* * *
   Yasmin woke me as first light was dawning. She loomed above me, prodding my ribs repeatedly with her toe, and she didn't stop until I snapped, «All right, all right. I'm conscious.»
   «You're watching with me on the top floor,» she said. «I'll see you up there.» As she went out the door, she paused and turned back to me. «You look innocent in your sleep. And you make little sounds.»
   Without another word she dashed away, and when she hit the staircase, it clattered into a furore of squeaking. I think she was running up the stairs two at a time.

* * *
   Needless to say, I wondered what I was getting into as I stepped through the doorway of the upstairs room. Yasmin's face was slightly flushed, but whether that was exertion or a blush, I couldn't tell. She glanced at me only for a second, then turned her eyes to the street outside the window.
   «Anything happening out there?» I asked.
   She shook her head, without shifting her gaze; for a street with nothing going on, it certainly seemed to rivet her attention.
   Shrugging, I went to the corner of the room that held the biggest puddle of rainwater… at least an inch deep in some places, thanks to exaggerated warps in the wood of the floor. Carefully, I wet my hands and patted them on my face for a morning wash. The water smelled of dirt and dust; little fibers floated in it, either threads left behind by some carpet that had once lain on this floor or hairs from rats nesting in the building.
   I crouched down and lapped up a bit of the puddle, just to see if it tasted like rats, carpet, or something else. The flavor was mostly bland dust, with a slightly smoky tang to it. Did that come from Sigil's normal smog of chimney soot? Or was I tasting the residue of the fire that had burned through the Hive earlier in the week?
   «Did you just put your tongue on this filthy floor?» Yasmin asked from her place by the window.
   «Actually I just slurped up some rainwater,» I replied. «However, I'll happily lick the floor if you think the flavor's worth it.»
   «Sensates!» she growled, and went back to looking out the window.
   Since she'd mentioned it, I did try licking the floor but it didn't impress me. Ordinary varnished cedar – I'd tasted much better in my time.

* * *
   As the day brightened, traffic picked up on the streets below us. Since Yasmin and I were on the top floor, our job was to look beyond the dome of the Mortuary (four storeys shorter than our tenement perch) and scan the rear entrance for signs of mischief. Not that we could actually see the rear entrance – the dome blocked our view – but we had a clear line of sight to the street passing the backdoor. Down there, members of the unclean underclass called the Collectors were bringing in corpses who got themselves put in the dead-book overnight: old bubbers who'd choked on their own vomit, young ones who liked to pick tavern fights, Clueless newcomers who wandered down the wrong alley. Welcome to Sigil, you leatherheads.
   Idly, I picked up my sketchbook, made a few sweeps with my stick of charcoal, then put it down again.
   «What's that you just drew?» Yasmin asked.
   «Nothing,» I answered, holding up the page so she could see. «For a moment I considered drawing a stark little streetscape – the Mortuary, with wretched bands of Collectors sneaking in corpses at the backdoor. But I decided against it.»
   «Why?»
   «Because people don't like depressing pictures.»
   «I do,» Yasmin said.
   «Yes, you probably do,» I admitted. «You and the whole Doomguard. And the Dustmen, and the Bleak Cabal, and maybe some other factions too. But my regular customers don't like depressing pictures. They'd hate seeing such pictures in my studio, and they'd hate hearing that I'd sold such pictures to… people who weren't like themselves.»
   «In other words,» she sneered, «you're not going to draw something that interests you, because some jink-jigging nobs would disapprove.»
   «Disapproval's not the point,» I replied. «It's just that whenever I pick up charcoal or paintbrush, I have two choices: create something that earns money or waste my time on something that doesn't. A man has to be practical.» For my mother's sake, I might have added – keeping up Cavendish Case was not cheap, but it would kill her if we ever had to move out of the house. Of course, I wasn't prepared to talk about family with a complete stranger like Yasmin; why should I care if she thought I was a greedy self-centered berk?
   Yasmin turned away to glare out the window, then reached into a pocket of her dragon skin leotard and tossed me a worn gold coin. «There,» she said. «Special commission. Draw what you want, any way you want. And I promise I won't tell your precious customers you worked for a Doomguard tiefling.»
   I held the coin in my hand for several seconds, feeling the warmth of the gold – a warmth that had come from Yasmin's body. Then I lifted my sketchbook, flipped to a blank page, and started sketching the clean lines of her face. High forehead, strong jaw, good cheekbones… an excellent artist's model, just as I thought.
   It was about the time I started trying to capture her eyes that she finally recognized the picture on the paper.
   «What do you think you're doing?» she snapped.
   «Drawing something I want. Now stop jerking your head like that, so I can get on with the work. I take commissions seriously.»
   Like many first-time models, she started out self-conscious and artificial, went through an irritable stage when she threatened to quit every other minute, progressed to a state of sullen resignation, and finally came to ignore me when she became tired of forcing her face into «artistic» expressions. That's when I turned to a new page and began the real drawing.
   And so the day passed.

* * *
   Early on the third morning, an army of Collectors paraded down the street with the stiffening corpse of a giant.
   At the time, Oonah and Wheezle had the fourth floor watch, while Yasmin and Hezekiah took the seventh floor. It was just as well Yasmin and I weren't together again – when she saw my final drawing the day before, it had taken her aback, possibly because it showed how strikingly lovely she was. I had drawn her with her chin resting thoughtfully on her fist, and the bony ridge of her forearm was an integral part of the picture's composition. She had never posed in that position, certainly not during the day we'd been together, and possibly never in her life; but even I was surprised how strongly it captured who she was. For several long minutes after I had finished it, I didn't want to let it out of my hands. I wanted to hold it, memorize what I had done… or maybe throw it in the faces of critics who derided my portraits as shallow.
   Still, a commission was a commission, and Britlin Cavendish never peeled his clients. Carefully, bashfully, I handed it to Yasmin. She never said a word; she simply stared at it a long long time.
   After that, we both shied away from each other's company for a while – it felt too awkward. I decided to ask Hezekiah to take the next day's watch with Yasmin; his Clueless questions would irritate her, but she might be more at ease being annoyed than handling whatever emotions she felt the day before.
   With the other four team members on watch, Brother Kiripao and I had little to do. After two days in the tenement, I had endured enough of its quaking stairs and musty smell; so I found myself on the ground floor, staring out at the street and wondering how risky it would be to go for a walk in Sigil's version of fresh air. Brother Kiripao may have been thinking the same thing, for he wandered down to join me, gazing out the glassless window.
   We could hear the giant's approach several minutes before the corpse actually came into view: the sound of overloaded carts groaning along the cobblestones, mingled with the grunts of people lugging a heavy burden. Then, around the corner came a haycart supporting the giant's head and shoulders, his long wild hair tumbling over the sides of the cart and trailing along the street. The hair was green, and his skin sulphur yellow – a jungle giant, if I correctly remembered Kreepatch's Guide to the Multiverse. Sigil didn't have a large population of giants, but a few happened into the city from time to time, and they naturally stood out in the crowd. Jungle giants were one of the more civilized species, smart and self-disciplined enough to stay out of trouble.
   The giant in front of us, however, had not been quite smart enough. His throat sported a long red gash, still dribbling blood onto the pavement… enough blood to satisfy a string of dogs who trotted along beside the corpse to lick up the spillage. For a moment, I thought the deceased must have been killed by one of his fellow giants – who else is tall enough to slit a giant's throat? But then, a random breeze blew in through the window and filled my nostrils with an overpowering stink of cheap whiskey.
   Whiskey had soaked into the giant's hair… whiskey clung to his beard and his meagre clothing… whiskey formed a visibly sticky coat on his bare skin. The giant must have bathed in the stuff, or poured a dozen bottles over his head. The obvious conclusion was that he'd been celebrating something; a marriage perhaps, or one of his people's religious festivals. I could picture him drenching himself liberally with whiskey, externally and internally, then bumbling off into the city and passing out in some alley. If a robber wandered by, the thief might well do a slice-job on the giant's throat before picking his pockets – you wouldn't want a drunken giant to wake up while you were bobbing his money pouch.
   The breeze blew in at me again. Stale rotgut whiskey: I knew the aroma well, just as I knew the bouquets of the finest wines. And yet, there was something slightly odd…
   «Warn the others to stay on their toes,» I told Brother Kiripao. «I have to check something out.»
   Tossing off my jacket, I rumpled my hair and pulled out my shirt tails to bring my appearance more into line with street fashion in the Hive. Then with a drunken swagger, I stumbled out the door and up to the passing giant. «Sure is a big piking basher!» I called out to the nearest Collector.
   «He's a heavy sod, all right,» the Collector replied. Sweat poured down her face as she helped push her cart, but the woman seemed cheerful enough. «I like the heavy ones,» she went on. «When the Dustmen hand out jink for collecting stiffs, they pay by the pound.»
   «You'll be rich, you rotten berk!» She and I both laughed loudly. I let the laugh break into a cough and staggered up against the corpse to steady myself. With a little squirming, I managed to change position so my nose was flush against the giant's skin. One good whiff, and I backed away a few paces.
   «Where'd you find this big old jumbo?» I asked the Collector.
   «Lying in an alley,» she said. «Where else? He got drunk, he got sliced… simple as that.»
   Yes, someone wants us to believe that story, I thought to myself – someone who hadn't taken into account a Sensate's sensitive nose. On the giant's skin, beneath the stink of cheap whiskey, lurked the more subtle fragrance of Phlegistol: an ultrahigh-grade fuel oil, said to be mined by gray dwarves in the caverns of Carceri. Nobles in The Lady's Ward liked to burn Phlegistol to heat water for baths; they claimed it burned cleaner than coal and very very hot.
   «Sure is a big basher,» I said again and whacked the corpse's side heartily. A load of liquid in the giant's gut sloshed loudly in response to my blow; and I had no doubts what that liquid was. Our fire-loving enemies had somehow killed this giant and used the slit in his throat to top him full of flammable oil. Afterward, they had soaked him in a few gallons of whiskey to hide the Phlegistol smell. Now the corpse was an eighteen-foot-long bomb, left in an alley for unsuspecting Collectors who'd deliver it straight to the Mortuary.
   I wondered how the arsonists intended to set this off. A single fire-arrow would do the trick. You'd want to shoot from a long distance away, but the giant was a huge target. A hit anywhere should be good enough to touch off the payload – whiskey fumes were flammable enough, but the Phlegistol was positively explosive. For maximum effect, the enemy would probably wait till most of the body was inside the doors of the Mortuary; then boom.
   As quickly as I could while maintaining my drunken act, I waved cheery-bye to the Collectors and wobbled my way back to the tenement. Brother Kiripao was waiting inside the door. «The corpse is a bomb,» I said in a low voice, as I slipped back into my jacket.
   «A large bomb?» he asked.
   «I'd guess more than a ton of Phlegistol.»
   He glanced at the giant, now being heaved off the carts and hauled slowly up the Mortuary's front steps. «We must leave this building,» he said. «It cannot withstand a sizable explosion at such close range.»
   «Then you get around to the rear of the dome,» I told him, «and keep an eye on people escaping that way. I'll warn the others.»
   He nodded in agreement and dashed out at once. Three seconds later, it occurred to me that he really didn't know what to look for – only a few of us had the proper dark about the githyanki and githzerai thieves. I should have been the one to watch the back, and let Brother Kiripao clear the building; but something inside of me wanted to save Yasmin personally.
   The moment I finished putting on my jacket, I ran for the stairs. They squealed and wavered under my feet, but I kept my balance and made my way upward as fast as possible. Oonah was looking over the stair railing at the fourth floor level, and called down to me, «What's going on? I saw you in the street.»
   «The giant's filled with Phlegistol,» I gasped, panting from running up the steps. «If it goes boom, this building will too.»
   «Damned right it will,» she nodded. «I've seen Phlegistol explosions before. Gray dwarves love the stuff – they fill up wine bottles, jam in cloth fuses, and toss them at people they don't like. Good way to burn a whole sodding village.»
   «You and Wheezle clear out of here,» I told her. «I'll get the others.»
   «Just shout,» she said. «They'll hear you.»
   «So will the enemy,» I replied. «Best not give ourselves away.» And I hurried up the stairs again before she could argue.
   My heart was pounding loudly in my ears when I finally reached the top. Of course, Hezekiah had heard the racket of the creaking stairs and come to investigate. «We have…» I wheezed, «…we have… to get out. Bomb.»
   «What's a bomb?» he asked, perky as ever.
   Piking stupid Prime-worlders! To them, the height of military ingenuity was sharpening both edges of your sword.
   «What's this about a bomb?» Yasmin said, coming out of the surveillance room.
   «The giant…» I told her. «Phlegistol… we have to…»
   «All right, hold on.»
   She ran back into the room, while I leaned against the bannister and tried to catch my breath. Hezekiah gave my arm a genial pat, then said, «I'd better collect our gear.» He too ran off, his boots hitting the floor heavily enough to send tremors through the staircase. I lowered myself to the steps and sat for a moment, listening to my heart thud. Winded as I was, perhaps I should start downstairs immediately; the others were in better shape, and would easily catch up. However, my pride wouldn't let me run off – I had to wait for Yasmin.
   And Hezekiah too, of course.
   Yasmin hurried out of the room, her knapsack on her back and the portrait I'd drawn rolled up in one hand. «Be careful when you roll up a charcoal sketch,» I told her. «They smudge easily.»
   «Pike it, berk,» she snapped, but her face wore the ghost of a smile. «They've already got the giant halfway through the doorway. Perfect time to hit it with a burning —»
   A brilliant burst of light flashed through the window, followed a split-second later by a thunderous roar. The tenement rocked back sharply, sections of its roof blowing away like loose paper; then the full force of the explosion struck home, smashing the front wall of the building with fists of naked fire. Yasmin was thrown off her feet by the blast of hot air, and tossed sprawling across my lap where I sat on the stairs.
   As for the stairs… with a single shriek of rusty nails, the staircase supports ripped out of the surrounding wood. Then we were falling free.

