The Tavernkeeper’s body had become translucent, like looking at someone through fog. But their voice carried clearly across the panicking crowd.
“Don’t mourn for me,” they said, even as pieces of themselves drifted away like smoke. “I have become what I was always meant to be. The foundation. The connection between all stories.”
“Bullshit,” Elena said flatly, striding toward them. “You’re being eaten alive by this place.”
The Tavernkeeper’s fading eyes fixed on her with something like gratitude. “Perceptive as always. Yes, the tavern feeds. It always has. On the boundaries between worlds, on the energy that flows when imagination becomes reality. I have simply… provided an alternative food source.”
Around them, more doors flickered and died. The remaining patrons pressed against the walls, as far from the center of the room as possible. Some were weeping. Others stared in blank shock as their life’s work vanished into darkness.
“There has to be another way,” Maya said desperately. “You can’t just sacrifice yourself. We need you.”
“You need what I represent,” the Tavernkeeper corrected gently. “The bridge between inspiration and creation. But bridges can be rebuilt.”
Marcus stepped forward, his face hard with anger. “I’ve known this was happening for months.”
Everyone turned to stare at him. Jin’s mouth fell open. “What?”
“I figured it out around Christmas,” Marcus continued, not meeting their eyes. “The Tavernkeeper was fading a little more each time I visited. But the help they gave me… my world became so much richer, so much more complex.” He gestured toward his golden-runed door, which still glowed steady and bright. “Look at it. It’s perfect now. Fully realized. And all it cost was pieces of someone else’s soul.”
“Marcus,” Maya breathed. “How could you—”
“How could I what? Save my world? Preserve everything I’d worked for?” His voice rose. “You would have done the same thing. All of you. Don’t pretend otherwise.”
“I wouldn’t,” Sam said quietly. “Not if I’d known the cost.”
Marcus laughed bitterly. “Easy to say when you’ve been here for one day. Come back after three years of struggle, after building something you love more than your own life, and then tell me you’d let it die to save a stranger.”
“They’re not a stranger,” Elena said, her pale face flushed with rare anger. “They’re the reason any of our worlds exist at all.”
“Exactly,” Marcus said. “They served their purpose. And now—”
The words died in his throat as the Tavernkeeper moved past them all, no longer walking but floating, their feet no longer quite touching the ground. They approached the wall where the dark doors stood like dead eyes.
“The hunger grows stronger,” the Tavernkeeper said conversationally, as if discussing the weather. “Soon it will not be satisfied with just me. It will reach into your worlds directly, feeding on the stories themselves until nothing remains but empty shells.”
Sam felt ice in their veins. “How long do we have?”
“Hours, perhaps. Maybe less.” The Tavernkeeper turned back to them, and Sam could see the obsidian wall through their nearly transparent body. “Unless…”
“Unless what?” Jin asked.
“Unless you feed it something else. Something more nourishing than a single fading soul.”
Maya stepped forward. “Tell us how.”
The Tavernkeeper’s smile was infinitely sad. “I cannot. That knowledge died with the parts of me that understood the tavern’s true nature. I gave away too much, too fast. The solution exists, but finding it… that burden falls to you.”
“No pressure,” Elena muttered.
A new voice cut through the conversation like a blade. “There is no solution.”
They turned to see a tall woman in scholar’s robes standing near the bar. Sam didn’t recognize her, but she carried herself with the authority of someone accustomed to being obeyed.
“Dr. Vex,” Marcus said, his voice wary. “I didn’t know you were here.”
“I arrived this morning to discuss a consulting arrangement,” Dr. Vex said, approaching their group with measured steps. “Imagine my surprise to discover the tavern in its death throes.” She gestured dismissively at the Tavernkeeper’s fading form. “This was always inevitable. The crossroads between realities requires enormous energy to maintain. Eventually, any power source will be depleted.”
“You talk about them like they’re a battery,” Maya said angrily.
“Functionally, that’s exactly what they are,” Dr. Vex replied without emotion. “A reservoir of creative energy being slowly drained to maintain an impossible space. The only surprise is that they lasted this long.”
