Julya led them along the shoreline of Wayfarer’s Rest to a little alcove, where a man—who looked almost like a theront for how thick and scraggly his hair was—waited with a flock of hideous birds.

  They stood taller than Jubal, with long swan-like necks, cruel beaks, and plumages of nauseating hues. Red, silver, gold, bile-yellow, vomit-green, and blues that wounded the eye. It was obvious where they derived their name from: their taloned feet looked like they could rend platemail armour as though it were paper.

  The birds were strong enough to seat two people. Julya purchased six, which would transport the eleven of them who required steeds. Urgal would run beside them. Telos had no doubt he could keep up. Indeed, the felidae probably relished the chance to stretch his legs after the endless confines of Engines, ships, and taverns.

  The owner saddled the Daggerfeet with leather and coins changed hands. Telos winced when he saw the number of Demons his mother put in the trainer’s pocket, but what were a few coins against the end of the world?

  Fear and desire and premonition burned within Telos, a fire in some organ he did not readily know the name of. It lurked somewhere near the back of his brain, an awareness kindled by transformation. This anticipatory sensation had saved him from concealed blades and attacks too many times for him to ignore this grander premonition. They needed to get going. Speed was everything now.

  The trainer helped them saddle the Daggerfeet, who squawked wretchedly but did not bolt. Telos had no doubt they were swift runners. They pawed the ground with their huge, clawed feet, impatient, burning to run. Even Urgal eyed the birds warily, not bothering them, but keeping a distance, chasing some other small lizard through the undergrowth.

  When all were saddled, they mounted up. Telos and Ylia shared one bird. Qala and Jacinth shared another. Julya paired with Heploss. Jacinth and the other explorers paired off variously. Jubal, being the largest and heaviest of their number, rode alone.

  “Hiyah!” Julya cried, and with that, her Daggerfoot screeched and set off, thundering out of the alcove, up a dirt track, and into the jungle. Telos and Ylia were soo behind. Ylia squealed with delight. Telos cursed. The motion of the bird was no fluid like that of a horse. It’s legs moved in jerking, snapping strides, causing its passengers to bounce up and down.

  At present, they followed a well-worn path. There were even posts inserted into the ground, carved with crude directions or warnings. The jungle was dark, but once in a while light would ray through an opening in the canopy.

  They moved rapidly. Horses might have been faster on an open stretched, but there was no way they would have been able to contend with the uneven ground of Memory. Roots tangled, marshes lay beneath illusory layers of mud, and undergrowth bloomed despite evidence of attempts to quell it with stone and trowel. Even the plants here look dangerous, Telos thought. He would not trust a berry here, even with his enhanced physiognomy.

  Deeper and deeper they went. They headed straight north, according to Heploss. Scumbay lay to the northwest, but if they headed for it directly, they would encounter the Hideous Towers. At least, according to the one who had made the map—his father’s friend. They wanted to avoid those ruins at all costs. Of course, there was great treasure to be found there, but monsters too. And magic that centuries had not dulled. No, Julya and her team had renounced the Hideous Towers, which were the common lure of adventurers here, and instead set their eyes on an even more darkling prize. To even know the location of the Shadow Market would be reward enough and could make them rich.

  But others must have found it before… and they have not returned. Ylia’s father never spoke of what he found… Clearly, something dreadful awaits.

  He felt sure the location of The Nergal would be known at the Shadow Market. But what he feared was the price they would pay to get that information.

  ***

  They rode all through the day, and well into the afternoon. They stopped only once, abruptly, when the Daggerfeet as one decided they had had enough, and promptly ceased to make progress. Julya had been forewarned of this by the trainer. The fellowship dismounted and allowed the birds to roam.

  They had paused by a river that gurgled and gushed with violent force, as though nearby was a steep incline down which it sluiced. Within the waters, luminous fish darted, most of them as large as a human torso. The birds used their longs necks to scoop the fishes from the water and swallow them down whole. They feasted while the humans ate their meagre rations. Telos did not fancy trying his luck with the fish of Memory, either.

  When they set off again, it was with renewed vigour. Telos admired the endurance of the birds. Even horses would tire from riding this hard, but the Daggerfeet seemed born to run. Perhaps the lack of wings had made them eager to compensate? Who knew what animals thought or felt.

  In the trees to the west, he glimpsed shapes of stone. Faces, too. He knew these were the outlying ruins of the Hideous Towers, and they called to him, with a dark song. He knew not why he felt the draw of them, only that he did. Perhaps it was eternal human curiosity. Perhaps it was connected to some ancestral memory inherent in the Godseed. He forced himself to look away.

  There were other sights on the road, but everyone wisely avoided them. The speed of the Daggerfeet came in handy, here. They did not linger long enough to listen to the sirens sing. And the birds seemed to care nothing for such music. Once, they passed what must have been a nest of Slithgors, but it seemed they were sated already with some other feast, and, slow to rouse, the party were gone before the horrors could assault them.

