015

Frank woke up screaming, the scent of brine thick in his nose and the sound of breaking glass echoing in his ears. It took a second for him to realize he wasn't falling, that he was on solid ground, and that the pounding in his chest was his own racing heart and not the crash of black waves.

He sat up on the stiff cot, his skin slick with sweat and the image of that dreadful eye still seared into his mind.

The room around him was dim and blue, lit by moonlight filtering through a stained glass window. The panes were faded, their once vibrant depictions of trade ships and golden harpies now pale ghosts of color. Cracks ran through the plaster walls, and a patch of black mold bloomed quietly in one corner. The smell of rose-scented perfume battled mildew and won, but only just.

Across the room, nestled on a velvet pillow set atop a low marble stand, lay Thune. His face was impassive, the stone dagger in his wounded eye protruding thin and sharp like a heron's bill.

"Give me one reason." Frank dragged an arm across his dripping brow, relieved at the sight of familiar grey skin. He was Skulltaker again. He would have rather woken up at home, in his own bed. But this, at least, was some consolation.

"I do not understand the question."

"I'm asking you to tell me why I shouldn't hurl you through that window," Frank said calmly. He flexed his arms, clenched and unclenched his fists, easing back into this body like settling into a comfy chair. "That's what's called a courtesy, where I come from. I'm extending you a courtesy."

Thune sat unspeaking. His silence lay heavy in the room for a beat and then Frank leaped up with a shout, snatching the head by its dry hair.

"I could fucking kill you."

"Wait," Thune said.

“You set me on fire.”

“It was not real fire.”

“It felt real to me.”

“It had to," Thune shouted, his composure finally broken. His good eye filmed with tears. "I had to goad thee. To impress upon thee the danger we face."

"I face."

"We face it together. Our fates our bound, like it or not."

Frank worked his jaw like he was chewing glass. “You told me we were safe in there. That it was a sanctuary.”

"And it was. It is." Thune’s voice was steady, but softer than usual. “But our situation is perilous. I can not afford to coddle thee.”

"So you lit me on fire?"

"I am sorry." There was no mockery in the words, no theatrical flourish. Just quiet regret. "I let fear cloud my judgment."

"You? afraid?"

You know what he fears.

"I am always afraid. Only a fool would not be in my position." Thune’s good eye seemed distant, almost clouded. "Like thee, I am lost in this world."

"You're from here."

"True, Argos is my home, but I am helpless here now. I must count on thee to vouchsafe my life. I am not a man accustomed to depending on others, to being helpless."

Frank recalled the man he met in the dream temple, strong and proud and regal, a far cry from this withered old head. He couldn't imagine what five hundred years of imprisonment felt like, the number was too big, the horrors of that dungeon too depraved. But he knew what the product of such suffering looked like; he held it in his hand now.

"If something happens to thee," Thune continued, "I can not trust that someone else will help me. So again, I say to thee, without reservation, I am sorry.”

"Forget it," Frank said. "Everyone’s done shitty things. Even me. Especially me."

“I can imagine.”

"But I never set anybody on fire."

"I am grateful for thy forgiveness."

Frank stared ahead, the memory of the glass pane and what lay beneath it sending gooseflesh up his arms. “What was that thing in the ocean? That thing watching me?”

"The eye and the ocean, it was all the same. It was the Allflesh."

The name landed heavy.

"That wasn’t water under there?"

"No, that entire ocean was the beast itself. What little of it thou couldst see anyway."

Frank eased back down onto the cot. "And the glass?"

"A representation of thy psychic shield. A fragile boundary, thin as breath. It is all that keeps that beast from reaching thee." Thune’s voice dropped. "And when it breaks, thou shalt not live to feel it happen. Thy mind will not survive. Thy soul may not either."

"Then why the hell would you push me like that?"

"Because the glass is already cracking." Thune’s eye met his. "And unless thou canst learn to reinforce it, to mend it, thou art already dead."

"I couldn't do it," Frank said, setting the head back onto its pillow. "You said those exercises were so simple anyone could do them. But I couldn't."

"We shall try again."

"What if I can't ever do it?"

"Then thou must guard thine energies fiercely. Horde them as a miser hordes coin. For every use of thy powers will bring thee closer to the jaws of that monster."

Psionic Reserve: 85/100

"There was someone under those waves," Frank said. "A man. Did you see him?"

"I assumed that was something brought to the dream by thee. A memory of an old acquaintance mayhaps."

"No, I've never seen that guy in my life."

