As heavy hooves approached in brutish unison, I would scurry into the sewers or hide behind the wheel of a cart. With a crude sketch of me in hand, orphanages were scoured. I guess they thought a boy from Templeton would frighten after a night or two under the care of the Nilghorde streets. Little did they know me.

  I was resolve, colder than rain on the mountain. I wasn’t going back. Every time I eluded their patrols, it only bolstered my lost but freed heart.

  Finally, after weeks of hide and seek, it all ended. The Prime Marshall had probably told Father in careful terms that I’d most likely been abducted and was already chained inside some galley far out at sea.

  Other than a book I’d stowed and an armful of anatomy works procured from the rear door of an unaware bookstore, my youthful education had met its terminus. But this only, I’d told myself, was good reason to revisit my favorites. I read my third volume of Poems of the Classics so many times that its pages became frail with a sort of rot and rub. Reciting the voyage of Omiel the doomed Mariner and the poetry of Denom Vandahl were regular occurrences in my bleak obscurities.

  For food, I started out by using my trapping skills. Hundreds of rats and several pigeons later, I took to joining those who haunted the crooked bricked jungle in search of money. If I wasn’t able to find work—maybe a cheap laborer on some city project or sweeping the rubble left from all the statues being chiseled on Do-Gooder’s Row—I learned through painful trial and error the grim arts of the street.

  *

  Despite the battles with food deprivation that came with having run away, I grew well in frame. Shoulders stretched outward. My chest grew slabs of beef. I had limbs of vein and sinew, and my lower legs were as thick as my upper arms. A boyish face melted away. By the time the Do-Gooder’s Row statues looked like men trying to free their lower halves out of blocks of stone, my summer-field hair had taken to looking like that of my late mother’s, both in its darkness and its length. I fit well with the orgy of maliciousness that populated the haunts of Nilghorde, which I’d come to call home.

  On occasion, I resorted to desperate acts of violence. Eating a plate of cabbage and rabbit with bloody hands was barely a step above the beasts of the forest. I had at first pitied my victims, but soon savored the taste of bursting cooked flesh or boiled mushrooms in spite of the screams necessary to acquire it all.

  One night this led me to a scuffle right next to where Somyellia and I’s abandoned house met the graves.

  The man squirmed, no more than an innkeeper who took the wrong turn. But this was the way of the world.

  “Thirty silver—she just walked, from the mantel to the seating—I—my—” I had long ago picked up on the patterns in such pleas, all silenced with the butt of my knife.

  The night now quiet, graveyard birds soon choired their calls. They seemed as if all around, though no matter how hard I tried, their perches remained hidden. As I gripped the fought-for purse, a hand caressed the back of my neck.

  Every hair on my arms stood. I wheeled around to deliver a hard fate to the innkeeper’s brave friend, the same grizzly fate for so many of the brave and misguided. But when I turned fully, I gazed at a sight even more peculiar: a slender man wrapped in shining black. There was no outstretched hand, for both of this stranger’s were clapped together, no different than one of the many statues ornamenting the graves. The moon broke through the fog to radiate on his silk.

  “Good evening,” the man said.

  By some nighttime trickery, I couldn’t rise. For I surely tried, but all I could muster were a baffling series of slips, falls, and curses while the back of my neck burned and froze all at once.

  “No need for such…barbarity,” the man said, unclasping his hands and depriving me of my knife. The man straightened, looking at my blade, turning it this way and that. A milky light, brighter than the moon’s clung to his cloak. “Do you always dispatch them?”

  Odd, I know, but I felt whatever faculties had left me now making a slow return. The moment I was able, I rose to my feet and stood a clear head taller than this oddest of inquisitors. From this perspective, a far more familiar view, the stranger’s regality lessened, and my knife in his grip looked more like a woman’s hand fondling a Pelat machete.

  “They call me Belot,” the man said.

