Matabar

"It's funny how things turn out, isn't it, Speaker?" Indgar ostentatiously twirled an amulet between his knotted, massive fingers — they were thicker, in fact, than the arms of certain adolescent girls.

Ardan distinctly recalled managing to deprive Indgar of that hand during their previous encounter, and yet somehow, it was back in place. Star Healing, given the circumstances of that meeting, certainly couldn't have accomplished such a feat. Nor did it resemble an artifact prosthetic crafted by Star Engineering.

Could it really be…

Chimerization?

The orc's magic item was not a modern creation, where a seal had been etched onto an alloy plate of Ertalain to then be activated by the Ley energy stored inside it, but a genuine amulet. An artifact from the War of the Founding of the Empire.

It was just a small river pebble, bored through so a leather cord could pass through it. Upon its polished surface, a rune from the Fae alphabet had been carved. That rune had far too many translations in Galessian, because the Fae language did not use "letters and characters" to convey sounds or denote words — it employed images instead.

Each symbol of the Fae alphabet embodied a specific concept, and they were sometimes so abstract that it was hard to grasp them. For example, the symbol Lashai'erit'kargaie'thir — such was its name even though it was pronounced as a brief, clipped sound — represented something like "the detachment the mind experiences when it finally grasps the meaning of itself."

And it was precisely this rune, this symbol, that was etched upon the pebble Indgar was currently turning over in his hands. The amulet glimmered faintly, shimmering under the Ley-lamps' glow.

"You're thinking of something else right now, aren't you, Speaker?" Indgar narrowed his eyes at him.

His face still bore the traces of not-yet-fully-healed wounds despite all the regenerative abilities of orcs. A long web of pale scars stretched across his brownish, rough skin. One of Indgar's tusks had been broken off. Among orcs — indeed, among most predators — once a fang was gone, it never grew back. This was nature's way of saying: If you have become so unfit for the trails that you broke your primary weapon, then die hungry and don't pass along your weakness to the next generation.

That was part of why Ergar had avoided the other hunters of the Alcade — he'd been able to feel their contemptuous stares on his back. No one had dared insult the Storm of the Mountain Peaks to his face, but behind his back…

"You've noticed, have you?" Indgar tapped his broken tusk. "Add three cracked ribs to this, a dislocated left shoulder, an open fracture of the fibula, and…" He pulled his shirt out of his pants and lifted it high, showing off a horrific, long scar running from the middle of his chest down to his navel. "I almost had to gather my own guts off the street… You gave us a good thrashing back there, you and Arkar. That chase was quite something, and-"

The orc fell silent, eyeing the amulet with clear doubt.

"That's strange, Speaker," Indgar muttered pensively, still staring at the stone as though it were a traitor that had lost his trust. "I was told that with the aid of this amulet, I'd be able to sense your Witch's Gaze, and that if you tried to crawl into my mind, it would protect me. And that's exactly what happened back at the Sea Breeze. I really could feel it. You know… like a pesky fly flitting about in front of your face. You keep trying to swat it away, but the damned thing just keeps coming back and nearly lands on your nose. But now…"

Indgar shrugged and wound the cord around his left fist. His missing fingers had been replaced with cheap wooden prosthetics that were little more than plain cylindrical shapes and not even carved to have fake knuckles.

"You're silent, are you?" Indgar smiled a crooked, tired, but triumphant grin, as if he'd spent a long time trying to accomplish something that had never worked — until now. "But you won't stay silent for long. Not once I get to work on you."

With a near-theatrical gesture, he unclasped the buckle on his "tool roll" and unfurled it across the table. As Ardan had suspected, the leather roll held a set of tools of a very particular kind. Knives with thin, narrow blades instead of standard edges. Long needles that were thinner and sharper than knitting needles. Small hammers, a miniature version of garden shears resembling a flattened raven's beak…

And so much more besides.

This entire array of "magnificent" tools glittered in the lamplight swinging overhead.

They were in a fairly spacious room. It wasn't large or cluttered enough to be confused with a warehouse, but it was also too empty to have been lived in. There were no windows and only one door that could be reached by climbing a small set of stairs leading up to a narrow platform. So, it wasn't a basement.

