Brinn surged forwards, snarling, alchemist’s flame raised. Its light overwhelmed the candlelight as it burst from his hand unbidden. He was out of clever ideas. Favel’s heat mana still surged through Brinn’s body, coiling, and he didn’t realize until just then how much it had burned to be used. He grabbed the lich by his coat with his left, dragging him from the chair, pulling him them both to the cold stone floor, thrusting the overcharged spell into the thing’s face as—nothing happened.

  Brinn’s grasping hand held nothing but empty air. His alchemist’s flame simply cast white hot sparks that fell harmlessly to the floor. Even the chair reset to its former position.

  Slowly, Brinn dragged his eyes up. Chair legs. Thin, black lips, still smiling—and the black leather boot slamming into his face. The kick sent him crashing backwards onto his tail-bone. The spell in Brinn’s right hand fizzled out, with nothing to show for it but a few scorch marks on the cracked stone floor.

  Somehow, his psyche had held back the reality of all this. His party—his friends, were dead. Two of them, at least. If this lich didn’t kill him soon; Favel’s mana probably would—he winced as another surge of heat racked through his body. He rolled to his feet, pushing himself up from his knees, and rolled back into a fighting position.

  “Ah, this is just the fighting spirit I wanted from someone like you.”

  Brinn turned, grabbed the closer chair from the table behind him—the one without a corpse in it--and heaved it up and over his shoulders. He smashed the chair over the Bard’s head with his full strength. It bounced when it hit the lich. The wooden frame growing in his vision until it went white. He heard something in his nose break with a pop before the pain came. The world spun.

  “I’ll fucking kill you,” he slurred. It sounded odd. Whiny. Brinn stumbled back towards the table, dazed. The pain seemed to rush in all at once. His head lolled. Something in the back of his mind told him he was done. For the first time in his life, Brinn listened to that little voice. If the Lich was going to kill him, it was going to kill him. He sighed—then coughed as something dislodged, and a rivulet of blood shot down his sinuses. Looking up at the bard, he noticed a painting behind him. A man, in leathers and goggles not unlike Brinn’s own, staring into the sun as he wept. Had that been there the entire time?

  Brinn shook his head and refocused.

  “Are you done?” said the Bard. The grin hadn’t left his face. Something was wrong with that face. It was at some sort of middle point between mummification and skeleton. Skin still seemed to stretch over his face, blackened lips against something nearly as pale as bone—but not quite. Brinn could see little wisps of death mana twisting and crackling around him. In his hand he clutched a glass of red wine. A drop of condensation on the chill glass dripped down onto bony fingers.

  Slowly, Brinn pushed himself to his feet. There was no point in wasting what little dignity he had left. His heart pounded away in his chest, and he could feel the blood rushing in his ears with every beat.

  “What the fuck do you want from me?!” Brinn spat. The nasal tone was still there, and it came out more ragged than he expected. He sounded…small.

  The creature seemed to consider the question for a moment; reaching up to adjust the wide brim of his hat as he adjusted in his chair. With a start, Brinn realized he could smell perfume of all things. This is the only place in the labyrinth—aside from the garden—that wasn’t laden with the smell of death and putrid flesh.

  “First, introductions.” When Brinn opened his mouth to tell him where he could stick his introductions, the bard raised a finger that ticked from side to side like a clock hand. “I can handle it for you. You’re Brinn Lockmere, ‘alchemist adventurer.’ I’m…the bard.” He had given it a pause for dramatic effect, as if he hadn’t been sitting at a piano, with a lute strapped for his back.

  “That’s it, then? ‘The bard?!’ Give me your real name.” Brinn stared, breath racing nearly as fast as his heartbeat.

  He felt a line of blood from his nose reached his chin. He heard some of it drip to the floor as his lips moved.

  “I cast it aside,” said the bard; and took a grim sip from his wine glass.

  Brinn snorted.

  “Sure you did,” he said. Brinn turned and went to leave the room, throwing open the door, ignoring the way the heat mana surging in him heated the doorknob. When he stepped through he walked straight into the study. There the bard sad, at his piano, still grinning. Brinn was zero for two on simply walking out on monstrous liches. He had really expected that to work at least once. “Fuck.”

  “Now that we’ve gotten to know each other,” said the Bard, “Let’s get down to brass tacks.”

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  Brinn wasn’t sure where this was going, but he was already certain he didn’t like it. The bard continued:

  “I’ve been waiting—we’ve been waiting a very long time for someone like you.”

  “An alchemist who makes poor decisions?”

  “A survivor,” said the Bard. “I’ve crafted this entire labyrinth and everything in it just for someone like you. ” Brinn wanted absolutely no part in that.

  “I want absolutely no part in that, thanks.”

