Chapter One: The Night Visitor Varian

The old servant fumbled with the keys. The glow of the lantern transformed his gnarled hands into dried roots.

At my side, Arnisant growled a warning. The instant I touched the Shadowless Sword, a gloved hand covered mine in a gesture doubtless intended to reassure me. Instead, the unwelcome touch raised the hairs on my neck. My pulse remained calm, however, a reminder of the strange transfiguration of my lately sundered heart.

Invisible a moment earlier, a woman glanced up at me. The shadow beneath her voluminous hood offered no impediment to my half-elven vision, yet I perceived only a platinum mask inlaid with blue gemstones. I had seen that mask only a few hours earlier, on one of the Decemvirate, the anonymous inner circle of the Pathfinder Society.

I showed Arnisant a hand sign. The wolfhound’s growl ceased.

“I’ll take those, Timon.” The woman released my hand and reached for the lantern and keys.

I recognized the servant’s name. As he surrendered the lantern, I saw that the wrinkles on his face and hands were the result not of age but of horrific burns.

“Timon of Korvosa,” I said. “The Timon who stole the captain of the Sable Company’s steed. The Timon who eloped with Chief Redmuzzle’s daughter.”

He bowed, stiff from his wounds but with a crooked smile acknowledging his pleasure at the recognition.

“Eloped?” The masked woman fidgeted, keys rattling, light bobbing. “Wasn’t Chief Redmuzzle a goblin of the Mushfens?”

“The marriage was strictly a matter of self-preservation,” said Timon.

“But goblins hate humans.”

“Shortly before encountering Redmuzzle’s tribe, I ran afoul of a marsh witch—”

“Green Sobeska!” I recalled his decades-old report in the Pathfinder Chronicles. “From the hag you retrieved several fragments of the tablets of Xanderghul. She transmogrified you into a goblin as you fled her grotto.”

“I am flattered that you remember, Venture-Captain.”

Timon’s use of my Society title pleased and irritated me in equal portion. After my infuriating audience with the Decemvirate, I remained uncertain of my status. In my long absence, they had reassigned all of my field agents to others, leaving me a venture-captain in name only.

“Thank you, Timon.” The woman’s cool tone indicated dismissal.

For a moment I wished Radovan were with me so that he might slip a few coins into the retired Pathfinder’s withered hand.

As Timon withdrew, the woman brushed past me and opened the door. Before I could identify her perfume—something Qadiran—the mingled scents of old paper, parchment, and leather poured out of the building. The woman snapped her fingers. Two rows of yellow lamps flickered to life along a pair of long reading tables.

Ranks of bookshelves surrounded the tables. Like tombs in a catacomb lay thousands of old, damaged, or misfiled volumes of arcane and mundane lore. The curators of the Grand Lodge’s many libraries would determine which to restore for general use and which to retire.

I felt a pang of sympathy for the forgotten books and for Timon.

“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather use one of the libraries?” she asked.

“I enjoy the solitude.”

“It’s better for sulking, isn’t it?” She saw the effect of her remark in my posture. “No, no, I’m sorry, Varian. That isn’t how I meant to begin. Here, I brought you a gift in honor of your long-awaited return from Tian Xia.”

She produced a goblet from beneath her cloak. I stifled my annoyance at her familiar address, made all the more infuriating by her own anonymity. Since my return to the Grand Lodge, no one but Timon had addressed me as “Venture-Captain.” In default of that title, anyone less than a prince should address me as “Your Excellency,” or at least as “Count Jeggare.”

She set the goblet on a reading table and produced a pair of bottles. The curling labels seized my attention: the wine came from my own vineyards in Western Cheliax, two of the finest vintages ever produced in the Inner Sea.

Decades earlier I had sent such bottles to certain of my field agents, who reported their excursions to me for fact-checking, annotation, and ultimately submission to the Decemvirate for potential inclusion in the Pathfinder Chronicles. Could this woman be Medesha? Khirsah? It should not surprise me to learn that either of those talented women had entered the Society’s innermost circle.

I studied what little I could see beneath the mask: sea-green eyes, coral lips, and a long, fair chin. The enchantments of a Decemvirate mask could very well extend beyond the features it covered, even disguising the wearer’s voice. Perhaps the masked stranger was not a woman, perhaps not even human.

As she poured the wine, I noticed that the corks of both bottles had been previously drawn and reinserted.

“You will join me, of course.”

The Decemvirate has a flair for the dramatic.

“I hoped you would ask.” She produced a second goblet from beneath her cloak. She filled both vessels and allowed me to choose.

Her gesture only heightened my caution, despite the seeming absurdity that a member of the Decemvirate would poison me on the grounds of the Grand Lodge. I chose the goblet nearest me. As I nosed the wine, she lifted the other goblet and said, “To old friends.”

“Whoever they are.” I put the goblet to my lips to cover my sarcasm.

The wine covered my palate with ripe cherry balanced with a hint of black olive and tobacco. After a moment’s savor, I let the wine trail down my throat, relishing its decades-mellowed character.

The woman admired her goblet before setting it down. “Patience has its rewards.”

By her tone, I knew she had prepared that remark.

I gestured for her to sit, taking the chair opposite as Arnisant settled at my foot. He laid his head upon his crossed forepaws and closed his eyes.

“Believe me when I say I understand your frustration,” she began. Uttering my thoughts on that proposition seemed impolite after accepting a drink, so I smiled. “All right, I can’t possibly understand your frustration. But I can imagine that you feel you deserve an explanation.”

“And you feel I do not deserve one?”

“I’m not saying that. I’m saying you must trust that we know what we are doing.”

“What I know is that I accepted, without explanation, a mission to retrieve this Celestial Pearl.” Even as I named the artifact, I felt the cool pulse of half of its former contents within my breast. My brief death and subsequent resurrection by virtue of the dragon’s heart was one of several intentional lacunae in my report to the Decemvirate. “During my absence, no effort was mounted to aid or rescue me and my—”

“We had no message from you.”

“So you say. I sent three before misadventure prevented further communication.”

“So you say.” She drained the rest of her wine and refilled the goblet as I seethed. Once again, I noticed the eerie calm of my heartbeat even as the muscles in my neck drew painfully tight. “The truth is that I believe you, Varian. Others do as well. What I don’t believe is that all the wizards of the Grand Lodge are lying about receiving no messages.”