  In my frenzy, better sense had escaped me. A few years around a woman like Somyellia had left me keen to know when black magic brewed. This man was a grave-walking necromancer. But threat of being turned into a toad wasn’t my worry. In these queer years, dark practitioners were as liable to turn in lawbreakers at one of the many pavilions snapped together by confederacies made between the Ward and Ansul’s True than sicking hexes on someone. Rumor had it that the cash reward could be handsome, especially if the misfit had violated both the laws of Man and Nature all at once. This stranger had seen my face, and though I’d only been caught violating the laws of Man, he—

  “You don’t speak?” he said.

  “Bell-ought,” I said, “split the purse and call it a night?”

  “Do you always dispatch them?” he laughed, giving me back my knife. “Your holders of the purse?”

  “No, never,” I shot, jostling like I’d just discovered an itch, finishing with, “Well, not if they’re smart about it.” But this caused only more laughter. He looked over his shoulder at the abandoned house.

  “Drab, rotted place. My own is but next door. Join me?” Before I could answer, he turned, taking no more than a step, “Bring him with us.”

  When I reached for the purse, I was ready for this bizarre courtship to come to an end. After all, that’s what this Belot was after, for nobody disliked money. But this stranger responded to my grabbing in way that was uncharacteristic of a robber. He smiled. A smile that if placed on every man at once would put merchant’s like Somyellia out of business. I hoisted the innkeeper on my shoulder and followed.

  *

  “So you are the source of all that noise.” Mr. Belot gestured toward Somyellia and I’s house. “Thought I’d have to call upon the zoo so they could retrieve some tenants on the lam. Spirited girl.” I had to put down my second glass to laugh bashfully and spill wine.

  It turned out Mr. Belot shared both my old tutor’s nihilism and my fondness for capitalizing on the deceased. Mr. Belot’s eyes glowed, followed by full admission that he was nothing short of astonished; how a “large knifeman from the streets” could know every bone in the human body. Mr. Belot’s interest in my ambitions had swept away the initial discomfort I’d felt. Soon we were gabbing like drunken military wives.

  As the night stretched, I ogled at the skulls and bones and books. The prowess of scales and cauldrons were unlike anything I’d ever seen, and it filled me with a bizarre joy that Mr. Belot’s collection of femurs was larger than the one I’d amassed in the old cellar. Then there was the wooden table. On it were leather straps, pulled and worn taut. At Mr. Belot’s request, I had lifted the moaning innkeeper onto it, during which I saw bloodstains that had seeped deep into the wood. My timid inquiry into this man’s looming fate was met with Belot’s caress. I don’t recall what his answer was, only that I was sated. It was as if I’d been charmed, though a necromancer practicing such things was pure and utter silliness.

  A second bottle of Grest opened talks about more pressing matters. To Mr. Belot, I would learn, the world was becoming harder for lovers of the dark and the courageous. “You see those silly statues, Seasmil?” he said. “Placating the masses; scared of their own shadows as good as a plague. Do-Gooder’s Row is halfway built and Maecidion the Virulent is dying.”

  It was true, I supposed, at least to a degree. I’d seen the Chapwyn fliers swell in numbers and the pitchfork wielders soon follow. Although the poor and wretched had swollen even greater, a formidable army of limpers and squabbling hags, oaths to eradicate the world of wickedness seemed all that was necessary to satisfy the barking mob. But to people like me, such social ebb and flow meant about as much as what Lotgard shit last and where. I didn’t want to tell Mr. Belot that those whose entire cosmos is the calling cookpot and alley didn’t concern themselves with such prattle, especially dying royalty. But even I drank from the trickling stream of gossip— Maecidion, that lauded patriarch of Somyellia’s, had indeed fallen ill.

  Mr. Belot looked over the rim of his glass, “Times are changing, my hulking friend. There was a day those of us who poked and prodded at nature’s rulebook could do so in plain sight. No longer.”

  I am no hero, nor am I the stuff of legend. No kraken to best. No dragon to slay. My war was painfully simple. I had to survive, and even amidst the brawls and illness and thievery, I still clung to the hope of one day, yes, climbing from such chipped blades and street grime to become a renowned man of medicine. It was perhaps my greatest fortune then that Mr. Belot and I’s interests shared a component: bodies.

