Altman and Ruby stared at each other for a moment, and then Altman looked away. What had Tillinghast promised Ruby? It couldn’t be the same thing the old man had promised him. Only one person could have that prize. “Brandies. Right.” He went to a sideboard and began making drinks.

  “A splash of soda in mine please!” Gloria called.

  He returned, awkwardly holding three glasses, and passed them out. Gloria took a long sip of hers and made a sound of satisfaction. Ruby didn’t touch her own, and Altman wasn’t thirsty.

  “You all did beautifully tonight,” Gloria said. “Well, you didn’t have much to do, Altman, but you stayed out of the way, as promised, and Ruby, you were magnificent. Tell me all about it. Did Sanford snatch the grail out of your hands the minute he saw you?”

  “No,” Ruby said, and recited the events of the evening in an emotionless and bare-bones way, up to the point when Sanford vanished. “He didn’t fade out, or anything, it was more like a soap bubble popping. Just there, and then gone.”

  “I’ve never seen anything like it,” Altman said. “And I’ve seen a lot of things. Where did he go?”

  Gloria shrugged, seemingly uninterested. “You’d have to ask Mr Tillinghast. Sanford has been dispatched on a long vacation to distant climes, is all I can say.”

  “But… is he trapped in his own dreams?” Ruby said.

  “Oh, the translations he read weren’t accurate,” Gloria said. “How can a person crawl inside their own mind?” She leaned forward, twinkling and conspiratorial. “To be honest, I think Mr Tillinghast commissioned forgeries of ancient texts and put them where Sanford’s agents could find them, to get the magus interested in the grail. It certainly worked out well, didn’t it?”

  “But Sanford said he first read about the grail long ago,” Altman said. “Does that mean… has Tillinghast been plotting to take down Sanford for years?”

  “My employer keeps his own counsel, but I don’t get the sense he rushes into things,” Gloria said. “He’s a planner, and he thinks long-term, and he enjoys savoring his triumphs.”

  “This is his triumph, then?” Ruby said. “So I can collect my pay and leave town now?”

  Altman was astonished. They’d bribed Ruby with nothing but money? Didn’t she know what Tillinghast could do? Did she really have such a profound lack of imagination?

  “You know better,” Gloria said. “Mr Tillinghast needs to take control of the Silver Twilight Lodge, and seize its treasures for his own, especially something called the Ruby of R’lyeh. At least, those are his immediate concerns. He’ll have other errands for you two as well. Your contracts are a bit open-ended, by design. But don’t worry, you’ll both get everything you’ve been promised, and I’m sure they’ll bring you nothing but joy in the end.”

  “I’m sure.” Ruby glanced at Altman. “What did Tillinghast promise you, anyhow?”

  He hesitated, and the thief snorted. “Come on. Gloria already knows, and it’s not like I’ll think less of you. Let’s compare compensation packages and see who got the better deal.”

  “I get the Silver Twilight Lodge,” Altman admitted. “When Tillinghast is finished with it, I’ll take Sanford’s old job.”

  “Sanford’s old everything,” Gloria said. “Mr Tillinghast has a team of lawyers and bankers and, I’ll be honest, document forgers working on making everything all legal and official. What once belonged to Carl Sanford will soon belong to him, and when he’s done with his business in Arkham, Mr Tillinghast will have no need for a bunch of deeds and titles and safety deposit boxes and bank accounts, and he’ll sign the lot over to Altman. Then our wandering mercenary will finally be able to put down roots.” She patted his hand and beamed at him.

  “That’s just Sanford’s stuff,” Ruby objected. “That’s not the Order.”

  Gloria preened. “Oh, the loyalty oaths sworn by every Lodge member at the level of Seeker or above will pass to Altman, too, when he becomes leader of the Lodge. Though I’ve suggested he might want to require new oaths, with altered wording. To ensure a more personal sort of loyalty.”

  Ruby frowned. “What do you mean, personal?”

  “The Seekers, the Knights, all of them, they swear to defend and protect the Order,” Altman explained. “That is, the Silver Twilight Lodge as a whole. Not Sanford himself.”

