019

"Why are you doing this?" Frank leaned back in his chair, its old wood creaking under his weight. "The records, the history, the ring. Why give all this to Virelios for free?"

Tullo poured himself another measure of the purple wine, his goblet catching torchlight like a glinting eye.

"It's not exactly free. The information was already paid for by my old benefactor. Virelios is simply reaping the benefits of his generosity."

"And you're just passing on the savings?"

"What kind of honest businessman sells the same product twice?" Tullo smiled and the spiral tattoo on his face writhed. “No, this part’s free. Call it insurance. A favor. Whatever you like. But the next part? That’ll cost.”

"And what is the next part?"

"A way into the Black Spire."

Frank's pulse quickened. "The Black Spire is sealed."

Tullo didn’t answer right away, letting the silence hang as the purple liquid fizzed quietly.

"It is," he said finally. "But sealed things can be unsealed. You just need to know where to knock, and whose bones to knock with."

Frank felt a cold bloom in his gut, part anticipation, part dread. "How'd you figure this out?"

"I know someone who got inside. A scavenger named Marn. Mad as a boiled crab. Claimed he touched the Spire’s threshold once and lived to tell about it, which is more than anyone else. Said the tower didn’t reject him. Not completely.”

"And what happened to Marn?"

Tullo reached under the table, pulling out a second bundle of scrolls. These were wrapped not in twine but in a case of rotting leather, with a faint symbol etched across its face, a keyhole set inside a wave.

"That's not important. What's important is his work. He mapped things. Ritual sites. Celestial alignments. He claimed the Spire had a door, many of them actually, but only for certain people, under certain stars. I've kept all his notes. They're encrypted, but I know the key."

"What's it going to cost?"

Tullo tapped the scroll case with a thick, callused finger. "This is knowledge bought with blood. If you want it, it won't come cheap."

"I don't want it," Frank said. "Virelios does. So name your price."

But before Tullo could answer, Kyra cried out from her place by the ladder.

Frank shot to his feet as she stumbled forward, catching herself against the cellar wall. Her nose was bleeding, staining her lips, and her skin had gone pale.

"Kyra." Tullo was already moving to steady her. "What is it?"

She clutched his wrist with a trembling hand, her eyes wide, pupils blown.

"He's here," she whispered.

"Who?" Tullo demanded.

"A mentalist.” Sweat dripped from her brow like she'd just broken a fever. “Strong. Not a scout. A hunter. He’s looking for you, Frank. Your name … your shape … he knows them."

Frank’s gut twisted. His psychic shield, such as it was, might keep someone out of his head, but it wouldn’t keep them from sniffing him out. Not someone this strong.

"Can this place hold him off?" Frank said.

Tullo shook his head. "This shop isn’t built for battle. And we don't even know who he is."

Something squeaked in the far corner then, a sharp, unpleasant sound. Seconds later a rat emerged from the shadows, its eyes milky and blind, its nose wriggling as if following an invisible scent.

***

The Moonlight Bazaar was quiet now, its stalls shuttered, and the smells of spices and perfumes fading like morning fog. Frank and Kyra sprinted into the gloom, their footsteps echoing loudly on the cobblestone.

"We need to make it back to the manor," she said, leaning into Frank, too weak to walk on her own. "We'll be safe there."

They were halfway across the square when the whispers started.

Frank heard them first as a rustling in the back of his skull, like the brushing of delicate fingers across his scalp.

"We can see you now," came a hissing voice in his ears. "There's nowhere you can hide."

He scanned the market, but the gloom hid its secrets. A few dark figures were gathered outside of a tavern. Were they looking his way? It was too hard to tell.

He wheeled into an alley, holding Kyra tight beside him, her soft curves an unwelcome distraction and her braid streaming behind her like a fuse. They passed two figures splayed on the corner, their faces hidden in shadows, outstretched hands grabbing for Frank's cloak.

He started, reaching for his saber, but Kyra stayed his hand.

"Spare a coin?" one of the old women called. "Anything helps."

They moved deeper into the alley, the world swallowed up by blackness but for the light of the twin moons arcing across the sky. Ahead of them, a man staggered out of an unseen doorway, his rust-red cloaking billowing in the breeze. He turned to face them, and Frank cocked back his arm to swing. But then the man bent at the waist, vomiting on the ground.

Frank scooped Kyra up into his arms and leapt over the puddle of filth, knocking the man over. Something whistled past his ear mid-jump, a diving insect maybe. He heard it again when he landed, but this time it struck the stone wall beside him with a metallic thunk. He squinted against the blackness. It was a dart.

