Date: September 30, 2026
Attendance: Sandy, Lucia, Thalan, Korath, Varys, Elunia
The letters came on heavy paper, each with its recipient’s name engraved by hand. The Baronet Sorrel, a minor noble of Godshome, asked them to his palais to hear what the work actually was, and promised treasure enough to make the journey worthwhile. Five of the letters said roughly that. Sandy’s did not. Hers said only: I know where she is. Come visit me. She knew the hand. She had stood guard over the man who wrote it, and she had walked away from him rather than do what he asked.
The Baronet had also paid for the travel: berths aboard the airship Indomitable, a pleasure cruise for the noble houses of the Capital. The six recruits spent the voyage being politely avoided. There was more money in the silver on one dining table than in all their purses put together, and the other passengers made sure they knew it.
On the final morning they took breakfast on the open deck, and the Divine Mountain rose out of the desert ahead of them. Mount Irae was covered in temples. The grandest crowded the summit, and the rest wound down its flanks in a long spiral, each smaller than the one above. Down the face of the mountain ran a stairway from peak to plain, black with thousands of pilgrims climbing and descending.
That was when Lady Rose Larkspur found them. She swept across the deck in white silk worked with gold filigree, hung all over with dangling crystals, under a parasol, with green-tinted spectacles and cotton-candy pink hair piled high. Everyone inside, she announced, was dreadfully boring: banquets, cotillions, wars. She had come out for a breath of fresh air and found a set of vagabonds who surely had stories. She called for her divan, and Mr. Cogsbottom brought it: a construct so tall he had to stoop and turn sideways to get himself and the couch through the door.
She was going to a hovel called Bitter End, she said. Her elder brother had foolishly got himself killed in a duel, and Daddy now insisted she take over the family business, including whatever interests her brother had kept out there. When she asked what brought them to Godshome, Lucia told her: money. Then Lucia gave her a story, in loving and horrible detail, about a draconian that burst when it died, its skin sloughing away and its bones scattering like shrapnel. Lady Rose listened with a delighted smile.
Then she took off her spectacles to show them off. The maker’s name was engraved on the arm: Hugo Syro. A genuine Hugo, made to order, and he had made her dress too. Nobody beat House Tagliapietra for fashion. Before she left she plucked one crystal from her gown and broke it on the deck. An illusory dove beat its way up into the air, settled on a shoulder, sang a few sweet notes, and flew off. Isn’t Hugo such a genius? Lucia sat behind her with her hammer close at hand, privately wondering whether one good swing would pop every crystal at once.
The Indomitable moored at an ivory tower at the foot of the mountain, one of a forest of pillars where airships lined up to dock. Some carried water, with great bladders and tanks strapped to their hulls. Godshome has no water of its own. The city exists only because of the mountain. Most of the ships were packed shoulder to shoulder with pilgrims. The party were ushered past velvet ropes and each given a small ticket for the lift. Everyone else used the stair that wound thirty storeys down the outside of the tower. Mosaics lined it, showing a pilgrim’s journey: worldly clothes at the top, a plain brown robe and a knotted cord at the bottom.
In the crowd by the stairhead a woman had gone into labour, and her husband was begging for help. He must be born in the holy city, she said, and the tower did not count. They had to reach the ground. Thalan asked Elunia for her ticket and pressed both hers and his own into the couple’s hands. Elunia had already offered to send the woman down some quicker way. The husband would not leave his wife, and the couple took the lift with thanks.
Further along the queue, an old woman stopped Lucia with a hacking cough. Could she spare some water? She had so many stairs still to go, and she only wanted one last pilgrimage before she joined her husband. Elunia offered her a vial from her own collection, a back-alley purchase of uncertain contents. Lucia told the old woman firmly not to drink it and gave her own ticket instead. The old woman thanked her, straightened her back, and strode off to the lift without a trace of a limp. Lucia knew exactly what had just happened to her. Then she turned on Elunia: you can’t hand out mystery potions to people we’ve just met. Elunia argued that the potions had once saved their lives when they gave one to a god, so they were probably fine.
Varys, meanwhile, watched a knot of soldiers at the stairhead. One had lost a leg and an arm, and when he stumbled on his crutch and his friends grabbed for him, he nearly struck one of them with it. I can do it. I’ll make it. Varys left him to it. A man who wants to walk down on his own deserves to.
So Sandy, Varys and Korath went down in the lift. It came with complimentary champagne and a small ice mephit perched on the ceiling, breathing cool air over them the whole way. Thalan, Lucia and Elunia took the stairs, an hour of marching in full sun on the outside of the tower. Elunia cut her descent short. She swung her cape around herself and stepped through a door that wasn’t there, reappearing far below in a waft of brimstone, though still well short of the ground. Thalan and Lucia walked every step and arrived on their feet. On the way down they passed a man carrying a rack of small water bottles on his back, selling them to the pilgrims at two silver a bottle. Thalan gave him ten gold and told him to give the water to whoever came behind and needed it. I’m a cleric. The seller pocketed the money and started handing out bottles. So many pilgrims dropped dead on that stair, he said. A man had to make a living.
