Despite his hurry to leave Hepollyon, Simon was in no hurry to arrive in Ionar. That urgency had been caused by the growing discomfort of trying to live a life that wasn't his anymore more than any tight timelines. He still had more than a year before the volcano was due to erupt.

So, he took the long way down, heading to Coramin first and then further down the main trade road. It was a thoroughly depressing experience.

Only a few lives ago, he'd spent years in this bustling trade city. He knew it inside and out. In that life, everywhere he'd gone, people treated him with respect. They knew his name. Now, though, he was a stranger here. That didn't bother Simon so much; he was a stranger everywhere he went.

What bothered him was that all of his murals were gone. He visited each location where he'd once spent days painting, and in every case, they'd vanished. That was to be expected, of course. He knew that they wouldn't be there, but just the same, in most cases, he stopped and sketched what that scene had looked like before when he'd finished his work.

He even forced himself to go to the canyon where he and Bertrand had once spent weeks making a vast and very expensive mosaic. He was still in the city, of course. Simon could have found him and seen how he turned out without him, but the thought was too depressing. He could force himself to look at his works undone, but he couldn't do the same for his relationships.

In addition to studying art that was no longer there, though, he also studied the web of connections that made up even a simple market scene. At a glance, he could pick out the thieves and the scoundrels with the right state of mind.

That wasn't even because of their dull, muddy auras, either. It was because of the way their lines intersected with their targets. He couldn't quite see into the future. That was the wrong way to look at it. It was more like he could see which two people were going to come into contact with each other an hour or two from now, and from the color of the connection, he could guess at what sort of interaction that might be.

One day, Simon lingered under a tree for half an hour under a shady tree while he ate a bitter orange and waited for a young man and woman to bump into each other just to see what it looked like when the romance promised by the red cord that bound them.

It was an endearing sight. One minute, the young man and a dark-haired girl seemed to have no idea that the other existed, and the next, they only had eyes for each other, and he watched the pleasant shock of that moment cascade through both of them before going back to his lodgings to sketch the scene so he'd never forget it.

As he went south, he saw more of the same thing. He found the villages he expected missing the art he'd once created, and he spent more and more time watching the sea. Of course, he found bandits on the road, too. This time, he didn't find them physically, though, at least not at first. He found them in the way that lines of fate sprang from his sword and pointed to a rocky cluster miles away.

Simon could have avoided the fight, and indeed, he did, at first, but only to see how the lines that tied him to the bandits would mutate or change. First, he tried switching his path, but still, they stayed linked. They only vanished when he resolved that he would fight them under no circumstances and headed back in the other direction for almost an hour.

That didn't really change them, though. It only moved the encounter far enough into the future that his sight was too weak to perceive it. At least, he was pretty sure that was the case. Simon could see it coming, so he wasn't fated to fight them. He could have taken the long way through the foothills and avoided the encounter completely, but he wasn't in the mood to spare vermin today.

When he reached the boulders, he could see the cloudy auras of men hiding in the shadows, and he could see the threads that connected the six of them. "I know you're there," Simon called out, stopping before the first one revealed himself. "And any man that surrenders will be allowed to leave. The rest of you… Well, I'm going to have to take a hand at least."

Simon knew he should try to handle things more peacefully. He knew it was good for both his sight and his experience, but sometimes, he didn't care. He knew exactly how men like this operated, and as much as he wanted to be merciful, he knew that, in most cases, they'd be back to making the lives of his fellow men miserable as soon as he passed by. If he had more important things to do, sometimes that couldn't be helped, but today, he had nothing more important than beating the snot out of lowlives; he could admire the sea and the mountains any day.

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"You keep talking like that, and I'm liable to let my men fill you full of arrows, stranger," someone called out from hiding. "I've got ten men here. Why don't you make this easy on yourself and throw down your coin purse? Your money ain't worth your life."

The voice might echo, but Simon could see exactly where he was. He could also see that the man only had six men with him.

Simon's only answer was to drop his pack, pull his shield off his back, and draw his sword. All of them were upgrades thanks to his long stay in Ordanvale. The sword he'd used to kill the White Cloak and any number of monsters, but the shield was new, and he was looking forward to testing it.

It was a wooden shield covered in a layer of beaten bronze and powered by an inset gemstone, which made it look much fancier than the wooden one he'd carried for so long. In addition to resisting fire, he could use it to draw the arrows heading toward him out of their path and toward the disk. So, getting shot was the last thing he worried about right now.

"Last chance to avoid bleeding," Simon called out as he turned to face his mostly hidden enemies.

They should have surrounded him, but all the best cover was to the left of the road, so like cowards, they'd all grouped up there, which made them that much easier to defend against. He was grateful for that, or he would have had to whisper a word of protection, and he was trying to avoid using magic whenever possible these days.

Simon could see ripples of cowardice flicker through the men's dark aura like lightning hidden inside of storm clouds, but after the first arrow fired, everyone else followed suit, which made this an easy equation in his mind. Anyone who was willing to kill was someone he didn't have to feel bad about striking down.

No sooner had the last arrow embedded in his shield than Simon charged the nearest man. In his eyes, he could see a family, so he didn't lop off his head as he'd planned. Instead, he bashed him in the head, knocking him out cold before proceeding to the next man. Unfortunately, as the battle went on, Simon's ability to see into the souls of these men faded.

By the time he struck down the third one, and he lay bleeding out on the ground, he couldn't see more than the darkness that clung to them. Eventually, when everyone else had dropped their bows to draw swords and knives and fight for their lives, he couldn't even see that.

The fighting that followed was difficult only in that he was outnumbered. Simon might be out of practice, but none of these men had ever practiced in their lives.

Steel rang against steel for several minutes, and then, when there were only two remaining, they both tried running, but in opposite directions. It was smart, he supposed. One might survive, but Simon wasn't so easy to escape, not when he already had this much blood on his hands.

He threw his sword end over end at the one running toward cover, impaling him through his mismatched leather armor that covered his back. Then, as the other one thought to outdistance him, Simon strolled over to the nearest dropped shortbow. Retrieving it and a couple of arrows.

His first shot missed, whizzing by the runner close enough to scare him and make him change course. The second arrow, though, found its mark, dropping the man into the dirt. Simon doubted he was dead but thought that marching out there to kill him would probably be excessive.

"Puncture wounds in an era without real medicine are no joke," he told himself as he went around finishing off the other men who were dying. At this point, it was the only mercy he was willing to give them. The bandit leader begged for his life, but Simon ignored the man's pleas. He'd already had his chance.

The only one he spared was that first bandit. He lost his right hand after Simon took a few minutes to build a fire and heat one of the other men's swords to red hot with it. The sudden sword stroke that cleaved off his hand didn't wake the man, but the hot metal did. He woke up screaming in pain as Simon cauterized the wound, but Simon ignored that, too, as best he could.

"What are you doing! Why!" the bandit asked.

"Saving your life," Simon answered as if that would make sense. "Every one of your fellows is dead, and for what?" Simon picked up a handful of coppers and silvers they'd swindled from passing caravans. "Do you think this paltry fortune was worth their lives? Do you think it's worth yours?"

"I…" the bandit faltered. "You didn't have to take my hand."

"I didn't have to spare your life," Simon retorted as he pressed the coins into the man's slack left hand. "But I did. Now go home and teach your son to be better than you."

Simon didn't feel too badly about what he'd done. Still, it clouded his vision enough that even days later, he could still only see slight glows or smoky outlines around the people he passed on the road. Fortunately, that wasn't needed for his next encounter with bandits because as soon as they stepped out to block his path, Simon saw Niko's familiar face among them, and it broke his heart.

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