“It takes only one to sow deceit.”

“Your concerns are noted. And…” She looked toward the door and peered into the darkness between the book stacks. Beside me, Arnisant lay still, breathing steadily. Surely he would have scented any intruder, so I took her gesture for more mummery. “The oaths of the Decemvirate are more demanding than those of the Society at large.”

“If nothing else, my tenure in the Society should afford me the courtesy of an explanation. What was the purpose of my fetching the Celestial Pearl? Why can I not see the Lacuna Codex? Why will no one explain—?”

“I’m sorry, Varian. Already I’ve told you more than I should. You must place your faith in the judgment of the Decemvirate.”

“As Eando Kline did?”

She sighed. “I knew you would throw that in my face.”

“The machinations of the Decemvirate seem to be driving away the most promising members of the Society even as others retire.”

“Kline’s mistake was to place his judgment over that of the Decemvirate.”

“Was that a mistake?”

“You don’t have all the information.”

“Perhaps if I did—”

“It is strictly need-to-know—”

“I am a Pathfinder. By definition, I need to know.”

She made a silent snarl, a gesture reminding me of Radovan’s big smile, except for her perfect white teeth. I raised an eyebrow, half amused at the image she presented.

She let out a sigh and shook her head. “Try to resist the impulse to have the last word tomorrow. You might get it.”

“Perhaps tomorrow I will want it.”

“I beg you not to follow Ollysta’s example, Varian. Don’t throw away a long and distinguished career for the sake of pride.”

“Honor.”

“Semantics.”

“Only to someone who has forgotten the difference.”

She pushed back from the table, jostling the bottles and goblets. “Enjoy the wine. Timon will return later to unlock the door.”

As she walked away, I took her advice and resisted the impulse to have the last word. When she slammed the door shut behind her, I opened my satchel.

Arranging my remaining riffle scrolls, I set out a pot of ink, two compartmentalized boxes full of various material essences, dozens of blank riffle scrolls, a blank journal, another half-filled with my notes and sketches from Tian Xia, and my latest grimoire.

It was to fill the latter volume that I had come to this repository. While I had learned many new spells during my time at Dragon Temple, I wished to add others to my repertoire now that I was no longer an armchair arcanist but a practicing wizard.

Draining my goblet, I selected a riffle scroll and raised the cup. With two fingers I pinned a riffle scroll against the heel of my palm and thumbed the edge. The pages zipped past with a satisfying burp. Arcane light surrounded the goblet.

Holding it high, I searched the stacks for the tomes I sought. The organization was more or less as I remembered. Soon I returned to the table with three books of spells.

For a few minutes I indulged the nostalgic reflex, lingering over the names and annotations of the Pathfinder wizards who had fallen in the field. Two had once reported to me as their venture-captain. The other had been a friend, one whose humorous letters I could recite almost verbatim.

After pouring another goblet of wine, I set to work. Hours later, I had inscribed several long-desired spells. As I finished copying an interesting illusion, I lifted the second bottle to find that it, too, was empty. A wave of fatigue fell over me. I shook my head, and the feeling passed.

Arnisant distracted my thought with a loud and abrupt snore. Placing my toe against the dog’s ribs, I reconsidered jostling him but instead withdrew my foot. Like Radovan and me, he had endured a long, arduous journey. The loyal hound deserved his rest.

“A loyal dog does deserve his rest.” A liquid voice echoed my thoughts as a masked man stepped into the lamplight.

He wore a mask of hammered gold painted with enamel at brows, lips, and beard. Beneath jeweled arm rings, crisp linen wound tight around his arms. He wore a breastplate of compressed peacock feathers and a pleated scarlet kilt. From one hip hung a khopesh in a jeweled half-sheath. From the other dangled a pair of bound books and a miniature chariot of elm, ash, and sycamore. Scents of myrrh, sandalwood, cedar, and attar of roses flowed from him.

The stranger’s obscured face rose in an imperial gesture, and he said, “Although you are a most disloyal dog, Count Jeggare, you too shall have the rest you deserve—a final rest.”

Chapter Two: Token of Affection

Radovan

“Stand fast, varlet!”

I could hardly believe my ears. “What did you say?”

“Don’t move.” The bravo struck a pose and looked down his skinny sword at me.

“That ain’t what you said. What did you call me?”

He sneered, probably thinking I couldn’t hear his buddies creeping up behind me. When I told the boss I was going out for some exercise, this wasn’t what I had in mind. The swordsman looked me in the eye. “Varlet.”

“That’s what I thought.” I crooked a finger. “Why don’t you come over here and whisper it in my ear.”

He slid a step closer before thinking better of it. He had a good five inches of height on me. Along with the sword, that gave him plenty of reach. In the narrow alley, that gave him one hell of an advantage. Judging from the purses I saw dangling from his belt, it’d been working out for him so far.

I could’ve put a dart in his eye, but that would’ve spoiled the surprise for his buddies, who didn’t know I knew where they were. Besides, after the past year, I wasn’t in much of a killing mood.

“When I hear a word like ‘varlet,’ I know I’m talking to a special kind of guy,” I said. “The kind with a scented hanky in his cuff, maybe a monocle just for show, a box of powdered tobacco to sniff off the back of his wrist. You know the kind of guy I mean. In Cheliax, we’d call you a poet.”

“Mind your tongue, hellspawn, or I will give you such—”

“A poet’d say ‘thrashing.’”

“—a thrashing— Curse you, you insolent Chel!”

“I’ve got to hand it to you, though. You Absalom thugs dress better than Egorian river rats.” I sniffed at him. “Smell nice, too. What’s that, lilac water?”

“How dare you! I am no thug. I am a gentleman. I keep the streets of Absalom—”

“Alleys.”

“I keep them clean of scum like you.”

I nodded at the purses on his belt. “And charge us for the privilege, yeah?”

For a second he lost his tough and looked past me at his partners. His eyes told me I’d guessed right when I heard their boots scrape the cobblestones: there were two moving in, one on either side. They needed a little more time, so I vamped.

“So you want my purse? What about my fancy new jacket? You wouldn’t believe how much it cost. I had it made in a city on the other side of the world, ten times bigger than this little hamlet.” I showed off the dragon running down either sleeve, the monkey and the swordswoman tooled on the chest. I imagined the backstabbers checking out the phoenix on the back. “On the other hand, it’s a bit wide in the shoulders for a skinny little poet like you. You ever lift anything heavier than that toothpicker?”