It wasn't a residential area, either.

The air smelled damp, with the stench of orc sweat thrown in, as well as the faint tang of something else. It was vaguely familiar, yet Ardi couldn't quite place where he'd smelled it before. It was a sharp, slightly bitter scent. Rare enough to stand out, but not harsh enough to truly stick with him…

Still, Ardan was far more troubled by the location than by any fleeting smells.

He and Indgar were currently in the old, abandoned workshop of a very small factory. You could still see the grooves in the floor where rails had once been torn out — silent witnesses to a time when work had thrived here. Far overhead, where the roof had holes that showed the sky beyond, rusted chains still dangled from guide rails meant for lifting mechanisms. The walls bore splotchy stripes that marked where equipment or shelving had once been.

"We don't have any Speakers in our gangs who can peer into someone's mind to gather tidbits," the orc declared pointedly as he carefully drew out one of the long needles. As long as a man's palm, the metal was darkened and had a rusty hue in places — but not from actual rust. This hue was a result of the blood it had absorbed, the fear and screams it had soaked up over time. "And those Narikhman mages charge so much that… well, never mind. It's definitely not worth it. So, Speaker, we use the old, tried-and-true science instead: the language of pain, if that clarifies things. As that dimwit Arkar likes to say: no matter what language you speak, pain is the same for everyone."

Indgar pulled out a lighter, flicked it, and began to heat the needle's tip. He did this slowly, gazing at the flame with something approaching adoration. Then he abruptly turned his head to stare at Ardan.

"Don't you want to try hearing this little flame's name? Maybe compel it to flare up? Scorch my face? Come on, Speaker, give it a go. I'm actually curious to see how that would end."

But Ardan did not try it. He could quite clearly see, atop the tatters of his ripped shirt, a different amulet bearing an entirely different symbol hanging from a cord around his neck. If he did try to call upon the underside of the world, in the best-case scenario, he would simply make Indgar's work easier.

Aean'Hane were not kindly wizards out of storybooks, all cut from the same cloth and eager to help their neighbor or guide a hero along the path of trials for the good of all.

No, the Aean'Hane walked many paths, including Dark ones.

Which meant that the amulet — covered not with a single rune, but with a whole web of them — would prevent him from touching upon the underside of the world. He knew of such amulets thanks to Atta'nha's scrolls, and Edward Aversky had once mentioned that, supposedly, there had been none left after the conclusion of the War of the Empire's Founding. At the very least, there should've been none left that were outside private collections, with a handful perhaps still available in the Black House's supply department.

"It's amazing what you can find if you know where, and especially from whom, to buy," Indgar said with another grin. "Take, for instance, your old acquaintance Mart Borskov. Scholar, historian, archaeologist… and modest purveyor of pre-Imperial artifacts. At one of last year's closed auctions, we picked up a few items from Scaidavin through him, albeit not directly. And thanks to Borskov, we also got in touch with the Ragman, and…"

Indgar flinched as though someone had slapped him across the face, gripping his amulet tighter.

"But back to business," he continued in a somewhat sharper tone, resuming his nearly-rapturous heating of the needle. "You know, these days, thanks to books, festival plays, and the tales of those returning from the frontiers, lots of folk have heard about methods you can use to extract information. Like, say, shattering a person's kneecaps or hanging someone from a hook with ropes," the orc nodded to the iron hook that was attached to some chains positioned above Ardan. It was already prepped with coarse hemp rope.

"But you need skill. Some idiots hang their subjects too high, so all the weight goes onto the shoulders. Sure, it's unpleasant, awkward, and after a while, nearly unbearable — but the process drags on for too long. Or they hang 'em too low, and then the pain in the legs becomes insufferable, and the wretch faints before you can get much out of them. See, with torture, it's all about balance. You don't want to rob your conversation partner of hope. Maybe they'll think the pain will end soon. Or that the worst is over. Or that they can somehow sweet-talk their torturer to find a path to freedom. Or maybe they simply hope to die so the torment stops."