  With every danger they avoided, Telos grew more afraid. He was cursed, wasn’t he? Bad luck ran in his veins. Nereth had placed a dark cloud over his horizons. Surely, this was not real fortune, but some trick? Or was it, as he suspected, because he did not want to reach their destination? Because secretly, in his heart of hearts, he just wanted to turn back, to live with Ylia in some remote house, to make up for lost time with his mother, to banish the memories of gods and Daimons and evil and live in ignorant bliss. No, Telos. You must honour Danyil and Beltanus’s wishes. They gave you life, they saved you. You can do this much for them. He had to see it through, even if he longed for another path.

  And then they saw their destination.

  Or rather, what was left of it.

  Scumbay lay not in ruins, but deserted. That had almost ridden through the place, not realising it was the settlement they sought. Houses stood open. The roads were cleared. Carts stood where they had been abandoned. Windows yawned, no breeze in this thick, humid density able to stir them. A silent town. A shell.

  Telos shuddered.

  They disembarked and looked around, with hands on swords. No one ventured into any of the buildings, lest they rouse something sleeping.

  “What happened here?” Heploss said.

  “Nothing good,” Jubal said. He was crouching, inspecting the ground. “There are signs of a struggle here, and tracks, but they are not tracks I recognise.” Jubal paced, then brushed aside some dust. Dark blood gleamed in the dying light. Jubal sniffed. “Human blood, as far as I can make out. Only recently spilled.” Again he crept along the ground. Telos marvelled how agile the giant was. “Someone knelt here for a long time; this is the impression of two knees.”

  Jubal straightened.

  “What does all of that mean?” Jacinth said.

  Jubal shrugged.

  “I cannot parse it. These could merely be the signs of commonplace dramas before something else happened. Or they could be clues. We know too little. But it fills me with unease.”

  “This settlement is too large for a mass exodus,” Heploss agreed.

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  “Then let us depart also, lest we discover the reason people left. Where to now, Heploss?” Telos said.

  Heploss frowned, consulting the map.

  “It appears our path lies westward.”

  “Very well. Then let us leave here,” Julya said, eyeing the devastation once more. “We still have sufficient supplies?”

  “Dante was not certain of all the distances…” Heploss started.

  “I don’t blame him…” Ylia muttered.

  “But it seems to be only a few miles from here. We could make it before nightfall.”

  “Don’t go west...”

  The voice same suddenly, like a change in the wind. It was hoarse and rasping, so much so that Telos wondered how long it’d been since the owner of the voice had spoken. Or perhaps it was not silence that’d ossified their vocal chords, but some other form of pain.

  The party wheeled around. In the shadow of a broken doorway leaned a deeper, darker shadow. It resembled a man, but missing parts. He stood on one leg and leaned heavily on the doorframe, lacking a foot. He also lacked a second arm. A chill went through Telos. Was this the lone survivor of the massacre?

  Whereas Telos was apprehensive, Ylia trembled violently. Her eyes had gone wide as plates as she stared at the dark figure. Her lip, too, was trembling, as though she desired to pour forth words, but feared the consequences.

  “I shall not let him harm you,” Telos whispered.

  But Ylia shook her head. She had not reached for her bow or any weapon like the others.

  “I… I know that voice…”

  The shadow slouched from the doorway. He hopped forward, then took a lurching step, using the stump of his foot. As the light fell on him, Telos had to catch his breath.

  He had been mutilated and scarred beyond belief. He was thin with starvation. Some beast had savaged him. No, Telos realised. The cuts were too precise; there was a pattern to them. The lacerations bore all the hallmarks of intent, not merely a feral attack. Some torturer had done their work on this man—and done it for a long time. Was he a criminal, then?

  The man collapsed on the ground and Ylia was running to him before Telos could prevent her.

  “Ylia, wait—he could be—”

  She ignored him, did not even look at him. She knelt by his side and rolled him over out of the mud.

  The man wheezed and gasped. Tears were running down Ylia’s face. The others surged forward, but Ylia held up a hand.,

  “Stay back!” she commanded. Such was the authority in her tone, all obeyed. No one understood what was going on save for her, it seemed.

  She turned to the man, cradling his head gently in her arms.

  “D-do you recognise me?”

  Telos frowned. The question was strange, unless—. His heart constricted as suspicion of what was truly happening dawned on him.

  The tortured man’s brow creased. He was missing an eye, too. But the eye that remained focused on Ylia with harrowing intensity. And then, suddenly, it was widening, and the darkness of his being was lifting, and he seemed to shine with almost literal light. The injuries fell away and there was a man—old and wounded but still a man. His sudden brightness brought Telos close to weeping.

  “Ylia?” the man whispered.

  She nodded, and her tears fell, washing him like a holy unction. His mouth widened into a smile as his daughter threw her arms about him.