  I left with a friend, a mentor, and most important of all, an employer. By the time Maecidion died, I was leading a pack of rogues. I would put intimidation to even better use, but Mr. Belot’s thoughts on confrontation were even more prudent than my own. Most of the time, I would be working alone, and, at Mr. Belot’s direction, digging up graves.

  III

  Maecidion

  As a young necromancer, Maecidion had climbed the House of Ordrid’s ranks to perch on its highest seat. Yet, death finds us all, and the only man in history to force the Conqueror into negotiation now lay still as the men he’d sent to oblivion before him.

  After a funeral where the Ordrids thronged in the ornate blacks of mourning, a gathering of mostly strangers had weathered the height of the rainy season, paraded under the half-finished statues of Do-Gooder’s Row, and now sat and squirmed deep in the Ordrid keep.

  Irion Ordrid was suffering this legal charade, administered by a barrister calling off names that made him grab and regrab the hilt of his dagger.

  Irion’s moon-pale scalp never took to growing hair, making it all the easier to wipe the sweat off his brow. The oppressive heat made what he was witnessing all the more unbearable. His House was in no shortage of enemies; but unlike the villainous House of Rogaire, too many had come to the will reading to now brush and breathe against him.

  He thanked his eyes for being set back deep in his face, for in this gloom they were unable to give away who he razored.

  Cackles erupted somewhere up front. A crone hobbled her way to the barrister’s desk to be bequeathed the jabbering head of a dead Scepter. This was no ordinary head. Scepters, once elected, answered only to Apex Scepters, and the Apexes answered only to the Conqueror, the aforementioned recluse and ultimate ruler of Rehleia.

  This head, whose mouth agonized moans out from grey brittle flesh, belonged to a legislative slug who in life garnered fame for helping outlaw necromancy. Now he caused great mirth, pleading with these users of the blackest arts to mercifully return him to death. Gleeful retorts made the thing weep dust for tears. While the world gazed upon his misleading tomb, he would be suffering long after even Do-Gooder’s Row was complete.

  Irion’s amusement having been temporarily fondled, he was brought back to the day’s ugliness. A jar of his great-uncle’s Ghorlaxium went to the warlock sitting directly beside him. Blossoming only one day per year, its purple petals were unparalleled in their ability to hold an apparition in thrall. An assortment of books, scrolls, torture devices and various other clutter went to their new owners. Everyone but Irion.

  But the mob would soon be joining him in his outrage.

  *

  Rumors that Maecidion Ordrid was dying had caused great unease. When he died, or so went the most common thread, demons would erupt from the earth and take Irion’s great-uncle “back”—a charitable act as they could ever have hoped for, except that the demons were reportedly going to grab all the innocent souls they could before scampering back to Hell.

  Those less inclined to listen to the holy dribble of Chapwyn priests were more worried that Rehleia—only a decade removed from total warfare—would re-splinter.

  The Metropolitan Ward— dumb faces in even dumber uniforms charged with policing Rehleia and its three cities—they wouldn’t be able to hold back this chaotic tide. Haggling farmers in the market tossed speculations of inevitable doom as hearty as heads of lettuce and copper coin. An Ordrid civil war was a top contender, how Irion’s aunts and cousins would send the world to cinders by pulling in the various secular powers.

  Perhaps more reasonably feared: if those powers who built roads instead of weaved magic became convinced that the House of Ordrid had sufficiently weakened. Ordrid annihilation had usually just been furtive Chapwyn church talk, or so the Ordrids had always been told. But trying to eliminate their entire House— the same House that once rose legions of the undead with wiggles of onyx-ringed fingers—the people feared it would merely provoke the notorious family into summoning more unnatural allies.

  No, Irion waged, a good sheep of the new land would prefer if incorrigibles, strong or weak, would just die in jail, or maybe unclog their plumbing, and then vanish until needed again. And though Irion was from a lower branch, it boiled him that some referred to his kinsmen with the blissful condescension of one who’s never had a knife to their neck. But it gave him some reprieve too, knowing wishful, anti-Ordrid fantasies resulted from outright fear.

  Before attending the clandestine school the dead-raisers call the lyceum, as all men from prominent families must, Irion suffered the maps and history lessons of a primary education. But unlike the Ouvarnias perched in the flamboyant city of Pelliul, or the politician-churning House of Lotgard, Irion found such learning only useful to pinpoint his own family’s prominence.

