Chapter One

He awoke like an animal, shivering in the darkness inside his head. Cold from his dirty sweat-stained rags, stringy black hair plastered to his eyelids, nostrils and mouth. He shuddered, fearful and hungry, pressing against the gritty masonry, the dusty gutter wall.

Then he scrambled up, jerking as a beast in pain, clawing at the vestiges of his fading dreams. His rags lethargically followed, clinging to the dirt and refuse of the alleyway.

The sun was beginning its downward arc through a gray-brown sky. The ornate masonry of the aristocratic upper reaches gobbled the rays with sharp teeth. Down here, amongst the rotten stone and rusted metal girders, only weak spikes of sunshine penetrated.

Gathering his patched cloak tight around his shoulders, the dirty young man grimaced at the sky. Then he turned away and cantered into the mechanical heart of the city, between the cogs and granite gears, under the mammoth foundations.

It was not hunger for food that drove him. His stomach had long been accustomed to grinding away at sole morsels - paltry nuts and dried fruit, a scrap of kitchen fat thrown to the dogs. It was a hunger in his brain, the very core of his heart.

Seyemi.

He could picture it now as he rushed deeper, shouldering through abandoned gates and checkpoints, sliding down ladders and crumbling corridors. He ignored the brown and rust scenery in his mind's eye, replaced by the object of his desire. A deep purple cylinder, etched with minute lines of gold and silver. It pulsed like a living organ, a translucent illumination. It would be warm in his hands, the pulse corresponding to an oscillation of temperature. It would vibrate, a happy hum of living movement. And it would be his. The promise of a fix was fuel for his steps, heightening his breathing.

He slowed when he reached a wall of garbage. The tumbling heap was fuming with foul odors, swarming with vermin.

Just two days ago the pile had not been there, yet now it blocked a broad thoroughfare of underworld traffic. Peering towards the hated spires of the upper reaches, he spotted the source - a covered outcropping of carved brown stone. It was a depot for the uplanders.

Sneering, he watched the greasy barricade, bulging with melon rinds, crumpled paper, broken tools and weapons, garden trimmings, livestock manure. If he could not move forward, he would have to backtrack, which would be costly. The old man would not wait forever. If the sun disappeared behind the spires, he would have to wait for another evening. That would be too long; the hurtful cravings would drive him mad.

He pulled a twisted staff from the pile, a carved stretch of oak. One end was finely worn, sanded by the rough calluses of an uplander workman, the handle of a shovel or rake.

The young man pushed into the ochre blob with the splintered end, digging at the unsavory refuse. When the staff was firmly entrenched, he pulled himself forward into the pile. The footing was treacherous, and his frayed boots sunk beneath the filth. The stench was heavy; digging into the heap had broken open the dried outer shell, releasing vile odors.

He reached the unstable summit, flush against the corridor archway. He would have to crawl into the garbage. Still sinking on the unstable mount, the man kicked at the larger chunks. With every exertion he let off angry grunts, and now as he sunk up to his waist, a fiery growl simmered in his throat. Without any leverage to utilize the staff, he discarded it, swimming into the thick murk.

Orange and brown slime slipped through his fingers, seeped into his ragged sleeves and cloak. With a final look around him, he ducked under the archway eave, burrowing into the darkness.

He did not breathe - the heavy scent was venom in his lungs. Eyes and mouth sealed shut, with furious muscles he burrowed deeper through the loose trash.

Something was blocking his path, a damp inert form. It was not rough stone or sharp metal, but moist and soft, like flesh. Prodding forward, he could feel muscle and bone beneath skin. An arm, a leg, the jutting density of the hip. Clawlike fingers.

Cursing the necessity of his lungs, the man flailed his arms, extracting a tiny cove in the darkness. He breathed.

The fetid air was overwhelming, and he retched. His own stomach acid seeped into the soft garbage below.

He was trapped between the sinking heap, the hard stone above, and the body before him. Burrowing deeper would be treacherous - drowned in suffocating slime. And besides, the corridor ceiling was his only solid waypoint. The man pushed at the corpse. But it would not move, jammed between the spokes of a wagon wheel a pile of crumbling brick.

Without further hesitation, the man reached to the small of his back, unsheathing a blade. He contorted his arm around, passing through corn husks and egg shells. He felt the corpse in the darkness, pulling aside the dead arm. The path of least resistance would be straight through the middle.

Plunging his knife into the cold belly, he didn't stop until the spine hindered his progress. The low growl in his throat rose to a yell, a battle cry buried under the world. The knife edge splintered the vertebrae. Still red with anger, the man charged forward, slithering through the snaking entrails and fermenting blood. Another meter and he was out, peering into the dim light of the tunnel.

Snarling, he pulled himself out of the hole, a messy birth, and tumbled down the steep side. He crashed to the cobblestones but was immediately on his feet.

