Dreyne had not returned. Lucan watched the Engine depart Wylhome from the high tower of his manse. It was an observatory, primarily given over to star-gazing. Though he set very little store by astrology, not even knowing his own true date of birth, he nonetheless kept one astronomer on hand to consult on festival weeks, Holy Days, and so-called “fortuitous timings”. It was good for a Governor to know which days mattered to his people; not just the public events, but also the days people worshipped in semi-secrecy.

  But his gaze was trained earthward through the mighty telescope. He watched the assault on the Engine by his mercenaries. But after they boarded, he lost sight of them. After ten minutes, the machine still had not slowed. After fifteen minutes, it’d pulled away from the city and descended the gentle slope on Wylhome’s western side, disappearing into the forest.

  Perhaps it will merely take them longer than expected to apprehend the princess? But somehow Lucan knew in his heart Dreyne had failed. To sit and wait now was folly.

  Lucan had waited long enough. He was exposed, dreadfully so. All his secrets had been laid bare and one of them, though not the darkest, had escaped his clutches.

  The guard in the cellar was dead. He suspected this had been done by the strangely armoured rogue, rather than the rum-breathed sea-captain. There was something strange about that man. An aura radiated from him Lucan could not entirely explain.

  But moving on from such phantasmal worries was a very real concern: Emperor Oryon was coming. Qala had escaped. His watertight bucket now had several leaks.

  Three weeks was no time at all. Repairing Wylhome in such a timeframe was a near impossible task, but easy in comparison to repairing his reputation should word get out of his secret life, his clandestine information gathering. Lucan had no intention of remaining behind and assisting the effort to rebuild Wylhome nor of being around when the hammer fell. He would announce his departure on some important mission of foreign policy and then pursue his contingency plan.

  A thin, emaciated servant stood at his shoulder. Orfus. He had come to Lucan—like all the lost souls in his employ—alone, friendless, hopeless, and in need of direction. He was a man of many skills. Unlike Dreyne, who was a powerful fighter and possessed with the facilities for stealth needed of a spy, Orfus was a man of knowledge. In general, Lucan found it dangerous to raise such men up, they were more likely to betray their masters, but Orfus, it seemed, sincerely had no ambitions of his own. He was a little damaged. His balding pate sported a terrible dent that even the finest brain-surgeons dared not touch.

  But that did not in any way impede his ability to carry out tasks, nor to serve. If anything, it seemed to have amplified his servility and made him the perfectly compliant workman. Lucan consulted him on many matters, and there seemed to be no subject which Orfus did not have some broad knowledge of. Many, he knew intimately, including the poisoner’s arts, although Lucan rarely resorted to such measures, preferring more skilful and diplomatic ways of removing his enemies.

  That was, important enemies.

  Minor pawns could simply be thrown in the dungeon.

  “Orfus, ready a horse with supplies for four men.” Well, two men, one half-man, and one theront. “We will be making a trip along the coast north.”

  “To the cove, sire?”

  “Yes.”

  “Very good, sire.”

  Orfus was Yarulian—Lucan had no idea when, why, or how he had made his way across the Winedark Sea—and spoke with the unctuous accent typical of aristocratic housekeepers. From Orfus, Lucan had learned much about the machinations and rivalries of the Yarulian nobility, and the politics of the King and his court. Lucan despised Yarruk, of course, but one was always best to know one’s enemies. And with Orfus’s guidance he had cleverly won the King over to his side by his demonstrative show of force in eliminating a late resistance of theronts.

  “I wish we’d had some hunting dogs to find Qala,” Lucan said wistfully. “Say what you will about Yarulians, but they train their dogs and dragons well.”

  Orfus bowed, making no comment. Lucan liked that Orfus, despite his vast wealths of knowledge, did not feel the need to interpose his opinions upon every point. This way, Lucan could talk and find his own way to creative solutions.

  “A Daimomancer might work just as well,” Lucan went on. “But how could I ever trust them?”

  “Indeed, sire.”

  “Have you ever met a Daimomancer, Orfus?”

  “Once, sire.”

  Lucan raised an eyebrow. He had not expected that.

  “Where?”

  “There was one in Gorgosa, sire. He was very popular with the aristocratic noblewomen, especially those struggling with fertility. It is said he helped many to—” At this, Orfus gave the subtlest, slyest of coughs into his fist. “—conceive.”