“You’ll eat those words—”

The guy on my left made his move. I whipped around to put a spur in his belly. Lucky for him, I caught him in his big thick belt. The sharp bone jutting from my elbow didn’t perforate him, but it knocked the wind out of him.

The second guy lunged for where I wasn’t standing anymore. I threw out my leg in a move my late “master” called Sweeping the Grass. For the first time I realized that name didn’t make any sense. Who sweeps the grass? It should’ve been Sweeping the Porch or the Sweeping the Street or something. Maybe I’d rename it now that the old bastard was gone to Hell and I wasn’t. Not yet.

When I took out his legs, the second mook hit the cobblestones hard. He tried to stand but slipped in a pile of garbage, raising a terrific stink before falling again.

While I was dancing with his friends, the gentleman moved in to take a stab at me. I tugged the first goon over by the belt, careful to let his pal’s sword miss the important parts. That’s the kind of guy I am: considerate of others’ feelings. Not that you’d believe it from the guy’s yowling.

“Desna weeps.” For all I knew, the city guard showed up in Absalom alleys. I was going to have to wrap this up.

The second knucklehead tried to get up, so I gave him a rap on the noggin. The bleeder sat on the alley floor, clutching his belly and wailing.

“Shut up, you, or I’ll give you something to cry about.” Maybe I didn’t want to kill these jerks, but he was testing my resolve.

I grabbed the blades they’d dropped and saw the bloodstains. They’d used these knives recently.

“You aren’t just robbers,” I said. “You’re cutthroats.”

Gentleman took a step toward me. I showed him the big smile, and he froze.

“Stand still, knave. I will hold you here to answer to the city guard.”

“Seriously? You want to explain these to the city guard?” I threw away the bloody knives and pocketed the stolen purses from the backstabbers.

The point of his sword drooped.

“That’s more like it. Now hand over your loot.”

The man had no guile. His feint was obvious. Before his point came anywhere near me, I lunged below it, sitting splits in a lunge the aforementioned late master called Monkey Plucks the Peaches.

Gentleman recited his vowels, top of his lungs at first, then weak as a squeaky hinge.

“Drop it.” When he didn’t, I shook the tree.

The sword hit the ground. Three of the purses followed.

“All of them.” I squeezed.

Fingers shaking, he slipped out a platinum coin and tucked it behind his sash before letting the purse fall to the ground.

I collected the money while he cradled his peaches. When I reached for his sash, he tucked an elbow over the coin. I cracked him across the face and took the coin. It was different from the local currency I’d seen. “What’s this?”

“A token,” he wheezed. “Sentimental value. Please… let me keep it.”

Instead of the head of a queen or a bishop, stamped on the face of the coin was a woman performing what the boss would call “an unmentionable act.”

For a couple seconds I considered what to do with these lousy killers. Cutting their throats would be a big favor to the neighbors. But I really was sick of killing.

I flipped the coin, slapped it flat on the back of my hand, pretended to make a choice. “Desna smiles on you boys tonight.”

I sauntered away until I turned the corner. Then I ran.

∗∗∗

Who could say no to a face like Iolanda’s?

According to the fourth guy I asked, the brothel that minted the coin was way across town. Between the boss’s purse and the loot I took from the cutthroats, there was no reason to walk. I flagged down a carriage. Settling into the cab, I couldn’t stop looking at the coin, rolling it across my knuckles. It’d been a long, long time since anyone’d done something that kind of unmentionable to me.

At the brothel, I tossed the driver the smallest of the stolen purses. He took a peek inside and whistled his appreciation. “Shall I wait for you, sir?”

“Nah, I’m going to take my time.”

He tipped his hat as I jumped out.

The bouncers took one look at me and started pushing up their sleeves. I didn’t want any more trouble. One of the bouncers was a half-orc with tusks bigger than my spurs.

“Take it easy, fellas,” I said. “I got this coin.”

They squinted at the token, grumbled a bit, and nodded at the halfling doorman. As I went inside, the slip whispered, “Nice jacket.”

I never get tired of hearing that. Some fellas spend all their money on booze or shiver. Me, I like to look sharp. I tipped the slip a gold coin, which didn’t seem to impress him much. Once I got inside, I saw why.

The boss, he’s probably the richest guy in Egorian, capital of Cheliax, which is pretty much the richest country in the world. That makes my boss the richest guy in the world.

Well, maybe that’s not what he’d call “empirically true.” But let’s just say that the difference between my boss and the actual richest guy in the world is less than the difference between me and somebody else who ain’t rich.

The boss is better with the metaphors.

The brothel’s salon made the boss’s look like a warehouse office. It was all red velvet cushions, tiger-hide couches, chandeliers like all the stars fell down at once, carpet so thick you needed a machete to cross the room, with all the knobs and fixtures made of gold-plated gold. And the girls…

Years back, my old boss Zandros the Fair put me in charge of security for a couple of the Goatherds’ houses on Trick Alley. Even after he got jealous and put me back on collections, I spent a fair amount of my free time getting to know the ladies of the lane. Whenever one of the houses brought in a great beauty, the madam always said the new girl was from some far-away land: Osirion, Qadira, Tian Xia, Rahadoum, or Katapesh. Standing in this fancy brothel, I realized they’d all lied.

All those beauties came from Absalom.

The girls were made of all the colors, hair and eyes and skin. There were elf girls with ears as slim as milkweed, and their eyes were jewels. There were slip girls nimble as forest nymphs, three of them chasing each other over the furniture and through the legs of the clients. There were fat girls, skinny girls, tall girls, short girls, a couple of bald girls, and one dwarf girl with biceps bigger than mine. I winked at her. Later on, we were going to talk massage.

Somebody put a cool glass in my hand. I drank it without looking. Fizzy.

“Can I help you find something in particular?” A slim fellow in a white butler’s coat stood beside me. When I got a closer look, I wasn’t so sure it was a fellow after all.

“I got this coin.” I showed it.

