Ylia trembled. The face before her was one from nightmare. The hand pointing at her was one she remembered from her darkest nights. She remembered the brutality of those knuckles, the horrid warmth as he caressed her afterward.

  He’d had no interest in her sexually. No, such pleasures were too pedestrian for Gorm. Gorm loved power. Power was the only thing that could excite him. The other wage-slaves thought he loved money, but money was merely a means to power. And money could not buy all forms of power.

  Money could not buy the look of terror in a woman’s eyes.

  Fear was what he thrived on.

  “You died,” Ylia blabbered. “The pox…”

  “I called the best physicians,” Gorm sneered. “And they were able to do away with that pesky illness. You are doubly at fault. You not only abandoned your work, but also abandoned your master when he had greatest need! This will not be tolerated.” His hand was going to the whip. Albron was straightening, folding his arms. He looked tough despite only reaching Ylia’s waist. Ylia shuddered, starting to back away—and bumped into Jubal.

  The huge theront stepped forward. His hood was still down, but it was obvious to all he was not as other men.

  “You will not touch her,” Jubal spat.

  Gorm’s eyes narrowed.

  “Tecleon!”

  From the mists there came another figure, the equal of Jubal. Its footfalls were metallic drumbeats that shook the station. It lumbered and whirred.

  Ylia’s eyes widened.

  A golem. The machine-man glowed with some internal power only the maddest minds of Aurelia understood. Only a handful existed, gifts from the Sumyrians as a token of peace between cultures. They had always terrified Ylia, the idea of something not alive—made of metal and refined crystals and gods-knew what else—yet able to think, albeit primitively.

  Its eyes were sapphires. His mouth was a vortex of light. He reeked of Daimonsblood, and she noted a cannister upon his back that was likely the means by which he was fed. His limbs were all interlocking, overlapping steel plates, but as he moved, the mechanisms behind briefly showed themselves: trembling wires, pistons, gears, all as small and intricate as the latticework of veins in a child’s hand.

  How had Gorm acquired such a potent artefact?

  The same answer as everything else, Ylia: money.

  The golem hovered near Gorm.

  “MASTER, WHAT IS THY BIDDING?”

  Gorm smiled, looking at Ylia.

  “If you resist, I shall invoke my right to Forceful Reclamation.”

  The golem straightened, widening its stance, its hands curling into fists.

  Ylia’s heart pounded. How, how could this have happened? He lives in Tezada… He lives… But there were innumerable reasons why he would be here. Gorm always went where money flowed, and Daimonopolis was just such place. The biggest and most successful Wagemasters commanded multiple businesses and revenues streams and, paradoxically, even acquired other Wagemasters who acted as their lieutenants. These subordinate Wagemasters were often grateful to be acquired, for in doing so they could partially abdicate their financial responsibility for the ultimate success of any venture while still remaining wealthy. The system was mad and broken, and that is why at the first sign of opportunity, Ylia had run for the hills. Never in a thousand years had she imagined she would see Gorm again. And never had she imagined he would recognise her, even if she did.

  “Now!” Gorm commanded, and the tone of his voice pierced her to the secret organ of memory. She almost felt herself jerking to respond, little eleven-year-old Ylia unable to deny the authority of this new father-figure—albeit a warped one.

  Telos stepped in the way.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, smoother than silk, confident as any mummer. “This is something of a conundrum.”

  “There’s no—”

  “Allow me to finish, esteemed Wagemaster,” Telos said.

  The unctuous politeness seemed to take Gorm back. He frowned, shifted his feet, and then crossed his arms.

  “Get on with it then,” he growled.

  Telos bowed.

  The stationmaster watched this exchange with wide-eyed terror that might have been comical under other circumstances.

  “It appears there are multiple considerations here,” Telos continued. “Ylia was indentured to you. But she presumed you dead, and therefore believed her term had expired. And what is more, this all happened ten years ago. So on the one hand, you—according to Aurelian law—feel that Ylia is your property and therefore should be returned. But on the other hand, such a time has elapsed, it calls into question the validity of such a claim. Will it hold in a court of law? Is it worth the cost of such legal proceedings?”

  Gorm opened his mouth but Telos swiftly interjected.

  “Therefore I propose we settle this like good gentlemen…”

  He left Gorm hanging, and the Wagemaster growled.

  “And how is that, then?”

  Ylia did not like where this was going. She admired Telos for stepping in and diffusing the situation, but his plans had the tendency to be… out there.

  Telos was grinning.

  “With a wager, of course.”

  Oh no.

  “Telos…” Ylia hissed.

  He turned to her.

  “Trust me, Ylia!”

  Gorm sneered.

