On the edge of the ruins’ rim laid the body of Goor the Undubbed, half-dead. Following a hellish climb up the slopes surrounding the massive crater where castles and towers used to occupy, reduced thusly to memories without owners, the battered locksmith could only collapse and allow the dearth of energy to accommodate his rest as he felt the rotating earth beneath his stomach carry him further and further away from the Sun. His bags of gold spilled across the dirt.
Then he felt the ground rumble heartily with the rhythmic galloping of some kind, approaching closer until it settled a few feet away from the back of his head. He peered around to be greeted with a hideous, abominable sight of a creature: a familiar sight that had not once put Goor at ease but one which he was familiar with nonetheless. His tripede stood at his side with its neutral expression, conveying non-reactions to its dying rider. Goor shut his eyes and allowed himself to go limp. The last thing he recalled was being grabbed by his ragged arm and dragged off into the distance, his head colliding with the nearest rock planted on the desert plains.
Goor gazed at the darkness and for a moment, readied himself for a plunge towards the burning pit, but the sensation did not arrive. Instead, he discovered himself lying awake on a beach, ritualistically encroached by sloshing waves, his back to the uneven bed of blackened sand. He got up and scanned his surroundings, only to spot an old wooden house, hanging precariously from a nearby cliff, ready to fall at a moment’s notice. It took him but a few minutes to register the view as his one true home, a view that he had missed terribly. Next to him were his bags of gold and next to them was a hole and inside that hole was the tripede, standing in place, engaging in an activity that other organisms would deem to be ‘rest.’ The creature tilted its head up toward Goor with the same quaint look, the same expression that Goor, perhaps for the entire span of time he had known this accursed animal, had never been able to decipher. The thing had been the one to return him here and he supposed that he owed it a degree of gratitude. Then again, if he had recalled the details correctly, from his previous life, when he was resurrected on those steps, lost and bereft of knowledge, the tripede appeared glad to allow itself to wander astray alongside him. They would have dallied all through the continent if not for one coincidental encounter with a messenger bird.
Was this creature testing me? He thought to himself. But surely, it was not the same tripede as the one from back then. If I had indeed escaped from that foul monster’s stomach, from its false, fabricated world, then this is in fact my true steed in its true flesh and blood, the one that knows the way back.
The tripede averted its gaze to stare at the wall of dug sand, content in its shadowed hovel, so its owner left it be. Goor, bags of gold in tow, hiked to the very foot of the cliff, taking in the imposing wall of limestone as it towered above him, its passage to the faded clouds only gated by a protruding hunk of wood that he called his home. Since his hands had known nothing but climbing, shimmering and traversing for the last chunk of unarchivable time, it would be child’s play for him to climb just one more surface before he reunited with his bed. And yet, Goor steered himself away from the cliff, instead taking a considerably longer route around the beach, up the slope and through an extended strip of grass that stretched, though peppered with large gaps and missing patches of land, toward the other end of his house, its backend to be exact.
This route, debatably just as, if not more precarious and death-defying to an average messenger, was rarely used by Goor due to his tripede’s insistence on having its hole be dug at the tail-end of the beach rather than the grassland. The cliff was simply a shorter way. The only scenarios in which Goor would think to use it would either be when he arrived alone or carrying certain items that weigh too much on his back. On this special occasion, however, it was simply a nice change of pace. Goor allowed his arms to slacken by his hips and in exchange, his knees to bear the full brunt of his muscular tension as he hopped and stomped his way up the steep passage. A trail of jingling gold serenaded his path to the door.
In his haste and exhaust, he barged through the door without thinking, threw the coins onto the table and summarily collapsed upon it, his arms wrapped around it in a stranglehold. Everything was as it should be: the shelves, the hoards, the furniture, all accounted for according to the report of his ephemeral sight, quickly drawing itself to a close under the rich blackness of his eyelids. Goor dared not think of the ruins and whether indeed he had truly escaped the monster’s wrath or, most unfathomably, remained in one of a trillion more false realities, ever perpetuating even after the monster in question had long been destroyed.
If this truly was the real one which I had returned to, he thought, What was the damned difference, anyhow?