  “Indeed?” Lucan smirked. “There is nothing man will not do to slake his lust.”

  Lucan did not speak from hypocrisy. He knew that he, himself, was victim of this impetus, this bone-deep calling to manifest desires, whatever the cost, whatever the sacrifice. It was simply the case that his own desires were far greater than mere carnality, concerned the Fate of the whole planet.

  “We should be off in a few hours. Notify the relevant Wagemasters and housekeeprs that I am departing on a political errand. Be vague, and discreet. As you always are.”

  Orfus bowed. “And am I to understand I shall be accompanying you, sire?”

  Lucan smiled.

  “Why, of course Orfus. Is that a problem?”

  “No, sire. I shall much enjoy the countryside.”

  The old man bowed once more, turned, and walked to the door of the observatory. Though he was hunched and lank, grey hair falling from the sides of his head, his pate speckled with liverspots, the cranium dinted like a cuirass that’d suffered a canon-shot, yet his steps were surprisingly sprightly. There is a Daimon in him that gives him unnatural vigour, Lucan mused. Good old Orfus. What shall I do when he is dead?

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  He had once asked the same question of Dreyne, but now that Dreyne was almost certainly dead, he felt little other than relief. He had reared Dreyne since childhood. Dreyne’s loyalty had seemingly never been in question. And yet, Lucan had always feared his blade in the dark. The fact that Dreyne practiced some warped form of Sumyrian magic only added to his unease around him. Often, Lucan did not know the full extent of Dreyne’s activities. He had felt, a long time, he was pursuing some other secret agenda under the guise of serving Lucan. Not outright sedition, but perhaps a personal vendetta. That worry, that doubt, had been erased with Dreyne’s death.

  I am glad all this calamity has occurred. It has forced me to move forward.

  Lucan loved his manse, his wealth, his power. But the problem with having things is knowing they can be taken away. He was looking forward to his coming sojourn, stripping back to the bare essentials. Not quite starting again, but certainly, turning over a new leaf. Such is the nature of the great games. One amasses many pieces, but in the end, only a few are left.

  He left the observatory, locked it, and descended the long spiral stairs back to the first floor of the manse. Servants here went to and fro, quiet, frightened looks on their faces. Clearly, they were glad to work here, in a fortress that had defeated Nature’s wrath. But still, worry persisted. What had become of their loved ones? Of their city? Their worries would increase with his departure. But that was no matter. Wylhome was but one city. Virgoda, but one state. He planned to hold all four jewels in his hand—in perpetuity.

  They will thank me, when all is made clear.

  But first he needed to get Xarl back.

  The loss of his sword had driven Xarl into a mad frenzy, then into a deep, dark depression. He had seen Xarl in many awful conditions, but never quite like this. It perturbed Lucan to think that the unflappable executioner could be so overthrown by simple loss of property, but then again, the sword had always been Xarl’s soulmate.

  He did not care about Xarl’s loss on a personal level. He did not really care about Xarl as a living being. But the loss of Dreyne and his three mercenaries meant Lucan lacked muscle and protection, and he needed both for the voyage ahead. He could, of course, requisition men at any time from the barracks—he was, after all, Governor of the state—but there was no guarantee their loyalty to him would hold once they knew the extent of his scheme. His plan was clandestine and thus only the inner circle could be trusted. And, bizarre though it was, Xarl was part of that inner circle.

  Lucan touched the lever behind the tome on Virgodan history and the shelf groaned open. He descended the familiar stairwell. At least the intruders did not find this access point, he mused. But then again, they seemed to have no interest in his possessions, only his prisoners.

  He opened the iron door and stepped into the narrow corridor. The air had changed. Not in the literal sense, but some energy had passed through here that’d lifted the penumbra. The weight of suffering that saturated the dismal brickwork had been somewhat dissipated, as though zephyrs had blown through, dispersing a foul odour.

  He hated it.

  The oppressive weight of the place was a heavier manacle than any chain. Prisoners were bound not just be physical means but by the constriction of will.

  The power of his dungeon had been broken.

  But one note of anguish and suffering still permeated. Xarl howled. He howled like a man robbed of his child, not of a mere sword. His grotesque wails filled the corridors. Had Lucan not needed Xarl to be calm and cogent, he would have welcomed the sound, for it set the teeth on edge, sent chills down his spine. Monsters should not wail with grief. The dungeon as getting its power back.