  “A wager? Well I suppose that is fair. And you would choose the game, I presume?”

  “No, no,” Telos said, mildly. “We can discuss it.”

  Gorm grinned, showing black teeth.

  “Do you know the game Tarod?”

  “I know it, but do not play it.”

  “I do.” Xheng stepped forward. “What else is a sailor to do at sea?”

  “Anything but sail, apparently,” Qala said, drily.

  “I lack a deck, however,” Xheng said. “It went down with my ship.”

  “Unlucky for you,” Gorm said, grinning. “But I have many sets. Albron, can you go to my quarters and fetch them for me?” The dwarf nodded and wordlessly obeyed, disappearing in the fog of the Engines. Gorm turned back to their group. “It is not far. I keep a small lodging by the station for convenience.”

  Ylia’s fear was only deepening. Gorm’s manner had changed drastically. Rage and determination had melted away into a soft confidence. That boded ill for their game. She had no doubt Xheng was good, otherwise he would not have volunteered himself. But when Gorm was quiet, when he was relaxed, that meant he felt all was in hand.

  She wanted to communicate this to the others, but he did not want to be overheard. Gorm kept looking at her, his dark eyes glimmering, letting her know he would make up for lost time.

  She approached Telos.

  “We should just run,” she whispered.

  Telos’s eyes glowed with sympathy. He put his hands on her shoulders. She wished he wouldn’t do that, not in front of Gorm. It was all information he would use against them. She shrugged Telos off.

  “Telos—”

  “I know it’s risk, but I don’t want us to lose the Engine,” he whispered back. “If we’re constantly on the run, it’s going to be so much harder.”

  “I know that,” Ylia said, biting her lip. “But this man is dangerous, Telos.”

  “I knew that the moment the golem rocked up.”

  “I shall deal with that if it comes to it.” They turned and saw Jubal standing by their side, eyeing the metal monster. “That thing should not exist.”

  “Let us all keep our heads,” Telos said. “I am tired of fighting. Let us win this move on.”

  “You place a lot of faith in Xheng’s abilities,” Qala said, gliding over to them. She looked infuriatingly serene. Did she not realise Ylia’s life was at stake? Telos will never let it come down to chance. Surely? He has some bigger plan he can’t say. “No offence, Captain.”

  “Not a captain anymore,” Xheng grumbled. “I’ve got no damn ship. But no offence taken.”

  Telos was smiling.

  “I clocked you, Xheng, from the first moment we met: that man knows his dice and cards. It’s your face—I can hardly read it.”

  Xheng grinned.

  “You know a lot about gambling for a man with no luck.”

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  “But you do not know Gorm,” Ylia butted in. “He is a savant, Telos. He does not turn his hand to anything he cannot master.”

  “Yes, but now he wants to win,” Telos replied, idly.

  Ylia frowned.

  “Exactly. He’ll play even harder!”

  “Harder, but not better, Ylia. If there is one thing this curse has taught me, it’s this: when we want something too badly, it slips away. I can tell by the way Gorm looks at you he wants this bad. The dispassionate man gets what he wants, not the one who thirsts.”

  Albron returned. He carried with him two small folding chairs and a table as well as a wooden box. He placed the two chairs facing one another with the small table in the middle. He laid the wooden box on the table and reverently opened the clasps.

  Two decks of cards sat nestled within. They were longer than regular playing cards, but around the same width. Their backs bore a spiral design rendered in earthy tones and gold inlaid. A golden coin sat between them.

  “Well that’s the fanciest Tarod set I’ve ever seen,” Xheng said. He waddled over to the chair with those curious sea legs of his, and sat down.

  Gorm came and sat opposite him with slow elegance. His dark eyes bored into Xheng’s.

  The captain returned the stare with aggravating nonchalance.

  So it begins, thought Ylia. The contest of the egos. Gods, why must men be so, so stupid?

  But this was, bizarrely, all to save her.

  “Stationmaster, will you preside as impartial to ensure the game is played fairly?” Gorm said.

  The stationmaster nodded. The sweat on his brow glowed like diamonds. He kept mopping his forehead with a dirty white cloth. He looked close to fainting.

  “Would you care to inspect the decks, Captain—”

  “Xheng, just Xheng now,” the sailor replied coolly. “Indeed I shall.”

  Xheng picked up the deck nearest to him and went through. He counted the cards twice, then set it back on the table.

  “78 cards. All seems to be in order.”

  Gorm smiled.

  “Good. Shall we toss a coin for who plays first?”

  “Be my guest,” Xheng said.

  “Heads, it’s me.”