“Iolanda. You lucky devil.” His or her wink smoothed over my suspicion that it was a crack about my bloodline. Lots of folks mistake the grip of the big knife hanging from the spine of my jacket for a tail, which I don’t have—and no horns neither, so don’t even start. Not-a-butler pointed up a spiral staircase to indicate a balcony on the third floor. “Up there.”

I tossed away the glass and started up the stairs.

From some angles the hair she let spill over the balcony was black as ink. From others, blue as midnight.

People got in my way, but I pushed them aside without a glance. I couldn’t look away from Iolanda.

It was her eyes. They weren’t blue, not if sapphires are blue. Not purple either, if that’s what you call amethysts. They were the color of those stars you think you see some nights, only when you point them out to someone else, they’re already gone, dark as the blank sky. But you never forget them.

Iolanda didn’t look at me, even after I got close. I tried to follow her gaze, but she wasn’t looking at anybody downstairs, although plenty of them were staring up at her. She sighed through lips like ripe plums.

On the way up, I’d worked out a few ice-breaking lines, real charming stuff. When the moment came, I cracked the little smile and said, “I got this coin.”

She looked down at me. She didn’t quite sniff, but her expression told me she was used to seeing a higher class of client. Still, she took the coin. Her fingernails were painted the exact same shade as her lips. Somebody’s got that job, I thought, staring at her lips while mixing that color. Desna smiles on that guy.

“Come.” She led me to a bedroom door. “This won’t take long.”

“Don’t be so quick to judge.” On the other hand, I thought, I’d been what you call abstinent for over a year. “Let’s take our time. I got all night.”

She stopped and turned toward me, her voice serious. “You understand what these tokens indicate. You receive only the favor shown.”

“Yeah, I know. I just figured…” I shrugged, hopeful.

“Only what is shown, and only for as long as it takes.” She gave me a closer look. Her eyes trailed across my jacket. She frowned like she was thinking. I wanted to make her smile.

“How much for the night? I got money.”

She named her price. The only guy I knew who could pay it was the boss, and he’d need more guys to carry that purse.

She saw it on my face and raised an eyebrow. “Perhaps there is something else you can do for me. Something that would be worth more of my attention.” She trailed a finger along the dragon on my left shoulder. Even through the leather, her touch gave me a thrill.

“What do you want, sweetheart? Just name it.”

She smiled.

“A killing.”

Chapter Three: The Dead Prince

Varian

The intruder stepped out of the shadows. I stood, shocked by several simultaneous realizations.

Foremost was that he had employed magic to read my thoughts, thus causing my momentary dizziness and his echoing of my unspoken notion. My irritation with the Decemvirate paled in comparison to my outrage at the violation.

“You will never guess who I am.” The intruder’s voice was a sneer behind his golden mask.

Locking my gaze to his jaundiced eyes, I made a silent inventory of my weapons: riffle scrolls before me, the Shadowless Sword at my hip, and Arnisant at my feet. Yet for the moment, my most powerful weapon might be a sharp tongue. “Prince Kasiya of Osirion.”

He choked. “How—?”

“You wear the funereal garb of the royal family of Osirion, with the addition of a few rather gaudy accessories.” The latter caught my interest: the miniature chariot had to be a magical conveyance, and by the durable bindings—one crocodile hide, the other the skin of a large blue-skinned reptile—I inferred Kasiya’s books contained arcana or similarly rare material. To my knowledge, Kasiya had not been a spellcaster when we last met. Of course, to his knowledge, neither had I.

“So my attire made it all too easy for you to guess my mortal identity. Still, you can hardly deduce the nature of my incredible return from death and entomb—”

“Vampire.”

“How could you possibly—?”

“You are smothered in the traditional burial ointments and herbs, yet not of sufficient quantity to disguise the stench of a ghoul or ghast. You are obviously tangible, so you cannot be a spectre, wraith, or ghost. You speak articulately, so your mental functions are no worse than they were in life. And let us be frank, Kasiya: You were never lich material.”

“Prince Kasiya!” he sputtered, bloody flecks forming around the rim of his mask’s mouth. He struck the table with such force that he left the impression of his fist in the mahogany. “You will address me as ‘Your Highness.’”

As he raged, I slipped a pair of riffle scrolls into my coat pockets. I did the same again and put a third pair in my hands before he regained his composure.

“You are no longer a prince, Kasiya. You are a corpse, a carcass, a cadaver—a casing of dead flesh. You have sunk lower than the grave, become more common than dust. ‘Kasiya’ is too much name for you.”

“You, a mere count, dare speak to me with such insolence? You should bow to the ground and grovel for mercy, for I have bided my time for decades, mastered the arts arcane, plotted every calculation for the singular purpose of—”

“Revenge.” I yawned into my palm, holding the riffle scroll between my fingers like one of those loathsome cigars with which Radovan used to annoy me. It was, I thought, a rather good semblance of nonchalance—so long as Kasiya did not notice the trembling of my fingers. “Vengeance is the common motivation for your ilk.”

“Again you say ‘common’!?” Kasiya sputtered. “And my ilk?”

“Vampires are as susceptible to pride as… well, as susceptible as princes. Dead ones.”

Kasiya raised a bandaged hand to trace a symbol in the air. I recognized the gesture as the beginning of an incendiary invocation. As he cupped his hands around a growing spark, I dropped a riffle scroll and snatched another from my pocket. Its pages snapped across my thumb. I felt the arcane tingling of my counterspell wash away his nascent fireball.

“Not in the library,” I admonished him. While he glowered, I dropped the expended scroll and slipped another into my hand. “After all, you too were a Pathfinder, once.”

Kasiya’s halting breath gurgled and broke into such a repugnant sound that it took me a moment to recognize it as laughter. “You hide your fear well. I had forgotten that you too enjoy some excess of pride.”

“Honor.”

“Semantics.”

His words struck like a dash of cold water. Either Kasiya had been spying on me for hours, or else—

No, I refused to believe my artless Osirian nemesis had gulled me with an impersonation of a member of the inner circle. Besides, it was inconceivable that a vampire could infiltrate the Decemvirate. Or so I prayed.

“You mentioned revenge,” said Kasiya, rising confidence in his voice. “Tell me, Chelaxian, what in your infernal empire is a fit punishment for a man who betrays a prince and leaves him for dead?”

“Your implied accusation is false on both counts.”

“How do you mean ‘false’?”

Kasiya’s mask cannot hide the horror he’s become.

