Korin instinctively put his hands up but didn't need that scant protection. Rather than finding his brain splattered over the wall he took two staggering steps into a room that wasn't there a second ago. A sudden nausea had him bending over and retching furiously before he could take in much more.

"It takes you that way sometimes." The ghost said. "It looks like everything is still on the inside though so just give it a few minutes."

Tears were streaming from Korin's eyes by the time he felt able to stand upright again, but he braced an arm against the wall just in case. He had thankfully been able to keep hold of his stomach contents, but it was a near thing and his throat was dry from the effort. "What was that?"

"Just a little shortcut. You think all your internal organs are still in the right place? Nothing's got... err... mixed up?"

"That's a thing that can happen?" Korin croaked, disbelieving. How would he be able to tell if his liver or a kidney or his spleen had turned around? He didn't even know where it was meant to be. He couldn't remember if he had an appendix. His heart and lungs seemed to be in the right place at least, or close enough to still be working.

"Sometimes." The man shrugged, as if it were of no importance. "You any good at removing bullets?"

Korin couldn't fail to notice the shoulder wound was still bleeding profusely, dripping down to stain the wooden floor. He shook his head in a mute 'no'.

"Don't suppose you want to learn? No matter. I'll go deal with it. Stay here." And with that he stalked away.

Now Korin was alone and feeling less likely to puke he could take in a few more details of the room. It was a living room filled with clutter and paper and a musty atmosphere usually found only in libraries or second hand bookshops. A large wooden table scattered with papers, trinkets and books took up most of the floor space. More paper was pinned to the walls: handwritten lists and pencil drawn portraits and water-coloured landscapes. Small wooden carvings were lined up on the one windowsill and several shelves held a chaotic mix of books and intricately carved boxes. The only other furniture was a high-backed chair, leather cracked and showing signs of wear on the arms.

Korin turned around to face where he had come from – a door to the outside: bolted shut. He tested the handle just to be sure but a few sharp shakes proved it was locked. Well, he hadn't had any reason to expect it to be open, had he? But doors were things you walked though, not walls. And yet he had. Apparently.

Suddenly shaky, Korin lurched to sit in the chair and leant with head in hands trying to take deep breaths. Someone had tried to kill him today. Busted down the door and aimed a gun at his head. He'd never even seen a gun before today and one had been waved in his face by a man who had then disintegrated into nothing. Then he had been teleported into some house by a mysterious stranger. It had been quite a shock.

Berit stood in the doorway, watching the young boy, unnoticed for the moment as he appeared to be on the verge of some sort of panic attack. It had taken just moments to fish the bullet from his chest – unpleasant, painful moments with a pair of forceps and a mirror – then a quick wash down and change out of his bloody shirt. The fits of shuddering had tapered off for which he was grateful, despite the implications that he might not be feeling anything because there wasn't anything left to feel.

Now he had this person in his home because he was stupid and made rash decisions. He'd let the attacker get under his skin, do the impossible and he had rounded it off by dragging the kid back here. He couldn't remember the last time he had a visitor in his home. In fact, he had never had a visitor in this building and he was damned if he could remember the current guest etiquette.

"Do you need anything?" Berit asked.

The boy started and looked up. "Some explanation? Like, what just happened? How did we get here? Where is here? What is going on? Who was that? And who the hell are you?" The questions were fired at him fast and frantic, the panic barely held a bay.

Berit took a few steps into the room so he could perch on the table, carefully moving a few items out of the way.

"I don't know who that was and I don't know what he wanted." He said, but qualified it to be slightly more honest. "Or, I know he wanted to kill you but I don't understand why. Do you?"

"Do I what?"

"Do you know why he wanted to kill you?" What was the point of asking questions if you didn't listen to the answers?

"No! It's not like I'm involved with the mafia or anything."

"I don't think he was part of the mafia." Berit scoffed.

"No. I've never heard of the mafia being able to - " the boy wiggled his fingers - " do magic or whatever."

"No," Berit agreed with the ridiculous statement "No-one can do magic." Which was what worried him most.

"You did. Didn't you? With the wall thing."

"Yes. Exactly."