  Gorm snatched the coin out of the box and flicked it in the air. The coin spun, disappeared into a cloud of smog, then returned winking. Gorm caught it with surprising reflexes and slammed it down on the back of his hand. Slowly, he pulled his hand away.

  The head of Emperor Darius showed.

  Gorm’s smile widened.

  “These things tend to go my way,” Gorm said, lightly replacing the coin in the box.

  Xheng looked unmoved. In fact, he was whistling. The tune was… horribly familiar.

  “Beltanus, Beltanus, you’re brave but stupid too.

  The God of war is in your bed.

  Fucking poor Lileth blue!”

  Gorm showed teeth.

  “Could you refrain from singing such a vulgar song?”

  “Sorry,” Xheng said, smiling. “It’s just in my head.”

  He continued to whistle. Gorm’s fingers tightened about the deck of cards as he began to shuffle them.

  Ylia’s heart pounded, but she felt a tingling of relief. Telos was right: Xheng was clearly a master at the gambling table. He had already wound Gorm up, and all he’d done was sing the first verse of “Beltanus The Cuckold”.

  “You know I have played this game since I was six years old,” Gorm said, ferociously. “I learned from my father, and have played ever since. Tarod is in my blood.”

  He slammed the deck down hard enough to make the table rattle. Xheng looked on, mild as a cat emerging from sleep.

  “Hmm? Indeed, that is nice to hear. I was taught it the other day. I was drunk at the time. But I am sure I’ll remember all the rules in time.”

  Gorm practically snarled. He looked to the stationmaster, then to Telos, and lastly to Ylia.

  “Your friend is a fool, then, Ylia. He has wagered your servitude upon a drunken idiot!” He spat the final word.

  Xheng finished shuffling and placed his deck lightly on the table.

  “Are you ready, then? Shall we draw?” Xheng said.

  “Yes, let us get on with it!”

  Both he and Gorm drew seven cards each. Gorm inspected his hand like a man sifting for gold. Xheng barely looked at his cards.

  Ylia had seen Tarod played many times in her House, but she had never understood its absurd intricacies. There were four suits—Wands, Swords, Coins, and Cups—and twenty-two trumps, plus a host of other characters and denizens, creating a seemingly infinite variety of outcomes. Ylia liked numbers games; Tarod was a game of art and deception.

  Gorm opened by placing a The Herald, a card at once foppish and sinister, a cretinous servant carrying a staff and wearing black, plague-slimed robes. The beady eyes of the Herald stared out of the card, as though willing you to look closer and see something horrific under the folds of his rags. He was numbered XIII, whatever that meant.

  For the first time, Xheng’s face flickered with concern.

  “A strong opener,” he remarked. “But there is bounty enough to counter the omen.”

  Xheng placed a series of Cup cards down, a five, a seven, and a one. Together, that makes thirteen, Ylia realised. Maybe this is a numbers game after all.

  Gorm’s face soured.

  “My turn again.”

  Gorm is on the offensive, she thought. That was why it was significant he got first turn.

  Gorm smiled as he played Conquest, card number XXI. It showed a battalion of armoured horsemen, all wearing frightening black armour, trampling down men and women as the road across a curbed plain. A crimson sun was rising in the sky, blood flowing from it as though it were a wound, the rays of light splashing all they touched with gore.

  Xheng hesitated.

  Gorm sneered.

  “It was a strong hand, I must confess. Better luck next time, Xheng.”

  Xheng smiled lightly.

  “I thought you said, Gorm, that you were an experienced player?”

  Gorm turned white. Ylia shuddered. She had only ever seen him that angry once or twice before, and violence always followed. But what could he do with the stationmaster present, and with their fellowship? His hands were tied. She felt a sudden delicious thrill seeing him so constrained.

  “I am,” he snapped. “Now do you have a counter or not?”

  Xheng tutted.

  “Well, I find it hard to believe. An experienced player would never play their two strongest trumps at the outset. That is a beginner’s move. Do you think the veteran fencer rushes at his opponent in the hope of overwhelming them? No. He takes their measure, tires them out. The same is true of cards.”

  Xheng placed down a card. Gorm’s white face turned sepulchral grey. He looked like a carving upon a tombstone.

  The card was The Idiot. It possessed no number. It depicted a man all in motley, with a clown’s cap and bell-wand, performing some ignominious dance. His face was a picture of pure lunacy, with gum-rotted teeth and vacant eyes.

  “Very well,” Gorm forced through clenched teeth. “The game continues then.”

  Gorm played one more trump, a minor one that Xheng countered easily. The next turn, he had to discard one of his suits. Then it was Xheng’s turn. He opened with The Revelation—card XX. It showed the ground splitting open and Daimons rising out of the fissures. Ghastly light shone overhead. Gorm used all of his remaining cards to counter the high-value card. Xheng played a second trump, The Executed One, and that was game-over.