  But Lucan needed to resolve and end this grief. Somehow. The only way was with a promise.

  Lucan had learned at a young age that most people could not see the future, at all. Perhaps because he had no past, he had always looked to the future. He did not believe in prophecy in the magical sense, but those who could visualise, could imagine what the future held, these were prophets in the true sense. And prophets would also guide those without this power.

  Sighing, he stepped into the filthy, humid den Xarl called home. The theront lay unmasked, belly down. He thrashed upon the stone floor, great splashes of liquid coating the walls and dripping down in oozy streaks.

  “Darkbite! My beloved!” Xarl wailed.

  The sight was more nauseating that the reparation of Xarl’s shattered limb. Still, needs must. Lucan crouched. He put on the air of the sympathetic father.

  “Oh, Xarl. I know you are suffering.”

  Xarl’s wailing suddenly quietened to a dreadful whimper.

  “No, my lord… No… you do not…”

  Lucan’s eyes widened in surprise. This almost sounded like—defiance? Or perhaps more accurately petulance. Either way, it was an emotion Xarl had never once exhibited before.

  “And what do I not understand?” Lucan said, through clenched teeth.

  “What she was to me,” Xarl whispered. “The blade… She was mine.”

  Lucan stared. He had known Xarl to be a wretched and somewhat dim creature, but he had not known the depths of his confusion and idiocy. But then Xarl spoke again, louder, almost frustrated, as if Lucan were the idiot who could not grasp the truth.

  “I know it is a sword. I know… But the sword has my soul in it. My soul… My beautiful soul… Darkbite!” He descended once more into loud wailings. Lucan gathered himself for a moment. He had heard Dreyne speak once of a Qi’shathian legend that the greatest swordsmen transferred their souls into their swords, thus making them unstoppable forces of destruction—so long as they were not parted from the blade. Perhaps Dreyne had filled Xarl’s impressionable head with such fanciful stories? Lucan did not care.

  “Xarl…” he whispered, as gently as any parent. “Xarl, my dear friend, do not despair. We might yet again recover Darkbite, recover your soul.”

  Xarl’s tears and wails ceased at once. He looked up at Lucan with his hideously bulbous eyes, his fat mouth quivering.

  “T-truly?”

  Lucan nodded. He had to admit, the lie hurt him a little. Few lies did, but such was Xarl’s mental vulnerability, even Lucan was not beyond a brief flash of shame. But it passed quickly. All is in service to some greater end.

  He had no intention of pursing Qala and her rescuers. They would be halfway to Daimonopolis by now. The authorities there would likely deal with them. And if not, they would flee again, thus going even further beyond Lucan’s hampered reach. He could send dragonlings and messages, but that would only begin to raise suspicions. What was the governor doing involving himself in the capture of prisoners? And who were these prisoners? Certainly, if it was discovered he had imprisoned and tortured Qi’shathian royalty he would have to answer to both Emperors, and even Darius would not be able to bail him out of that fix. It was not that Aurelia was overly sympathetic to Qi’shath, but more that they wished not to antagonise them any more than necessary.

  No, his road now lay west, deeper west, into the depths of Memory. It was time to find the Shadow Market. Benjamyn Hart would either reveal his secret or be buried in Memory’s soil.

  If he would not cooperate, Lucan would just have to discover the secret for himself.

  He had put it off for far too long. He was on the wrong side of fifty, but thankfully, well preserved for his age. If he’d waited another ten years, it might have been too late. In that way, he was grateful for the catastrophes that’d befallen his city and him. Qala’s escape, Dreyne’s death, Wylhome’s destruction, these were the necessary pushes to finally seize his greater prize.

  Xarl stared into Lucan’s eyes and believed every word. Fire kindled there, at odds with his dripping, amphibian nature. He rose slowly to his daunting height.

  “I shall reclaim my sword, my soul!”

  “Yes, Xarl.” Lucan stood. “We pursue them west. There is a cove, and a ship waiting. You and Orfus shall accompany me.”

  Xarl nodded. He smashed a huge fist against his slablike pectoral muscle.

  “I shall serve you, my lord. Though I lack my blade, my hands shall suffice.”

  Lucan saw the theront’s monstrous hands and smiled wryly.

  They would do just fine.