Sam studied the woman’s face. “You knew this would happen.”
“I predicted it, yes. In my professional opinion, the most logical course of action is to salvage what we can. Evacuate the stable worlds through their doors before the final collapse, then establish new creative spaces on more sustainable foundations.”
“Abandon the tavern,” Elena said. “Let it die.”
“Let them die,” Dr. Vex corrected, nodding toward the Tavernkeeper. “They made their choice. We shouldn’t compound the tragedy by losing everything they died to protect.”
Marcus was nodding slowly. “She’s right. My world is stable. I could take it somewhere else, preserve it independently—”
“Where?” Jin interrupted. “Without the tavern, where do our worlds exist? How do we access them?”
“That’s a technical problem,” Dr. Vex said smoothly. “Solvable with proper resources and planning. I represent an organization that specializes in creative world preservation. We could offer relocation services to anyone whose work meets our quality standards.”
The implication hung heavy in the air. Some worlds would be deemed worth saving. Others would be left to die with the tavern.
“What about the people whose worlds don’t make the cut?” Sam asked.
Dr. Vex shrugged. “Unfortunate casualties. But preservation requires selectivity. We cannot save everything.”
“Like hell we can’t,” Maya said fiercely. “This place exists because someone believed all stories matter. Every world here started as someone’s dream.”
“Dreams are cheap,” Dr. Vex said. “Reality is expensive.”
The Tavernkeeper, who had been listening to this exchange with growing transparency, suddenly laughed—a sound like wind chimes in a gentle breeze.
“Still so concerned with preservation,” they said to Dr. Vex. “Still missing the fundamental truth.”
“Which is?”
“Stories aren’t meant to be preserved. They’re meant to be shared.” The Tavernkeeper turned to face the group, their form now barely visible. “The hunger that consumes me, that feeds on the boundaries between worlds—it exists because we treat creation as ownership. My worlds, your worlds, their worlds. But what if…”
Their voice was fading along with their body.
“What if the stories belonged to everyone?”
The words hit Sam like revelation. They thought of their own map, their backwards river that had become the foundation of magic itself. They’d been trying to fix what they thought was broken, when the Tavernkeeper had shown them it was actually perfect.
“The river flows uphill,” Sam said suddenly.
Everyone stared at them. “What?” Jin asked.
“My world. The river that flows uphill. The Tavernkeeper said it wasn’t a mistake—it was magic. Magic that doesn’t follow rules but creates them.” Sam’s mind raced. “What if the tavern’s hunger is the same thing? Not a flaw in the system, but the system itself. What if it’s supposed to feed, but we’ve been feeding it the wrong thing?”
Dr. Vex looked skeptical. “Explain.”
Sam turned to the others. “The Tavernkeeper has been feeding the tavern pieces of themselves to keep our worlds separate and stable. But what if they’re not supposed to be separate? What if the tavern is hungry because it’s trying to connect all our stories together, and we keep fighting that connection?”
Marcus shook his head. “That’s insane. If my world connects to Elena’s horror world, or Jin’s sci-fi universe—”
“They’d change,” Sam said. “They’d grow. They’d become something none of us could create alone.”
The Tavernkeeper’s nearly invisible form suddenly blazed with light, their eyes burning like stars.
“Yes,” they whispered, and their voice carried the weight of absolute truth. “Yes. Feed it connection. Feed it collaboration. Feed it the death of ownership and the birth of shared creation.”
“And if our worlds are destroyed in the process?” Dr. Vex demanded.
The Tavernkeeper’s final words came as they finally faded beyond seeing:
“Then you never understood what they were meant to become.”
The light around them flared once, brilliant as a sun, and then died completely.
They were gone.
And in the sudden silence that followed, Sam heard something that made their heart race with equal parts terror and hope.
The sound of doors beginning to open. Not the familiar creak of hinges, but something else entirely. The sound of barriers dissolving. The sound of boundaries dying.
The sound of worlds reaching toward each other in the dark.