“First, I did not leave you for dead; you were in fact dead. Second, I did not leave your remains; I returned them to your royal brother, whose noble hospitality I repaid by withholding the true account of your treachery.”

“Enough,” said Kasyia. “It is time to make you suffer.”

“In that you have already succeeded with your tiresome posturing.”

Kasiya lifted the blue-bound book hanging from his girdle. He twisted open the latch and revealed the contents. In an instant I recognized the weird writing and detestable illustrations.

“The Lacuna Codex!”

“Ah!” Humor returned to Kasiya’s sepulchral voice. “At last I surprise you.”

In the hands of a powerful wizard, the rituals contained in the Lacuna Codex could alter the course of history. They were weapons so dreadful that the last prince of Ustalav hesitated to unleash its powers, perishing at the hands of Tar-Baphon before the hero Arnisant finally sacrificed himself to imprison the Whispering Tyrant. After recovering the Codex from that prince’s tomb, I entrusted it to the Decemvirate.

And now Kasiya had it.

“What do you think of me now, Count Jeggare? With such power in my grasp, do I still amuse you?”

“Read me a bit.”

“What?”

“Anywhere will do. Perhaps that caption under that rather disgusting illustration.”

“You test my patience.”

“Surely you can read ancient Thassilonian,” I said. “If not, this tome is of no more use to you than to a blind beggar.”

I raised a riffle scroll, but before I could place my thumb upon its edge, Kasiya leaped over the table and struck me full on the chest.

His icy hand pressed down upon my heart. I slapped the golden mask from his face.

Where once Kasiya’s face had been a study in Osirian beauty, it was now a patchwork ruin. The brown skin, once lustrous, now resembled a patch of moldering leaves through which writhed livid worms. His teeth floated in his lumpish jaws, irregular except for the prominent fangs peculiar to blood-drinkers. As I watched, his crooked nose wriggled back into place after my strike had flattened it against his cheek.

Kasiya lashed out again, tearing open my shirt. There on my chest lay the outline of his hand, white fading to the natural hue of my flesh.

“You life essence should be mine. How—?”

I had an inkling of the answer, but the time for badinage had passed. “Arnisant!”

The hound did not stir from his place near my feet. For an instant I felt the panic of imagining he were dead, but his chest moved, and I heard the steady groan of his snore.

Kasiya let out another horrid gurgle. “Your pet will not wake until you are dead. When I have finished with you, I shall let him dine on your corpse.”

I snapped a riffle scroll. Kasiya drew an eldritch sign to ward off my spell, but I had not aimed at him.

My magic peeled away the enchantment that kept Arnisant asleep. I pointed at Kasiya. “Arnisant, hands!”

With a scrabble of claws on the floor, Arnisant leaped. Kasiya grasped the hilt of his khopesh while fending off the dog with his empty hand. He shouted and drew back the hand, one finger short.

Kasiya slashed his khopesh toward Arnisant. The blade missed, but he pummeled the hound with the weapon’s butt. Arnisant fell back, choking on the putrescent finger. He coughed it up, and the gray appendage dissolved into slime on the floor.

I dropped the expended scroll and drew the Shadowless Sword, thrusting at Kasiya’s exposed face.

He fell back with inhuman speed, yet my swift blade scratched his cheek. Black ooze welled up on his mottled skin.

I struck again. He grabbed at my blade, but I withdrew before he could capture it in his unholy grip.

Kasiya retreated, but only one step. He whirled the khopesh above his head, bringing it down in a blinding arc. I stepped back scarcely in time to avoid destruction. The heavy blade splintered my chair.

I unleashed another riffle scroll. Its magic tingled through my sinews. Poised for another attack, Arnisant uttered a querulous whuffle as he felt the spell affect him too.

Kasiya flew toward us, but now Arnisant and I matched him in alacrity. The vampire’s sword struck empty air where I had stood an instant earlier. Arnisant blurred behind Kasiya, harrying his heels.

I circled the table, attacking Kasiya’s exposed face at every opportunity. His parries struck hard against my blade, but they were hasty—he still feared attacks to his face and eyes. He feinted a leap onto the table but turned instead to cut at Arnisant.

“Arnisant, out!” Kasiya’s blade scored a shallow cut across the hound’s hip as Arnisant ran back. I stabbed deep into Kasiya’s ham. His lunge faltered, but he staggered forward, recovering as abominable energies repaired his severed ligaments.

I pressed the attack. Kasiya retreated into the library stacks. With his free hand, he swept books from the shelves. They crashed over me, the dust of decades blinding me.

The creaking of a high shelf alerted me to the danger I could no longer see. Pushing books through the nearest shelf, I snaked through the towering stack even as it fell upon its neighbor. The massive shelves cascaded one against the other as I rolled back toward the tables at the center of the room. I turned to witness the ruin of the windows as the last stack fell against them, shattering the stained glass.

Beyond the broken window, the pink of dawn colored the eastern sky.

I repressed the impulse to taunt Kasiya. He still had time to kill me, if I were careless. Taking another riffle scroll in hand, I watched the open window, ready to slow his escape with a frost spell. Nothing moved above the roiling dust. Instead, I heard a crackle of flames from the direction of the door.

Kasiya released the fireball. As it flew toward me, it grew from the size of a pea to the circumference of a pumpkin. I leaped for Arnisant, trying to knock the dog flat on the floor.

The blast swept us both across the room.

My head rang with the explosion of dust. Burning pages flapped around us like fiery birds landing on a charred beach.

Kasiya stood before the door, unperturbed by the explosion. Retrieving his mask, he favored me with an ugly, eel-like smile. “This is the first of your punishments, Count Jeggare. Do not dare to hope that it shall be the last.”

As he spoke, his features melted. So too did his flesh and garments, dissolving into a greasy cloud that seeped beneath the crack of the repository door.

Scrabbling to my feet, I grabbed the door handle and pulled. Locked.

Heedless of the flames rising around me, I collected my satchel and as many of the materials as I could find in the wreckage of the table. Happily, the scroll I required was one of those I recovered in the debris. I discharged its magic to open the door and stepped out of the smothering smoke into the cool air of dawn.

The hue of “Fire!” rang across the grounds of the Grand Lodge. Servants and Pathfinders poured out of the nearest buildings. A few lugged buckets, demonstrating the efficiency with which they had learned the menial lessons taught to burgeoning Pathfinders—lessons that I, by virtue of my noble birth, had been spared.