  “That’s how we were able to get the warden on our side, despite her formidable oaths,” Gloria said. “We showed her that Sanford wasn’t the right man to lead the Lodge anymore, and that someone else could do it better.”

  Altman nodded. “Same with me. I couldn’t burn down this building, I couldn’t loot the treasury, and I couldn’t murder all the Initiates, because those would be crimes against the Lodge, and those are forbidden by the oath I swore before the other Knights, upon that stone, in that circle. But I could turn on Sanford, personally, because…” He scowled. “Why should he get to be a little god here? What makes him so noble and important?” Altman slammed his fist down on the table, dormant rage bubbling to the surface. “He let my brother die!”

  Ruby nodded, seemingly undisturbed by his outburst. “Sanford’s not a good man, exactly. Not a bad one, either. His moral compass points to true north, but truth north, for him, is the prosperity and safety of Carl Sanford, first, and the Silver Twilight Lodge, second, and maybe Arkham itself, third. You think you’ll do a better job as boss, Altman?”

  “I won’t send good men into dens of cultists to die, that’s for sure,” Altman said. “Maybe I’ll get this Lodge to do all the things it purports to do. Charitable acts. Civic duty. Strengthening the fabric of Arkham society.”

  “You’re the charitable sort now?”

  Altman didn’t like the way Ruby was looking at him like he was some interesting and new species of beetle. “Why not? I’ve seen what happens when men are desperate, evil, grasping, and greedy. I’ve never been in a position to do anything to make the world better. When I run this Lodge, when I run this city, I’ll be able to do a lot more, and I will. What? Do you have something to say to me, Standish?”

  “The shift from murderer to philanthropist is quite a leap, is all,” Ruby said.

  “Says the thief,” he sneered.

  She shrugged. “I steal things. You snuff out lives. I’ve got no illusions about myself. Until five minutes ago, I would have said you didn’t have any about yourself, either, but, well. People do insist on surprising you, don’t they?”

  “What did they give you?” Altman demanded. “A bag full of cash?”

  “Sure. The deal is, I get enough money to set myself up independently for life. Plus a piece of magic to make that life infinitely easier and more interesting, and that’s all I have to say about it.”

  Altman grunted. “I don’t see why I should–”

  “Enough, children. Don’t squabble.” Gloria didn’t raise her voice, but there was none of the usual suppressed laughter in her voice. “Mr Tillinghast is on a timetable. He has a Great Work to commence. He is currently busy shepherding the legal side of his assumption of Carl Sanford’s estate. Your former magus will be found dead in a fiery car wreck soon, or, at least, a corpse fitting the general description will be found in his Bentley, wearing the burned remnants of Sanford’s clothes, and that will be good enough for our pet coroner. Sanford’s will, to everyone’s surprise, will name Tillinghast as his sole heir, and steps are being made to… expedite the transfer of his estate.”

  “But Sanford isn’t dead, is he?” Ruby said. “What if he comes back?”

  “People do sometimes come back from the place where he’s gone,” Gloria said. “But they’re seldom sane when they return, and Mr Tillinghast has taken steps to ensure that Sanford will not find a warm welcome there. If I were giving odds on his return, you wouldn’t want to take the bet. Now. I told you what Mr Tillinghast is doing. Here’s what I’m doing.” She rose from the table. “I’ve been sent to see to the physical aspects of the estate. To check out the Lodge, from top to bottom. And I mean the very bottom. He wants me to inspect the basements, and find Sanford’s hidden vaults, and the Ruby of R’lyeh, and you’re going to help me.”

  Altman and Ruby looked at one another. Ruby shook her head minutely, and Altman grimaced.

  “About the basements,” he began.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The Doom That Came to Sanford

  The swirling blackness parted, and Sanford found himself sprawled on his back, arms and legs flung out, staring up at a sky the color of a purple bruise. That sky was threaded with pulsing veins of white that he would have called lightning if they hadn’t been constant, merely dimming and brightening in pulses rather than properly flashing.