The city at the foot of the stair was pandemonium. Street vendors shouted over the crowd, and the sun bounced off the white limestone so fiercely it nearly blinded them. A goblin, perhaps a child (with goblins it is hard to tell), ran up and greeted Thalan first and then all of them: Welcome, sirs and madams, to the great city! Godshome is a dangerous place. While he talked, a pack of children ran past, and every one of the party found about a hundred gold missing from their purse. The goblin muttered a few words and called after them: Bob! James! Bring that back. These are under my protection. The children came back and returned the coin. For a small donation to the Church of Avandra, he said, he would guide them anywhere they wanted to go. They should not listen to the two other groups of priests behind him, who were dangerous. He wore two holy medallions. One hung in plain view. The other was half-tucked into a pocket.
The first of the dangerous priests was an orc so enormous that the party took him for an ogre at first. He was bellowing for converts to come and fight in the arenas of Gruumsh and prove their worth. Thalan told him Kord was the true god of battle. The orc told him to prove it in the arena. Thalan said he already had. Then you are worthless. Thalan hit him in the jaw. The orc threw down his gauntlets and his spear and swung back with his bare fists, and his blows glanced off Thalan as if Kord had turned them aside. Looks like Kord has proven his valour over Gruumsh, Thalan said. Have a nice day. As he walked off, the orc growled after him: Gruumsh would find him. Unseen, Elunia’s imp climbed over the orc’s shoulder, cut the cord of his holy medallion with one claw, and brought it back to her.
The other priests were a man and a woman from the House of the Gentle Repose. They were both very good-looking, in billowing black-and-green robes, and had plainly been chosen for that. Their god, they said, was worshipped by giving rest to the weary on the way to their final destination. They offered a free meal, drinks, a warm bed, and everyone was welcome. The party judged it a scam and moved on.
The goblin followed them. Now he wanted fifty gold to keep the pickpockets off their backs. Sandy pointed out that he was the pickpockets’ boss and could simply call them off. He told her it didn’t work that way, and that he had friends, more than just the children. Sandy leaned in close. They worked for the Baronet, she told him, and unless he wanted trouble with the Baronet, they would be keeping their purses. Thalan stood behind her nodding along. Someone added that they had a friend in the city named Mack, who had guns for hands. The goblin smiled, apologised, and ran.
The road to the Baronet’s palais climbed past the foot of the great stair, and the party saw how the mountain’s religion worked. At the bottom, lone priests stood on soapboxes preaching for gods nobody had heard of. A little higher were small amphitheatres. Higher still were real temples. Each faith worked its way up the mountain as it gained followers, and the city guard dragged off the ones that failed. They passed a great inn called the House of the Small Gods, then climbed out of the crush into the richer district that circles the mountain one ring further up.
The palais had trees outside it. In a city with no water of its own, that was a display of enormous wealth, and fitting, since the Baronet had made his fortune selling water. Two guards stood at the gate in heavy armour painted white against the sun, sweating badly underneath it. They ordered the party away as rabble, then read the invitation, exchanged a look, and muttered another one? When Lucia asked whether many other groups had come before them, they both insisted that none had. They were very bad liars.
Inside the gate the heat dropped away. The courtyard was a hanging garden with a fountain that was actually running. A maid led them in, sweltering in the formal dress of the Capital, and took them up to a study on an upper floor behind tall wooden doors that groaned as they opened. It was more museum than study. Artefacts stood on pedestals everywhere. Dragon skulls hung on the walls, alongside idols, skeletons, and teeth that might have come from a dinosaur or a dragon. Korath studied them and judged that they were genuine monster parts and genuine relics. On one pedestal lay a grimoire. When Elunia looked at it, its letters swam and then settled into words she could read: a Tome of Abyssal Magic. The longer she read, the worse her head hurt, and when she took her hands off the page the letters became gibberish again.
A high-backed chair behind the desk faced a great curved stained-glass window. It spun round, and in it sat a girl of thirteen or fourteen in a modest, expensive green dress. She put her feet up on the desk and asked what they were doing in Father’s office. Sandy had served this household and had never seen her before. The girl sighed that it was all so boring and wandered out.
