Telltale Flies

Overview

Telltale Flies are the small bright flies of the Radiance. They gather wherever something is hidden, and above all at a liar's mouth. On a plane where nothing stays concealed, they are the plane's way of pointing.

Appearance

A Telltale Fly is the size of a gnat and made, to the eye, of white light: a pinpoint with a faint blur of wings. One alone is hard to see in the plane's blinding brightness. A swarm is a bright, buzzing haze, and around a liar's face it is a halo that lights the lips and teeth. Their hum is high and clear, and changes pitch when a lie is spoken near them, rising to the dissonant screech that lies make on the plane. They smell faintly of incense.

Habitat and Range

They live everywhere in the Radiance, drifting unseen in the light until something is hidden near them. In the Illuminated's open crystal halls there are few; around visitors from the Material Plane there are always some.

Behaviour and Temperament

The flies seek concealment. They gather on a closed hand, a fold of a cloak with something in it, a sealed letter, and above all on a mouth that has just lied, where they crowd so thickly that the liar can taste them. They do not bite. They leave when the thing is shown or the truth is spoken, and drift away to wait for the next.

Abilities

They find what is hidden without fail, as the plane does, and point at it so that anyone can see. Their crowding sharpens the burning a lie brings on the plane: a liar with flies at the throat feels it hotter, and the lie is plain to everyone near.

Life Cycle

They seem to rise out of the light itself wherever something is concealed and to fade back into it when it is revealed. No one has found an egg or a dead fly.

Uses and Dangers

They give nothing but exposure, which on the Radiance is everywhere already. The Illuminated take no notice of them. To travellers carrying secrets they are a torment and a warning, and the plane's advice holds: settle a secret before crossing, and if a lie must be told, tell it quickly. The predatory Truth-Seekers are said to follow the flies to their prey.

Lore and Belief

On the Material Plane, at confessionals, places of judgement, and the mirrors called Oracle Gates, a fly buzzing at someone's lips is taken for a sign of a lie, and in some places a man swearing an oath is watched for flies. Ordinary flies are meant, and the sign is worthless; but the belief comes, scholars say, from travellers' tales of the Radiance (see Knowledge of the Cosmos).

Where It Appears

• Overview: Natives of the Planes