Indgar snorted and flipped the lighter shut, placing it on the table. Carefully, almost timidly, he tested the needle's tip with his tongue.

"That's why you hang them so that when the agony and fatigue in their shoulders become unbearable, they can shift their weight onto their feet," Indgar directed the needle at Ardan, though he made no move to rise from the table just yet. "That way, they still have the illusion that relief is just a small adjustment away. Then, the moment they do that, a whole new kind of sensation greets them. You'd be amazed how many of them flail like a pike on a line, shrieking and squealing, only to hoist themselves back on the hook. This happens because, no matter what anyone may claim, pain does indeed have levels."

Ardan kept his gaze on the needle while Indgar waved it around, almost like how a professor at the Grand might've pointed a piece of chalk at the board. Except instead of a chalkboard, the orc was indicating his collection of "tools" and explaining their uses.

Ardan tried his best not to listen to him.

"But I always start with a needle," Indgar repeated as he clicked the lighter open again, heating his instrument of pain once more. Practically, this had no use — it was purely psychological. And one had to admit, the orc was rather good at it. "After all, we all prick our fingers every now and then, right, Speaker? Some little oversight and… Ouch!" Indgar mimicked pricking a fingertip. "It hurts a bit, then you suck on it for a second, and it's all over. Maybe you check if there's blood, press on it to see if a drop wells up. Some don't even bother rinsing it under the water. It's minor, fleeting."

Indgar rose from his seat and took a few steps toward Ardan, still heating the needle.

"When you hear or read about driving needles under someone's fingernails, you don't fully grasp what that means. And for most ordinary folk, torture is as abstract as those old stories about Speakers," Indgar shot him another grin and, stepping aside, tested the rope on the hook to ensure it was securely knotted. "Most people don't really know all that much about pain, Ard. Not truly… So they figure, 'What's one little needle prick?' Which is why you have to start slowly. Make them think that it really is just a quick jab. Painful, unpleasant, sure, but over in a flash. Then you do not continue right away," Indgar crouched, placing a hand on Ardan's shoulder so that the searing tip of the needle hovered right before Ardan's right eye. "You let them wait, Speaker. And only then do you push it just a hair deeper. Ever so slightly. They'll jerk in alarm. 'What was that? How come it hurts? I thought we were done!' Maybe they'll even convince themselves it was just their imagination. And that's the moment — like in fishing — when you reel them in. A sudden thrust drives it deeper." The orc grinned at him.

"Then, once the screaming dies and they stop foaming at the mouth, the real horror begins. Because the skin beneath the nail is so thin, so tender, never touched by anything else. The victim might at first feel like their finger is encased in ice… or on fire… or maybe like they've just pinched it wrong. The mind scrambles to decode that brand-new sensation. And only afterwards, once it identifies it as pain, do all those bedtime stories and tall tales snap into brutal focus, Speaker. That's when you start wiggling the needle from side to side — just a fraction," Indgar waved the spike gently in front of Ardan's nose, back and forth, back and forth, "and once your partner starts gasping, once the foam stops bubbling on their lips, you take a tiny hammer, tilt the needle, and drive it straight into the finger joint. Then… Ohhh, Speaker, you've never seen a show like that. And that's only the beginning. Which, of course, you make sure to explain in the clearest possible terms. At that point, your subject realizes that they knew nothing at all about pain until then… And that whatever it was they thought they knew was wrong."

Indgar stepped back to the table and, with a long, scraping sound, dragged a chair across the broken concrete floor until he was in front of Ardan. He spun it so the backrest faced him, straddled it, and folded his arms atop it.

"But alas," Indgar sighed in the same way a cat might when its favorite toy is taken away, "just that opening monologue is usually enough. Perhaps I've got the makings of a storyteller," the orc spread his hands out theatrically, "because it's fairly rare that I actually get to use these skills." At this, Indgar's posture changed — he straightened his back and stared straight into Ardan's eyes. "So, Speaker, which category do you fall into? Will the story alone suffice? Or do you believe you already know something of pain?"

