Mini-Chapter 10.5: The Man With No Threads

Somewhere far from Dee Megus, Hiro Brihrest, and Vampher Darquez…

Somewhere deeper than the roots of the world…

Somewhere that didn't quite exist in Laphyzel, yet could still tap a toe on its soil if it tried hard enough…

There was a tavern that no map could find.

It had no name on the signboard.

The building never stayed in one place for more than a breath.

It flickered between storms and starlight, sitting only where the threads of time grew tangled, where songs were half-sung and undone.

The tavern had only one patron that truly mattered.

And tonight, he was sitting by the fire, sipping something older than sorrow.

He had no name.

He had no threads.

Which was why even the world forgot him the moment he walked away.

The barkeep, a three-eyed storm cloud in a waistcoat, hovered nearby.

"You're early," it said.

The man did not look up. He was peeling an orange with a silver knife that cut more than flesh.

"There was a song," he said. "The Loom sang."

"That's rare."

"It's happening faster this time."

"Because the Magi remember?"

"No," the man said, finally looking up. His eyes were grey—not silver, not iron, not smoke. Just... grey. Honest, quiet grey. The color of the moment before a decision.

"Because Dee doesn't remember," he said. "And his hands are weaving instinctively."

The barkeep swirled into a humanoid shape, pouring rain into a mug that filled with honey.

"You're not interfering yet?"

The man smiled faintly.

"I always interfere."

"But not directly."

"No," the man said. "That would break the rules."

The barkeep squinted.

"There are rules?"

The man said nothing.

But the orange he peeled unraveled into a perfect spiral that vanished into sparks.

In the Wefting Dunes, where sand was spun from stories too forgotten to survive, a young girl wandered alone.

She had no name.

Or rather—her name was not remembered.

Which was nearly the same thing.

The girl had eyes like dusk and hair made of rain-thread. She wandered not out of fear, but because the dunes whispered something that sounded like home.

As she walked, a shadow moved beside her.

She didn't notice.

No one did.

But her steps were subtly corrected by small, invisible things.

A dune would shift away just as she almost slipped.

A mirage would clear just before she trusted it.

And once, a bonebeast—made of broken oaths and old teeth—approached her from behind.

But it blinked, stopped, and walked away.

Because it saw someone standing behind her.

Even though it didn't remember who.

The man with no threads stood on the edge of Laphyzel's sky for a moment.

The stars tried to avoid him.

Constellations blinked and shuffled like guilty children.

He sighed and traced one fingertip along a line of thread that didn't technically exist.

It was golden.

Frayed.

Shaking.

"Hiro," he murmured, gently flicking the thread. "You're holding the song too tightly again."

A thousand miles away, Hiro sneezed and spilled hot mana syrup all over his lap.

The man wandered again.

It was what he did.

He found a mirror once—buried under a battlefield where memory refused to grow.

The mirror showed him nothing.

And that was why he kept it.

He carried it in a fold of his coat, wrapped in the laughter of a star he had once befriended.

At a small riverbank, he knelt and listened.

The water spoke in languages older than time.

He responded in silence.

Sometimes, the world listened back.

Tonight, it did.

The sky above the river blinked.

And something tried to look through.

The man met its gaze.

It blinked again.

And went away.

For now.

Far from him, back near Dee's camp, a fox wandered into their tent and stole a spoon.

No one noticed.

But the man did.

He reached into his coat and pulled out a new spoon—etched with roses and the word "Remember."

He placed it gently under the pillow where Hiro would find it days later and never figure out why he felt safe holding it.

A dream drifted through the world one night.

Not one spun by thread.

But one spun by absence.

In the dream, Dee stood alone before a mirror that refused to reflect him. Vampher stood behind him, whispering names he didn't know. Hiro was smiling too brightly, shadows behind his teeth.

The dream cracked.

And a fourth figure stepped in.

"You shouldn't be here," Dee said.

"Neither should you," the man with no threads replied.

The dream caught fire, quietly.

Neither woke.

But when Dee rose the next morning, his first words were:

"Did I ever meet someone who didn't have threads?"

And neither Hiro nor Vampher could answer.

In the ancient caverns of Not-Yet, where thoughts go to wait before becoming real, the man paused at a gate made of black glass.

The Severed Loom pulsed behind it.

He did not open it.

He never opened it.

But he stood there.

So it would know he was still watching.

He wandered again.

He visited the ruins of Never Was.

He mended a broken child's laughter and let it float into the sky like a paper boat.

He placed a single rose on a grave that didn't exist anymore.

And once, just once, he sat on a bench made of lullabies and looked up at a moon that forgot it was supposed to fall.

He drank from a cup made of last chances.

And read a book that hadn't been written yet, the title burned into its cover:

"The One Who Was Never Named"

He closed the book.

Smiled.

And whispered into the wind:

"You'll remember me when it matters."

The wind answered, uncertain.

But the world shivered.

Just a little.