The clatter of feet echoed behind him. When he turned, the alley was empty but for the drunk. Glancing up, he saw the rooftops were flat black against a night sky. Did he see movement near that chimney?

There was no time to figure it out. He ran, racing down a sloping stairwell that emptied onto a narrow plaza with a stone fountain. The fountain was decorated with a statue of a naked mermaid holding a drowned sailor in her arms. A trio of cloaked figures stood waiting at the mouth of the next alley.

"Too much to drink?" one of them called. "Need a little help with your lady?"

They fanned out, moving toward Frank steadily, almost in lockstep. Kyra waved her hand, and all three gasped, grabbing at their ears as though shielding them from a painful sound. They fell to their knees, groaning.

Frank hurdled them, running into the far alley, which was choked with incense smoke from a night altar. A priestess in a feathered veil turned as they passed, splashing them with a wet censor and shrieking in an unknowable tongue. Under her ecstatic howls, Frank thought he heard footsteps.

At the end of the alley, he cut beneath a sagging arch, its underside carved with prayers and graffiti. His breath was ragged, his ribs screaming, but the manor couldn't be far. He recognized a bone totem hanging from a nearby tree. They were close.

Up ahead, a weathered foot bridge crested a slow river, the River of Arbitrage, marking the border of the noble quarters. He took the bridge at a run, but pulled up short just before he smashed his face into a brick wall.

Why hadn't he seen this wall before?

"It's an illusion," Kyra muttered. She was dripping with cold sweat, her voice near to breaking. "Don't trust your eyes."

Frank took a cautious step forward, one sandalled foot passing through the wall with no resistance. As he emerged on the far side, he saw a gaping hole in the center of the bridge, darkened waters rushing beneath it. He made to step onto the hole but his body froze. The lizard part of his brain, the part that dealt in real-world absolutes, had no understanding of illusions, and it wasn't about to let him leap into a giant hole, or plunge into a frigid river.

Clenching his jaw, he forced one foot and then another forward, finding solid ground where his eyes told him none existed. After that, it was a tense shuffle past the pack of slavering turtle-wolves that snapped and growled with imaginary teeth, and finally the raging fire.

Once across the bridge, he came to a leaning staircase that led up to a red marble pavilion. The city seemed at peace for once, no voices, no commotion, not even those nagging footsteps that seemed to follow them, drawing closer and closer.

"Almost there," Kyra panted. "I can sense the manor guards."

Suddenly the pavilion erupted with motion. Shapes emerged from the shadows, small, hunched figures cloaked in oily robes. Their faces were hidden by tall hoods and masks of bone, while hundreds of rats swarmed at their feet.

"No," Kyra moaned.

The figures didn’t speak, didn’t advance. They stood watching for a time and then the smallest of the group raised a hand that was thin and childlike, but too long, with joints that bent the wrong way. It pointed behind them, toward the street they’d just come from.

Frank turned.

At first he saw nothing, just empty stone and wavering shadow at the top of the steps. But then the darkness shifted, and a tall figure climbed the stairs.

He was cloaked in threadbare robes of ash-gray silk that stirred in no wind. His face was hidden by a veil of black gauze, a faint sound emanating from behind it, like overlapping whispers, a murmuring crowd in a distant cathedral. Rats scurried at his feet, disappearing under his robes, climbing his legs. But it wasn’t the sight of him that made Frank’s skin crawl.

It was the pressure.

It felt like a weight on his head, like fingers pressed into the soft meat of his brain, probing, peeling. His knees nearly buckled, and Kyra whimpered in his arms, her palms pressed against her ears and fresh blood trickling from her nostril.

"He ... will not ... take us," she whispered.

“I am Vorrh,” the robed man said, his words not spoken but delivered, like in a dream. “I am the Voice of the Crown Below. I am here to tell you that you are seen, Skulltaker.”

“How do you know that name?” Frank growled, trying to sound braver than he felt.

Vorrh tilted his head. “The tide shifts. Doors open, doors close. Minds are no different."

Frank took a step back. He placed Kyra gently on the ground and then stood over her facing Vorrh. He drew his saber.

From all around him, rats surged forward on a hissing tide. But Vorrh raised a single, bone-thin finger and they halted as one.

"If you seek a violent end," Vorrh said, "I can accommodate you. But I would learn little. You would learn less."

"I don't need to learn anything from you."

"You are still ... half-cooked. Still remembering yourself. You can use all the help you can get."

“I still know how to kill,” Frank said.

"No," Vorrh murmured. "You know just enough to interest me. That is rarer. More valuable. So I will give you a gift, Skulltaker. The gift of choice. Lay down your arms and come with us. Or sacrifice your flesh to the blessed horde.”