For a moment, silence filled the air, broken only by the wind whistling through the holes in the roof. Its echo traveled through the deserted workshop, occasionally moaning from within ancient ventilation ducts or across half-rotted boards covering the old drains.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

"I… w-ill sp-heak," Ardan rasped, barely managing to move his tongue.

Indgar let out another long exhale, more distinct this time.

"Pity, Speaker… I was hoping you'd be one of those who keep me entertained for a couple of hours. You know how frustrating it is when you have a skill and never get to use it?" The orc didn't yet stow the needle away. "Why the lisp? Did that Selkado fella give you a good whack on the head? You're all swollen… Once, I saw a lad stung by wasps — he spoke more or less the same way you are now… Damn it, by the Sleeping Spirits, Speaker. The amulet barely helps!"

"Not… w-with y-you…"

Indgar, who'd been muttering under his breath, froze and fixed Ardan with a squint.

"Th-here's… mag-ic… Not w-with y-you."

"Who else would you talk to, Speeeeaker?" Indgar sneered, deliberately drawing out that final word in a mocking croon. "Look around you. You can see for yourself that there's no one else here."

He spread his arms dramatically, glancing around.

"F-funny," Ardan's lips twitched with an involuntary smirk that, given his circumstances, caused him no small amount of pain. His Matabar blood was doing its job, slowly patching up his injuries, but not hastily… Ardi hoped it would wait a little longer, that he'd remain "swollen" for at least another quarter of an hour. He needed a bit more time. "You do… have a mage. Maybe even… mages. They don't… ne-eed tor-ture. Se-eals… to make peeeo-ple speak… no pa-ain at all. And to te-ell truth from lie," Ardan flexed his jaw, pretending that this eased his discomfort. "And that tri-ick… of hiding in the shadows… didn't work last time… not going to wor-rk now. Right, vampire?"

At first, nothing happened. Then, a few seconds later, several figures emerged from the shadow behind Indgar. Ardan recognized two of them. Both the man and woman were vampires. He had seen them before, in the "Heron" and when Arkar had confronted the Hammers.

Beside them stood several more figures, all of them men and women with unremarkable appearances. There were eight people in total, plus a single goblin. He was old, hunched over, and leaning heavily on a cane. If you passed each of them in a crowd, you might never give them a second glance. Ordinary citizens of the Empire, by all appearances.

Some bore the hands of laborers accustomed to grueling work. Others, dressed in spotless shirts with pristine collars and equally-pale skin, seemed like they'd never seen the sun while sequestered in their offices. One woman's face showed the marks of sleepless nights that still lingered — perhaps she'd only recently gotten past the child-rearing phase where little ones would fill the moonless hours with their crying.

There was also a young girl, not much younger than Ardi himself. She might not even have had the proper documents yet, but there she stood, separate from the rest. In this group known as the Spiders, she had neither kin nor friend, yet she remained among them.

Neither the Selkado man nor the Star-born werewolf were present among these conspirators.

Only one figure stood out from the group of Spiders: they were tall — quite tall — and that was it. That was all Ardan could discern.

The individual's frame and face were entirely concealed by a heavy black traveling cloak with a hood. It was made of some thick cloth with leather patches and lined with warm fur. It could easily shield its wearer from the rain or cold, and even serve as a makeshift sleeping roll. Beyond that, it gave away nothing.

"I suppose I should be speaking with you, then?" Ardan asked.

One of the Spiders opened his mouth, but the cloaked figure flicked the edge of their mantle, stepping calmly and steadily closer to Ardan.

"Yes, Mr. Egobar," came a magically-altered voice from beneath the hood, devoid of any inflection and hovering in that range where it might belong to a man or a woman. The figure had no scent whatsoever, making it impossible to determine if they were human or Firstborn. "But bear in mind that we have very little time. If you think you can stall in hopes that someone will come to rescue you — don't. They'll find you eventually, but not soon, and whether you're still breathing by then depends entirely on what you do now."

Ardan stared at this… presence and kept quiet. He did so simply because the Spiders had no reason — none whatsoever — to kidnap him.