4. THREE DUSTY KILLERS

   Seven storeys with two flights of stairs per storey – once we started falling, we didn't stop. Bam, our steps smashed down on the steps beneath and banged them free of their supports; then both flights were falling together, down to the next floor, and so on. One floor after another, every jarring crash followed by another one-storey drop, like a house of cards collapsing in on itself. Bam, bam, bam, with flaming boards falling around us and sparks sputtering through the air. During the split-second we stopped at each floor, plaster from that floor's ceiling smacked down on us in brittle sheets. Then the next flight of stairs would give way, and another fall, another jolt, another shower of plaster breaking over my head and Yasmin's back.
   Each time we landed, Yasmin gave a painful whoof of breath. She had fallen with her stomach across my lap, and each impact drove my knees into her diaphragm. Halfway down, her body slumped limply, stunned by having the wind knocked out of her over and over again. Desperately, I held onto her with all my strength so she wouldn't tumble away – riding the stairs like a bucking bronco might bruise us black and blue, but getting thrown off into a burning building would put us in the dead-book for sure.
   At long last we stopped, perched high atop a stack of piled-up stairflights. That put us almost even with the first floor above ground level; so with scant seconds before the tenement came thundering down around our ears, I heaved up Yasmin's body and ran straight for the front of the building. There was a hole in the wall there, a ragged breach where the explosion had punched out a sweep of rotten boards. The boards now littered the floor, too punky to burn, even in the Phlegistol heat; but the sides of the hole had caught and now blazed hungrily with bright fire, sucking in a gale of fresh air from outside. I didn't stop. I simply cradled Yasmin to my chest, and jumped straight through the opening.
   The distance to the ground was only ten feet – a painful drop but scarcely a killer, provided you land properly. Once in the air, however, I realized there was no way to land properly with a full-grown woman in my arms. Protecting her head from the cobblestones was the best I could do… and then we struck down on something much softer than expected, softer than pavement, softer than burning wood.
   It was a hand: the giant's left hand, blown clean off at the wrist. We landed as gently as nestling birds, snuggling down into the palm. Now, however, the giant's skin was not its original sulfur yellow, but an ugly charred black; and the whiskey smell had been replaced by the odor of roast pork.
   Dappling the pavement around us were other hunks of smoking flesh: some from the giant, some from the Collectors who had been carrying the corpse into the Mortuary. Surprisingly, this carnage was easier for me to stomach than the massacre at the City Courts – except for the giant's hand, nothing was intact enough to recognize as fleshly remains.
   Yasmin drew in a ragged breath and rolled back against the giant's scorched thumb. Somehow she had managed to keep hold of my charcoal sketch through everything, though the paper had crumpled where it was squeezed in her fist. She looked down at it and blearily tried to straighten the creases.
   «Never mind that,» I said. «How are you?»
   «Alive, by the grace of Entropy,» she groaned. «Did the others…»
   I turned to look at the tenement. It chose that moment to cave in on itself, the whole structure slumping neatly downward into a smoking pile. The buildings on either side, also battered by the explosion, leaned inward to fill the gap left by the collapse. One by one, they all toppled onto the smoldering heap.
   The whole process took less than five seconds.
   «Britlin…» Yasmin whispered.
   «Oonah and Wheezle had time to get out,» I answered, without looking at her. «But poor Hezekiah was still on the seventh —»
   «Hi,» said Hezekiah, from behind our backs. «What are you doing in that hand?»
   Grimacing, I turned to face him. «You teleported out?»
   «Sure. If you two had just waited, I would have brought you with me.»
   «Too easy,» I muttered. «We preferred taking the more exciting way down.»
   «You Sensates!» He laughed and punched me playfully in the shoulder. «Come on and I'll take you to the others.»
   Yasmin tried to knife him in the back, but I stopped her in time.

* * *
   Oonah and Wheezle had taken refuge behind one of the Mortuary's most solid outbuildings: the marble sanctuary that housed Sigil's Monument of the Ages. Factol Skall of the Dustmen had created this monument to peel a little more gold from the pockets of rich leatherheads, letting them pay for the privilege of inscribing their names on a great stone obelisk that would «preserve their fame for all time». Looking through an archway into the monument building, I saw that the obelisk had been toppled by the shockwave of the explosion; it now lay on the ground, broken into three pieces.
   «My condolences on all this mess,» I said to Wheezle.
   «Why?» he asked, his small gnome eyes blinking in surprise. «To a Dustman, this is a day of high celebration. So many souls ushered into the Ultimate Peace.»
   «It's a thrill for the Doomguard too,» Yasmin assured him. «Too noisy and presumptuous, of course – we'd rather let things fall down on their own. Still…» She looked around at the fractured monument, the collapsed row of tenements, the scattered gobbets of baked flesh. «It was a really good boom.»
   I too scanned the destruction and devastation. A tragic waste of life… but as a Sensate, I rather enjoyed the boom myself. Who says opposing factions have nothing in common?
   «If we've finished applauding this wholesale slaughter,» Oonah said angrily, «can we remember we have a job to do?»
   «Of course, honored Guvner,» Wheezle replied, kowtowing politely. «What would you like to do?»
   «Did anyone see how the sodding berks set off the bomb?» Oonah asked.
   «The easiest method would be a flame arrow shot from a distance,» I told her, «although these people like fireballs so much, maybe they used one of those wands from the court rotunda.»
   «Some of us should search for the shooter,» Oonah said. «Look anyplace that had a clear line of fire on the Mortuary's front door. Wheezle? Hezekiah?»
   Wheezle kowtowed. Hezekiah tried to kowtow too, but just looked ridiculous. Together, the two of them trotted off toward the front of the building. I was glad to see that even Hezekiah had the sense to stay close to cover and keep his eyes open.
   «The rest of us should head for the back door,» Oonah continued, «and hope the enemy hasn't already escaped.»
   «I sent Brother Kiripao to watch the back before the explosion,» I said.
   «Good,» she nodded. «Let's find him.»
   We set a quick pace around the perimeter of the Mortuary, keeping to the protection of the outbuildings as much as possible. Yasmin matched stride beside me; she still held the crumpled sketch in her hand. After a while, she asked in a low voice, «Why are we so interested in the rear entrance? I thought we just had to watch for an attack, then trail the culprits.»
   «The attack on the courts was actually a diversion to cover a theft,» I told her. «The factols suspect that all the attacks were diversions; so we're going to check the rear entrance to see if thieves come running out.»
   «How will you tell the thieves from everyone else?» she asked. «At least three funerals have gone into the building already this morning. If those people hear a big sodding explosion at the front door, they're all going to run out the back.»
   «We'll just have to keep our eyes open and hope for the best,» Oonah answered, throwing a pointed glance at me. She obviously wanted to keep the githyanki and githzerai a secret, though I couldn't see why. Maybe Guvners just liked knowing things other people didn't.

