at the tufts of fleshy grass. She wasn’t actually doing anything with the bits she picked up, just tossing them aside. If Denholm wasn’t mistaken, he could hear her whimpering softly. Even so far away, the sound was carried to his ears by the breeze.

  The rest of the way, they approached more slowly. Denholm understood without having to ask that they needed to be sneaky now. As they got close enough to see her in more detail, Denholm only grew more struck by her appearance.

  For all that the Trickster claimed she was an evil goddess who had done many bad things, her appearance could not have seemed more opposite. She had brilliant blue skin that shimmered with glittering undertones whenever he looked from a slightly different angle. Her clothes were brilliant and gold, embroidered with images of dragons and wingless serpeants, and sewn so deftly there were no seams visible at all. The only mildly off-putting aspect about her was the fact that she had several mouths instead of just one, placed all over her face seemingly at random. They probably would have been much scarier if they ever opened, but right now, they were all closed. Besides that, she could have been called magnificent, beautiful, even. But evil?

  “You said she has done bad things?” Denholm whispered to the Trickster.

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

  “She is the most evil. She is one who keeps adventurers like you from leaving their oases and finding their true destiny.”

  “How does she do that?”

  “Oh, I think you know very well how. Think back to your own struggles with leaving the Glade, all that weighed you down. Like I told you before, I felt you waver. She almost kept you from leaving, from finding me.” The Trickster turned its not-face towards Denholm, its eyes cycling from side to side instead of blinking. “You wouldn't forgive the being that almost kept you from godhood, would you?”

  Denholm frowned. He had never seen this lady, or goddess, whatever she was. Maybe… she used her powers to stay hidden while she did what he was talking about? Still, something didn’t entirely add up. Sure, Denholm yearned to be an adventurer, even though it had turned out to be a disaster at first. And if he never had, he knew his whole life would have been spent bitter, thinking about it. But was keeping people from leaving really that bad if even someone like Denholm couldn’t make it alone out there? Maybe she was really saving people.

  “Has she ever… actually hurt anyone?” Denholm asked cautiously, trying not to let on his growing unsurety.

  She finally noticed the two of them watching her.

  The Trickster instantly vanished.

  Leaving Denholm alone, facing a goddess, knife hidden behind his back.

  “Who… who is that?” The voice sounded almost familiar, but changed more and more with each passing word, becoming hollow and daunting, inhuman and unlike anything he had ever heard. None of her mouths moved when she spoke, not even the one that was in the right spot. Denholm almost answered before he remembered. Can’t let her know who I am. That’s what he said was dangerous.

  “I’m… I’m a boy.”

  She finally ceased tearing bits of flesh-grass. “Well, I’m a girl. So what?”

  Denholm frowned. This was how an ancient goddess talked? Like a kid throwing insults. Like Denholm and his friends did. Then again, maybe that was what made gods immortal. After all, becoming an adult was no different than begging the universe to come up with ways to kill you. Probably, as soon as you stopped acting like a kid was what made you start to grow old and then die. Maybe gods just stayed like children.

  Denholm shook his head. Focus!

  An idea. Maybe, if she wanted to act like a child, he could follow along. “Do you want some help pulling up grass?”

  “Sure,” she said, then went back to doing just that.

  Denholm approached, giddy that his plan worked so well. He sat down in front of her, crossed his legs just like she was, set his knife down behind him–still hidden–and began to pick at the flesh grass as well. Despite his fears, it felt–and smelled, for that matter–just like normal grass.

  “What’s that mask?” she asked.

  “I found it,” Denholm answered.

  “Why don’t you take it off? Can I see it?”

  Denholm froze.

  “NO!” A voice hissed from behind him, causing Denholm to flinch.

  “Fine, then. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings,” the goddess said.

  Denholm looked at her for several seconds, confused, until he realized. She didn’t hear that voice. She thinks I was reacting to her.

  “No,” Denholm said quietly. “It’s ok. I just like it. Maybe you can wear it later.”

