A few days later, Martin received word that the revolver had been sacrificed and the Faceless God was pleased, but what exactly that meant, he wasn’t sure. He felt no different. In fact, he felt slightly more exposed than before, knowing that someone from Martin’s past was out there looking for revenge. He had to wait another day for word on that, with Jacques again asking him to meet in the Military Quarter. Martin had avoided the quarter since that day in Oddscog’s shop just out of precaution. Now it was time to risk it again in search of answers.

  The address Jacques had sent him was on the outskirts of the Military Quarter, outside of the old walls of the city, where a number of retired servicemen and sailors had settled down with their families. Military pensions were enough to secure some basic housing for families, and veterans who were still healthy enough to work often supplemented their income with day jobs. Although none of the houses in this neighborhood could be called luxurious, they had a quiet comfort that surprised Martin. His own house was purchased with Martin and Boudica’s parents' money. It had long since slipped into a quiet disrepair, and it was only thanks to Boudica’s spendthrift nature and economy that her husband hadn’t drunk and gambled them out of it.

  He found the address easily enough. Jacques was waiting on a bench nearby, telling a story to the neighborhood children. Martin let him finish the final battle before approaching. Jacques bid farewell to his newfound friends and led Martin to the door of a house. Martin had grown accustomed to elaborate coded knocks from Jacques, but this time, he was disappointed to hear just a simple three knocks. Jacques seemed to have read his mind as he glanced over to Martin and whispered, “Any more or less and it unleashes the shotgun.”

  Before Martin could respond, the door opened and an elderly woman stuck her head out.

  “Yes?’

  “Good afternoon, Madam,” Jacques said with a bow. “My name is Gustav. I spoke to your grandson earlier. This is Martin, one of your husband’s former officers.”

  “Ah, yes, he mentioned you would come round. Please come in, Ioan will be happy to see you.”

  The woman opened the door fully and let the two men inside. She led them into the living room, where a man sat dozing in a chair, a folded-up newspaper on his lap. He woke up with a start when his wife gently shook him.

  “What’s that? Who’s there?” His feeble arms rose and made a fist as if to ward off would-be attackers.

  “Sweetie, it’s me. You have visitors.”

  The man relaxed slowly, and his eyes refocused on the two men standing in the doorway. He gazed at Jacques without recognition, but let out a gasp upon seeing the man behind him.

  “Martin!”

  “Good afternoon, Ioan, my name is Gustav, and you of course, remember Martin. We’ve come to ask you a few questions if you don’t mind.”

  “I…I…I…”

  “Let them come in, sweetie.” His wife said softly, her hand resting comfortingly on his shoulder. “He’s always so secretive about his time in the service, but I always say it’s best to talk about your concerns. That’s the best way to heal. All the modern thinkers are saying it.”

  “How right you are, ma’am,” Jacques said, “I think a chance to catch up with an old companion will do them both a world of good.”

  Ioan said nothing but nodded slightly to gesture them into the room. Martin and Jacques settled into the sofa, and Ioan’s wife left, beaming and muttering about making a lovely pot of tea. A silence settled on the room after her departure.

  “I… I wondered if I’d ever see you again. I still have the nightmares. Do…do you?”

  “I do,” Martin said, “but I doubt they’re the same.”

  Ioan fixed him with a curious look.

  “I’ve lost my memory of anything from my years in the service. I was happy to have lost them to be perfectly honest, but recently I ran into a man who claimed to know me. He made some threats against my family, and I need to figure out who he is and why he’s coming after me.”

  “Lost your memory,” Ioan said incredulously. “How’d you get so lucky?”

  “I don’t know, but luck always turns in the end. I think mine’s turning now. Can you help me, Ioan?”

  “Aye. I’ll try. Tell me about the man you saw.”

  Ioan settled back in his chair as Martin began to describe the man. His eyes lost focus again, as if lost in the fog of memory. He remained in that position even after Martin stopped speaking. Finally, he spoke one word.

  “Rafe.”

  His wife returned and placed the pot of tea on the table between them. She poured them each a cup, chatting about nothing in particular.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “You have a lovely wife,” Jacques said after she had left.

  “Aye. She’s the one blessing I’ve had since I set foot in that accursed place.” He paused another moment to gather his thoughts before continuing. “The man you saw was Rafe. He was a member of the final expedition you led to an undiscovered island somewhere south of the colonies. We lost seven men on that expedition, including a man named Robin, who was Rafe’s closest friend, and if some whispers are to be believed, even more than that.”

  Rafe and Robin. The names came back to Martin then from the ship’s roll he had studied. He remembered Robin being reported missing in action and Rafe as having left service before his time was up. Beyond that, he had nothing.

  “Did this island have a name?” Jacques asked.

  “None that I ever heard tell of. If it has one, I’d rather not know it.”

  “Can you tell us what happened on that island?”

  Ioan took another pause before starting his tale.

