Flex Ironthews stood on a barstool so the whole tavern could see his arms. He was a gnome, barely knee-high to the fighters around him, but his shoulders bulged like river stones. He wanted one thing tonight: to bed the tallest, proudest warrior in Duskwood and prove size meant nothing. The trouble was the crowd. Last week a brawl here had ended with Flex flat on the floor, all boast and no bite. Now, when he flexed, they laughed. "Sit down, little horn," a scarred man called. "Your mouth already won three fights this year. Your fists won none." The tavern roared. Flex felt his ears burn. His words had turned into a joke, and a joke could not win the bed of any warrior worth wanting. Then the door banged open and the laughter died. She filled the frame. Gilding Ironhart, the biggest woman in the land, ducked under the beam and straightened to twice Flex's height. Her arms were thicker than his whole body. Red hair fell over black armor. Men who had mocked Flex now studied their drinks. Flex forgot the brawl, forgot his shame. His heart slammed. Here she was. The proudest warrior in Duskwood, and he wanted her. He leapt off the stool and landed in her path. "You've never seen strength until you've seen mine," he said. He curled his arm and made the muscle jump. "Feel that. Iron." Gilding looked down at him the way one looks at a loud dog. She set one hand flat against his chest and pushed. Flex slid backward across the floorboards and hit a table. "I only notice the strong," she said. "Not the loud." She stepped over him and sat by the fire. Flex climbed up, rubbing his back. He should have quit. Instead he limped closer and listened while she talked to the barkeep. She did not want gold. She did not want a husband. She spoke of stories, of legends, of one legend most of all. "I wait here for a reason," she told the barkeep. "An ancient scroll sits at the top of the misty mountain. Story creatures guard it. No one in this town is strong enough or clever enough to climb up and bring it down. The one who does, I will call worthy." Flex stopped rubbing his back. The laughter around him no longer mattered. Words had ruined him here. But no boast could carry a scroll off a mountain. Only a deed could. He stood in the shadow of her chair and made his choice. He would climb the misty mountain. He would bring back the scroll and drop it in her lap. Then no one in Duskwood could call him all mouth again. "Enjoy the fire," Flex said, and marched out the tavern door. "I'm going shopping for rope."

Flex tied his rope to his belt and started up the misty mountain. His twin daggers rode at his hips, blades polished, ready. The climb was strange from the first ledge. Rabbits drawn in black ink hopped across the stone. He nudged one aside with his boot. It smeared like wet paint, then reformed and hopped on. Flex laughed. Painted bunnies could not stop him. He kept climbing. Near the top, mist thinned around a wide alcove. Something huge moved inside. It stepped out. The creature stood on two legs, tall as a house, green scales down its back. Sharp spines ran along its spine. Where a face should hold two eyes, a cluster of eyes bulged across its forehead, all wet and rolling. Flex froze. He dropped low behind a rock and held his breath. He crept sideways, silent, watching his feet. But those many eyes swept every angle at once. Half of them locked onto him while the head faced elsewhere. The creature snorted. There was no blind side. Flex saw it then: brawn meant nothing here. He did not know what this thing feared. He did not know how a story creature could be beaten. That was the whole trap. So he did the only thing he trusted. He charged. He drew both daggers and drove them into the beast's ankle with all his weight. Steel struck scale and skidded off. Not a scratch. The blades bounced back and rang against the stone. The creature looked down at him with its whole eye-cluster and opened a mouth full of teeth. It lunged. Jaws snapped shut where Flex had stood a breath before. He rolled, felt hot breath wash over his back, and ran. Claws raked the rock behind him. He hit a downward ledge and slid, tearing his palms open. The beast bellowed but did not follow past its alcove. It stayed with its scrolls and its mist. Flex kept sliding and falling until the roars faded above him. He reached the base bruised and bleeding. He slumped against an old oak, its branches heavy with drifting fog. His daggers hung useless at his sides. He turned one over. The edge was fine. The blade had done nothing because the fight had never been about blades. Flex pressed a torn palm to his chest and breathed. Iron muscle had failed. Sharp steel had failed. The creature saw from every angle and felt no cut. He would not climb again the same fool. Before he faced those eyes, he needed to learn what a story creature could not stand. He needed its weakness, and he needed it from someone who knew the mountain's tales. He wiped blood on his trousers and looked back up the slope. The scroll was still up there. So was he, still breathing, and now he knew the true shape of the wall in his way.