* * *
   Kiripao had positioned himself at the corner of the last outbuilding. He bowed to us as we came up beside him, and whispered, «A great many people have run from the door, but no one out of the ordinary. I have taken the liberty of casting a spell to detect the presence of magic; the escapees possess nothing notable.»
   I wondered what kind of magical radiations he perceived from the rest of us. Oonah's staff must put out a powerful shine, and Yasmin's dragon leotard would give off its own healthy glow. As for me, I had the lantern-stone in my pocket, not to mention my father's rapier; considering the amount of money he paid to have it enchanted, the sword must blaze as bright as a phoenix's fundament.
   «Cavendish!» Oonah growled in my ear. «Stop wool-gathering. Check for familiar faces in the crowd.»
   I looked around the corner of the building, and saw about twenty people milling in the street. Most had been attending funerals inside the Mortuary, so they wore clothes of whatever color their cultures associated with grief: black and white predominated, with the occasional dash of blood red. In among the mourners, a handful of gray-robed Dustmen tried to calm the crowd. «There's no cause for alarm,» I heard one call, as smoke from burning tenements drifted over the Mortuary dome.
   The people in the street were the usual mix of races you find in Sigil: humans, bariaur, tieflings, even one githzerai. The githzerai was a woman, and short for her species – nothing like the male I had seen in the Courts.
   «Ahh,» Brother Kiripao murmured. «This is more interesting.» He pointed to a group of five figures, just emerging from the Mortuary. All of them wore Dustman robes, with the hoods pulled down over their faces.
   «Magic?» I whispered. Kiripao nodded.
   «Five of them, four of us,» Oonah muttered beside my shoulder. «If they split up, we're in trouble. Still… I'll follow the first to leave, Kiripao the second, and Yasmin the third. If the last two go in different directions, Cavendish, use your best judgment.»
   The front two paused just before they reached the bottom of the Mortuary steps; warily, they looked both directions along the street. In that moment, I could see their faces clearly, despite the shadows cast by their hoods – they were the same githyanki and githzerai who peeled Oonah's office.
   «That's them,» I murmured. As I spoke, the two thieves descended the last step into the street and hurried off in the opposite direction from us.
   «Come along, Brother Cipher,» Oonah said to Kiripao. Without waiting, she slipped around the edge of the building and into the street, quickly crossing to the closest clump of mourners and blending in with them. Kiripao trailed behind Oonah, while Yasmin and I kept our eyes on the three figures still on the steps.
   The shrouded trio stood where they were for several seconds, watching the githyanki and githzerai head up the street; then they descended to ground level, straight into the crowd. There was something odd about the way they walked, the way they stayed inside the shadows of the Mortuary dome, the aggressive way they swung their arms – like apes, or like…
   «Eustace,» I murmured.
   «What?» Yasmin asked.
   «Never mind,» I said. «You're a priestess, right?»
   «My official title is Handmaid of Entropy.»
   «You can explain what that means another time,» I told her. «Do you have any power over the undead?»
   «Entropy isn't some god who protects you from ghoulies and ghosties,» she replied indignantly. «It's the supreme force of nature. We like to say we're the opposite side of the coin from druids – they hug trees, we chop the sodding things down as a sacrament.»
   «Both no doubt annoy the trees,» I told her, «but at the moment, I'm more interested in a cleric who can command wights to… pike it, there they go.»
   The three hooded figures had already entered the crowd. Now they threw off their robes, and hissed pure hatred at the mourners around them. As I suspected, the three were barrow wights like our delivery boy Eustace, animated corpses with razor-sharp claws in place of fingernails; and their job must be to cover the escape of the other two thieves.
   People screamed at the sight of the undead monsters, then stumbled backward in a rush. One woman tripped over someone behind her, and fell shrieking to the cobblestones. Immediately, the closest wight leapt to the attack, grabbing her wrist with one hand and raking the claws of its other hand down her arm. Where the creature's claws made contact, the woman's flesh withered away, her muscles dissolving to threads as the skin shrank tight to the bone. The wight hissed once in triumph, then let her wrist go; the arm clattered useless to the pavement, reduced to a skeletal husk.
   «What are you doing?» shouted a nearby Dustman to the wight. The man was in his forties, with red tattoo spirals inscribed on both cheeks. He walked straight up to the creature and stood in front of it, hands on his hips… like an outraged schoolmaster who's caught a student cheating. «Get back inside at once,» the Dustman said. «This behavior is intolerable.»
   The wight cocked its head to one side, and regarded the Dustman with intense interest. Then its hand shot forward, claws outstretched; the nails stabbed through the Dustman's clothes like gauze and buried themselves deep in his chest, five soul-stealing daggers. The Dustman gasped softly. Something creaked inside of him, a long agonized noise like someone bending a stick slowly to the breaking point. One rib cracked, then another, then another, snapping so fiercely the ends of the bones pierced outward through the man's chest and protruded whitely from his robes.
   Blood gushed in fountains, spattering the wight's face. It simply licked its lips and waited, waited till its life-draining grip had shriveled the man's chest to a pulp bristling with broken bones. Then it tossed the Dustman's corpse against the Mortuary wall, where it fell to the ground, rattling.
   «That's impossible!» Yasmin whispered.
   «How long have you lived in Sigil?» I whispered back. «Everything's possible here.»
   «But the Dustmen have a pact with the undead – the Dead Truce. Undead creatures like that wight simply won't attack a Dustman unless the Dustman attacks first.»
   «I know all about the Dead Truce,» I told her, «but those wights don't.»
   «Someone is playing hob with the natural order,» she said, and this time she wasn't whispering. «Someone is trying to disrupt…»
   The rest of the sentence was drowned out by the noise of Yasmin shucking off her backpack and drawing her sword.
   «I hope that sword is either magic or silver,» I said to her. «You can't hurt wights with just a normal…»
   But I didn't finish my sentence either, because Yasmin had already charged into the fray.

* * *
   For half a second, I hesitated – after all, our instructions had been to watch the enemy and refrain from direct involvement. However, I couldn't let Yasmin face three wights on her own; and even if Yasmin hadn't been there, it was high time for me to start saving lives. Much as I tried to put it out of my mind, I had allowed the Collectors to carry the exploding giant to their doom, because my orders told me to hold back. My father would have roared, «Pike the orders, people are dying!»
   Whipping my rapier out of its sheath, I raced after Yasmin. A few mourners were already running in our direction, but they had enough sense to get out of our way; the rest of the crowd was shocked frozen with terror, unable to move as each of the wights chose a new victim to drain. All three victims were Dustmen, and all three Dustmen simply stared in disbelief as their hearts were ripped from their chests.
   Yasmin took the nearest wight in the back, a furious thrust that pierced straight through the monster's spine, out the front of its ribcage, and halfway into the Dustman it held in its claws. The wight turned its head to look at Yasmin and hissed, its breath reeking of humid decay. I was close enough to smell the stench; I was also close enough to jam the tip of my rapier into that open mouth, up through the palate, and into its brain. Thanks to the sword's enchantments, the blade punched straight through the wight's skull, scattering gray matter and bone fragments onto the hapless Dustman in the monster's grip.
   The Dustman didn't care. If he hadn't been dead already, getting impaled on Yasmin's sword had finished the job.
   Our arrival snapped the remaining mourners out of their stupors. Howling with fear, they scattered; one little halfling even ran back into the Mortuary, certainly not the place I'd run for protection. By the time Yasmin and I dislodged our blades from the now-dead wight, we were alone in the street with the two remaining monsters.
   «One on one?» I asked her. «Or shall we gang up on the closest of these berks?»
   «I'll take the closest,» she replied. «You keep the other off my back.»
   «Your wish is my command.»
   Giving Yasmin's wight a wide berth, I sped around to face the other one. Once upon a time, this particular wight had been a woman, but that had been years ago. Now her face was ravaged with tomb rot, her skin flaking away to reveal the ligaments beneath.
   «Hello,» I said to the monster. «Would you be available to model the next time I teach a figure drawing class? Students always have such a hard time with the anatomy of the face, and here you are, already dissected. You're a walking anatomy text book, my dear.»
   The monster hissed and took a tentative swipe at me. I flicked my sword at her hand, just enough to make a small cut on her wrist. No blood dribbled out: nothing but a trickle of reddish dust.
   «Some people think the rapier is an ineffectual little weapon,» I told the wight, «but they're only familiar with the blades used in competition fencing.» I stepped in just long enough for a slash that cut several exposed ligaments on her left cheek, then backed quickly away. «A competition rapier is only a thrusting weapon,» I explained, «but as you can see, a real rapier has two perfectly good cutting edges. Are you following all this?»
   By the look of it, the wight was only interested in finding a way past my guard. She kept lunging, hissing and missing, as I swirled the blade in a continuously circling parry. The little nicks I gave her did no serious damage, but they kept her at bay; and second by second, her rage grew.
   «I don't suppose you'd like to tell me why you broke the Dead Truce,» I asked the wight. «Whom you work for, what their plan is, that sort of thing?»
   She hissed.
   «So the truth is, you can't talk, right?»
   She hissed again.
   «That would be a yes,» I said to myself. Not being an expert on the undead, I had no idea whether your average wight was capable of speech; then again, these were obviously not average wights. These were creatures who should be examined by knowledgeable authorities.
   Without taking my eyes off the wight in front of me, I called to Yasmin, «Keep dancing with your playmate out here. I need to consult a professional.» Then, with a flurry of sword strokes, I drove my wight back toward the Mortuary steps. (The monster really was a ham-handed fighter… but then, when you can wither opponents with one swipe of your claws, you don't have much incentive to acquire finesse.)
   Up the stairs we went, wight hissing, my blade slashing. The huge iron-plated door gaped wide open, and we went inside, the wight still backing away from my attack and spitting with fury.
   I had attended my share of funerals in the Mortuary, but had always used the main entrance. This back area was unfamiliar to me, a curving stone corridor with numerous doors – some open, some closed, and a big one leading to the front of the building, blown off its hinges by the exploding Phlegistol. With the exception of the wight's continuing hisses, the place was as quiet as a tomb. Admittedly, that shouldn't have been a surprise.
   «Hello!» I shouted. «Anybody home?»
   My voice echoed off the stone walls; the sound seemed to last forever. The wight made a half-hearted charge toward me, but backed away as the edge of my rapier sliced a gash across her collarbone. Accepting the inevitable, she began to back down the corridor that led to the front of the building. I could smell things burning ahead of us, and slowed my pace… not from fear of the fire, but from concern about the smoke. Wights are dead, so they don't have to breathe; if I started to get dizzy from smoke inhalation, the monster in front of me would gain a distinct advantage.
   «I'd really love to talk to a Dustman,» I yelled, the Mortuary dome echoing dustman, dustman, dustman. «I have a renegade wight here that a Dustman should examine. It broke the Dead Truce. Someone should have a look at it.»
   «A renegade wight, you say?»
   At the far end of the corridor a gaunt figure appeared, backlit by the flicker of fires ravaging the front part of the Mortuary. For a moment the figure looked like some kind of undead thing itself, a corpse dressed in gray robes; but then my eyes adjusted to the light and recognized the reclusive Factol Skall of the Dustmen.
   The wight was sandwiched between Skall and myself. She turned at the sound of his voice, and studied him.
   «Be careful, your honor,» I said to Skall. «She killed several Dustmen out in the street. I saw her.»
   «She attacked first?»
   «Yes, your honor. Without provocation.»
   «I find that hard to believe.»
   The wight was looking back and forth between Skall and me, hissing more violently than ever. Her eyes burned as bright as the flames at the factol's back. Suddenly, she feinted a lunge at me, then hurtled toward Skall, claws poised for the kill. I raced after her, sprinting as fast as I could while preparing to slash off her head. Much as I had hoped the Dustmen could interrogate her, saving the factol's life had higher priority.
   The wight sped toward Skall. I sped after her. Skall stood calmly as the two of us descended upon him; and at the last moment, he simply held up his hands and said, «Stop.»
   My legs froze, my brain froze… even my arm, swinging down with the decapitating stroke, simply stopped dead in the air as if trapped in ice. The wight, however, seemed immune to whatever magic Skall used to paralyze me. She closed the remaining gap and seized Skall's arms with the ferocity of a rabid dog that has finally found someone to attack. Hissing gleefully, she dug her claws into his wrists and squeezed.
   For several seconds, Skall didn't move a muscle. Then, slowly, he twisted his arms in the wight's grasp, so that he could grasp her wrists as tightly as she held his. The two stood there clutching each other, the crimson light of the wight's eyes flaring brighter and brighter in the dark corridor.
   The embrace lasted almost a full minute, while I stood by helpless, unable to move. Slowly, the hatred on the wight's face changed to puzzlement, and she tried to pull away; but Skall held on easily, without a hint of strain. The fire in the wight's eyes continued to grow, casting two blurs of scarlet on the gray stone wall. At the last moment, she turned over her shoulder to look at me, her rotten face grimacing with fear and confusion. Then her entire body burst like a soap bubble, showering the corridor with a spray of cloying red dust.
   «Remarkable,» said Skall. His robes were crimson with the dust, his face powdered to the color of blood. With a sudden surge, strength returned to my limbs and I could lower my sword arm. «Remarkable,» Skall said again. Turning his back on me, he walked off into the burning Mortuary, completely ignoring the flames.