  “Ylia…” he said again, as though not believing, as though uttering the words to make it so. “Can it be? Can it be my Ylia? All I have longed for… Here… Here in this terrible place…”

  “Why did you come back here?” Ylia said, and there was anger beneath the joy and grief, a rage hotter than the black fires of Daimonsblood.

  “Not by choice…” Benjamyn said. “Never by choice. The Governor took me, Ylia. Lucan. I was in a cell for twenty years. He… He tortured me.” Benjamyn’s voice cracked, and his own tears flowed. His missing eye wept also, tears of blood. “But I never lost the hope of seeing you again.”

  He sobbed like a child, then. This man who had been through so much, endured so much, survived beyond reason or sanity. He cried like a child, and his daughter held him so close, so tight.

  “He brought me back here,” Benjamyn went on. “Tried to force me to reveal the location. But… But he got his comeuppance.”

  “The Governor is dead?” Ylia said.

  “Yes…” Benjamyn lay back, his remaining eye glazing over, and Telos saw the signs. Death was coming. He had seen it in Danyil’s eyes, known the moment was coming. His heart broke all over again. This was cruelty beyond measure: to reunite Ylia with her long lost father, only to then tear them apart again. If I ever doubted the curse is still in place, then here is proof it is not, he thought. And he realised then also that the curse was warping. It had tested him and found he could endure its perils. But to wreak misery on those he loved… Now that was a better form of torture entirely.

  “Father…” Ylia whispered. “Father…”

  Her words were songlike, and they brought him back to the here and now.

  “Ylia…” he said, and there was determination in his words now, an awareness of the end that called him. “Ylia, why are you here? Go back! Leave this place!”

  “I can’t, Father. I… We have to do something. Something important. We have to stop bad things from happening.”

  “There are dark things here,” Benjamyn said, near feverous. “Things beyond imagining. They wear the shapes of men but are not…”

  Ylia put a soothing hand on his brow.

  “That is what we are here to stop.”

  His eyes widened once more, with horror and grief and admiration all intermingled.

  “The Shadow Market… Is that where you are going?”

  Ylia nodded.

  He let out a groan, tectonic, grinding, awful. It wounded him to hear those words. Ylia’s tears renewed. They remained in their grief a time, and then Benjamyn spoke, with that same awful clarity of determination that told Telos the end was coming.

  “I held onto the secret for so long, Ylia… What a bitter twist of Fate it is that now my own daughter asks it of me… But I will give you the secret… I will tell you… Only if you promise… promise that what you are doing is worth the risk?”

  “I promise, Father,” Ylia said.

  “Go east, then north. Then south west. If you go straightly north, you shall meet with more of the Towers… But if you go around, you will find it.”

  “The Market?” Ylia said. The fellowship was so quiet, a leaf might have been heard falling.

  “There is a waterfall,” Benjmayn said, struggling to speak clearly now. “We called it Loathing. You will soon see why. Behind that waterfall is a cave mouth. This is the entrance to the Shadow Market. The watchmen of that place are Forsaken Sumyrians, those who have renounced their parents, the gods. They are not to be trifled with. The price of entry is… is horrifying. They demand the life of a child… We should never have entered there…”

  Ylia’s face shadowed. Telos swallowed. So, this was why her father had never spoken of Memory. The weight of guilt and shame made the horror all the deeper and darker.

  “Father…”

  “You are right to judge me. But you see, the jungle drove us mad. And there was a child, sick with a pestilence like you cannot imagine. Every day of his life was suffering… We… We gave him to them. What they could do would not be worse… Or so we told ourselves.” Benjamyn wept. Telos found his store of pity had dried up.

  “I have never stopped regretting that deed,” he whimpered. “But what’s done is done.”

  “What did you find there?” Ylia whispered. “Was it worth it, Father?”

  He stared at her.

  “What did we find there? Everything, Ylia. Everything. That is why no one ever leaves. No one except me. Promise me…” These last words were directed at the others, of whom he only seemed to have a vague awareness of, his world shrinking as the lights went out. “Promise me you will take her away, that you will not let her stay.”

  “I promise,” Telos said, firmly.

  Benjmayn sighed.

  He raised his one trembling hand and stroked his daughter’s golden hair.

  “My Honey-Bee,” he croaked, and his voice now was formless as a dream. “You came back to me.”

  Ylia clasped his hand. They remained there for long moments, and then the stillness became absolute. Ylia turned. Her face was a hideous mask of grief. Urgal saw her tears and yowled so loudly that the canopy erupted with the clamour of dark birds. They winged and swooped skyward, towards the sunlight. I’m going to fly on the back of a bee up to the sunlight, Daddy.

  “Bring him back, Qala!” Ylia cried. “Use your magic!”

  “It is beyond my power,” the princess said, softly.

  Ylia laid her head against her father’s, and wept.