"What? You're not making any sense." The boy shook his head in confusion.

It had been a long time since Berit'd had more than passing conversation with anyone other than the Librarians. He didn't explain himself to anyone anymore and had probably lost the art of polite small talk. It had been a long time since any of that mattered but perhaps now he should care a little about putting the boy at ease. If he could remember how to go about it. He had been personable once.

Berit took a moment to try and figure out how to explain one of the fundamental truths of the universe without sounding like he was explaining to a toddler that fire was hot. To him, they were about as obvious and his teaching skills had always been patchy at best.

Start with the basics.

"I can do what you would call magic. Before this afternoon I would have said there was no-one else alive who can do what I do." He said, slowly,

"What about whoever taught you?"

"Dead."

"Maybe they found an old book or something? Taught themselves. I learnt how to write shorthand from a book."

"It's not shorthand. It can't be learnt from a book." Berit snarled at the suggestion that the years of work and dedication he had put in – the sacrifices he had made – could be copied on to paper and read out by anyone who came across it.

"Even if all the words and instructions are there it's not that simple," He elaborated, standing and briskly pacing in the small space. "Magic doesn't come from yourself. Any spell or incantation is simply a complex prayer – if you get it right and are fervent enough in your devotion, the god you pray to will answer and manifest whatever miracle you are asking for. You need more than the words: you need to understand what they mean to the god you are addressing."

"And you know God?" the boy asked, amazed. As if there were only one.

"I've known many gods, learnt many prayers. Some that could have destroyed cities at one point but what I can do today is just an echo of their former power." Berit was still filled with unrestrained bitterness about that.

"Why's that?"

"Because the gods are gone."

Berit sat on a hilltop overlooking what was once known as Cimmura. He still thought of it that way, though the name was no longer written on any map. What had been the Royal Palace had yet another new wing and the city had encroached still further into the surrounding countryside: buildings creeping to fill land where fields once spread. The old city walls had fallen into disrepair as they had been swallowed and forgotten: as much as a relic as the longsword that lay at his feet.

The city was wreathed in a smoke so thick no number of fireplaces could have produced it; this was from industry and machinery and the hard march of progress. The sound of the city had changed: the creek of metal under pressure echoed through the dark and winding streets and the smell of oil and soot reached even up here.

Berit wasn't really sure why he had come – it was a detour of at least five hundred miles from his intended destination and he had no intention of visiting the city. But he hadn't been here for a while and sometimes, when he had spent too long in the quiet seclusion of the forest, he needed to be reminded of the way things are now.

There was no sound of footsteps, no rustle of disturbed leaves but Berit knew he was no longer alone – the presence was a familiar and unthreatening one.

"Hello, Flute" he said, not turning around. As pleased as he might be to see a friendly face, he wasn't going to make this too easy on her for she hadn't been to see him for many seasons. He often heard her – a giggle in the distance, pipes over the wind – just enough to make herself known, but seldom a full manifestation any more. Despite her promises.

"Can you at least pretend that you didn't feel me coming? It does wonders for my ego you know." She said, carefully sitting next to him, close but not touching.

"I'll try and remember that for next time." He said, suppressing a fond smile and looking at the young dark haired child beside him out of the corner of his eye. At least that's how she chose to present herself most of the time and that form was no surprise. She felt it was less threatening. Berit had let people underestimate himself enough times to know it was an excellent plan.

"How have you been?" She asked in her light musical voice.

"The same." Always the same. Which she would know if they had talked more often. "They've made a lot of changes since I was last here. It's a lot dirtier now." He gestured below. Everything changed, except him.

"It's progress, Berit. Humanity is going to achieve great things one day."

"Is one of those things going to be cleaning up after themselves?"

"I hope so, but-" She hesitated and the strangeness of a deity being uncertain was enough for his arm hair to bristle and stand on end. "- I'm not going to be around to see it. I'm leaving."

Berit whipped his head round, shocked.

"Leaving? Where for? Tamuli? Or one of the southern continents? Why? When?" He demanded.

"Not Tamuli, or South. Further away than that. Much further. As much as humanity is growing so are the gods and this isn't the place for us anymore. Once we go, I won't be able to come back to talk like this."