* * *
   «Where have you been?» Yasmin asked. She had just retrieved her backpack, and was once more holding my charcoal sketch in her hand. The wight she'd been fighting lay chopped into pieces on the pavement.
   «I've just had a chat with Factol Skall,» I told her.
   «Did you learn anything?»
   «That I never want another chat with Factol Skall.» I poked the pieces of Yasmin's wight with my toe. Red dust spilled from the sword wounds. «Is that dust typical when you kill wights?»
   «I don't know,» Yasmin answered. «I've never fought a wight before.»
   «Maybe one of our colleagues has.» I looked down the street in the direction Oonah and Kiripao had pursued the thieves.
   Yasmin followed my gaze. «Should we go after them?» she asked.
   «You go ahead,» I told her. «If our friends chase the enemy into the Hive, you'll have a hard time picking up their trail… but then, Oonah's the sort to leave marks as she goes. Deliberate scuffs in the dirt, arrows drawn on the pavement, that kind of thing.»
   «What are you going to do?»
   «I want to examine these wights more closely. They've piqued my curiosity.»
   «All right.» She looked at me keenly for a few moments, as if trying to put some emotion into words. Finally, she simply said, «Watch your back, Cavendish.»
   Before I could reply, she was running down the street, a lean figure in tight black dragon-skin. I tried to burn the image into my memory; it was something I'd want to sketch later on, and who cared if it didn't earn money.

* * *
   Dust.
   Red dust pouring out of the wounds instead of blood. And underneath the robes that the wights wore as disguise, their ragged clothes were clogged thick with another kind of dust, a fine silt that reminded me of sculptor's clay.
   I stroked the silt, then licked a bit off my finger. It had a soft nippy taste, like weak curry powder. Maybe these wights had a hide-out in a spice warehouse. However, the dust wasn't yellow like curry – on first glimpse, it had a light tan color, but on closer inspection I saw it was actually a mix of white and dark brown particles.
   Red dust, white dust, brown dust… what I needed was a dwarf, a dwarf of a fanatical dwarvish bent: the kind who studies soil the way a lecher studies women. We had a few such dwarves in the Sensates, forever bringing in new minerals for everyone to sniff, lick, and eventually chew. It was only by the grace of healing spells that I still had a full set of teeth; at that moment, however, I would have welcomed one of those rock-kisser dwarves with open arms, if he could identify all these different types of dust.
   Without such knowledge, I could only take samples of the dust and hope to get them identified later. For the brown and white dust, I ripped away a scrap of wight's clothing that was heavily imbued with the stuff; for the red dust, I tore off a page from my sketchbook and held it under one of the wight's wounds, catching the sifting dribble that took the place of blood. Carefully, I folded both samples and tucked them into my pocket.
   As I straightened from examining the last wight, Hezekiah galloped around the corner of the Mortuary. «Britlin,» he shouted, «come on, hurry!»
   «What is it?»
   «Wheezle and me,» he gasped. «We've cornered the shooter.»

5. THREE SWINGS OF THE GATE

   I followed Hezekiah, and as we jogged he explained what had happened. He and Wheezle had scoured the area around the front of the Mortuary in search of whoever set off the explosion – not an easy task, given that most of the buildings had burst into flames. The boy and the gnome found several hiding places where someone might have shot a fireball or flame arrow to ignite the oil-soaked giant; but all those spots had been empty. With each passing moment the search for other such locations became more difficult, as people from nearby houses began to fill the streets, screaming at the fires and trying to organize bucket brigades from the closest wells.
   In the middle of this growing confusion, Hezekiah had spotted a familiar face in the crowd. Leaning casually against a half-demolished stone wall stood one of the three men who participated in the fireball attack on the City Courts – the heavily-bearded basher with his hair bleached white. Tucked into his belt was a wand Hezekiah immediately recognized: bone-white ivory, speckled with glitters of red.
   The man (whom Hezekiah dubbed Bleach-Hair) had stayed for a few minutes to watch the mob's frantic response to the fire, then walked away into the Hive. Hezekiah and Wheezle had followed at a distance, hampered by the growing crowds who had come to gawk at the fires. Once, my teammates actually lost their quarry; but they tracked him down again by running toward the noise of a fight in the next street.
   By lucky chance (lucky for us, anyway), Bleach-Hair had turned a corner and run smack into the Parade of Dancing Ecstatics, as it wound its never-ending way through the byways of Sigil. Hezekiah only knew about them thanks to a brief explanation from Wheezle; but I was thoroughly familiar with the Ecstatics, having danced with them for three solid days several years earlier.
   The Ecstatic Parade has continued without stop for more than four centuries, a drunkenly riotous assemblage of anyone who wants to join, prancing through the city streets according to the whims of whoever happens to be at the head of the line. A short distance behind the leader is a group of ten people called The Carriers of the Cow. They do not actually carry a cow; all they have is an empty wooden platform which is, I might add from experience, bristling with sodding splinters. Perhaps when the parade started so many years ago, the platform actually sported a cow, whether a living animal or a statue. Sometime over the centuries, however, the cow disappeared, and now only the platform remains.
   Not even the Guvners remember what the parade is intended to celebrate, nor how it all started. The people who join it are simply people who want to dance and bub wine till they pass out in the street. Some dancers bring wine of their own to get themselves started, but that's seldom necessary; it's considered enormously good luck to donate drink to the parade if it passes you. When I danced in the parade elderly grandmothers begged me to take their hooch, in the belief that giving such a gift would help their arthritis. Who knows? Maybe it did. The women certainly seemed limber enough as they ran after me with their homemade moonshine.
   So Bleach-Hair the fireballer had accidentally run into the parade, jostling several Carriers of the Cow. The drunken revellers had reacted predictably; and after the flailing of many fists, Bleach-Hair was riding naked on the cow's platform, his clothes and other equipment tossed into the street and trampled by dozens of dancing drunks.
   «I hope you and Wheezle nabbed the firewand,» I said to Hezekiah.
   The boy's answer was yes, but it had been a near thing. All of this happened in the slum streets of the Hive… and nothing but dog dung can lie on the pavement there without someone trying to steal it. Eager hands quickly grabbed for Bleach-Hair's discarded goods; but Wheezle had whipped a little piece of wool from his pocket, gestured and chanted for a moment, and suddenly there was a squad of Harmonium guards coming around the corner with spoiling-for-a-fight looks on their faces. The cross-traders trying to bob Bleach-Hair's wand had vanished in a trice, giving Hezekiah free rein to collect what Bleach-Hair had dropped.
   «Did you get his clothes too?» I asked.
   «Everything,» Hezekiah laughed, «we got everything. And as soon as I had it in my hands, the guards just melted into the pavement. Wheezle's really very good.»
   «Gnomes are renowned as illusionists,» I agreed, then urged Hezekiah to continue his story.
   The Ecstatics carried Bleach-Hair on the cow's platform for several blocks before he managed to catch hold of a clothes-line strung across the street and swing into an open window on the second floor of a tenement building. Much cursing ensued; but when Bleach-Hair came running out the building's front door, he was carrying some pants he'd stolen from the clothes-line and wearing most of a bowl of noodles dumped over his head. He had dodged the stragglers of the Ecstatic Parade and run down an alley to put on the pants. Then Hezekiah and Wheezle followed him to, of all places, a dirt-crusted tattoo parlor where he had been ever since.
   «You think that's the enemy headquarters?» I asked.
   «No,» Hezekiah replied, «I think he's getting a tattoo.»

* * *
   When we reached the parlor, our gnome colleague was nowhere in sight. Hezekiah led me to an alleyway which had a clear view of the shop, but also sufficient shadow to hide our presence. The moment we settled down to watch, a voice from thin air said, «He's still getting his tattoo.»
   My skin crinkled into goosebumps. «You're invisible, aren't you, Wheezle?»
   «Yes, honored Cavendish.»
   I couldn't see it, but I knew he was kowtowing to me.
   «So,» I said, «I assume you've been inside the shop for a peek at what's going on.»
   «Indeed. Mr. Bleach-Hair is obtaining a self-portrait on his right forearm.»
   «How odd.» Tattooing is fashionable with parts of the populace, inside Sigil and all through the Outer Planes; but I'd never seen people display tattooed pictures of themselves. Most folks preferred arcane symbols, or clan markings, or images celebrating things they had killed. Never their own faces. For that matter, I seldom saw any kind of face, since it took an expert tattoo artist to make anything more than a cartoonish likeness.
   «Tell me exactly what went on in there,» I said to the invisible Wheezle.
   «The man, Mr. Bleach-Hair, entered and spoke some words to the proprietor of the shop. The proprietor is a drow woman, sir – a dark elf. She is probably very good at her trade; elves always excel at crafts.»
   «I'm aware of that, Wheezle. Just get on with the story.»
   «Of course, honored Cavendish.» This time, I really did catch the faint swishing sound as Wheezle kowtowed. «Alas, I could not get close enough to hear what Mr. Bleach-Hair said to the woman, since I had not yet cast my invisibility spell. However, there seemed to be a great deal of negotiations before the tattooist got down to business.»
   «That's because we've got his money,» Hezekiah put in, holding up a bundle of clothing with dusty footprints all over it.
   «In the end,» Wheezle continued, «he had to give the woman a gold ring from his finger, a ring the Ecstatics had overlooked while stripping him down. The woman accepted that as payment and has been working on his arm ever since. When it became apparent this would be a lengthy process, Master Hezekiah volunteered to go back to the Mortuary to find whoever was still there.»
   Since we had the time, I gave the two of them my own report, telling about Oonah and Kiripao shadowing the two thieves while Yasmin and I dealt with the wights. Wheezle became very silent when I spoke of the undead creatures attacking his fellow Dustmen; I couldn't tell if he was shocked at wights breaking the Dead Truce, or grieving over the deaths of his fellows. Possibly he was rejoicing that his colleagues had finally reached the ultimate purity of death – I've never understood the thought processes of Dustmen.
   While Wheezle mourned or celebrated, I looked through Bleach-Hair's discarded belongings. The clothes were plain yet durable, of a cut that would attract no special notice in the Hive. It didn't surprise me they were coated with dust, the same brown and white mixture I'd seen on the wights. Did that mean anything? Probably, but I couldn't guess what.
   The objects he carried were of greater interest. First, of course, was the firewand. I decided not to touch it with my bare hand, on the chance that it was booby-trapped. In fact, it seemed easiest to let Hezekiah keep it – perhaps his exalted Uncle Toby had taught him the care and handling of magic wands. Meanwhile, I went back to sorting through the rest of Bleach-Hair's possessions: a dagger with its blade coated in sticky green resin, no doubt some kind of poison; a platinum chain necklace that had been broken in the fight with the Ecstatics; and a stiff piece of card inside his money pouch, showing an ink drawing of Bleach-Hair himself.
   «Hmm,» I muttered, «this fellow must love his own face.» Seriously so – as soon as he lost the ink drawing, he went to the tattoo parlor to get a replacement. He was even willing to part with his gold ring to pay for the new picture. To me, this went beyond any conceivable narcissism; if I'd just lost most of my jink, I wouldn't immediately barter away my one remaining chunk of gold on mere vanity. Bleach-Hair must desperately need his own portrait for some reason… and that smacked of magic.
   «All right, you two mages,» I said to Hezekiah and Wheezle, «what kind of spell can only be cast if you're carrying a picture of yourself?»
   «An interesting question, sir,» Wheezle replied, «but I cannot provide a helpful answer. There are many schools of spellcasting and much variation within schools. Two people casting the same spell may use entirely different components, depending on their personal backgrounds. Sorcerers from Prime Material worlds tend to be particularly idiosyncratic.»
   I threw a glance at Hezekiah. «You've certainly got a point,» I told Wheezle.

