In the dark depths of the river that carved its way through the island, a figure stirred beneath the surface, caught in the current that had flowed since crafted by the True Creator in ages past. The Varn River flowed from the center of Eldara Island through to the sprawling city of Alderbridge before emptying into the Sea of Eldara.

  The water, once known for the purity that had fostered Alderbridge’s growth from a woodland settlement to the capital city of the Eldamris Empire, was now dark and chilling, holding within it whispers of ancient secrets, and shadows of the Cosmics that loomed over the realm, seldom seen but palpably present. This river, a lifeline to the city’s heart, now cradled a man who had made a pact with something beyond mortal comprehension and emerged bound to an existence far beyond the ordinary.

  The man gasped as he broke the surface of the water, his lungs aching for air as if he had been holding his breath for an eternity. Panic clawed at his mind as the cold water clawed at his flesh, the weight of his clothes dragging him down like chains. His limbs, heavy and uncooperative, flailed against the river’s embrace as he struggled to keep his head above water.

  As he fought against the river’s grasp, flashes of memory cut through the fog in his mind. But even those fragments of his previous life slowly faded away. A wife, her face masked, her name forgotten. A house overlooking the river, not but a red door remaining in his mind. A daughter.

  Elisia.

  Her smile when he told a bad joke. The way she stomped her foot when she was angry. The way she would slip a piece of meat to the dog when she thought he wasn’t looking. His darling Elisia.

  The man slipped back under the water. His muscles screamed as he forced them to propel himself back to the surface.

  Under the water, he remembered the helplessness. Shadows descending on his home, extinguishing the beacons of light he had called family in a tempest of blood and violence. Elisia, dead at his feet. Backing up to the balcony, his blade, red with blood, waving frantically, and then, the river, its waters a cold embrace blocking out everything that wished to follow him.

  There, in that dark abyss, he had heard it—a voice that was not a voice, a presence that filled the spaces between the stars and the depths of the sea. It was a far cry from what he imagined the voice of the True Creator, the god he had been raised to worship, to be. Instead, it was the Faceless God, a cosmic being of unimaginable power and inscrutable motives. It had come to him, offering salvation and vengeance in return for servitude.

  Suddenly out of the darkness of the river, he found himself in a cavernous hall. At the end of the dimly lit room was a throne, carved of marble and embossed with faces—their expressions all twisted, some of laughter, some of horror, some crying tears of blood, and others with the blank face that could only come with the complete brain death of one foolish to struggle with powers beyond mankind’s ability to comprehend.

  On that throne sat the Faceless God.

  One does not look at God, nor a Cosmic, those pseudo-deities that had forced their way into our plane of existence thousands of years ago and murdered the True Creator. Some say the world had ended that day and mankind has since existed in its twilight years, awaiting that moment when they realized they had already died. People have kept their heads down since that fateful day. They trust others less and keep to themselves more for fear of letting in something beyond their control. Only a fool would risk staring evil straight in the face.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  But the man had done more than look at that face. Fragments of its visage were all that remained. The remaining skin was dry and desiccated. Maggot-like creatures crawled beneath, sometimes breaking through the skin and leaving holes, but leaving a ghastly green concoction that seemed to miraculously repair the damage left in its wake. And the teeth—sharp and immaculately white, a sharp contrast to the decay that surrounded them. Just thinking about it now and the man could feel his heart begin to beat out of his chest.

  Elisia. Elisia.

  The man thought of his daughter, bringing her face to his mind as a shield.

  Grounding the Church called it. He remembered learning it in his Sunday school. It was a way to resist the corruption of the Cosmics by repeating the True God’s prayers. He had done and seen too much to use those prayers now. He would have to use his daughter’s name, and pray it was enough to hold onto his sanity.

  Elisia. Elisia.

  This foolish, desperate man had looked at the Faceless God head on, and when it offered him a pact, he took it. With that pact came power, an unnatural strength that now surged through his veins, battling the fatigue and rebuilding his muscles. Slowly, painfully, he began to gain ground against the river’s pull. His strokes became more deliberate, more effective. The memories of his family, of the night he lost everything, fueled his body and at last he broke through the surface of the water again.

  Alderbridge loomed ahead, its spires and smokestacks casting long shadows over the water. The river carried him East, delivering him from the wilderness into the heart of the human domain. As the river widened into more traveled and controlled waters, the current weakened. As he flowed past the outer walls of the city—modern ceremonial things meant to control the flow of good more than stop an invading army—and approached the ancient stone walls of the old city, he found the strength to pull himself to the bank, his hands grappling on the muddy shore until at last he dragged himself out of the water. Nobody paid him any attention. He was not the first body that had washed up on the shore, perhaps not even the first one that night. The mudlarks would come round in the morning and collect him along with any other garbage they could sell. If they found him still alive, then the Church Inquisitors would likely be called, and the less said about them the better.

  The man closed his eyes as his breathing slowly returned to normal. This time, instead of memories of the past, fragments of the future were brought to his mind. He saw a hidden church, tucked away in a forgotten alleyway, and a man whose face was half in shadow. Then the scene changed, this time to a dockyard, and above it stood a man overlooking those below him like a king overseeing his kingdom. No words were said, but the man knew these were the first tasks of the Faceless God.

  The man saw these things and wished for them to fade away, ready to embrace the void for good. But even as he lay there, the fragments of his memories returned. Elisia’s laugh. His wife’s touch. The pact with the Faceless God had likely damned him for an eternity, but there was a reason he was willing to pay that price.

  Elisia. Elisia.

  His breathing stabilized. He opened his eyes and pulled himself slowly to his feet. He took one last look at the river. It had been both a cradle and a grave to him, and now he had emerged to something wholly new. He turned his back on the river and took his first unsteady steps into the capital. The gas lights hummed, casting their light over the quiet streets for a few more hours until dawn would finally break. The man knew he had to get off the streets before that happened. He continued on, his steps stronger now. In the heart of the empire, under the watchful gaze of horrors from an unseen world, he would find his revenge as a man without a name, a servant to a god without a face.