  A sharp stone dug into his spine, and he winced as he rolled over and got to his knees. He was atop a heap of gray rock – a pile of rubble, more like – and tiny triangular pebbles tore at the knees of his trousers. He rose unsteadily and leaned against a fragment of chest-high freestanding wall. “Where the deuce am I?” he muttered. It crossed his mind to call for help, but shouting in strange places could bring strange responses. Better to be quiet until he figured out where he was, and what was happening.

  His memory was strangely fuzzy. Ruby had succeeded, and brought him the grail, and then… yes. He’d touched it, and been mesmerized. Tillinghast had set a trap, and Sanford had walked into it. He cursed himself. Had he been drugged by the contents of the cup, and transported to this place? Or had he been transported here by the grail’s magic? Either way, the most pressing questions were, where was he, and how could he get back?

  He looked over the top of the wall, trying to make sense of this bizarre landscape. He’d seen the aftermath of zeppelin raids during the Great War overseas, city centers turned to rubble and cinders, and this was a bit like that… but much worse, and much less fresh. This might have been a city, or part of a city, but now it was a ruin, and an ancient one to judge by the trees that grew up from the devastated plazas and building foundations. The plants didn’t look healthy – they were leafless and covered in patches of leprous white mold – but they were big and well-established.

  He clambered down his rock pile, then walked up a slope, planting his feet carefully to avoid slipping on the scree, until he found a section of intact stone staircase, the risers just a bit taller than comfortable, and climbed them to what must have once been the upper floor of a building… or a balcony, or a landing, or something else. Now it was a jagged platform about ten feet across and twenty feet up, and it gave him a better view of his surroundings.

  The city, or what remained of it, spread in all directions as far as he could see. Though “heaps of rubble” was the predominant theme, that level of devastation was not uniform. There were numerous holes in the ground, ranging from the size of manholes to large enough to swallow a car, and many were smoking, or at least exuding yellowish vapors. He saw a half-melted statue of some sort of immense lizard emerging from the rocks nearby, though all he could make out clearly was its spiny tail. A dome, broken like an egg, stood silhouetted against the sky to his left. It might have been shining gold, once, but was now speckled with either mold or the guano of flying animals. Off in the distance there were more freestanding sections of wall, some of them gleaming white marble, allowing Sanford to guess at the likely perimeter of whatever city once stood here.

  “No point staying here,” he muttered, descending the stairs. He knew his situation was dire, but his mind skittered away from the full implications. He resolved to move forward, one foot in front of the other, until he gathered more information, and then… and then… he’d know how to proceed. Yes. Of course. He wasn’t truly lost. He was just temporarily unclear on his precise location.

  He set off in the direction of the nearest significant chunk of wall. He didn’t have his cane, and sorely missed it. He didn’t usually need the stick to walk, but landing on those stones made his body ache abominably, and he limped through the wreckage.

  After a time, he reached a stretch of nearly clear road, and realized he was walking on mud-streaked onyx. A devastated city, with streets of onyx and… was it granite? He’d read about such a place, hadn’t he? If he were in the Lodge, he could go to his library and look up the details. He could almost picture the volume he’d read about this city in: it had a black cover, with silver engraving, but he couldn’t quite bring the title to mind.

  He sighed. He’d learned long ago that trying to chase down an errant thought only made it flee deeper into the recesses of the mind. Better to focus on putting one foot in front of the other and let the back of his mind sort through the detritus of his decades for a useful morsel.

  He stepped over the remnant of a fallen arch, and into the foundation of what must have once been a vast structure. There was something white gleaming off to one side, and he changed his direction to investigate. After all, he didn’t know where he was, or where he was going, so what harm could a detour do?

  The white object proved to be the remains of a great throne made of ivory. He hadn’t realized that ivory could melt – it couldn’t normally, could it? Whatever doom had befallen this place must have been of an uncanny nature.

  Doom. Why did that word seem to resonate in his mind, apart from its accurate description of his current circumstances? He concentrated, but nothing came into focus. No matter. He looked at the chair closely. There were lions carved on the arms, but like medieval depictions of the beast, they didn’t much resemble actual lions – more like someone had carved them based on a secondhand description of a lion at best.