“Venture-Captain, you are injured.” Timon thrust his bucket into the arms of another man and produced a handkerchief to press against my temple. By his fearful grimace, I saw he was glad of any excuse not to approach the inferno.

I took the handkerchief, grateful for the gesture but uncomfortable at the touch of a servant.

A Pathfinder, I reminded myself. Timon was not always a servant. I shuddered to imagine myself set down so low, a humiliation I had experienced recently. A growing light from the sky arrested my attention.

Another fireball fell toward us. Illuminated in its glow, Kasiya rode upon his now full-sized chariot, drawn by a pack of flying saluki dogs. Beside me, Timon gasped but stood paralyzed by fear.

Frantic, I fumbled with my satchel, eyes searching for the right scroll. My fingers found it, my thumb pressing against its unbound edge, and the blaze engulfed me.

Chapter Four: The Killing

Radovan

It’d been over a year since I’d felt the touch of a woman’s hand, much less the rest of her. Iolanda, the most beautiful prostitute in Absalom, had just offered me a whole night with her. All she wanted in return was one little murder.

“No dice, sweetheart.”

She looked me over again, her eyes lingering on my arms, the spurs on my elbows, my fists, and all the fights carved into my red leather jacket. “I thought you might be the sort of man who had killed before.”

“I’m trying to cut back.”

She turned real slow, her dark eyes stroking me. A bead of sweat slipped down my neck.

It’d been over a year. I’d never gone a year.

“What’d this guy do to make you want him dead?”

She sat down in front of a vanity and held my brothel token near the lamp. I could just make out the naughty image on its face. “He took a purse full of tokens like this one.”

“Exactly like that one?”

“No,” she said. “All different. He doles them out as tips to common, ugly men, brutes and servants.”

I tried not to take it personal. There wasn’t a thing I’d rather do than to go through that purse and cash in every token, one by one. Still, it wasn’t worth a man’s life. I said so.

“He beat me,” she said. “In front of everyone.”

Back in my Trick Alley days, I beat the hell out of the men who got too rough. I broke a lot of arms and legs, cracked more than a couple of skulls, and I was happy to do it. But the rule was, you don’t take a life except for another one.

And yeah, I knew some men need killing. Those cutthroats I’d beaten earlier. It wasn’t wrong to say I’d have done Absalom a big favor by ending them.

But I hadn’t. Sure, both in the Goatherds and later, working for the boss, I’d had to do some killings, but it’d always been to keep the other guy—or rat-man or demon—from killing me first. They all had it coming.

This last year, though, in the body of my own personal devil, I’d killed plenty of guys who didn’t have it coming. I thought about the monks of Iron Mountain almost every day. I had nightmares about those phoenix girls.

“I can get those tokens back for you. I can even bust him up real bad. But I don’t kill him.”

She turned to spill all that black, black hair over the shoulder. “For an hour of my attentions.”

“All night.”

“You drive a hard bargain.”

It had been a year. “Sweetheart, you got no idea.”

∗∗∗

Iolanda pulled a bell rope that summoned the thin white butler. She whispered in the servant’s ear, and she or he nodded, led me halfway downstairs, and pointed through an open archway at a game of towers in the next room. There was my mark.

The big fellow lounged back in his chair, drawing on a fat cigar as one of his two toadies played his cards for him. Thick hair bristled on his bulging forearms, and his beard was coming in after a morning’s shave.

“They will leave soon,” the servant whispered. “They must be far away before any misfortune falls on them.”

I gave the servant the don’t-tell-me-my-business stare. She or he called over a hellspawn girl to keep me occupied, but I didn’t want to spoil my appetite. “I’ll just hang out.”

The mark gave up on towers a couple hours later. He tipped the dealer with one of those platinum tokens. I couldn’t see what favor was on its face, but from the dealer’s eyes, it was a good one. The mark and his lackeys pushed off. I gave them half a minute and followed.

I saw the mark’s goons walking away without him, a carriage rolling off in the opposite direction. I recognized the shape of the mark’s head in the rear window.

Desna was smiling on me.

Before I could whistle, another carriage pulled up. The horses shied as they got close to me, so I jumped into the cab. As they settled down, the driver who’d dropped me off turned around with a grin. He’d been waiting for another good tip.

“Follow that carriage,” I told him. He slapped the reins.

We followed the mark back toward the docks, where he got out beside a warehouse office. His buddies were nowhere in sight, but he paused before putting a key in the door. He looked right at the carriage. Right at me.

He pointed at the docks and crooked a finger before walking over to the boardwalk.

“Shall I drive on, sir?”

“Nah, this is good.” I tossed him the second-smallest of the purses I’d taken from the cutthroats. Before he could ask, I said, “Stick around. This won’t take long.”

I followed the mark across the boardwalk. The place was almost deserted, with only a few night watchmen swinging lanterns between the warehouses. My guy went up to one of them and bought the lantern from him. The watchman got lost while my guy climbed a narrow stair beneath the boardwalk.

I followed him down. The beach stank of fish and seaweed, and the lantern light cast long shadows across the pebbled shore.

The other fellow rolled up his sleeves as I moved in, showing off just how big his arms were. The way he did it reminded me of the bouncers back at the brothel. In fact, everything about him reminded me of those bouncers, like they were imitating him when they used that gesture.

He just put up his fists and beckoned me to come on. I kissed my thumb, drew the wings of Desna on my heart, and went in.

The guy surprised me with a quick, long punch. I got my arms up barely in time, but he smashed my guard back into my face.

He fought in the classic style, fingernails up for inspection, thumbs outside. I bounced back, slid to the side, and went in for a shot to the ribs. He shot back with a one-two that cracked my wrist and smashed my ear. I danced away, grinning with a confidence I didn’t feel. He rushed me again.

I put a dock piling between us. He came around, and I ran behind another one. I needed to think. All those great moves I’d learned in Tian Xia were scrambled in my head. I’d learned them while stuck in a devil body. Now that it was gone, I didn’t feel them the way I had for the past year. I had to think about them, and that made me slow.

“You going to run, run now,” he said. “Just don’t let me see you back at my brothel.”

Radovan’s jacket tells a story, but not a happy one.