But that wasn’t true. He’d seen that man out on the scrubland plateaus, when he was haggling with the twins over the brass key. He’d glimpsed him in a dream, crawling through a tunnel of writhing fingers. And in that dream, Frank and the man were one, and yet they were different. The thought of it made him dizzy.

He reached down to his warbelt where it lay on the ground, moved by a nagging compulsion, and ran his fingers into its hidden folds. He brushed up against the brass key, its touch a comfort again.

From his perch across the room, Thune watched in silence.

***

The slums of Uqmai were a maze designed to trap the unwary. The clean symmetry of the noble quarters faded block by block as you moved from the hills of the high country to the cramped quarters of the lower city. Courtyard houses gave way to mudbrick homes which gave way to wooden shacks, lean-tos, tents. Even the roads failed after a while, flagstones ground down to foot paths and dirt trails. One wrong turn and you were liable to end up in a blind alley or a walled park, perfect places for an ambush.

Frank followed closely behind Kelmar, careful not to step on anything twitching. Beggars lay strewn about the ground like battlefield wounded. Squirming refuse piles were heaped on every corner. And rats roamed freely, crawling through gutters and across rooftops, perching on doorframes, lining up along the rims of rain barrels.

Everyone seemed to notice, but no one seemed to care.

If the Brass Man were bothered by the infestation, he didn't show it. He moved with an easy, confident stride, slicing through crowds like a blade. He had the kind of presence that drew stares but no challengers, even here, in the parts of Uqmai where gods feared to tread.

His skin was pale, as though carved from alabaster, and his dark hair was tied into a topknot. He had brass-colored eyes that gleamed in the midday sun and an artificial nose of silver, his real one long since lost in a duel. His tunic was made of fine linen, its texture like muslin, and lined with silver fur. He carried a bronze short sword at his hip, its blade double-edged and shaped like a leaf, and carried also the dragon skin tomb in a leather satchel.

"You walk like a noble," he said, without looking back. Squat and thickset, he was surprisingly light on his feet, almost bouncing as he walked.

"That supposed to be an insult?" Frank said.

"It’s an observation."

"What does it mean?"

"Nobles walk like the ground itself owes them something. That's fine, up the hill. But walk like that around here and the ground’ll take it back. With interest."

Frank adjusted his pace, lowering his stance, softening his footfalls. He kept his orange cloak pulled tight and his hood raised, despite the clear skies. Still, it was hard to go unnoticed. Eyes followed him everywhere, not with fear but with calculation.

"Did you need to bring that with you?" Kelmar said, nodding toward the sack dangling from Frank's belt, heavy with Thune's head.

"If you knew how much it was worth, you wouldn't let it out of your sight either."

"A bounty then?"

"Well I don't keep him around for conversation," Frank said. "Yeah, it's a bounty. A once in a lifetime score. I just need to get off this island to collect."

"Where are you going?"

Frank shook his head. "Now if I told you that, what's to stop you from killing me and taking the head?"

"What's to stop me now?"

"It's one thing to risk your life for a fortune. Another thing to risk it for a paper weight."

Kelmar smiled, his heavy cheeks bunching up around the leather straps that kept his silver nose in place. "I think you'll do all right here."

They passed a group of kids playing knucklebones, none of them older than ten. The leader was a boy with a swollen eye and a cough that sounded like sandpaper on glass. When he spotted Frank, he looked to a nearby rooftop and made an odd gesture with his hand. A sharp whistle answered back.

Kelmar didn’t acknowledge it. He continued to move, never hurrying, never dawdling, always with a purpose.

"Should we be worried about that?" Frank said.

"Worry when you don't hear the whistle. It's always quietest before the dagger strikes."

"Does the princess's reputation precede us? Is that why we're safe?"

"Who said you were safe?"

Frank didn't answer.

“The princess's power ends at the Avenue of the Coral Moon, along with the city's other great houses."

"So who rules down here?"

"I wouldn't use the term rule. The people of Uqmai enjoy a certain amount of lawlessness. Always have. But the two parties you want to avoid down here are the Red Coin and the Rat Cult. You mess with either and they’ll make you pay.”

“Pay what?”

“Whatever they want. The Red Coin owns the shadows. Nothing moves in the slums without their say-so. Everyone from the lowest pickpockets to temple assassins tithe to them. You breathe down here, they want a cut of the air.”

"And the Rat Cult?"

"Yeah that’s right," Kelmar smiled, "you had a little trouble with the rat fuckers, didn't you? You must like to live dangerous."

"I didn’t know who they were when we had our little disagreement."

"Well, lucky for you Princess Sazhra came along when she did. When those bastards take you, you're gone for good. They’re zealots. No reasoning with them."