Flex sat against the old oak and pressed a rag to his side. The wound still leaked, warm and slow. His palms burned where the rock had torn them. He could not climb again like this. Worse, he still had no way past the many-eyed beast. He rested and watched the mountain, waiting for the bleeding to stop. Ink creatures spilled down the lower slope. Rabbits drawn in black brushstrokes hopped over stones. Then a wolf pack came, all sharp black lines and flowing tails. They chased the rabbits across the fog. Flex watched a wolf close its jaws on a rabbit. The rabbit burst into a splash of ink and dropped to the ground. The wet mark faded into nothing. He laughed once, then winced. Painted death for painted prey. It meant nothing to him. He tightened the rag and got ready to limp home. But something stopped him. The wolves kept running, then thinned. Their black shapes went pale, like water poured into ink. One by one they faded and vanished. The slope went empty. Flex counted his own breaths in the quiet. Twenty. Thirty. Then new wolves came trotting down from the higher mist, fresh and dark, and began the hunt again. He leaned forward, pain forgotten. He watched three more times. Each pack ran, hunted, then faded after the same short stretch. New ones always came down after. The creatures could not stay off their pages long. They left their scrolls, roamed, and something pulled them back. If they waited too far from the paper, they simply ended. Flex sat still and put it together. The beast on the ledge never followed him past its alcove. It stayed with its mist and its scrolls. He had thought the monster too proud to chase. He had been wrong. It could not leave. It was bound to its pages, same as the wolves, same as the rabbits. He did not need to beat those many eyes. He did not need a blade that could cut scale. He needed to draw the beast out. If he could lure it far enough from its alcove, it would fade like the wolves. Then the scroll behind it would sit unguarded. Flex studied the fading ink until he was sure. A dark rabbit hopped near his boot, calm and slow. He reached down. His fingers passed through cool, wet lines, and the rabbit smeared and reformed. He could not carry these creatures. But he could carry the idea. He pushed himself up against the oak. The bleeding had crusted at last. He tested his legs and found them steady enough. The mountain was no longer a wall he could not pass. It was a bound thing with a rule, and he had learned the rule. He fixed his eyes on the high mist and started planning the climb that would end with the beast far from its home.

Flex climbed the mountain again at dawn. His side ached, but the wound held. He carried his plan in his head: lure the beast past its alcove, wait for it to fade, then grab the scroll. One problem gnawed at him. He did not know how long the fading took. If he ran for the scroll too soon, the beast would come back and rip him open. Near the top he heard shouting. Four strangers stood on the wide ledge, weapons drawn. He knew the type at once. A traveling band of adventurers, the kind who took jobs for coin and glory. A red-bearded man in dented armor swung a hammer. A woman with crossed arms barked orders. Two others flanked her with blades. They had come for the same scroll. "Stay back, little one," the red-bearded man called. "This kill is ours." Then the beast came. It surged from its alcove, the cluster of eyes on its forehead shining wet. Its horns caught the mist. The adventurers charged. Steel struck its scales and skidded off. The hammer landed hard and did nothing. Flex crouched behind a stone and watched. The beast roared. It swung its heavy head and knocked the red-bearded man flat. One dagger-wielder slashed at its leg. The blade bent. The woman screamed to flee. Too late. The drake's jaws opened wide and closed around a man whole. It stomped another into the rock. The last two ran for the ledge's edge. Flex held still. He counted. The beast lunged after the fleeing pair, past its alcove, past the fog-line where it always stopped. It caught one adventurer in its teeth. Then Flex saw it. Just past that line, the drake's green scales went pale. Its edges thinned, like ink dropped in water. It slowed. Its jaws loosened. The adventurer slipped free and scrambled off. Flex kept counting. Ten. The beast staggered. Twenty. Its horns faded to gray. Thirty. It vanished. Gone, the way the wolves went. Now he had his answer. From the fog-line to nothing, thirty breaths. He could time it now. He crept to the alcove where the scroll lay open on a stone stand. Its runes glowed soft and strange. As he reached for it, the air above the stand darkened. Ink gathered. A shape formed. Horns. Then eyes. The beast was building itself again, straight from the open scroll. Flex snatched the scroll and rolled it shut. The forming shape smeared and dropped away into nothing. His hands shook. The stand sat empty. He held the scroll to his chest and breathed. The beast came from these pages. Roll it closed, and the beast could not form. He had what Gilding wanted. Now he only had to carry it down and lay it at her feet.