  She paused picking her grass only long enough to smile and glance at him. “Well, Mr.Mask, you sound like Denholm,” she said kindly, bundling up her hands in her lap as she said his name.

  Denholm’s breath caught.

  She smiled at his reaction. “You know everyone’s out looking for–”

  “IT DIDN’T WORK. KILL HER NOW!” The same hissing voice, this time from a different direction, and so loud it overshadowed the rest of what the goddess was saying.

  Denholm’s heart jumped into action, beating a storm inside him.

  Without really trying to, he found himself back on his feet and stumbling away from her. She quickly rose to follow him. “Denholm, wait!”

  Realization. He stopped backpedaling and lunged for the knife he had left on the ground, bulling past her and knocking her aside, causing the goddess to scream out in pain.

  Back on his feet, breathing faster than a field mouse, holding the knife, he ran.

  “Wait!” she wailed after him. Close behind by the sound of it. “Denholm!”

  He risked a glance over his shoulder and immediately yelped in panic. Hundreds of snakes were emerging from the mouths all over her. They were hissing and snapping at him.

  “USE THE KNIFE NOW OR YOU WILL DIE.” The voice came from ahead of him now, but there was no trace of anyone inside the circle of light or past its edges either.

  Denholm gritted his teeth and turned to face her, but he slipped several times before regaining his balance. The ground was wet and slick beneath him, and the color of vomit.

  “Who are you?” Denholm asked, frantic.

  She kept running at him.

  “USE THE KNIFE!”

  “Stop pretending!” She could hardly speak through her sobbing. “It’s not funny anymore!” Something was familiar about that expression.

  “NOW!”

  In his mind, he was suffocating. He knew something was wrong, but he couldn’t find another way. He believed the Trickster now. He truly felt like he was about to die if he did nothing. He thrust the glowing blade in front of him and let her fall into it. Just before the knife plunged into her chest, her face flickered and became someone else's.

  Silvi.

  Red blood ran hot between Denholm’s fingers. Her eyes went wide with shock and her mouth fell open at the betrayal of it. There was a moment of pause before her legs faltered, where Denholm watched as the illusion dissolved. Her golden robes burned up in smokeless fire, revealing Silvi’s simple brown and white suspenders, and the ground that had been yellow and mottled changed into what it really was: dark brown soul. Over where they had been sitting together, the fleshy tangle became green again. The blanket of impenetrable darkness lifted, revealing a dull sheen of moonlight over everything. And now he could see them. The thatched roofs, the smoke billowing chimneys. Home. They were on the edge of their town. Not in a glade, but in their Glade. Lastly, and most potent to his senses, he finally noticed the rain.

  The dagger poofed into smoke within his fingers. Her corpse dropped into the rapidly thickening mud, and she didn’t move anymore. Not even a twitch. Denholm watched his hand in front of his face as the downpour cleaned away the blood. Something felt wrong about how quickly it happened. After only moments, he could pretend that the crimson had never been there at all, that none of what he had done was real. Denholm tried to hold onto that delusion, and he found he almost could.

  It was then he noticed something cold and ridig suddenly appear inside his other closed fist. He opened quivering fingers and found a key held in it, a metal key inscribed with three words: ‘Marked for passage.’

  At the end of the mud-slick road, a movement drew Denholm's attention. It was the Trickster, standing there, his fancy clothes untouched by the rain. The pale mask was somehow back on his face, and it looked, for the most part, no different than the first moment he had seen it. Smiling blackly, just perhaps just one notch wider. The Trickster raised an avian, claw-like hand and snapped taloned fingers.

  He vanished, and now Denholm could see the lights that had been hidden behind his body. Off in the distance, but coming quickly, was a mob of people carrying torches. And yelling.

  Yelling Denholm’s name.

  His gaze went back to Silvi, lying there half-submerged in the muddy water. The rain was so quick that this street was practically half a river. Denholm looked at the key in his hand one more time before he turned and ran. All he wanted was to get far enough away that he wouldn’t be able to hear their reactions when they found her body.

  He didn’t stop running until he was far past the treeline, swallowed into the Darkwood once more.