* * *
   Bleach-Hair left the parlor a few minutes after a nearby clock struck peak: midday. Wheezle had been watching the man invisibly, and had given us plenty of warning before he came out; therefore, Hezekiah and I were hidden well back in shadows when Bleach-Hair passed by on the street, gingerly dabbing a yellowish ointment onto his arm.
   The tenderness of his new tattoo made it easy for us to follow him through the teeming streets of the Hive. Bleach-Hair just couldn't leave the tattoo alone – constantly staring at it, brushing it timidly with a finger, and rolling his arm so he could see how it looked in various kinds of light. With his thoughts so preoccupied by his new acquisition, he paid no attention to the people around him. We stuck close as he passed all the sights of the slums: the dingy shops, the whiskey-soaked bubbers lying unconscious on the sidewalk, the children pretending to play tag in the streets as an excuse for dodging around people and picking their pockets.
   It took almost an hour for Bleach-Hair to weave through the labyrinth of streets to reach his destination, but I could see his goal long before we got there: a towering assemblage of glass vats, arranged in a haphazard corkscrew around a central wooden framework that rose twenty storeys into the sky. Each circular vat measured ten paces in diameter and at least twenty feet high, filled with murky water and stocked with fish that skimmed relentlessly past the glass walls.
   This was Sigil's famed Vertical Sea, a fish farm built long ago by a wizard named Churtellius: no doubt a master sorcerer in his day, but now only known for his love of seafood. He had painstakingly constructed each of the vats, strengthening the glass with magic so they could contain the weight of the water; he had personally supervised the raising of the support frame, designing the maze of ramps and trestles and catwalks so that the seemingly random arrangement of vats perfectly counterbalanced each other; and he had even laid out the complicated schedules for changing water in the vats, shoveling in fish food, and harvesting the catch for later sale at the Great Bazaar. Quite possibly, Churtellius had created the Sea in a spirit of purest charity, to ensure that Sigil had an abundant supply of fresh cod and salmon and scallops… but the chant on the street said Churtellius was just another barmy spellchucker who'd do anything to lock down a dependable supply of kippers.
   Bleach-Hair went straight to the base of the tower, spoke briefly to the guards who watched the entrance ramp, then began making his way up the tall corkscrew structure. «Stay with him, Wheezle,» I whispered, though I had no idea if our friend gnome was within earshot. Quite possibly, he was already dogging Bleach-Hair's footsteps while Hezekiah and I lingered in the shadows of nearby buildings.
   «Should we follow too?» Hezekiah asked.
   «We're only here to watch,» I replied. «If we see evidence this really is enemy headquarters, we report back to Lady Erin and let her give these berks the rope. I for one am not spoiling to face a bunch of bashers with firewands.»
   «Have you noticed,» the boy said, «when you get excited, you start to use words like berk and basher, the same as other folks in Sigil?»
   «Pike it, Clueless,» I told him.
   Hezekiah grinned from ear to ear.

* * *
   Leaving the boy on watch near the base of the tower, I spent a few minutes roaming the neighborhood in search of a better view of the Vertical Sea. I found it at last in a tenement building across from the tower, much like the one we had used to observe the Mortuary, but with stairs leading up to the roof. Like most roofs in the Hive, it had a pathetically unproductive vegetable garden, several small chicken coops owned by various tenants of the building, and a crusty coat of bird droppings. I walked carefully across the guano, marking what an interesting squishy sound it made.
   The smell was interesting too.
   Crouching behind a chicken coop, I stared across the street toward the Vertical Sea. The tower was busy with people tending the vats – workers standing on catwalks above the water, netting up fish and dumping them into wheelbarrows, then trundling their loads down the ramps. Bleach-Hair pushed against the downward flow of wheelbarrows and continued to climb slowly. Since the last time I looked, he'd been joined by two familiar men: the other fireballers from the City Courts. Both of the newcomers held firewands in their hands.
   Where were the three of them going? I scanned up the tower looking for anything out of place… and there, just below the level of my rooftop, was Yasmin.
   Without the diligently developed eyes of a Sensate, I might not have recognized her. She wore drab work clothes now, and had smudged her face with soot. Nevertheless, her bony arm crests were clearly visible, and she still carried that sodding charcoal sketch I had drawn. In fact, she made a show of unrolling it from time to time, glancing at it, then rolling it up again, as if it was a scroll of instructions she was supposed to follow. The other fish-workers obviously accepted her pretense – they moved to and fro past her without a second glance.
   Once I had recognized Yasmin, it was easy to pick out Oonah and Kiripao close by her side. Oonah still had her staff and Brother Cipher his air of serene lethality, but they too were disguised as workers, dawdling about with an empty wheelbarrow. I could only conclude the githyanki and githzerai had led my teammates to the Vertical Sea… and sure enough, as I looked farther up the tower, I saw the two thieves ambling along a ramp almost level with my rooftop.
   They still wore their Dustmen robes, with hoods pulled down low. The clothes attracted attention from the regular workers, but probably not as much as the sight of a githyanki and githzerai walking amiably side by side. I watched as the two stepped off their ramp and onto a walkway over a vat of dogfish: scaled-down sharks averaging three feet long, with hungry looks in their eyes as they prowled behind the glass walls of their home.
   I could see no immediate reason why the thieves would be strolling along a dead-end catwalk over a vat of fish; but as I strained my eyes, I saw that the struts supporting the next vat above their heads formed a sort of archway… and the arch was glowing.
   «Well, I'll be piked,» I whispered. «It's a portal.»
   Not that I should have been surprised to see a gateway to another plane halfway up the Vertical Sea. Throughout the multiverse, Sigil is known as the City of Doors; the place probably has more portals than rats, and Sigil has a lot of rats. Walk down any street, and you're likely to see a portal lurking somewhere – in the door to a bakery, along the covered cloisters of a temple, or even in the angle made by a ladder leaning up against a wall. Any sort of arch, no matter how temporary, can suddenly sprout a portal… and who knows if the portal leads to the blissful meadows of Elysium or the 500th level of the Abyss?
   Of course, most portals are temperamental things; they refuse to work unless you're carrying the right «key». Suppose, for example, there's a portal anchored in the door of your neighborhood greengrocer: ninety-nine times out of a hundred, you could walk through and simply end up staring at the shop's supply of lettuce. However, if you happened to carry the particular class of object that activated the portal – a silver goblet, a triangular scrap of cloth, a rope with knots at both ends – the portal would magically wink open and deposit you somewhere else, a long way from home. If you passed through the doorway with a group of friends, they'd be sucked in too; open portals tend to be hungry.
   Sigil's portals, blossoming by the hundred, formed the heart of the city's economy… especially among the local practitioners of magic. Some wizards, for example, worked on diagnosis; they detected new portals, divined what kind of key would make the portal open, and predicted where you'd end up if you passed through. Other mages specialized in prevention – for a hefty fee, they'd weave spells around your home to make sure the door into Great-Aunt Effy's bedroom didn't suddenly become a gateway to the Elemental Plane of Fire. A third class of sorcerers devoted themselves to understanding the whole portal phenomenon: what created them, why they worked, and how they chose what kind of objects would serve as keys.
   That third bunch of sorcerers always went barmy in the end. There's no rational system to explain portals. They just do whatever they want… like anchoring themselves in an arch over a catwalk, ten storeys up the Vertical Sea.
   The githyanki and githzerai sauntered along the wooden walkway, glancing casually around to see if anyone was looking their direction. Their gaze brushed past my hiding place, but didn't stop. When they were happy the coast was clear, they simply stepped forward and disappeared. From my position I couldn't see what lay beyond the gate in the brief moment it was active; but a thick sifting of dust puffed out of the opening, slowly settling toward the catwalk and the water surface below.
   Moments later, my three teammates came into sight, still pushing their wheelbarrow as if they were genuine fish farmers. Sharp-eyed Oonah immediately noticed the dust cloud, still drifting downward – I could see her point to the dust, then up to the glow around the archway. Without hesitation, Kiripao dashed forward along the catwalk; but when he reached the portal he passed through it without effect, coming to a stop on the planks of the walkway a few paces beyond.
   Typical of a Cipher like Kiripao: galloping full speed ahead, without an ounce of caution. Angrily, Oonah and Yasmin stormed onto the catwalk toward Kiripao, both women scolding him for taking such a chance… and that was when Bleach-Hair and friends came up behind them.
   I had to give Bleach-Hair credit – he must have been a clever man to recognize Oonah in those dirty work clothes. On the other hand, she still carried her silver staff, which Bleach-Hair had good reason to remember from the rotunda. Whatever the reason, he took one look at Her Honor and I could see his lips mouthing DeVail. He must have realized that a Guvner lurking on the very brink of this portal meant big trouble, so he took immediate action: he seized a firewand from one of his companions and shouted, «Don't move!»
   Yasmin and Oonah froze immediately. Kiripao rushed back through the inactive portal, showing every intention of trying to fight the three fireballers by himself; but he had to pass Yasmin and Oonah first, and Yasmin grabbed him, whispering something short and sharp. As quickly as he had begun, the good Brother stopped and simply turned to face Bleach-Hair.
   «You would not dare to shoot fire up here,» Kiripao said, his voice loud enough to carry clearly across the street to me. «This structure is wood and we are far above the ground. If you set the tower on fire, you couldn't reach safety before tons of water crashed down around your head.»
   «You have no idea what I'd dare to do,» Bleach-Hair snapped. «Drop your weapons and get down on your bellies.»
   «Weapons?» Yasmin said innocently, taking a step toward him. «I don't have any weapons. All I have is this.» She waved the rolled-up sketch of herself; but from my vantage point, I could see the bulge of her longsword, slung behind her back and hidden by her work clothes.
   «One more step and I fire,» Bleach-Hair told her. «This ain't no bluff. I've been beat up and bobbed and badgered today, and no tiefling is gonna peel me now. Got that?»
   Yasmin's jaw tightened; so did the faces of Bleach-Hair's two companions. They didn't seem nearly as eager to start shooting fireballs ten storeys up a wooden tower… but they were obviously too afraid of Bleach-Hair to interfere.
   «Come along,» Oonah said to Yasmin, taking her by the shoulder and pulling her back along the catwalk. «We have to be sensible here.»
   «The sensible thing is to lie on your bellies,» Bleach-Hair shouted. «Now!»
   If only I had a cross-bow, I thought to myself. Or even a good-sized stone I could whip at Bleach-Hair's head. I had a decent chance of hitting him – the street between us was as narrow as every other street in the hive. But the rooftop where I crouched had nothing but the tiniest pebbles… and the pitiful garden, and the chicken coops…
   Oh.
   As my three teammates continued the standoff with Bleach-Hair, I opened the coop in front of me. «Nice chicken,» I whispered, «friendly chicken, quiet chicken…»
   The hen inside glared at me with one furious eye. The other eye was missing, gouged out in some long-ago battle with another chicken or a cat. I hoped that didn't mean she liked to pick fights – she was sitting on an egg that would make a fine distraction when hurled at Bleach-Hair's head.
   «Under normal circumstances,» I told the hen in my most soothing whisper, «I would never deprive a lady of her offspring. But this is an emergency, life or death; maybe the fate of the whole city hangs in the balance. Just be quiet and let me —»
   The leatherheaded bird pecked my hand: a good solid peck that drew a drop of blood. I bit my lip to avoid crying out, then snatched the sodding egg before the hen could tag me again. She let out a squawk, but only one; no doubt she had long ago resigned herself to the regular abduction of her children.
   Bleach-Hair didn't react to the hen's noise: all his attention was focused on my three teammates. They were slowly backing away from him, but showing no sign of surrender. If I threw the egg, if I could hit Bleach-Hair in the face from this distance, and if he didn't immediately fire his wand… then Oonah could attack him with her staff, and both Kiripao and Yasmin would charge forward.
   Of course, if everything didn't go perfectly, I'd get them all killed.
   Wait, I told myself. Wait for the right moment.
   «This is my last warning!» shouted Bleach-Hair. «Lie down or burn.»
   «Why don't you speak sense to him?» Oonah called to Bleach-Hair's companions, as she continued to back away on the catwalk.
   Bleach-Hair's men looked queasy but said nothing.
   «I'm counting to three,» Bleach-Hair said. «One.»
   I took a deep breath.
   «Two.»
   I cocked my arm to hurl the egg.
   «Thr —»
   Yasmin threw herself backward. She must have intended to pull Oonah and Kiripao with her down into the vat of water, where they'd be safe from the fireball. However, her lunge moved her right under the arch of support struts, the one that glowed with the light of a portal. In an instant, Yasmin and my other two teammates were sucked through the gateway, yanked from this plane of existence.
   Another puff of dust billowed out into the air.
   Bleach-Hair lowered the wand. I quietly sank back behind the chicken coop, the unthrown egg still in my hand.
   «Well, what are you berks waiting for?» Bleach-Hair yelled, turning to his companions and cuffing their heads. «We've got them boxed in now, don't we? Let's get 'em.»
   He grabbed each man by the shoulder and dragged them forward. When they reached the portal, all three bashers vanished.
   The catwalk was empty, save for falling dust.