Your brothel?

I came around the piling, fists high. When his shoulder dropped for a punch, I Swept the Beach. My foot barely caught his heel, but quick as spite he stomped my ankle. He put all his weight down, pinning me.

He walked up my leg. I tried kicking him, but he caught my other foot and twisted hard. He got a scream, but not as much as he wanted. He raised a foot to crush my gnarlies.

I winced, expecting the pain but knowing it’d be worse for him. He must have seen it on my face. At the last instant, he turned just enough to smash my thigh instead of impaling his foot on my spiked cup.

I scissored my legs around his foot and rolled. We both went down, tumbling over the stones. A dead crab tore the hell out of my cheek. The guy got his finger in my ear, moved to put a thumb in my eye. I kneed him in the gut and tried to roll away, but he hung on.

His size and strength gave him the advantage. We fought with knees and elbows, which gave it back to me. I bloodied his hip with a spur. He pulled a razor from his belt and damned near drew me a new smile.

“Stupid son of a bitch, I wasn’t going to kill you,” I growled.

“You think you’re the first? I’m sick of it. Once I’m done with you, I’m going to kill that whore.”

I pushed away the hand with the razor in it. Then I let it come back, only this time I turned my head and opened wide. I’m not proud to be a biter, but you got to go with your strengths.

He lost the razor along with most of the use of that hand.

“I’ll kill her slow,” he gasped. “Believe it.”

Before I could answer, he smashed my nose with a head-butt. The pain blinded me. He pushed me away. We got to our feet, blinking and reeling. Somebody kicked the lantern, sending the world spinning under the docks. I closed my eyes and listened for his breath. I charged, catching him right in the breadbasket.

We fell into the surf. His head hit something hard, but not hard enough to knock him out. He fought for his life, because that’s what we were fighting for now. I got his ear in one hand, a hank of hair in the other. I shoved his head under the water.

His fingers found my throat. For a second I faltered. His head came up. “You don’t know who you’re dealing with! You’ll never get out of Absalom ali—”

I put his head back under and counted. At thirteen I let him up again. He sputtered, “I’ll pay you!”

That got my attention. “What about Iolanda?”

“You can buy out her contract. She gambles it all away anyway. You can win it back like I did.”

He beat me. Those had been her words. I’d just assumed she meant the other thing.

Which was what she’d been betting on.

This guy was her pimp, not a bad customer. Iolanda knew he wouldn’t let things go if I just beat him. If he went back to kill her, it was her own damned fault.

Still.

“Tell me you won’t lay a hand on her,” I said. “Make me believe it.”

“I swear.”

His eyes flicked down as he said it.

“Sorry, pal.” I put his head back under. “I believed you the first time.”

∗∗∗

It was just after dawn when I hopped out of the carriage in front of the boss’s little clubhouse. Smoke rose from a blackened building. The boss stood beside a scorched semicircle in the lawn, standing straight while a couple of Pathfinder mucky-mucks chewed him out. Arnisant caught my eye like he wanted to escape, so I called him over and scratched his jaw.

When the shouting was done, the boss came over with a fire-crippled servant carrying his satchel. The boss stopped when he saw the cab. “I have been too long without the Red Carriage,” he said. “Back to the inn. We shall collect our things and take the first ship to Greengold.”

That was fine by me. I’d be glad if we never saw this damned town again.

Arnisant followed the boss into the cab, and the burned servant offered me the boss’s bag.

I said, “You want to help with the luggage?”

He hesitated, glancing back at the smoldering building. I could tell he wanted an excuse to leave but needed a little incentive. I held up the purse I’d taken from Iolanda’s pimp. “I’ll make it worth your while.“Chapter Four: The Killing

Radovan

It’d been over a year since I’d felt the touch of a woman’s hand, much less the rest of her. Iolanda, the most beautiful prostitute in Absalom, had just offered me a whole night with her. All she wanted in return was one little murder.

“No dice, sweetheart.”

She looked me over again, her eyes lingering on my arms, the spurs on my elbows, my fists, and all the fights carved into my red leather jacket. “I thought you might be the sort of man who had killed before.”

“I’m trying to cut back.”

She turned real slow, her dark eyes stroking me. A bead of sweat slipped down my neck.

It’d been over a year. I’d never gone a year.

“What’d this guy do to make you want him dead?”

She sat down in front of a vanity and held my brothel token near the lamp. I could just make out the naughty image on its face. “He took a purse full of tokens like this one.”

“Exactly like that one?”

“No,” she said. “All different. He doles them out as tips to common, ugly men, brutes and servants.”

I tried not to take it personal. There wasn’t a thing I’d rather do than to go through that purse and cash in every token, one by one. Still, it wasn’t worth a man’s life. I said so.

“He beat me,” she said. “In front of everyone.”

Back in my Trick Alley days, I beat the hell out of the men who got too rough. I broke a lot of arms and legs, cracked more than a couple of skulls, and I was happy to do it. But the rule was, you don’t take a life except for another one.

And yeah, I knew some men need killing. Those cutthroats I’d beaten earlier. It wasn’t wrong to say I’d have done Absalom a big favor by ending them.

But I hadn’t. Sure, both in the Goatherds and later, working for the boss, I’d had to do some killings, but it’d always been to keep the other guy—or rat-man or demon—from killing me first. They all had it coming.

This last year, though, in the body of my own personal devil, I’d killed plenty of guys who didn’t have it coming. I thought about the monks of Iron Mountain almost every day. I had nightmares about those phoenix girls.

“I can get those tokens back for you. I can even bust him up real bad. But I don’t kill him.”

She turned to spill all that black, black hair over the shoulder. “For an hour of my attentions.”

“All night.”

“You drive a hard bargain.”

It had been a year. “Sweetheart, you got no idea.”

∗∗∗

Iolanda pulled a bell rope that summoned the thin white butler. She whispered in the servant’s ear, and she or he nodded, led me halfway downstairs, and pointed through an open archway at a game of towers in the next room. There was my mark.

The big fellow lounged back in his chair, drawing on a fat cigar as one of his two toadies played his cards for him. Thick hair bristled on his bulging forearms, and his beard was coming in after a morning’s shave.

“They will leave soon,” the servant whispered. “They must be far away before any misfortune falls on them.”