  “Oh, don’t worry!” said the lich. He leaned forwards, letting the brim of his hat rise, looking at Brinn with the empty pits where his eyes should have been. Now that it had caught the light, Brinn could see the man’s entire body was covered in an array of thin tattooed sigils. Some of them seemed to shift the longer he tried to focus on them, derive some kind of meaning. The scent of the perfume strengthened as the bard loomed closer, wide brim nearly reaching Brinn’s face. He didn’t break eye contact. He wouldn’t show weakness. He still had some dignity. Maybe. “You just need to keep doing exactly what you’re doing.”

  “And the others?” he said. “Spinny? Greta? What about them?” Brinn took a few hesitant steps forwards. “Or are they just here to die for your amusement too?”

  “Don’t you worry one bit about them,” replied the bard. “All would be revealed in due time.”

  Brinn couldn’t help himself. He swung his fist in a right hook, trying to see if he could catch the bard by surprise—and he did—but all he got for his effort was bruised knuckles. The bard’s face hadn’t even moved when his fist had met jaw. The bard laughed, and it seemed to echo off the walls, overwhelming Brinn from everywhere at once. There was a flutter of shadow, a flick of the heavy fabric of the lich’s dark coat, and he was gone. The only sign he’d ever been there at all was the last echoes of his laughter ringing in Brinn’s ears, and the glass of wine sitting on the piano, still half full. As the laughter faded, he heard a cold voice in his ear.

  “Just remember, lad. You’re your own worst enemy here…”

  Brinn staggered towards the chair by the piano, dragging it away from the instrument—he’d be damned if he was going to rest next to an instrument in a Bard’s labyrinth. He barely managed to sit down just as another wave of fire flashed through his body. Another surge of Favel’s mana. Idly, he wondered if he had to vent it out. Perhaps if he—ah, he thought. He let his alchemist’s flame burn in his palm once more. Not in order to burn anything, just to vent off some of the excess mana in Brinn’s system. If he let it keep surging through him like this it would kill him. If anything, it was something to focus on other than how utterly fucked he was.

  —

  Brinn didn’t know how long he sat there, barely conscious, venting heat mana into the air around him. His arms were heavy. His body was shaking from the constant flow of mana that wasn’t his. Over and over his mind replayed the events of the last few days. Amelia’s horrific stitched undead. The look in her eye as the Bloodleaf in her tea took effect. Favel, one palm raised. Alexander, struggling to hold the thrashing figure still in his arms. He was surprised how long it all took to build up in his system. In his other hand, he held the wine glass He twirled it gently, just as the bard had.

  As he sat, brooding over the fact he hadn’t stayed in his shop, Brinn stared into the painting on the wall opposite him. He could see it better, now that the bard was out of the way. The adventurer’s face was turned towards him. Greasy hair fell down to his shoulders. The sun shown behind him in blinding radiance, but there were clouds approaching from either side. It must have been a few hours since he’d woken up on the edge of the crater. Maybe several. But eventually the spell began to die down—where at first it had flared white hot in Brinn’s hand and set a giant gout of flame into the air; now it was a thin blue stream of flame. It reminded him of the pressurized torches some artificers used.

  Now that the built up mana was—for the time being—no longer threatening to burn him up from the inside out, Brinn cut the spell, and laid his head in his hands. He could figure out what to do later. Whatever was outside of the walls of teh study would still be there when he left. He wondered if he could use some of the tea set in order to brew some potions—but anything he made wouldn’t last. Nothing to seal the mana in with. He had hoped that spending some time with his eyes closed would ease his mind, but found it only brought on more thoughts of death, and despair. Restless, he stood, ready to wander out in the labyrinth; damn what comes next—it would clearly lead him to whatever else the bard had planned for him next anyways.

  He opened his eyes and—the painting. It was different this time, Brinn was certain. It was a portrait—of a man in leathers over a white tunic, looking straight at Brinn, tears on his face. The man had goggles resting just past his hairline, and the tears were running down his face now. There was something about the face that he couldn’t quite place, something that stirred discomfort deep in him.

  Brinn stared, confused, as one of the spilling lines tears pooled up at the lip of the frame, and then dripped over the edge. Silvery—white paint fell to the cracked stone floor; the tiny droplet splattered. The man seemed to lean closer, and Brinn stumbled away in horror as he realized he was staring directly into his own face. He turned, and charged for the door, fumbling at it quickly. He spared a glance over his shoulder.

  An arm had reached out of the portrait, grabbing the edge of the frame. Its fingers went out past its borders, leaving dripping stains of peach paint on the wall around the painting. Another arm burst from the opposite side, grabbed, and heaved. Brinn heaved, too, but the door was locked. He could hear the bard’s laughter echoing, again, in his mind; it taunted him, and Brinn really wished he had downed that glass of wine. Even if it was poisoned.

  “This better work,” he said as the first of the creature’s feet met the ground. The entire thing was a slightly off color, dripping amalgamation of liquid formed into a nearly identical copy of himself. If it weren’t for the way the painting flowed and moved, if it stood perfectly stilll, he’d have thought he was looking into a mirror. Brinn summoned his alchemist flame once last time, and set it to the top hinge of the door, praying to whatever gods might listen that whatever Favel had done to his mana would be enough to do the trick.