After another hour or two of limping along the crowded streets, the light of the day begins to fade. Slowly, the traffic thins until it's nothing but a trickle. I round a corner and find myself in a part of the City that puts my teeth on edge. Dens and tenements sprawl on all sides. Each floor is slightly wider than the one below and the uppermost nearly touch one another across the street. Lines of laundry cover what sky remains. An occasional bucket of waste sluices from above; in that respect, the upper tenants are the most carefree. But they would fall farthest if the whole building were to collapse. Which, sooner or later, they do.

  No man, woman or child should live like this, I’d said to myself when I'd come to Koriantal as a young man. I still agree with my younger self but now I know that most of them were here because they had nowhere else to go.

  No surveyor outlined these streets. They were simply pieces of ground that weren’t built over yet. Sometimes someone would realize that spot would be best used for another building and the road would suddenly turn into a dead end, sometimes literally.

  Only a handful of windows throw any sort of light. Light means money and no one is foolish enough to advertize money unless they're the one that others fear. Small wonder City Watch didn’t like to venture into these streets. In this part of the City, the only ones who didn't worry about thieves and murderers were those that were even worse.

  Most people I meet on the street don't look at me. My clothes are tattered enough to make me look like I belong but I want something more. I let my free hand wipe the filth off the walls of the buildings I pass. When it's dark with soot and dirt, I swipe it across my face a few times. By the smell of it, I'm pretty sure I do not look like someone worth robbing. Even so, I rattle the handle of my cane to make sure the blade hidden within is ready to come out to play if need be.

  Up ahead, one of the buildings had collapsed and left an opening like a missing tooth in the jaw of the street. Beyond, I can see a clearing with a mound of dirt and rubble in the center. No building stands closer than a hundred paces to that mound. That's a lot of empty space for a crowded city that tends to build over its own roads. I'm headed straight at it.

  The site is lit by a single torch. Pictorials and glyphs mark the stones around it, marking it as the place of ancient rituals. At first, the place looks deserted, then a shadows stirs on the edge of torchlight.

  “Are you lost, friend?” a kind male voice asks.

  “I’m exactly where I want to be, thank you kindly,” I respond as politely as I can.

  The man steps into the torchlight. He's half naked, his face covered in hideous tattoos. A necklace of small animal skulls adorns his naked chest. Give the man applause for the creative outlook.

  “I want to see the crone,” I tell him.

  A torch shows up in his hand, he lights it on the one already burning. In the amplified light, I notice a cavern mouth among the painted stones beneath his feet. He gestures me to follow and proceeds to vanish underground.

  We descend narrow steps until we reach a flat corridor that soon widens. The place is dank, dark and smells of... sulfur? A natural aroma or a thoughtful addition? Either way, this place wasn’t dug by human hands. More glyphs and wicked looking marks adorn the walls. Some are drawn with chalk or red ochre, others in what looks suspiciously like blood. This has been a place of worship from the dawn days and it will be so long after the Temple runs out of its incense candles.

  The man leads me through the damp and dark, his torch a rare source of light. At first, I think the corridors are empty but as we walk past, I notice tallow candles burning on stone ledges with offerings and fetishes on them.

  There’s movement in the shadows. My companion’s torch throws light and I glimpse the faces of those who chose the stench of the Underworld instead of Temple’s comforting incense. This is a place for the people whose faith in the Hundred Gods has faded. Instead of solace, they come for vengeance. Their looks are feral as if they are about to eat me. For a moment I feel that all too familiar instinct, telling me I’ve gone too far and that now I will have to pay the ultimate price. My grip tightens on my cane.

  But then I remember killing is not allowed in this place, not unless sanctioned by the Acolytes. I'm probably safer here than in most precincts of the City, as long as I don't piss off anyone and I have no intention of doing that.

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  The corridor soon divides into many others, each going into a different direction. Sounds reach my ears, echoes of multitudes singing and worshipping somewhere far away. The maze down here is vast enough to swallow armies should an army be foolish enough to enter. No one is able to interrupt the worshipping going on below so no one ever tried.