Another abandonment filed Berit with a white hot rage for a moment before it burnt itself out and left him hollow. He couldn't bear to look at her so returned to staring at the ruins of his home.

"I'll still listen out for you, answer your prayers." She offered, as if magic was any sort of replacement for friendship. She was the last now: the last person of any sort who knew who he really was. His friends were long gone, his family line decimated by plague, the Order records mostly destroyed by fire and flood. His name was being erased as gradually and inevitably as the river erodes the mountain.

"I know the others will listen too. A worshiper – no matter how distant - is to be treasured." She said.

So he could be almost-ignored by every other deity he had ever encountered, when they all left for whatever stage of existence they were embracing while he stagnated. That was not better.

"I know you're angry, and I should have told you sooner, but I don't like goodbyes, Berit. I've already been to see my other believers but I knew you would be the most difficult to say farewell to."

Berit knew those visits wouldn't have taken long, the influence of all gods having waned in recent years: some had been forgotten completely by all but him. Of a short list and he was still at the bottom.

"I have to go now. I hope you'll forgive me one day. You'll always have my love."

The ghosting of a kiss graced his cheek, burned until it was washed away by equally hot tears. The presence of the child-goddess Flute faded further than ever before until it was little more than memory of a feeling.

The world was empty and though Berit stretched out his mind over mountains and oceans he could find no-one or no-thing that noticed him, let alone could reach back.

Berit sat on a hilltop above old Cimmura, and began to ponder what it meant to be truly alone.

"What?"

"Gone. Moved on." Berit didn't like to dwell on it – the flames of that betrayal were easily fanned and would distract him. "It... It doesn't matter, except they're not here to gain any more worshippers than the one they have. That one is me and I have certainly not been converting anybody."

"How can they answer your prayers if they're dead?" The boy asked, clasping and unclasping his hands.

"Don't you listen? They're not dead, they're just not here." Berit gestured vaguely trying to convey the sense of separation by something more than mere distance. "But they are still egotistical enough not to want to let go of the last strenuous connection they have, so I still get my prayers answered. Mostly."

"And that guy in my apartment? He remembers some old god I suppose."

Berit shook his head. "No. Not only is there no way for him to know them correctly, but each type of prayer leaves a resonance; a taste in the air. I'd never felt that magic before. That was new."

"Which is bad?"

"Yes."

Old gods were intractable as mountains: mostly unyielding yet always with the possibility of death by fiery explosion. Younger gods were fickle, impatient and devasting in the way a flash flood was. In fact they caused most flash floods. A brand new, only just emerging god would have all the impulse control of a corrupt king and the same concepts of consequences as a toddler.

Last time a god was – for want of a better word – born, a forum of more senior deities had kept them in line. Now? With the world left to it's own devices? It would be very bad.

"Right." The boy said, clearly trying to fit together the pieces of his shattered world. "And how does all that relate to me?"

"I'm not sure." Berit admitted. "It shouldn't have anything to do with you, but he did mention your bloodline."

"My bloodline? Well then that's a dead end. Only child, no cousins, parents dead, I don't have kids. There is no more 'bloodline'."

Berit knelt down by the table, and dug around underneath it: pulling out a very large roll of very dusty paper. With a vigorous push he unrolled it onto the table. Branches of a family ended up broken all the time – Berit was not interested in this boy's future but what had happened to those that shared the same roots.

The new paper was a long and faded list of names. Some had one date beside it, some two. Berit thought how he should have kept it more up to date, but it was a chore for which his enthusiasm often lapsed. He closed his eyes for a moment and brushed a hand across the parchment. A shimmer ran across it, like the wave a pebble makes when dropped into a calm pond. Each name briefly shone, but then faded back to dull black ink, with a second date appearing beside many.

The boy ran a trembling finger down the list, tracing the names Berit had accumulated over centuries until he reached the only one that did not have a date of death next to it.

"What the hell is this? Why are my parents here? Why am I here?" The boy asked, a tremor in his voice.

Berit leant over to read it, that lone name. "You would be Korin, I presume. Maybe we should have a chat about your family tree."