6. THREE BLOODS TO RESCUE

   Racing down the stairs from the rooftop, I had only one question: what was the portal's key? The githyanki and githzerai had been carrying packs; no doubt the key was inside one of those packs where I couldn't see it. Kiripao had run through the portal without activating it, so he didn't have the key. Yasmin, however, did – when she dove backward, she had hit the portal first, carrying Oonah and Kiripao with her. Then Bleach-Hair had done the same thing, taking the lead and dragging the other two behind.
   But Bleach-Hair had almost nothing on his person: just the pants he'd stolen from the clothes line… the firewand he'd borrowed from his cohort…
   …and the tattoo on his arm. A picture of himself, that he'd purchased with his last piece of gold.
   Need I repeat, Yasmin had been carrying that piking sketch I'd made of her?
   A portrait of yourself – that must be the key that opened the portal. It was the only answer. That's why Bleach-Hair had been so desperate for the tattoo: it was his only way home.
   I hit the ground running and sped to where Hezekiah lurked in the alley, still watching the base of the tower. «What's wrong?» he asked as I dashed up to him.
   «They have Yasmin and the others trapped,» I answered. «Enemies in front and behind. We have to rescue them.»
   «How?»
   «Take the bad guys by surprise. Can you cast another teleport spell?»
   «It's not exactly a spell,» he said. «I convince myself that here is there, and the world goes along with the idea just to humor me.»
   «Explanations later,» I told him. «Can you get us up there?»
   «Where?»
   I pointed. And I pointed again. And I said a lot of, no, not that catwalk, the other one, just to the right… no, no, up one floor, can you see the dogfish…
   You know how it is. When you're in a hurry, the people around you are always impenetrably leatherheaded. And every second counted; I had to save Yasmin. The moment Hezekiah was sure where to go, I grabbed him and shouted, «Now, now, now!»
   The world flickered and we were suddenly standing on the edge of the catwalk. The very edge… in fact, we teetered on the verge of falling, with shark-like dogfish circling below us. By myself, I could have caught my balance; but Hezekiah had wrapped his arms around me to make sure we teleported together, and now he was dragging me over the brink.
   «Hezekiah!» I had time to say. Then someone grabbed the two of us from behind and pulled us delicately back to safe footing.
   I turned to see who had saved us from taking the plunge. There was nobody there.
   «Wheezle?» I whispered.
   «A pleasure to be of service, honored Cavendish,» answered the invisible gnome. «I am surprised to find you here.»
   «It surprised us too,» I told him. «Did you see what happened when Bleach-Hair caught up with Yasmin and the rest?»
   «Only from a distance,» Wheezle replied. «Mr. Bleach-Hair's legs are considerably longer than mine, so I had difficulty keeping up.»
   «Pity… the others could have used your help. But it's still not too late.» I pulled out my sketchbook and a piece of charcoal. «It'll just take a second to make a key for that portal.»
   «What portal?» Hezekiah asked.
   I ignored him as I started drawing my own face, but Wheezle answered the boy's question. «There is a transplanar portal anchored in the archway in front of us. Alas, persons from the Prime Material plane do not have the attunement to see such portals, but those of us born in the Outer Planes have no trouble discerning it.»
   «A portal?» Hezekiah said, squinting at the arch. «I came through one of those to get to Sigil. My Uncle Toby showed me where it was.»
   «Well, you aren't going through this one,» I told him, still drawing. «You're heading straight back to Lady Erin so you can report everything that's happened.»
   «Like what?» Hezekiah asked.
   Pausing a second, I ripped off a blank page from my sketchbook and handed it to the invisible Wheezle. «Why don't you jot down everything Lady Erin should know… just in case Hezekiah isn't sure what's important.»
   «I know what's important,» Hezekiah objected. «And it's not fair: you get to dash to the rescue while I have to stay in Sigil.»
   «We don't have time to argue,» I snapped. «Someone has to rescue our teammates, and someone else has to report to the authorities. It's the only sensible plan.»
   «Then you report to the authorities,» Hezekiah said. «I'm going to save the others.» And he stepped toward the portal.
   I didn't try to stop him; I doubted that he carried a picture of himself, and I had a sketch of my own to draw – every second I wasted might be one second too many for Yasmin.
   Wheezle, however, didn't know what opened the portal and obviously didn't like taking chances. «Please, honored Clueless,» he said to Hezekiah, «I cannot permit you to rush in unwisely.» The paper I'd handed Wheezle fluttered in the air, then moved toward the portal as the gnome tried to block Hezekiah's passage. I had time to think, That's a blank piece of paper and Wheezle's invisible. Wouldn't it be a laugh if that counted as a picture of himself?
   Then Hezekiah tripped over the invisible gnome, the two of them pitched forward under the archway, and, the portal was open.

* * *
   You can never see much through a portal, and this one was murkier than most – a gap of twilight in the middle of Sigil's afternoon. The twilight was darkened by a clot of dust clouds, whirling in thick spirals. Hezekiah tumbled into those clouds and out of sight, accompanied by a gnome-shaped silhouette that briefly broke through the dust.
   At that moment, something went click in my mind. Sensates call it the «once-in-a-lifetime» instinct: an opportunity arises and you're struck by some premonition that says this chance will never come again. You see a cheesecake and your nose tells you that this is the peak, the pinnacle, that if you pass this one by, you'll never come close to such perfection ever again… or you meet a woman at some gathering, and the flames inside you say, «It has to be her, it has to be tonight, or my soul will shrivel to ashes.» Our Sensate leaders teach that your once-in-a-lifetime instinct is almost always wrong – there will be other cheesecakes, other encounters with this woman or someone equally fascinating – but they also say who cares? Pike common sense and leap in with both feet.
   Once-in-a-lifetime instinct: see a portal, dive through it.
   I dove.
   I dove, throwing caution to the wind. More precisely, I dove throwing my sketchbook and charcoal wherever they might fall, because the portal would close within seconds and I didn't want to miss it. One moment, I was traveling through the soot-laden air of Sigil; and the next, I struck the dust-choked atmosphere of the other side.
   Dust enveloped me, as thick as a blanket. There was no way to tell when I actually hit the ground – the dust in the air blended so directly into the dust underfoot that it was all a continuum, clogging, raspy piles of dust. I sank up to my elbows before I finally stopped, and it took all my strength to struggle to my feet. Breathing was impossible, and visibility reached less than an arm's length; a faint gray light barely managed to penetrate the continually swirling cloud.
   How long could I hold my breath? Thirty seconds? A minute? How long before I had to fill my lungs with dust?
   Something loomed in front of me, a slight darkening in the grayness. I grabbed at it and pulled it close enough to see; as I expected, the shadow was Hezekiah, blundering about blindly. Another moment and he might have been lost forever in the dust storm.
   Leatherheaded Clueless – any citizen of Sigil knows, when you come through a portal into a hostile environment, you never stumble away from your entry point. Portals have to anchor themselves in some kind of archway; figure out what the arch belongs to, and maybe you've found shelter.
   Carefully I looked up, keeping a firm grip on the boy's arm. Sure enough, my eyes blearily made out that we were standing in the mouth of an open tube, high enough and wide enough that the walls were only slightly darker blurs in the gray wash of dust. I staggered forward along the tube with Hezekiah in tow, both of us pushing against a strong wind that roared into our faces. The dust dragged heavily at my feet; and then suddenly, there was solid floor beneath us. Moments later, a door shut behind us with a sigh, closing off the wind and the sifting sound of dust.
   Silence. We stood in a small chamber, its walls a dome-like patchwork made from triangles of glass. Outside, the dust continued to swirl in constant motion, dancing close to the glass but never settling down. Gray light filtered through the crystal panes, a light as frail as the thinnest dawn.
   «Britlin!» Hezekiah whispered sharply. I turned and saw the boy standing above a huddled mass that lay in front of a second door. A few steps closer and I recognized the shadowy bundle as a body, lying in a slick of its own blood – a hobgoblin in chain mail, its lifeless hand still clutching a short sword.
   «It's some kind of monster,» the boy said.
   «The dead kind,» I told him. «Probably stationed as a guard on this door when Yasmin, Oonah, and Kiripao showed up. Poor berk never knew what hit him.»
   «Now let us rejoice that his journey is done,» said a third voice in the room. «He has shed the burden of life and found the purity that awaits all creatures in the cup of oblivion.»
   «Hello, Wheezle,» I sighed. «Cheerful as ever.»
   «Indeed, sir,» the invisible gnome said. «The other Dustmen often remark on my high spirits.»
   Hezekiah looked like he was going to ask a stupid question. I covered his mouth with my hand.