They heard the next arrival before they saw it, and smelled it before that: something chemical, like formaldehyde, with a spicy note on top that someone had added to cover the rest. The doors opened on a well-dressed man and, behind him, an armoured figure seven or eight feet tall, which followed him across the room as closely as a hound. The Baronet apologised for keeping them waiting. I don’t like to hurt my employees’ productivity. He asked Greta to bring drinks. The armoured figure grunted, went to the sideboard, and crushed the crystal decanter in its gauntlet. Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t think about your disability. He shouted down the hall for Sasha. The maid hurried in with a fresh decanter and poured everyone iced tea, which had something stronger in it.
It’s good to see you again, he told Sandy. She said she wished she could say the same. He complained, mildly, that she had left without the usual two weeks’ notice. Two weeks’ notice, the party pointed out, is a courtesy.
Then he told them his story. He had started as a plain water merchant with no title. He had married into the Sorrel family and become a noble, and found that the born nobility still didn’t respect him. Money and a title were not enough. In his later years he had become spiritual, as he put it. He had given a great deal to the temple of Zehir and been made only the lowest kind of acolyte. What he needed was a grand gesture: an artefact of real power, presented to the church as proof of his devotion, which would surely earn him the seat on the conclave he so richly deserved. Korath asked what this really was. Who were they being asked to steal from?
Nobody, said the Baronet. Things lost long enough end up somewhere. He opened a book on the desk to an illustration of a green rod that seemed to glow faintly, covered in symbols none of them could read. It belonged to a god of serpents and poison, and it had not been seen since it was lost in the Sibling Wars. Now it lay in the Dungeon of Lost Things, the vault of everything mislaid, which could only be found by people who had suffered a great loss. He looked around at them. Some of them qualified nicely. He himself had lost nothing, of course, and they would never let him in. Had they seen his house?
The vault lay in the Valley of Lost Bearings, a strange reach of the Divine Desert where compasses don’t work, the sun rises in the north and sets in the east, and the moon and sun take turns in no sensible order. He did not know what had happened there. But he had the journal of the Mad Monk Alistair, and turning to Lucia, as the one who would actually write it down, he read the verse aloud:
Three to the dawn and two to the star,
three to the dusk from where you are,
two to the south — and walk it true,
and the valley will hand you back to you.
Now you have drawn the edge of the door;
now you know what the walking was for.
Close your eyes on the moon and sun,
lose the count of the steps you’ve run.
When you can’t say where you have been —
look up, lost one. You’re already in.
Lucia read it back to him. Thalan, a cleric, called it mystic nonsense. The Baronet loved it.
All this time Greta stood at his side, picking sticky tea out of her gauntlet with jerky movements, and the smell was getting stronger. Don’t mind my associate. She’s been through some things recently. As Greta came round the desk, Sandy stuck out a foot, like a schoolchild. Greta went down with a crash that shook the room. The Baronet, who had not seen it, only sighed: she was so clumsy, but so strong. They should have seen the thief whose skull she crushed the other day.
Greta got up slowly and gave Sandy a long, blank look. Up close, Sandy could see her eyes through the visor. The whites were a vivid yellow, and the irises might have been slits. Sandy knew that smell from somewhere. Thalan closed his hand around his holy symbol and opened himself to Kord. There was nothing undead in the room. He was sure of it.
Sandy asked whose daughter the girl was. My bastard, the Baronet said, from an earlier dalliance. There were no other heirs now, so he had recognised her as his true heir, and the Sorrel line would pass to her. Asked why he had picked Zehir’s temple for his devotion, he said it was the easiest way in: fewer followers. Korath asked whether his piety was simply for sale. The Baronet called it the next rung on the ladder of power. Money is not enough and a title is not enough. The next rung is religion, and control over what people believe.
Then came the payment. Greta lifted a steel safe down from a shelf, and the desk creaked under its weight. The Baronet took out a diamond the size of a fist, worth perhaps two thousand gold. They could give it to a beggar or spend it all in one night for all he cared. Elunia pushed for more. Several parties had evidently gone before them, so either they came back with his relic or they died and he owed them nothing. In that case each of them should also get one piece from his collection when they returned. He seemed more interested in her than in the bargain. You could read the grimoire? Good to know. Interesting. He agreed: one piece each on their return.
Lucia noticed how cool the study was. Greta, she suspected, might want a warm rock to lie on. Lizard, said Sandy. Perhaps snake, said Lucia, given who the Baronet prayed to and those yellow slit eyes. Elunia suggested a chimera. Thalan pointed out that whatever Greta was, she was not undead. While they talked, Lucia picked up one of the desk’s coasters, which carried the house crest, and slipped it into her bag. The Baronet saw her looking at things and assumed she was admiring his window. Did she notice the signature in the corner? Hugo Syro. Lucia said she recognised it. He was on tour, the Baronet went on, putting windows into all the finest buildings, but he had seemed almost depressed. After the Royal Palace and the highest temples, what was left to challenge him? Sandy asked whether Hugo had taught her. I taught myself, said Lucia. She was very happy for his success. If the gods were punishing him, she added, he must have done something to deserve it. The Baronet agreed that the gods do punish those who transgress.