  Finally, the tunnel we’re taking makes an abrupt end but instead of solid rock, I see a curtain of withered old leather, painted with bright colors that seem to move in the torchlight. My guide pushes it aside and gestures at me to proceed. Beyond lies an old woman's lair with all the possible accessories a busy witch might need. It also contains the ugliest crone I've ever seen. My guide looks handsome compared to her, her face is almost as leathery as the curtain. It’s difficult to imagine this thing was once young and possibly beautiful. Age is a terrible thing.

  The crone acknowledges my presence by slowly looking up. “Why are you here, Luggo the Lame?” she whispers.

  Was that supposed to scare me? My name and face are known to many in the City. I’m willing to bet that more people would recognize me than the man who currently runs the Hegemony.

  The crone glares at me without blinking. “Are you here to place a curse upon someone? Bring demons upon them?”

  “No, nothing that droll,” I say. “Just a blood sacrifice.”

  The crone cocks her head slightly. “You have done this before?”

  I nod. “A lifetime ago.” I was a boy of fourteen last time I did this, almost as desperate as the crabby old man who walked the earth in his place now.

  “Did it work?” she asks.

  “Not as I imagined it but yes, in a way, it did.”

  “Then you know the wicked fickleness of the Underworld gods,” she says. “Their sole enjoyment is the torment of mortals. But if the sacrifice is true, they have no choice but to obey.”

  Gods in shackles? I like the sound of that. Beats groveling at their feet.

  “How will you pay to commune with the gods?”

  I take my mother’s pendant from my pocket and let it dangle from my palm. The crone nods to the Acolyte that led me here. I give him the pendant, he hands me a simple wooden bowl and a crude knife, carved from animal bone.

  The crone brings forth a small wooden cage. It contains a white rat, fidgeting and squealing as if it already knew its fate. The Acolyte takes the cage from her crooked fingers, takes the rat and hands it to me. The only instruction the crone gives is in the form of a gesture: she makes a fist, extends her thumb and slides it across her own throat.

  The rat frantically fidgets in my hand and nearly bites my fingers off. I do it quickly, nearly severing its head completely. Blood gushes into the wooden bowl.

  “A clean kill.” The Acolyte’s kind voice is so out of place with the grimy ordeal. Despite the hideous tattoos, he almost looks pleasant.

  He hands the full bowl to the crone that puts in a pinch of powder, mixes it up with the rat’s blood and pours it into the fire in front of her. I think she would smother the flames by doing it. Instead, the fire erupts in bright red flame. Was it the powder she put in that gave the fire so much force or was it something else?

  “The god of Death despises suffering,” the crone proclaims. “That's why He is the only one that ends it. For your merciful stroke, you will be rewarded. Name your request.”

  “I want the Arena of Koriantal to come back to life,” I proclaim.

  “The god of Death has heard your prayer. Your answer will arrive at the hands of His messenger.”

  I draw a deep breath of the cool night air as I emerge from the Underworld. It’s too dark to see the buildings that surround the clearing; I might well be standing in the middle of a wilderness.

  “Before you go…” the kind voice turns me back. “A gift of Sarius the Protector.”

  I stand unmoving as the tattooed man smears a handful of red dye across my face. Not something that would make me popular with the ladies but it will protect me from brigands as I make my way back through the sorry part of the City.

  “When can I expect to see something?” I ask the acolyte as I make ready to take my leave.

  “Tomorrow perhaps,” he says, “or next year. Depends on what the gods are up to at the moment.”

  The Underworld vanishes in the gloom behind me. Once more, I’m limping through the City streets. No one molests me and eventually I make it back to my home.

  I’m washing the red dye off my face and the soot I caked on before that when a strange thought occurs to me. To bring something back to life is not an impossible thing. Not that I’ve met a Necromancer before but I’ve heard enough stories to know they’re more than just stories. The issue was: once brought back, the thing is usually not as pretty as it was before.

  What will tomorrow bring? I ask myself as I lay down on my squeaky bed. Either we will be back in business or we will be out of business. No middle ground was possible.