They were at the final stretch. After the dirigible auction, if these conspirators, odd as they seemed together, succeeded, the countdown would be numbered in days. They would need less than a week to assemble their device (based on what Ardan had understood from Senior Magister Paarlax's descriptions), and maybe a day for partial-load test runs.

That explained why they'd all stuck together — to minimize the risk of any single member of the "Order" being discovered. So why had they jeopardized their efforts of who-knew-how-many years just to abduct Ardan?

Yes, he was a corporal of the Second Chancery… though mostly in name. In truth, Ardi didn't know any major secrets of the Black House or have any special clearance. Could it be because of the "Mountain Predator" case? Possibly… Except that a host of reasons shot that theory down before the idea could even take shape.

Too much time separated these Spiders from the events in the Alcade. "Operation Mountain Predator" couldn't have possibly united so many wildly different and apparently ordinary people in a single cause — a cause that wasn't just unlawful, but also likely to lead them to a fate far worse than hanging or a firing squad.

That was the first objection.

The second: neither the Selkadian fighter named Darton nor the Star-born werewolf were among these conspirators, so those two were apparently just hired hands. And it was unlikely they were part of the Narikhman.

So, what would make Ardan so important to a group plotting to reverse time itself that they'd risk everything to kidnap him rather than simply kill him?

The only plausible explanation was that Milar Pnev had been right.

The Order of the Spider was merely the tip of the iceberg, most of which was hidden in the dark, frigid depths.

These thoughts raced through Ardan's mind in the time it took the cloaked figure to approach him. When the stranger halted in front of the young man, he whispered low enough that the others shouldn't have heard him:

"They're using you. And you know it."

The figure did not stir. The edge of their cloak did not so much as twitch. Nothing in their outward bearing hinted that Ardi's words had struck home. And yet he knew — he knew for certain — that he had not missed the mark.

"You are definitely worth every coin of our taxes that pay your salary, Mr. Egobar," the voice said, still utterly devoid of emotion, steady and dry.

Taxes? A salary? Peter Oglanov? No, it was unlikely that the former Chief Inspector, now turned private detective, was hiding beneath that cloak. Ardan knew little of Star Magic beyond the seals that required up to two Stars and the theoretical layout of three-Star seals, but he suspected it would take someone no weaker than a five-Star mage to cloak themselves so thoroughly.

"Why did you-"

"They are not using us, Mr. Egobar," the figure interrupted, stepping a bit closer — but not so close that Ardan, if he lunged forward, could grab a hold of their clothing. Whoever lurked in that shadow — he, she, or it — remained calmly self-possessed. "We merely brokered a profitable deal that gave us something we could never have obtained on our own. And now-"

"It's time to settle accounts?" Ardan interjected, keeping Indgar in his peripheral vision as best he could. The orc was standing to the side, a couple of meters away. "But you specifically kidnapped me. You didn't touch Milar's family, or Ursky's family, or Erson's fiancée — or them, for that matter. So it's not the Second Chancery you're after."

"Would you like to ask my question on my behalf, Mr. Egobar, or will you let me speak for myself?" The stranger's tone remained flat, though Ardan could have sworn he heard a faint hint of sarcasm in it.

"I already know what you want to ask me."

"Really? And what might that be?"

Ardan leaned back in his chair, adjusting himself slightly and letting his bound hands drop a bit so he could grip the brace beneath the seat. Chairs made of soaked wood often had such bars to keep the legs from splaying under the weight of whoever sat in them. They were usually held there with those tricky double-ended screws without any visible head. From a casual glance, you'd never guess they were there.

He and his father had never owned a chair of that style in the Alcade — they'd made do with wooden dowels or tied together ropes.

"You want something about Aversky," Ardan said frankly. "I don't know the details, but it must be tied to the Grand Magister. That's the only value I have for your… sponsor. There's nothing else about me that matters. My grasp of the Aean'Hane's art is too limited to be of any interest, and anything related to the Egobar family history is pointless right now."

"Nothing else about you matters…" The stranger echoed. "You are being honest… Honest, and correct. You truly are in the right place, Mr. Egobar. One day, if you don't do anything foolish now, you'll make an excellent Investigator."