He had appointments, he said. They should be back in three weeks, or whenever they finished. Three weeks was when he would send the next team. They could use his private airship. He had water to deliver to Bitter End anyway, the working town at the valley’s edge, six hours away by air, which sat at the mouth of the Bitter Market, the dungeon that supplies the world’s poisons, toxins and reagents. Supplies would be cheaper in Godshome than out there. When Thalan pressed him, he agreed to lend them two camels. On the way out Lucia shook Greta’s hand, and Greta lurched forward a little. And as Sandy passed him, the Baronet leaned close and spoke quietly. For her pick from the collection, he could offer her something else: his promise to leave alone the girl Sandy had carried out of his house.
They spent the afternoon stocking up for the desert. Thalan’s spirit-wolf, nearly as tall as Thalan himself, was loaded with water barrels. Lucia flashed the Baronet’s coaster at a merchant and announced that they were shopping on the Baronet’s account. The merchant was impressed enough by the crest to take a fifth off the price. Varys bought a new blade. Thalan left the rest of his gold with the Guild hall for safekeeping.
From a temple that sold such things, Sandy paid for a message to be sent to the girl she had once carried out of the Baronet’s house, now living with her uncle. Was everything all right? The answer came back quickly and cheerfully. Everything’s fine. My birthday is in two days. I’m excited. Maybe you can come. And when Sandy wondered whether they should be handing a relic like this to anyone at all, Thalan searched his memory of the temple histories and found the rod. It was a source of great magical power, and it consumed the people who used it. There were stories of bearers who drew on it until it killed them. It was not the relic of any particular god.
It was midday when they set out for the airfield, and the crowds were at their thickest. The tide of pilgrims carried them off course, and before long they were in an alley with no way out. They heard footsteps behind them. Thalan made his staff glow. A voice said: I told you Gruumsh would find you. The orc priest had come back with a whole crew: heavy men with mauls, a man holding a chain hung with manacles and man-catchers, and a line of captive pilgrims already chained to it. If you won’t fight in the arena for glory, you will die there, and your blood will quench Gruumsh’s thirst. Elunia held up his stolen medallion and declared herself one of the faithful, trying to bring her friends to the faith. It didn’t work. A small figure slipped up beside the orc, took a pouch of gold from him, and ran: the goblin boy. Elunia sent her imp after him, still invisible.
Varys loosed first. His arrow hit the nearest berserker in the throat, and the man stayed standing, covered in blood, with his maul still raised. Sandy stepped in between two of them, cut one across the chest, and took his head off with the backswing. Korath, who seldom bothers with spells, called on the earth. Spectral wolves clawed their way up out of the ground and circled the attackers, and the men with hammers backed off a step. Then Korath became a sabre-toothed tiger, a beast of gears and plating instead of fur. Lucia went into a rage and threw her hammer. It cracked a man across the side of the head and flew back into her hand, and she shared some of her strength with the tiger and with Sandy. Thalan hit one man with radiant blows until his nose broke, then brought down a thunderclap that smashed his chest. Fire jumped from the dead man to the next, and that one’s beard caught. He let it burn and snarled at Thalan, who promised him Kord would have his soul.
The berserkers were cat-eyed and frenzied, with knife cuts across their own faces. They piled onto Sandy, three at once. One of them caught her with a savage blow. The chain-man whirled a bear trap on his chain and missed. Behind them another berserker slashed his own face, smeared the blood, and chanted, and Sandy felt her muscles lock. Then, somewhere between one moment and the next, she broke free. The orc came for Thalan with a gladiator’s spear, missed twice, and slammed him with his shield. Thalan braced and stayed on his feet.
Then Elunia called on the god she believes in. A sphere of black and purple spread out in the middle of the alley and swallowed the attackers. Whispers came from inside it, and the sound of things moving: tentacles with eyes, gaping mouths, teeth. The men inside screamed. Her companions agreed this was all perfectly holy. Into the darkness she threw the orc’s stolen medallion and sent it hurtling back at its owner. See how well your god serves you. Korath sent lightning crackling from his claws. A scream came from the dark, and then a skull flew out of it. Not a head. A skull, stripped bare.
Sandy hacked into the darkness and blood sprayed back out. The orc forced his head and one arm free of the dark, with a tentacle wrapped round his throat, and stared at her. Help me, you dishonourable fiend! I don’t mind dying, but not like this! The tentacles pulled him back in and tore him apart, and his blood spattered across their faces.
When the darkness lifted, the alley floor was slick and red, and there were no bodies left.