The Golden Fool

"You didn’t answer my question," Torgo said, picking at a strip of lichen stuck to the sleeve of his robe. "You ever notice how people who’ve been hurt walk like they know a secret?"

Apollo kept his head down, using the motion of picking their way through the last of the boulder field to avoid the man’s stare.

’Of course he’s noticed. He’s made a career of noticing.’ The magician’s nails were bitten down to the quick, and the lines along his mouth hinted at years spent smiling where it didn’t belong.

"I’m not interested in stories about me," Apollo muttered. He had meant the edge in his voice to cut, but it came out blunt, almost tired.

Torgo shrugged, unconcerned. "Then let’s trade. Quid pro quo. You tell me why the gods went silent, and I’ll tell you what chews through Watchmen like they’re bread crust."

Apollo nearly tripped on a root, caught himself. He’d known Torgo was lying about being "just a traveler" the minute he saw the man’s wrists, scarred not just from burns, but from years of binding with the kind of ritual cord used by magicians who served at temples rather than in back-alley sleight-of-hand.

The fact that Torgo wore his old affiliations the way most men wore a hangover, obvious to anyone who cared to look, made Apollo nearly like him.

He said nothing. He wasn’t sure if it was stubbornness or self-preservation.

Torgo whistled, not quite a tune. "I met a priest in the next town over. Sallow fellow, smelled like lamp oil. He said the gods went quiet after the last moon shadowed its own light. You believe that?"

"No," Apollo said, too fast. "The gods never outright vanish. They just get better at hiding."

Torgo cackled, the sound bouncing oddly off the bare stones. "If you’re hiding, you’re scared. What’s a god got to be scared of?"

Apollo shrugged, unwilling to answer. He wondered if Torgo even knew who he was. He doubted it. Whatever past Apollo wore now, it didn’t show on the surface. At least not to anyone human.