* * *
   «Now,» I said, «the original plan still stands. Hezekiah goes back to Sigil, while Wheezle and I stay to rescue the others. Don't argue, there isn't time.»
   «But how do I get back to Sigil?» Hezekiah asked.
   «You go back to the portal and you…» I stopped. To open the portal, he needed a picture of himself; and I no longer had my sketchbook. «Wheezle, I don't suppose you still have that paper I gave you?»
   «In the confusion of falling through the portal, I fear I let the paper go.»
   And now it was blowing out there in the storm, or buried under a couple feet of dust. «Blast!» I muttered, trying to think of anything else I could use to draw a picture of the boy. Nothing came to mind, and time was passing quickly. «All right,» I told Hezekiah, «you're on the rescue team for now. But the second we find some way to draw a picture of you, you're going back to Sigil to report.»
   «Once we rescue the others,» the boy answered, «we can all report.»
   «Pray that you're right,» I nodded. «Just remember we're in unknown territory. Be careful, be quiet, and don't touch anything!»
   «Yes, sir,» he saluted. And he immediately pushed the button that opened the door the hobgoblin had been guarding.
   Under other circumstances, that would have earned him a couple arrows in the chest – two archers had been stationed on the other side of the door, crossbows ready and waiting. Fortunately for the boy, Yasmin and the others had come through ahead of us; the bow strings had been cut, along with the throats of the two men.
   «Are you completely addle-coved?» I snapped at Hezekiah. «You don't just barge through doors like that! Wheezle, you take the lead… and keep a sharp eye out for traps.»
   «Yes, honored Cavendish.»
   Something invisible nudged the boy out of the doorway, and he stepped aside. A corridor extended for more than a hundred paces ahead of us, its floor ramping gradually upward. Like the first room, this corridor's roof and walls were made from triangles of glass fitted snugly together in a metal framework. Wan gray light filtered in from outside, so feeble it seemed the light itself had somehow become disheartened.
   As we hurried up the ramp, the dust storm outside tapered off. By the look of it, the dust only tossed itself about near the entrance to the building; once we had gained some height, we could see that the dust lay flat and quiet farther off. The flatness had an eerie quality to it – in a normal desert, the wind leaves ripples in the sand or heaps the surface into dunes. Here, however, the dust lay as evenly as sifted flour. No scrub brush, no cacti, no hills or valleys… just a motionless expanse of dust stretching flat to the horizon.
   «Creepy, isn't it?» Hezekiah whispered.
   «Yasmin would love it,» I replied. «The very essence of entropy. Wheezle probably likes the view too.»
   «Not especially, honored sir,» the gnome answered. «I revere Death; this place is simply lifeless. It's not the same thing.»
   The corridor ended at an open door which led into a chamber stinking of smoke. Not so long ago, the room must have been a comfortable lounge, equipped with adequately upholstered chairs and well-cushioned divans; but some time in the past few minutes, a battle had ripped the place to shambles. The far half of the room was scorched black, walls caked with soot and furniture burned to the springs. The near half sparkled with a thick layer of hoar frost, couches and chairs encased in ice. Where the halves joined, icicles dripped down from the ceiling, slowly extinguishing the dribbles of fire still smouldering from the furniture.
   Almost without thinking, I reached up and broke off one long icicle. I had always found icicles a comfort to suck – cold and clear, with a sharp point on the end that danced with your tongue. This icicle, however, tasted of smoke and soot; I spat out its water and tossed it away.
   No bodies here. No evidence to suggest who won. But one way or another, the fight was over. If Yasmin and the others had lost… well, in the absence of corpses, I could tell myself they'd simply been taken prisoner. All we had to do was find them and stage a rescue. Of course, if they'd won this fight, they must be exploring the area ahead and could still use our help. Either way, they'd be glad to see us.
   If they could still see. I couldn't help remembering the burnt bodies of the court rotunda, their eyes scorched out of the sockets.
   No. That couldn't happen to Yasmin. Her eyes were too… worth looking into.
   The battle-scarred room had two exits, one right, one left. Both had once been closed with sliding doors, but the doors had blown off their tracks thanks to the barrage of magic unleashed in the fight. I glanced out both doorways but saw nothing to indicate which direction our teammates had gone.
   «Given a choice,» Hezekiah whispered, «I always go left.»
   That gave me a strong urge to go right, but I resisted.

* * *
   The left corridor curved around in an arc, circling away from the entrance we came in. I had no idea what this whole building was, but it resembled a huge central ring with the occasional ramp-like corridor radiating outward from the center, like spokes from the hub of a wheel. We had come in along one spoke; looking out the window, I could see another spoke-corridor some distance in front of us. At the free end of the spoke ahead, a dust storm swirled in the air, just like the storm where we had entered. I wondered if that spoke had a portal too… if all the spokes had portals as exits from this bleak dustscape. Perhaps this building shot air out the mouth of each spoke to keep dust from clogging the portal – it made as much sense as any other theory that came to mind.
   For the moment such questions could wait… but curiosity dogged me on one other point. If the heart of this building was a circular ring, what was inside the middle? I didn't know. The outer wall of this corridor might be made of those small triangles of glass, but the inner wall was sheet metal, polished to a mirror-like shine. All that wall showed was the haggard face of one Britlin Cavendish, his goatee and hair so streaked with dust they looked white instead of their usual fetching black.
   In time, we approached the next spoke around the ring. Its construction followed the same design as the first corridor, with a large chamber at the point where the spoke connected with the central hub; but the door between us and the chamber was closed.
   I waved at Hezekiah to stand back and walked up to plant my ear on the door. It was made of the same metal as the walls, and probably too thick to let sound pass through; but pausing to listen, futile though the gesture was, gave me a few extra seconds to debate what to do next. Enter fast or slow? Brash or sneaky?
   «Ah, pike it,» I muttered. «Time's a'wasting.»
   The door was operated by a button on the metal wall. I kicked the button with my heel at the same time as I drew my sword.

* * *
   With a soft swish, the door slid open. The only thing to emerge was an awful stench, like standing in the alley between a slaughterhouse and a tannery – the dull heaviness of blood and decay, overlaid with the piercing sharpness of harsh chemicals. I took a second or two to enjoy the bouquet, trying to identify the components by smell: certainly a lot of vinegar, and copper, and sulphur, and a dash of quicklime… but there were many more ingredients that eluded me, and no more time for sniffing. Wary of attack, I stepped into the room to see what made the reek.
   Bodies: corpses heaped in a mound that nearly reached the ceiling. About half were human, both male and female. The rest were an assortment from the other common races of the multiverse – elves, dwarves, hobgoblins, even a tiefling or two. Arms dangled limply. Many eyes were open and staring. Most of the dead wore clothes, some dressed quite elegantly; but a few were simply naked, tossed on the mound like refuse.
   I could see no injuries on any of these people, no indication of what killed them. The few closest to me looked like they had been young and healthy; the rest were simply hidden by shadows, and by the tangled mass of other corpses lying on top of them.
   «This is appalling,» Wheezle whispered. From the sound of his voice, our invisible Dustman was standing quite close to the mound of bodies. A moment later, I noticed the hair rustling on the head of a gnome woman: invisible fingers combed through her curls, straightening out the snarls.
   «Appalling,» Wheezle whispered again.
   «I thought you rejoiced in death,» I said.
   «Clean death,» he replied. «Pure death. But the dead deserve to be treated with dignity. These… can't you smell it?»
   «The chemicals?» I took a deep whiff again. Now that I was inside the room, the acrid stench was as sharp as a needle, stinging in my nose; I kept inhaling until the stink filled the back of my throat with its heady rasp. Then, of course, I collapsed to my knees, coughing uncontrollably. «Good smell,» I gasped between coughs.
   «It is the smell of… certain vegetable extracts,» Wheezle told me, clearly unwilling to be more specific. «They are used by ignorant ruffians who believe these extracts can reanimate the dead.»
   «The extracts don't work?»
   «Perhaps one time in a hundred, the technique creates a wight,» Wheezle replied. «These bodies are obviously the failures. But the low reanimation rate is only a minor concern. The great problem is…» I could hear him shuffling his feet in agitation. "The great problem is energy. Undead beings do not eat or drink or breathe – in order to move, they must derive their energy from other sources. Most are nourished by the unlimited magicks of the cosmos, as channeled through deities and other powers who rule the undead. It gives the undead a direct connection with the forces that sustain the multiverse… a profound spiritual link with the Great Blackness.
   «But undead created through alchemical means…» Wheezle's voice choked tight with anger. «They are like candles who burn their own tallow. They are… closed in. Shut off from external energies. They have no link with the gods of the undead. Such beings can only survive by consuming the energy of their own souls – burning themselves down and down, like rats starving to death in a cage. It is an ugly fate.»
   I looked at the mound of bodies again, trying to detect any difference between these corpses and others I'd seen. No sign of rigor mortis in any of them, despite the overwhelming stench of decay. Was that unusual? I didn't know. As an artist, I'm only familiar with living subjects.
   The boy Hezekiah also seemed curious about the bodies heaped before us. «So these failures,» he began; «are they just dead? Or are they conscious, even if they can't move?»
   «They have a type of consciousness,» Wheezle nodded. «They simply do not have enough self-energy to stir themselves. Their souls will wither in time… unless, of course, we can free them from their damnation.»
   I didn't like the tone in his voice. Much as I recognized the horror of rotting away in your own corpse, I'd rather concentrate on saving a live Yasmin than dead strangers. Still, I had to ask one more question about the different types of undead. «Tell me,» I said to the invisible gnome. «If someone used alchemy like this to create wights, would the wights obey the Dead Truce?»
   «The Truce is a pact between my faction and the gods of the undead,» Wheezle replied. «These chemical abominations are cut off from the gods; that is their curse. Therefore, this kind of undead live outside the Truce.»
   «So,» said Hezekiah, «those wights who attacked the Dustmen at the Mortuary must have been the few successes out of all these —»
   I clapped a hand over his mouth. My ears had picked up a slight rustle of sound. Listening harder, I heard it again: not from the corpses nor the corridor where we'd entered, but from the door in front of us, leading farther around the ring of the building. The door was metal and closed tightly, but a murmur of voices still came through indistinctly.
   Keeping my hand over the boy's mouth, I circled the mound of corpses, hoping there'd be enough room to hide at the rear. There wasn't: the bodies were stacked tight against the wall, with no space to slide behind them. The voices down the corridor were getting louder… so I shoved Hezekiah down beside me and burrowed straight into the corpse-heap.
   Neither of us could dig in very deeply – the heap must have massed several tons in dead weight. Still, we could force our way past the outer tangle of arms and legs, to a point where we blended into the whole. I prayed that would be good enough.
   The intruders' loud conversation covered our grunting as we squeezed into the press of tattered clothes and naked skin. Every exposed patch of dead flesh reeked with the stench of chemicals and decay, but I fought back the coughs that ragged my throat. I didn't know how many people were about to enter this chamber; I just knew we wouldn't be able to hear them from so far away unless they vastly outnumbered us. With a last surge of strength I pulled my legs inside the pile, just as the door whisked open and dozens of feet strutted into the room.
   I couldn't see the newcomers, couldn't see anything but the lifeless face of a young woman close to mine. Her eyes were open, with the blind stillness of the dead. Death surrounded me – my left hand rested on someone's leg and my other arm was jammed under a woman's stomach. There was enough air to breathe, but I held my breath.
   «All right,» called a man's voice. «Everybody stop rattling your bone-boxes. Come on, I want quiet!» The talk subsided. «That's better,» the man said. «Now, let's see if this thing works.»
   I gritted my teeth. Whatever «this thing» might be, I knew I wasn't going to like it. The speaker might even be testing a newly made firewand by incinerating the mound of corpses where Hezekiah and I lay hidden.
   The man recited a few nonsense syllables, his voice uncertain and stilted, as if he were reading the chant from a piece of paper. A moment later, there was a soft chuffing sound followed by a crackle, like the crinkly edge of lightning before the full thunder's boom. A wand of storms? I asked myself. But then the weight of the corpse-heap shifted and I heard leather-soled boots hitting the floor.
   Something hissed fiercely – a type of hiss that was all too familiar. A wight's hiss.
   Several people in the room gasped. Several more whispered to each other, words I couldn't make out. Slowly, the whispering changed to a murmur of approval: «Amazing!» «Brilliant!» «Pike me with a feather!»
   «Take a look at it!» cried the man who was obviously in charge. «Our very own soul-sucker. You'll never see a handsomer corpse. Say hello, deadman.»
   There was another loud hiss. The group of onlookers cheered.
   «Tickle one of the ladies next!» shouted a male voice. «I want me a new dance partner.»
   Male voices laughed, but a female voice called, «You don't need a new partner, you need a new dance.»
   Female voices laughed at that one.
   «Bar that talk,» snapped the leader. «We have work to do. Stand back, all of you.»
   The buzz of conversation diminished as the leader started again: the muttered nonsense words; the chuffing noise; the crackle of lightning; then the mound of bodies shifted as another corpse pulled itself to its feet. Again and again the process repeated… until the leader said, «All right, that's four of them. Theresa, this'll be your team; lead 'em down to the lock.»
   «Right, captain,» replied a woman's voice.
   «And you undead berks,» continued the captain, «you're going to take orders from Theresa, right?»
   He was answered with a chorus of hisses.
   «Good. Don't give her no grief. Now off you go.»
   I heard footsteps slowly recede – one person walking normally, and four shuffling behind. Four wights pulled off the pile; four less bodies hiding Hezekiah and me.
   The process continued: corpses reanimated in groups of four, then each group sent off under the guidance of a living person. The darkness around me began to brighten as the mass of bodies decreased. Soon everything above my level would be gone, leaving me at the top of the pile. At that point… things would get interesting.
   Lightning crackled and the woman lying on my arm came to life. She pushed herself upward, planting her hands on my shoulder for support. As she crawled across me, her knee dug forcefully into my back; I clenched my jaw to avoid grunting in pain. That woman was the last of another group of four, and she was quickly marched off under some living lackey's leadership. How many active enemies did that leave in the room? I didn't know, and couldn't lift my head to look.
   The next corpse reanimated was the woman with her face next to mine. I saw the transformation: one moment, she was blind and staring; then chuff, crackle, and jagged threads of blue light came lacing through her skin like bloated veins. Her eyes blinked once, lazily… she was staring right in my face. Then, twin pinpricks of fire erupted at the heart of her pupils, flaring outward until the entire surface of the eye blazed with flame. I could feel the heat on my cheeks.
   She hissed directly at me and lifted one hand. The hand was sharp with newly grown claws.