"One day?" Ardi gave them a bitter half-smile. "But you intend to turn back time."

"And correct an injustice," the stranger did not deny it. "But all other events will remain intact."

Ardan nearly choked on what he was about to say.

"You must have read Senior Magister Paarlax's journals and notes," he whispered. "Surely you've seen his theories on the subject-"

"Which contradict themselves," the dry voice cut in. "In one entry, Paarlax states that any change in the past will have unpredictable effects on the future. In another, he suggests that traveling to the past creates an alternate future; in a third, he posits that it creates an alternate past. And then-"

"And then he suggests the invariance of determinism," Ardan finished. "Because if you journey into the past, there must be some event — and the string of events leading up to it — that put you on the path to travel back in time in the first place. If you erase that event, then you'd never have gone back… to remove that crucial piece from the equation. Meaning, no matter what you do, you only rearrange the terms, but the sum never changes. The event that causes your presence in the past will always occur in every future."

The stranger stayed silent, and Ardi gleaned something about his interrogator. Something vital.

He was face to face with a scholar, someone with a good education who spoke in a particular manner, and yet they were still managing to stay collected even in this peculiar situation.

This person was, without a doubt, a Star Mage. And not a low-ranking one, either.

Ardi also realized something else: this stranger was clever enough to suspect that Ardan might figure some things out from their conversation. Moreover, Ardan had seen the faces of most of the Spiders here (unless they had stashed someone away, which was possible, but unlikely). That left only two logical outcomes: they would either kill him to avoid the risk of him outing them, or keep him captive until the final moment of their plan.

If they'd intended to kill him, they would have done so already, using Star Magic to tear any answers they needed out of him, then disposing of his body. Indgar's showy theatricality would have been unnecessary.

And so, they meant to keep him. But that posed an enormous risk as well. For them to accept that risk in return for their sponsor's help… The Spiders, despite seeming scattered in their methods, were in fact intensely focused and closed off — odd as it sounded, they were utterly consistent in their single-mindedness and secrecy.

Sleeping Spirits, they'd even built an entire underground casino right under the nose of every agency in the capital, including the Black House!

Which meant…

"You need one more piece of the equation…" Ardan whispered, lifting a shocked gaze to the stranger. "That's why you needed children… Why you involved Nalimov and Lorlov… Why you resorted to demonification… You need biological material directly linked to the Ley. And when Aean'Hane call upon Names, they connect themselves directly to-"

"You have two choices, Mr. Egobar," the hidden mage cut him off with that same neutral calm, but it was now edged with a stern finality. "You can answer my question, then sleep until the moment we need you again, or you can answer me regardless and still help us, but suffer greatly in the meantime. If you persist in your defiance, then your family-"

"You won't do anything to them," Ardan shrugged. "It's no coincidence that they were taken to Delpas. And it's not for nothing that the Black House's Delpas branch is located within a military base."

"Let's assume you're right."

"And you couldn't simply rely on capturing me. You must have a backup plan. Probably a backup target as well."

"Let's assume that's true as well," repeated the cloaked figure. "So, what have you decided, Mr. Egobar?"

"What have I decided?" Ardan clicked his jaw and, faster than the hidden mage or Indgar could react — only the vampires twitched toward him, but they were too far away — he spat something out, making sure it landed by his feet.

The very first lesson Ergar had ever taught him on the snowy trails was how not to become the hunted himself. By watching his teacher's tails and claws, Ardan had quickly learned how to sense when another predator was stalking him, trying to feed their Hunger.

Ardi had noticed that they were being followed the moment they'd driven away from the concert hall. Of course, he'd had no idea it was Darton tailing them. Even so, he'd had to craft a plan on the fly.

He and Milar didn't have much time left, and they still knew almost nothing about the Spiders — only what they'd learned about the upcoming dirigible auction and from Paarlax's notes. That was not enough clues to solve the puzzle.