  If Irion were obliged to give a geographical tour, it would probably ring as thus:

  Rehleia is a knotted peninsula, like an afflicted fist stuck out on a withered arm. Pushing east and connecting Rehleia to the Other Lands is the Red Isthmus—named so for the rivers of blood that had once flown from its narrow hinterland down into the sea.

  At this east Rehleia meets the world of Azad, a desert kingdom littered with pit fires and bulb-topped minarets. Above Azad: Serabandantilith, raped by Azad and Rehleia once they figured out that ceasing their own war allowed for the pillaging of their weaker, northern neighbor. Azad took the land. Rehleia took the people and the gold. The former mixing with the dark Suelans, beefing up Rehleia’s much-celebrated slave class.

  A few years after the Years of Peace had officially commenced, trade began over the Red Isthmus, sweeping aside all the broken swords and lances.

  And as far as Rehleia is concerned, the House of Ordrid’s strong-hold is in Nilghorde. On a city hill above the brick wilderness, the family keep looks over the western sea. In this jagged crown, stowed in some charnel nook, the great Maecidion had taken his final breath.

  It was long argued: when the most infamous of the city’s celebrities actually discorporated. His form was kept together, Irion was told, but despite diplomatic transactions with the demonic, means of animation slowly seeped from the flesh as it rose from bone.

  Most of the estate was already in the possession of Maecidion’s most esoteric clutch: sisters Ophelia and Lialifer, cousins to Irion’s mother, and Morfil Ordrid, whose entire life had been dutifully in the shadow of his Lord and pedagogue.

  But that didn’t stop the vile throng from attending today. All were in accord; given just a goblet by his wishes held the highest prestige in this society others dare called foul.

  The air warm, like a kennel, sinking down around the attendees and settling on the stone floor. The room itself was but stone, that and shadow, both made known by a large ring of candlelight. In the center, attendants pulled chairs out from under the other, bites were delivered and tended to, and murmurs slithered amongst the bequeathings still to come.

  The barrister—looking as if batting away thoughts of being skewered—readied himself and continued reading the last will and testament of Maecidion the Virulent.

  *

  When Maecidion’s familiar was read off to anyone other than an Ordrid, the only thing that brought Irion to a fuller froth was that it went to Denoreyph Belot. Belot!—a self-important narcissist who cared about such frivolities as charm spells. For pursuing a discipline outside necromancy, he was especially hated. His dimmer critics obsessed over this feat, and obsessed all the dimmer that those who didn’t join them in their disgust had been in fact charmed themselves.

  Irion joined them, joined them and then some. Arrogant, Belot’s silk swayed as he strutted up and seized the imp in its cage.

  Belot! That prancing girl, Irion thought, reeling back to spit. Imp belongs in the family. Irion watched him until he sat back down to preen his sash and cross his legs like an actor.

  Irion hadn’t received so much as a wall sconce. One more carbuncled witch from the hills called up to lust over my family’s property and I’ll— Irion checked his pockets. A bit of a secret pleasure, one he hid from the more established necromancers, was his love of caustic tricks. Irion’s pockets usually ranged from such simplicities as malodorous vials to more severe components that helped build spells that could make one wish to see their mother couple with mountain trolls. A quick inventory proved he’d brought—

  The room became noise itself. It was as if that Scepter’s headless body had pushed up the doors of his tomb, stumbled through the streets, and then led a pod of the Metropolitan Ward to hack up the patrons. The uproar became awe, then it became envy. A statue had been placed on the barrister’s desk.

  Seen in the clasped hands of every portrait of Maecidion to ever cover a sullen wall, the statue, a hand itself, was made of pure lapis lazuli. The size of your average man’s, strains of gold feathered and swirled in the deep blue of its outstretched fingers. In its palm, three faces made a row. The outer two left trails at its base near the wrist, thus completing a long-agreed-upon murmur that they resembled haunted tadpoles. And these both seemed poised to circle the central visage; caught in an eternal, devilish sneer.