"How'd they get here?"

"Few years back, a plague hit Uqmai. Started on the docks, they always do. People developed headaches, strange rashes, uncontrollable tears. No apothecary could fix it. Half the city died. They had to stop dumping the dead in the bay for all the sharks that were showing up.”

“And the cult cured it?”

"Maybe." Kelmar shrugged. "No one can say for sure. The cult came down from the hills, claiming they were sent by the Crawling Prophet. They burned herbs, cut symbols into doors, gave people ash to drink. Nothing helped. Then they let the rats loose, hordes of them. First they said it was only to clean the streets, eat the garbage. But soon, they were setting them loose in people’s homes. They’d crawl into bed with the sick, drink the tears from their eyes.”

“And people just let them?”

“Some did. Some didn't. Over time, more and more became believers though. When the plague broke after a few months, the city found itself in debt to the cult. Tens of thousands of silvers. But there was no way to pay it. Trade had fallen off during the plague. The city coffers were empty, and there was nothing left to tax."

"So what happened?"

"The great houses negotiated a deal. The cult got the black spire as payment. Claimed it was a sacred place to them, part of some prophecy. The houses didn’t mind because the spire wasn’t worth anything. No one had ever gotten inside it."

"What did they do with it?"

"No one knows. The rat bastards guard the thing night and day. They don’t let anyone near it.”

“So how are we –”

“We’re not going anywhere near it,” Kelmar interrupted. “Not until we’re ready. For now, we go to see Iliquith.”

Further down the block, they came upon an old woman squatting in the doorway of a collapsed shack. She was slurping fermented fish broth from an earthenware bowl, and as they passed, she made a noise like a bird call. When Frank looked back, she winked at him.

They turned onto a narrow street where the cobblestones had given up entirely, the ground a mess of wet mud traversable only by wooden planks. In the center of the lane, an old wagon had collapsed onto its side and now lay partially sunk, like a beast being swallowed by quicksand. Two men dressed in rags sat perched atop the wagon, passing a bottle of wine back and forth.

“Hey,” one of the men called. He was thirty or so, with a scraggly beard and a pockmarked face. “Where are you two headed."

"Just passing through," Kelmar said.

"Is that right?" The man hopped down off the wagon, his sandals sinking in mud. He hitched his wide leather belt, the gesture meant to look casual, even as his hand slipped behind his back. "Today's your lucky day. Half price toll to cross our street."

Kelmar stopped and tilted his head. “Don’t.”

"Is that how you talk to us?" The second man eased off the wagon and then limped forward, one of his legs a ruin of jagged, pink scars. It looked like he'd survived a shark attack. “We’re veterans. Don't we deserve a little respect.”

They looked ragged and half starved, deserters maybe, or survivors of a war no one had won. Dangerous men.

"Respect?" Kelmar’s voice was calm, almost amused. “And here I was worried you boys were trying to make a meal of me and my friend. Thought we were going to have to tussle right here in the mud."

"You carrying something worth fighting for?" the first man asked. At this distance, Frank could see both of his ears were shorn, and he bore a brand on his right cheek that marked him as a mutineer.

"Just my pride," Kelmar said, eyes gleaming.

The soldier drew a bronze dagger, polished and sharp with just a hint of verdigris.

Why were they doing this, Frank wondered. If they were looking to stick someone up, surely they could find easier marks. Kelmar bore all the signs of an accomplished duelist, and Frank looked like a demigod. The bandits didn't even have the benefit of surprise. How could they hope to win?

The answer came from several nearby shacks. Frank heard rustling up and down the block as a dozen men made their way into the street, armed with clubs and spears, one man wielding a bronze kopis. From open windows, he caught glimpses of bowman at the ready, arrows nocked and strings taut.

They think you're afraid.

A breeze picked up, tugging at Frank's cloak. It parted to reveal the bronze saber on his hip.

Why don't you show them the meaning of fear?

It would only take one swing of the blade. The first bandit he dropped would send a wave of terror washing over the streets like storm-tossed surf. And then he could eat his fill and grow strong. By the time he was finished, he'd leave a pile of bodies as tall as a man, a warning to all the rest. These were his streets now.

Almost unconsciously, his hand dipped toward his saber, but he checked himself at the last second.

A strange cracking sound filled his ears, like ice breaking under the heat of a rising sun. He looked down to see the street had vanished, replaced by a pane of heavy glass, webbed with hairline fractures. He saw again that dread eye waiting for him in the black depths below, its lid opening wider and wider.

And from somewhere deep in his bones, he thought he heard a laugh.