  Ylia couldn’t believe it. Xheng had not only won but made it look easy. I’m free, she thought. I’m actually free.

  Gorm slumped back in his chair as though he’d been physically struck. He stared and stared.

  “The odds. Not possible!” he muttered.

  “Stationmaster, did you see any foul play?” Telos interjected mildly.

  The stationmaster shook his head. He dabbed at his shining brow.

  “None. I suppose the issue is resolved. Best be on your way…”

  “We have no intention of lingering,” Jubal rumbled.

  The stationmaster nodded and stepped aside. Hastily, Qala and Jubal clambered aboard the Engine.

  I can’t believe it. We’re actually getting away. We’re leaving that bastard behind.

  “You first,” Telos whispered to her.

  She smiled. That was actually thoughtful of Telos; he could clearly tell she wanted to get away. He wasn’t half handsome when he was being caring, and the smugness gave way to something brighter and warmer.

  Urgal slipped in front of her and leapt up into the driver’s cab. He seemed to have taken a liking to the space. She placed one foot on the step, about to climb up—when Gorm suddenly lurched forward. He grabbed The Idiot card and flipped it over.

  What seemed one card became two. There was a card that had the same brown and gold backing as the others, but it was not The Idiot, just some minor Swords card. The Idiot card had a different backing—as though it’d come from another deck.

  For a moment, Ylia could not compute what she was seeing. Neither could Gorm, even though he had been looking for evidence of treachery.

  And then the Relic dropped into place. Gears turned. Spittle appeared at the corner of Gorm’s mouth.

  “Cheated!” he screamed.

  Xheng rose and, in one fluid motion, kicked the table as hard as he could into Gorm’s face. It did not have to travel far and Xheng, for all his modest stature, kicked like a mule. Gorm’s nose shattered and his lip split. Blood splattered his face and he tumbled backward, overbalancing on his chair and slamming into the platform below.

  Albron rushed to his master. The stationmaster cried in alarm but seemed paralysed. Tecleon, the golem, glowered. Steam hissed from its joints as it began to rally.

  “Run!” Xheng growled, sprinting to the Engine.

  Ylia didn’t need to be told. She hauled herself into the driver’s cab, sprinted across the deck, and pulled the release lever for the brakes. The Engines jerked forward, nearly causing her to headbutt the controls.

  In order to check the Engine was working, Albron had clearly fed a modest amount of Daimonsblood into the firebox. It would not get them far, but it meant the Engine was raring to go. She grabbed a blood-decanter and emptied it into a pipe, watching as the flames mounted. The Engine jerked forward again, nearly throwing her off her feet.

  Telos leapt into the driver’s cab, followed swiftly by Xheng.

  “Get us moving!” Telos cried.

  Ylia heard the thunder of golem footsteps outside.

  “HALT! IN THE NAME OF THE LAW!”

  The Engine was jerking and straining but not actually rolling.

  “Blasted thing!” Ylia cursed. “What’s wrong?”

  She hit a number of buttons until she realised what was wrong. With a flick of a metal handle, she opened a valve, and suddenly steam started flowing where it should. The Engine ground on its wheels and shrieked as it began to chug out of the station.

  Gorm appeared at the door of the driver’s cab, gripping the handrails and snarling. With his squashed nose and bloody lip, he looked terrifying, like a wild animal.

  “Sorry!” Telos said, booting him in the face. Ylia could tell Telos had pulled his punch, as it were, but it still sent the Wagemaster flying. Ylia let out a wild, half-crazed laugh.

  The Jensen growled and strained, picking up speed.

  “Oh shit!” she said.

  They were heading straight for the back of another Engine. She looked out of the window of the driver’s cab and saw a track-changer—a long rod of metal, like the hand of a metronome, that rose all the way to head-height from the tracks below, and could be manipulated with a simple push. She reached out and slapped it the opposite direction. Ahead of them, metal rails slid into new patterns. The Jensen rocked to the left and everyone, Ylia included, gripped the side of the Engine to stop themselves from falling.

  “We’re clear!” Ylia said.

  The Jensen found its new track, snaking around other parked Engines and towards the mainline that would lead out of the city. Despite the noise and fury of the Engine, she could still hear Gorm screaming on the platform behind: “Ready The Thunderbolt! Ready the damn Thunderbolt!”

  She gave the fire more juice and bones. The black streets of Daimonopolis streaked past, a blur of brickwork and smog and trundling Engines, and then they were free, racing over Virgodan farmlands, the thrill and terror of the chase once more upon them.