* * *
   Horror clutched at my heart, and I rolled away from the newborn wight, slipping out from under the few corpses that still weighed me down. The wight swiped her claws at me but missed; her hand slashed cleanly through the body beneath me, shredding the putrefied flesh. A fresh stink of rot and chemicals filled my nose, heady with nausea… but I continued my roll to the edge of the corpse-heap, sliding down the exterior like the side of a haystack. Even as I fell, I was grabbing for my sword, tugging to clear it from its sheath.
   The bodies I brushed past slowed my fall, softening my impact on the floor. As soon as I landed, I scrambled to my feet and checked the opposition. Only two of the enemy squad remained, thank The Lady: a hobgoblin with its back to me and a drow, a dark elf, holding a bulbous scepter that glowed a sickly orange. The drow simply gaped, astonished at a corpse coming to life unaided. As for the hobgoblin, it turned to see what the drow was staring at… which only made my job easier, giving me a clear opening to hit the soft part of its throat. My rapier slashed out once, bit deep, and severed whatever hobgoblins have in place of a jugular. Its blood sprayed gushers over the pile of still-dead bodies.
   Something roared within the pile. For a moment, I thought it was the wight who'd tried to rake me with her claws – I could see her struggling to escape from the corpses still lying on top of her. Then a huddle of lifeless bodies suddenly heaved onto the drow as Hezekiah rose from the mound, roaring a battle cry. The drow fell cursing to the floor, struggling to lift his scepter despite the weight of corpses pinning his arms. Before he could manage it, the scepter was snatched from his hand by Wheezle, the little gnome finally turning visible as he scrambled away with his prize.
   For a moment, we all stood waiting: me with my blade embedded in the hobgoblin's neck, Hezekiah wobbling to keep his balance on top of the corpse-heap, and Wheezle catching his breath as he leaned against the wall. Then the wight wrenched herself free from the mound and threw herself at the drow, slamming down where he was still pinioned by bodies. The wight's own body prevented me from seeing what happened next; but the drow gave a wailing scream of terror that ended abruptly in a gurgle.
   Clearly, Madame Wight was not affectionately disposed toward the man who woke her from her nap.
   «Stop!» Wheezle shouted. Hezekiah and I weren't moving, so he must have been talking to the wight; and sure enough, she rose from her kill peacefully, licking blood off her claws with great satisfaction. She even took a moment to look my way and smile. The smile appeared friendly enough… if only her teeth didn't have points as sharp as spikes.
   First things first, however – I ran to the door and pushed the button to close it. The last thing I wanted was a friend of the drow prancing back with four wights in tow, coming to investigate why someone screamed.
   The door slid shut quietly. Seconds dripped by and nothing happened. At last I let my breath out with a relieved sigh.
   «All right,» I said, «will someone please tell me what's going on?»

* * *
   «I do not know all the answers, honored Cavendish,» Wheezle began, «but this scepter tells me many things.»
   «The scepter talks?» Hezekiah asked with interest. He was still perched atop the corpse-heap, but he had lowered himself into a cross-legged sitting position where he seemed quite comfortable. «Uncle Toby once had a garden hoe that talked, but he sold it at the fall fair.»
   «The scepter does not talk, honored Clueless, but its presence here explains much. My faction calls this weapon Klemt Ur't'haleem, which might be translated as Unveiler. Unveiler is the creation of… a certain god, whose name it is unwise to speak aloud. Many centuries ago, the scepter came into the hands of the Dustmen; by which I mean that a party of Dustmen freed it from its former owner, and gave that owner a prominent place in our factol's retinue of zombies.»
   «So Unveiler belonged to the Dustmen and now it's here,» I said. «That tells us what the thieves were doing at the Mortuary this morning.»
   «Indeed,» Wheezle nodded. «They must have used the exploding giant as a diversion while they crept inside and stole the scepter.»
   «So what does this Unveiler do?» Hezekiah asked.
   «It gives the user extraordinary powers to control the alchemical undead,» Wheezle replied. «It can even animate these pathetic corpses and fill them with energy; but for all that, it is still a despicable object. This poor creature…» He pointed to the wight, still greedily licking blood off her fingers. «She is out of touch with the cosmos. She cannot commune with the undead gods. Her death is a stifled, paltry thing.»
   I couldn't see any stifled quality myself – she looked quite happy for a corpse. However, Wheezle was the expert in such matters, so I deferred to his judgment.
   «If the scepter is evil,» Hezekiah said, «maybe we should break it.»
   «My faction has tried,» Wheezle told him. «Alas, it is too powerful. The best we could do was hide it in the Mortuary until we found a way to unmake it.»
   «And the thieves must have stolen it because they were sick of the high failure rate from their alchemy,» I said. «Probably those three wights we killed back at the Mortuary were the only ones they had actually managed to get moving. Unveiler let them power up this whole pile of discards.»
   «That is a reasonable conclusion,» Wheezle nodded. «The enemy obviously has need of an army of undead servants.»
   «As if we don't have enough headaches already,» I muttered. «Still, we have the scepter now; does that mean we can control the wights?»
   «Any wights who see it in our possession will obey us,» Wheezle said. «We can turn them against their creators… as a temporary measure.»
   «Why temporary?» I asked.
   «These unfortunates must be freed,» the gnome replied. «We cannot leave them in their current condition. Yes, an army of wights might help us defeat our enemies, and I will reluctantly tolerate such an army until the task is accomplished. Once that is done, however, these souls must be released. The energy injection from this wand only lasts a few weeks – like throwing a few extra sticks of wood into a stove. Once that wood has been used, the wights begin to burn their own souls again. I will not be party to that.»
   «And you have a way to release them?» Hezekiah piped up.
   I wished the boy hadn't said that.
   With a wave of his hand, Wheezle shouted something that sounded like, «Hoksha ptock!» Unveiler's orange glow curdled to a bilious green, casting sickly shadows over the heap of corpses. Bodies rustled like leaves; a few of them uttered heavy groans. The wight who had been licking her fingers gave a startled jerk, as if the ground had suddenly quaked beneath her. She turned to me with a puzzled look on her face, the flames in her eyes sputtering like a dampened fire. Her mouth let out a bewildered hiss… then her legs buckled and she fell to the floor.
   Hezekiah, still sitting on top of the corpse-heap, yelped and tried to catch his balance. The bodies beneath him were shifting, muttering incomprehensibly. As fast as he could, the boy scrambled off the mound, running to my side as if I would protect him from whatever happened next.
   No need. The one active wight was on her knees, rocking back and forth like a child trying to comfort herself. The corpses too were moving, the whole pile shuddering in pulses. The muttering sounds grew louder, slowly blending together until all the bodies were moaning in unison, «Huhhhh… huhhhh… huhhhh…»
   «Hoksha ptock!» Wheezle cried again.
   «Ahhhhhhh,» the corpses sighed, and the wight hissed along. «Ahhhhh…»
   «Hoksha ptock!»
   Then, with a soft gooey sound, every dead body turned liquid – a runny brown liquid collapsing onto the floor with a loud splash, as gooey as egg whites. The fluid surged up to my feet like an ocean tide, flowing over my boots in a wave. Hezekiah tried to jump away, but there was nowhere to go: the spill of liquefying bodies covered the floor. We were both awash, up to the ankles.
   «Yuck!» the boy shouted. «Euuu!»
   «Do not fear,» Wheezle said calmly. «It is a form of ectoplasm. Not dangerous in any way.»
   «So it's not poisonous?» I asked. «Good.»
   The taste was something like olive oil, but saltier. With a little vinegar, it might make a fine salad dressing.