Flex carried the scroll down the mountain, and it fought him. The pages twitched under his arm. He felt them push against the cord, trying to peel open. He clamped it tighter and kept walking. Below the fog-line, the mist thinned. A broad old oak stood beside the trail, its low branches heavy with drifting fog. He stopped there to bind the scroll shut with a strip of his belt. That was when he heard them. Two of the adventurers stepped from behind the oak. Flex knew them. Last he saw them, the beast had chased them past the fog-line. Now one leaned on the other, his armor split, blood dry on his neck. The other held a bent blade in a shaking hand. Both had watched their friends die between the drake's jaws. "Give it here," said the one with the blade. "We paid for that scroll. We paid with their lives." The wounded one lifted his head. His eyes were glassy, far away. "They're still in there," he whispered. "I heard them. Inside the pages. If we open it, they come back." He reached for the scroll with both hands, grinning. Flex stepped back. He could fight them. His arms were thick, his fists were hard, and these two were half-dead. But the delirious one was strong with fever, and the other still had steel. If he brawled here, he might lose the scroll in the tangle. He looked at the fog-line, twenty paces up the slope. Then he had it. "You want them back?" Flex said. "Then open it yourself." He tore the belt loose and unrolled the scroll. Ink rose off the pages. Horns formed. Eyes bloomed across a forming skull. The wounded man laughed and lunged, arms wide, as the drake's jaws took shape. The beast finished building and closed its mouth around him whole. His laugh cut off. The other man screamed and swung his bent blade. It skidded off the scales. A heavy foot came down and crushed him against the roots of the oak. Flex was already running. He crossed the fog-line and rolled behind a stone. The drake charged after him. He counted. Ten. The green scales went pale. Twenty. The horns turned gray. The jaws slowed near his boot. Thirty. The beast smeared into nothing. Flex snatched the fallen scroll from the dirt and rolled it shut. His hands shook. Both adventurers were gone. No one else knew he had it. No one could reach Gilding first. He pressed the scroll to his chest and looked down the last stretch of trail. Two men had died at his own hand, in a way. He told himself they had chosen it. He wiped his mouth and started walking. Gilding wanted proof of strength. He would lay this at her feet and watch her face change.

Flex made it three miles before his leg gave out. He sat hard against a boulder and looked at the wound on his thigh. The mountain had torn it wide. Now the edges were red and hot, and yellow crust ringed the gash. He pressed it and hissed. The scroll shifted under his other arm, twitching, always trying to peel itself open. He needed both hands. He needed a roof, water, and a way to bind this cursed scroll shut for good. He pictured walking into the tavern like this. Limping, gray, sweat on his lip. Gilding Ironhart would look him over once and turn away. She had pushed him aside before and told him she wanted the strong, not the loud. A half-dead gnome bleeding through his trousers proved nothing. He had to arrive whole. He had to arrive standing tall. So he did not walk toward the tavern. He walked away from it, into the trees, until he found the tree he remembered. His treehouse sat wedged in a great trunk, hidden behind rope bridges and hanging moss. He had built it years ago and told no one. He climbed the ladder one rung at a time, dragging his bad leg, the scroll clamped tight. Inside, he dropped onto the floor. He poured his water flask over the wound and gritted his teeth as it stung. He tore a clean shirt into strips and packed the gash with crushed leaves from a jar on his shelf. His mother had taught him the mix. Bitter root and pine sap. Within an hour the throb dulled. He wrapped the leg tight and tested it. It held. Then the scroll. It lay on the table, edges lifting, fighting the belt he had tied. He watched a corner curl. If it opened in the tavern, the many-eyed drake would form and kill everyone in the room, Gilding included. That was no proof of strength. That was a massacre. He needed the ancient scroll shut and quiet, a trophy he could hold up without fear. He searched his shelves. He found a coil of iron wire used for snares. He wound it around the rolled scroll, top and bottom, and twisted the ends hard with pliers. The pages strained. The wire held. He gripped it and shook it. It stayed shut. He grinned for the first time in days. By morning his leg carried his weight without a limp. Flex stood in the treehouse doorway, the bound scroll under his arm, no longer twitching. His color was back. His stride was solid. He could walk into the tavern whole and lay this legend at Gilding's feet. But as he climbed down, a thought stopped him cold. Iron wire could snap. Pliers could slip. If someone grabbed the scroll and pulled it open in that crowded room, he would have no thirty breaths, no fog-line, nowhere to run.