And so Ardan… had improvised a bit. As usual, his carefully-laid schemes had gone off the rails. He'd intended to "lose" to Darton in a much more graceful way. Yes, it had to be convincing enough that the Spiders would believe they were in control. Yes, the Second Chancery's signal medallion was already known to them, so he'd had to ditch it.

But he hadn't imagined that it would go down quite like this. Or that forging a link with that fragment of the Name of Winter hidden in "Bruce's" freezer would cost him so dearly. And certainly not that the Spiders would avoid seizing his staff.

Admittedly, it all reeked of a haphazard gamble. But aside from the intricacies of the hunt, Ergar had also taught him that if a particularly nimble mountain goat managed to leap aside, and you were now plunging off a five-meter drop, you had to adapt as you fell. That was why Ardan had spent months learning how to fall off cliffs, to ensure he wouldn't lose his head in a crisis and would be able to spot opportunities where other snow leopards might starve.

This skill wasn't always directly applicable in the Metropolis and among the humans, but still…

And that was why he'd been holding a tiny glass sphere no bigger than a bead in his cheek, passing it off as swelling.

He now smashed that sphere under his heel, and at the exact same time, he wrenched loose the horizontal brace from his chair. Feeling the entire chair collapse beneath him, Ardan took a deep breath and held it.

The hidden mage jerked backward and shouted:

"Don't breathe it in! Everyone out!"

From beneath their cloak appeared a hand encased in a long glove that reached their elbow, gripping a slender steel staff etched with intricate seals.

Most of the Spiders bolted for the stairs. Indgar and the vampires, however, rushed straight at Ardan. And as for the mage — they did not cast any spells.

After the events at the Stronghold, Ardan had not yet visited the Black House's supply department, so he still had the Marange acid. And when violently oxidized by air, it…

A dense, gray, caustic fog exploded from that tiny bead. It was far too thick to allow someone to see even their own nose while inside it. It spread with astonishing speed, devouring more and more of the air.

Ardan felt the scraps of clothing still clinging to him begin to dissolve, and his skin stung worse by the moment.

But right then, he couldn't afford to care about such things.

In its gaseous state, Marange acid possessed an additional property that was far less well known, yet deeply feared among Star Mages.

Conceived by the Aean'Hane of a bygone age, the Marange acid disrupted external Ley structures. Anything caught in the fog malfunctioned, but more importantly, Star Mages found it nearly impossible to weave new seals while under its effects.

Ardan sprang aside, gritting his teeth, groped for the rotted boards on the floor, hooked them with the broken chair brace, and dove down. He plunged right into a reeking, half-clogged sewer drain, which was thankfully wide enough to spill out onto the surface.

***

A cool spring dawn washed over a Tendari street as people bustled to work, the day's mild chill clinging to their breath. More than a few cast anxious looks at the figure trudging past them, feeling that sense of alarm you'd get when you just knew that the guards would be stopping someone at any moment.

He was either a human or a Firstborn — or something in between — of the strangest sort. The stench of ammonia clung to him. He was wearing only a left shoe and was clad in a raggedy shirt hanging in tatters over a body riddled with scratches, burns and blisters. His hair was disheveled and full of random scraps, and he dragged himself along while supporting a limp right arm.

He just kept moving forward.

Three automobiles barreled past him, scattering pedestrians while hammering their horns. Then, just as sharply, they halted, reversed, and pulled back, disregarding every traffic law in the process.

Two men jumped out of the first car. One was a massive half-orc with an unfriendly bearing that had hatchets and revolvers strapped to his belt. Beside him stood a lean man of average height clad in black, his gray eyes predatory, which marked him as a Cloak.

The bystanders overheard a most peculiar exchange:

"What are you doing here?"

"I'm… going home. You?"

"We came to… rescue you."

"Ah… right… Will you take me home?"

Exchanging glances, the half-orc and the Cloak gently escorted the odd vagabond into their car, handling him as though he were… unwell. Then they wheeled around, nearly causing several accidents, and sped off toward the Central District.

In short, it was almost a typical morning in Tendari.

Nothing worth remembering.

Or at least that's what everyone on the street told themselves as they hurried away from the scene as quickly as possible.