A sharp blade leapt at his head. His residual battle instinct beckoned him to evade. He turned to the side and rose to his feet.
There he was. Hidden in his cloak which blended with the night, brandishing the same dagger that Goor had tussled away from him time and time again, Loiii the assassin stood but a few paces from him, deathly silent. The familiar visage was almost enough for Goor to drop his guard and greet him but he knew it was not to be. For all those previous encounters in his past lives, Goor recalled how his focus on survival had steadily dwindled, knowing that his death would result in yet another rebirth and thus, he had since stopped taking his foe as seriously as he should have had. This time was different. Regardless of whether he shall awaken again in the ruins, he dared not experiment.
Goor evaded the swift arcs of the dagger a few dozen times but did not strike. Rather, when the opportunity presented itself, he grabbed one bag of coins from the table and tossed it at Loiii’s feet. The coins pooled upon the floorboards and they began to hinder his movements.
“If you are wise,” Goor said, “You would accept my boon and leave. I do not wish to hurt you.”
Loiii ignored him and mobilized swiftly to his target’s side for a quick stab. His dagger, however, was discharged from his hand by a hefty swing of Goor’s second bag of coins. Goor held the bag toward the assassin with as much earnest flare as his arm’s tired muscles could manage.
“Take it. Take it all.”
Loiii paused and Goor could see a slight shift in his obscured eyes. He introduced the rest of the bags, piling them up in front of the assassin.
“This should suffice far more than whatever the guild has been paying you,” Goor said, “Perhaps even enough for a retirement.”
Loiii gazed at the pile of money but his body remained composed and tense.
“Consider them my thanks,” Goor said, with an almost hesitant accent in his tone, “It may not be the ‘you’ that I have to thank but I do not have much of a choice in the matter.”
Loiii picked up a coin and held it to the moonlight casted behind it for a test of authentication, watching as it glowed in his pale hand with great warmth.
“Consider my debt paid,” Goor said, more so to himself.
“I recall no debt from you,” Loiii finally responded, “Save for your life.”
“If it troubles your honor to spare me, then by all means, feel free to return here when I am… in a more sporting mood.”
Loiii made no response and his covered face betrayed no confirmation of revenge nor truce. He simply gathered his newfound treasure, greedily hoarding them in his arms, before casually strolling to the backdoor.
“And what of the guild?” Goor asked.
“To hell with them.”
“Ah.”
“And just so you know,” Loiii said, “More men are after your head. At any time. At any place. I believe I should let you know.”
It is all the same, Goor thought. When it comes to the beast’s world and the real one, there appears to be minimal differences.
The backdoor closed and the retreating footsteps of Loiii the assassin faded into obscurity. Goor was tempted to thank him by name but that might unleash a whole other bout of chaos and complications, so he relented. He knew for a fact that his correspondence box would be filled to the brim with spikes. In the coming days, he would engage with gangs of amateur hired hands from the guild with their makeshift weapons and foul-scented cloaks. In the period after that, a giant winged messenger would arrive to notify him that an elderly couple had been locked out of their inn and required the immediate aid of a locksmith. On and on, it went. Everything was the same. And yet at the end of it all laid a key difference: Goor knew not of what could transpire at his time of death. He may awaken on those stone steps. Or he may not. The lack of foreknowledge in such a scenario troubled him but relaxed him somewhat. The beast was slain. This much he knew. All that was left was the unknown.
That night, Goor dreamt that he was on a cliff, overlooking the earth. He was seated in a field of piled boulders and stones, and he was terribly old. A young man bearing his resemblance stood next to him. For a split second, his name was right on Goor’s tongue before it scampered away from his mind. The youngster’s face indicated that he had much to say yet nothing came out. The two men simply stood and absorbed the tranquil mood of the moonlit sky, enthralled in a phantom conversation that had never existed in the first place. Goor knew that through some miraculously specific order of events, at some point in the far future, he would be seated here in this location where this young man would be, and they would properly talk. Perhaps he already had and simply forgotten it. The young man turned to Goor.
“Ready to die, old man?” The young man asked.
“Let us see, lad,” Goor answered before he engaged the young warrior in combat.
All through their fight, Goor was smiling.
—