  “We were all serving on the Albatross at that time. One night, we were patrolling the waters south of the colonies in search of pirates when we discovered a small rowboat. In that boat was a fresh corpse. His body was riddled with darts and had swollen up from the sun and whatever foul poison those darts were laced with. I’ll never forget the smell. Now, by our charts, we were well off from any known island, and the make of the boat was too primitive to be from any continental navy, so Captain Kingsley figured there must be some previously undiscovered island nearby. He ordered us off our route to search for the island, and to our bitter luck, we found it a few days later.

  Lieutenant Martin, along with Lieutenant Bowen, was tasked to bring a team of sailors onto the island to explore. I was with Martin. Robin and Rafe went with Lieutenant Bowen. The Albatross moored off the island, and we took our own rowboats into a protected cove. I remember seeing the trees move as if the islanders were there watching us, but we saw no one. After we landed, Martin’s team went right and Bowen’s went left. It was a fairly small island, so we planned to meet on the other side and cut back through the center together.

  Though I have not been blessed with the amnesia you have, thankfully, my mind has been able to let go of most of the details of that hellish slog around the island. We hacked our way through the jungle. Every noise made us jump, fearing a dart suddenly rushing out of the darkness to end our lives. Even if the darts never materialized, the mosquitoes were their own hell. They were enormous and seemed to have some poison that made each bite fester for days before healing. Finally, after hours of forced march, we arrived at a small temple carved out of an enormous rock in the middle of the jungle. There was a pair of small windows near the top overlooking the sea and a crudely hewn staircase up into the rock. Despite the primitive nature of the temple, the entrance, I remember, was carved with an incredibly detailed design of an octopus’ tentacles. As the sun rose and fell, they almost appeared to be moving.”

  Ioan paused for a moment to have a sip of his tea. He looked pointedly at Martin as if his tale would unlock some long-dormant memory. The Faceless Man was of course, not the real Martin, whose memories were now long gone, but at the old sailor’s words, he could begin to imagine the experience that had spit the real Martin back out to Alderbridge in such a sorry state.

  “We waited in the shadows for a while to see if anyone would appear, but the temple appeared abandoned. Despite your best efforts, you were unable to cajole any of us to enter that forbidden rock, so finally you entered on your own. I still remember that image of your back, sword strapped to your side, and revolver in your hand. Whether you were a hero to aspire to or a fool to pity, I wasn’t sure then, and I’m still not sure now.”

  Martin didn’t answer. Instead, he asked, “What happened in the temple?”

  “Only you know that. Shortly after you went in, you rushed out again, face deadly pale and panic wild in your eyes. You rushed back over to us and hurried us along the way toward the far side of the island. Several of us tried to question you, but you said nothing other than that we must hurry to meet the others and get off the island.

  We hurried along the island, even faster than we had before, arriving at the far side hours behind schedule. The other team was nowhere to be found. You were about ready to have us return the way we came, but we persuaded you to wait for the other team just a bit longer. For nearly an hour, we waited there as the sun reached its peak and began to slowly set, when suddenly noises could be heard in the brush.

  You gave the order to be prepared to fight. We took up our positions in the shadows, weapons drawn and ready to ambush whoever entered the clearing we had chosen as our trap ground. The things moving in the bushes got closer and closer until finally the first one burst into the clearing.

  It was Rafe, looking bloodied and disheveled, with one of the primitive’s darts sticking out of his left cheek just below the eye. Behind him emerged our fellow sailors, but only half of those that had set out this morning, Lieutenant Bowen not among them.

  You gave the order to holster our arms. Carefully, we emerged from our hiding spots to welcome the latecomers and help them attend to their wounds. As we nursed them, the story came out. Lieutenant Bowen’s group had stumbled upon a small village. Bowen had urged caution, and the men carefully made their way around to the other side of the village without alerting any of the locals. Unfortunately, their luck ran out shortly after, as one of the sailors stumbled upon a child playing in a small creek. The sailor tried to shush the child, but the boy began to scream in some unknown language, rousing the villagers. They emerged from their houses, their weapons drawn.

  Robin had tried to silence the boy, grabbing him and covering his mouth with his hand, holding on with the plan to use him as a hostage. The boy, however, bit down on Robin’s hand. When Robin released him with a curse, rather than run back to his family, the boy turned back on Robin and attacked with a fierceness unimaginable in a child that small. His teeth bared as he began to try to take bites of Robin, as if a mere child was going to eat a grown man alive.

  The villagers attacked the sailors with a mix of blowguns and heavy clubs embedded with razor-sharp shells and rocks. One of them even had a primitive crossbow that struck with some force but took quite some time to load. Lieutenant Bowen rallied his men to retreat toward our meeting spot, but several fell. Rafe’s last view of Robin was the child still on top of him as several of the villagers joined in. Bowen was hit by numerous darts shortly after the ambush began and fell somewhere in the jungle. Just when they had given up hope of escape, a miracle occurred.

  They arrived at a small river that flowed through the jungle. The sailors splashed their way through the river just fine, but miraculously, the pursuing villagers stopped. Looking back, we can only assume the river was some sort of holy spot for them, or that it held back some force far more terrible to imagine. Regardless, the river served as a blessing to our compatriots, who were able to regroup and continue on their way to meet us. If only I could say that was the end of our misadventure.”