I gave the servant the don’t-tell-me-my-business stare. She or he called over a hellspawn girl to keep me occupied, but I didn’t want to spoil my appetite. “I’ll just hang out.”

The mark gave up on towers a couple hours later. He tipped the dealer with one of those platinum tokens. I couldn’t see what favor was on its face, but from the dealer’s eyes, it was a good one. The mark and his lackeys pushed off. I gave them half a minute and followed.

I saw the mark’s goons walking away without him, a carriage rolling off in the opposite direction. I recognized the shape of the mark’s head in the rear window.

Desna was smiling on me.

Before I could whistle, another carriage pulled up. The horses shied as they got close to me, so I jumped into the cab. As they settled down, the driver who’d dropped me off turned around with a grin. He’d been waiting for another good tip.

“Follow that carriage,” I told him. He slapped the reins.

We followed the mark back toward the docks, where he got out beside a warehouse office. His buddies were nowhere in sight, but he paused before putting a key in the door. He looked right at the carriage. Right at me.

He pointed at the docks and crooked a finger before walking over to the boardwalk.

“Shall I drive on, sir?”

“Nah, this is good.” I tossed him the second-smallest of the purses I’d taken from the cutthroats. Before he could ask, I said, “Stick around. This won’t take long.”

I followed the mark across the boardwalk. The place was almost deserted, with only a few night watchmen swinging lanterns between the warehouses. My guy went up to one of them and bought the lantern from him. The watchman got lost while my guy climbed a narrow stair beneath the boardwalk.

I followed him down. The beach stank of fish and seaweed, and the lantern light cast long shadows across the pebbled shore.

The other fellow rolled up his sleeves as I moved in, showing off just how big his arms were. The way he did it reminded me of the bouncers back at the brothel. In fact, everything about him reminded me of those bouncers, like they were imitating him when they used that gesture.

He just put up his fists and beckoned me to come on. I kissed my thumb, drew the wings of Desna on my heart, and went in.

The guy surprised me with a quick, long punch. I got my arms up barely in time, but he smashed my guard back into my face.

He fought in the classic style, fingernails up for inspection, thumbs outside. I bounced back, slid to the side, and went in for a shot to the ribs. He shot back with a one-two that cracked my wrist and smashed my ear. I danced away, grinning with a confidence I didn’t feel. He rushed me again.

I put a dock piling between us. He came around, and I ran behind another one. I needed to think. All those great moves I’d learned in Tian Xia were scrambled in my head. I’d learned them while stuck in a devil body. Now that it was gone, I didn’t feel them the way I had for the past year. I had to think about them, and that made me slow.

“You going to run, run now,” he said. “Just don’t let me see you back at my brothel.”

Radovan’s jacket tells a story, but not a happy one.

Your brothel?

I came around the piling, fists high. When his shoulder dropped for a punch, I Swept the Beach. My foot barely caught his heel, but quick as spite he stomped my ankle. He put all his weight down, pinning me.

He walked up my leg. I tried kicking him, but he caught my other foot and twisted hard. He got a scream, but not as much as he wanted. He raised a foot to crush my gnarlies.

I winced, expecting the pain but knowing it’d be worse for him. He must have seen it on my face. At the last instant, he turned just enough to smash my thigh instead of impaling his foot on my spiked cup.

I scissored my legs around his foot and rolled. We both went down, tumbling over the stones. A dead crab tore the hell out of my cheek. The guy got his finger in my ear, moved to put a thumb in my eye. I kneed him in the gut and tried to roll away, but he hung on.

His size and strength gave him the advantage. We fought with knees and elbows, which gave it back to me. I bloodied his hip with a spur. He pulled a razor from his belt and damned near drew me a new smile.

“Stupid son of a bitch, I wasn’t going to kill you,” I growled.

“You think you’re the first? I’m sick of it. Once I’m done with you, I’m going to kill that whore.”

I pushed away the hand with the razor in it. Then I let it come back, only this time I turned my head and opened wide. I’m not proud to be a biter, but you got to go with your strengths.

He lost the razor along with most of the use of that hand.

“I’ll kill her slow,” he gasped. “Believe it.”

Before I could answer, he smashed my nose with a head-butt. The pain blinded me. He pushed me away. We got to our feet, blinking and reeling. Somebody kicked the lantern, sending the world spinning under the docks. I closed my eyes and listened for his breath. I charged, catching him right in the breadbasket.

We fell into the surf. His head hit something hard, but not hard enough to knock him out. He fought for his life, because that’s what we were fighting for now. I got his ear in one hand, a hank of hair in the other. I shoved his head under the water.

His fingers found my throat. For a second I faltered. His head came up. “You don’t know who you’re dealing with! You’ll never get out of Absalom ali—”

I put his head back under and counted. At thirteen I let him up again. He sputtered, “I’ll pay you!”

That got my attention. “What about Iolanda?”

“You can buy out her contract. She gambles it all away anyway. You can win it back like I did.”

He beat me. Those had been her words. I’d just assumed she meant the other thing.

Which was what she’d been betting on.

This guy was her pimp, not a bad customer. Iolanda knew he wouldn’t let things go if I just beat him. If he went back to kill her, it was her own damned fault.

Still.

“Tell me you won’t lay a hand on her,” I said. “Make me believe it.”

“I swear.”

His eyes flicked down as he said it.

“Sorry, pal.” I put his head back under. “I believed you the first time.”

∗∗∗

It was just after dawn when I hopped out of the carriage in front of the boss’s little clubhouse. Smoke rose from a blackened building. The boss stood beside a scorched semicircle in the lawn, standing straight while a couple of Pathfinder mucky-mucks chewed him out. Arnisant caught my eye like he wanted to escape, so I called him over and scratched his jaw.

When the shouting was done, the boss came over with a fire-crippled servant carrying his satchel. The boss stopped when he saw the cab. “I have been too long without the Red Carriage,” he said. “Back to the inn. We shall collect our things and take the first ship to Greengold.”

That was fine by me. I’d be glad if we never saw this damned town again.

Arnisant followed the boss into the cab, and the burned servant offered me the boss’s bag.

I said, “You want to help with the luggage?”

He hesitated, glancing back at the smoldering building. I could tell he wanted an excuse to leave but needed a little incentive. I held up the purse I’d taken from Iolanda’s pimp. “I’ll make it worth your while.”