  Or else… the lions in this country were a different sort than those elsewhere. Sanford sat on the slanted fragment of the throne’s seat that remained, and for the first time, allowed himself to confront the fact his mind most wished to avoid: this did not look like any place on Earth.

  Oh, it might be on Earth; there were secret valleys, deep caverns, and mysterious hollows, and some of those might suffer under such an outlandish sky, but on balance, he didn’t think so. Tillinghast had tricked him with the grail. Charmed him into putting the cup to his lips, and then sent him to some distant realm, beyond the back of the stars, or in between the conventions of ordinary geometry. He’d poisoned the chalice. Or else… perhaps Sanford hadn’t understood what the grail did, not really. He drank from it, and found himself here, and this was no place he’d ever dreamed before, in a doomed city.

  Dream… doom… why did those two words seem to go together?

  He rose and sighed and set off again. The air smelled of dust and damp mold, but at least it wasn’t freezing cold, only chilly, and his suit jacket was good wool. He walked through the remnants of what might have been houses, or manors, or shops, and he avoided the miasmic holes. They looked like they could be dens, and he had no desire to see what creatures might dwell beneath this place.

  He passed a few scummy ponds, but dared not go near them, a worry confirmed when he saw one of the lakelets begin to roil and bubble. Something long and wet flicked out – a tongue, a tentacle, a fin? Nothing he wanted to trouble himself with. He wouldn’t die of thirst, anyway. His segmented ring – the Annelid, it was called, or sometimes the Tapeworm – provided him with the necessities of survival, among other benefits. He did not need to eat or drink or sleep while he wore it. The ring magically stole life energy and took sustenance from the living things around him, a parasitic enchantment for his benefit. If he’d found himself in an entirely lifeless place, of course, the ring wouldn’t help, but there was life here, of some sort, and he could live on their stolen bounty. The creatures around him would hunger, thirst, and grow weary, while he continued fresh as a spring morning.

  Not all the rubble was gray – some of it was shining white, and after scuffing some stones with his shoes, he realized most of them were quartz, but coated in dust and mud to hide their luster. Streets of onyx, bricks of quartz… some memory was stirring in his unconscious, but he couldn’t quite grasp it.

  He finally reached one of the walls, a fragment that stood almost as tall as he did, though he imagined they must once have soared, judging by the abundance of stone fallen all around him. The wall was decorated with chiseled designs – more lions, and chariots, and other things he couldn’t identify.

  There was one thing he could identify, though, a splash of color that was wildly out of place: a green triangle, messily painted with a brush, and in its center, a red eye. Sanford couldn’t stop himself from shouting then, and pounding his fist against the wall. Even here, exiled to this strange place, Tillinghast taunted him.

  He slumped down and sat, his back to the wall, staring at the horrible ruins before him. He’d brought this on himself, hadn’t he? His life was a Greek tragedy, and he’d been brought down by the most obvious of fatal flaws – hubris!

  He’d assumed that he could get the best of Tillinghast, even though the man had shown repeatedly that he was playing three moves ahead. Just because Sanford had always triumphed before didn’t mean he was destined to triumph. There was no such thing as destiny. The universe didn’t care about him, or about anyone else; no one was meant to do anything at all. You had to find your own meaning to give purpose to your life. It just so happened that Sanford had always found his meaning in being the smartest, the wiliest, the cleverest, the most informed, and the best. Now Tillinghast had proven himself Sanford’s better. He’d used Sanford’s own arrogance and avarice against him, turned his allies into enemies, and taken glee in showing Sanford the cracks in his world.

  The magus in exile closed his eyes and leaned his head against the stones of the wall, under his enemy’s eye. He was beaten. He was stranded who knows where, with nothing but a few magical trinkets, and no idea how to find his way home.

  But… there had to be a way home, didn’t there? If Tillinghast had come here to paint his sigil and then returned home, that meant it was indeed possible to escape this place.