"Cotter... Aye jus like the worm ya are. Born inta this worl' a worm."

The voice was that of a wrinkled white-haired man, frail and crouched a few feet away in the dim tunnel.

"It's cutter to you, old man." Cotter brandished his knife, seeping with crimson.

"I can see that, heh..." rasped the elder, feebly rising. "What's this? Killed a man have yeh?"

Cotter turned away, tearing off a frayed chunk of his cloak. He wiped the blade clean and resheathed it on his back.

"It is the blood of an uplander, slain by his own ilk. Not I. Tell me, has the empress's escort yet moved through Basetown?"

"I have not seen em myself. Word has it they're preparin for assaults, foul rumors circulatin."

"Assaults? Pray you have not mentioned my name, I would not hesitate to relieve your neck of your foul skull. Do not test me, old one."

The elder grimaced and backed against the wall, frailly holding his sides. Violent coughs racked his body. "Cotter...no need ta worry. The empress's guards are green, chaff fer yer blade. Dry and rotten chaff."

The cloaked man smiled at his companion, a twisted grin revealing cracked and blackened teeth.

"Come, we shall see if you still have it in your old bones."

The reeking man strode forward, his rotting cloak still dripping behind blood and other unmentionables.

They exited the tunnel to the west, facing the low red sun. Cotter continued unhindered, but the old man stayed back, shuffling his feet in the dirt, hand covering his eyes as he adjusted to the glare.

Basetown was so named for its position at the foot of the Spire of the Ancients. The thick trunk of the spire stretched down through the aristocratic and merchants levels, into the underworld. It was here the sorry denizens of the city warrens had assembled their sanctuary.

The town itself was half hazardously constructed, mostly of second-hand piecemeal materials and staggering towers of rubble. The Spire of the Ancients itself was solid, impenetrable carved rock. Even here, among the detritus of the city, the spire was exquisitely hewn with the incantations and runes of the old orders. But the geometric patterns and mathematical curves had given way to crude graffiti adaptations, a cruel distortion of the shapes and symbols.

Cotter stood on a crumbling plateau overlooking the town, still reeking from his travels. He had managed to wipe away the dripping ooze and coagulated blood from his trousers, but the stains remained. Even his pitch hair had taken on a greasy orange highlight.

The Empress's escort took a daily patrol from the Spire gates, through Basetown, skirting most of the dangerous warrens, then up the Mainway and into the merchant levels. For years the escort had avoided the underworld; it was only recently they had altered their route to pass through.

The reason - crystal mana mines. Basetown had a singular livelihood - extracting the purplish glowing gems from the veins below the Spire. The Empress required unrefined crstal mana for her own unknown uses, and obtaining the raw product from the sorry hordes of the underworld was the obvious choice. In the merchant bazaars, a seyemi vial could be sold for ten times the amount a crippled underworld miner would accept.

"They must have passed through the barrack's gates by now," Cotter mumbled. They were entering the outskirts of Basetown, through the ramshackle abodes of dusty miners.

A tavern keeper slammed her door when she caught sight of Cotter, dark and dirty. His reputation in town was not the kindest.

"Let us hope we intercept them before they reach the Mainway," Cotter said, gesturing to the old man.

The setting sun cast long shadows through the brown corridors and passageways. They were nearing Basetown proper, where the gambling halls and pleasure dens radiated their charm and vice. Even now Cotter could hear the raucous calls of drunken men.

"D'ya think they stopped fer a refresher?" asked the old man.

Cotter turned slightly, not breaking his stride. "Perhaps. They've done it before, led to an easy catch."

"What was the place, Joy's N Jollys?"

"Aye, old one. That's Boss Kremwell's place. Keep your head low."

The old man cackled.

"Best be headin yer own advice, Cutter. Y'could end yer seyemi bingin days right quick in Kremwell's clutches."

Cotter sullenly sneered, still moving forward. "There are those far worse than Kremwell," he whispered.

He could feel the weight and shape of the blade at his back, and the promise of its fine edge gave him comfort. He'd not yet met a situation he could not cut his way out of. In a way, he longed for hot blood to spill - his early binges had often been punctuated by ferocious combat. Since then, his skill had improved, enabling him (and sometimes his partner) to slip off into the shadows. But even still, the thrill of the blade seemed to accompany the release of seyemi into his own blood.

"We are in luck," said the old man behind him.

They stopped a dozen meters from the squat structure, hidden in the shadowed lee of a boarded up innhouse. Across the dusty courtyard was Joys N Jollys, bathed in the din of revelry.

A vast assortment of whores and jesters hung in the cracks and crevices of the building's facade, leering with cat calls and vile jokes.

And the men with something to spend, usually a grimy miner or a prodigal merchant boy, stumbled around in a perpetual hazy stupor, drugged up on seyemi, liquors or the touch of a courtesan.

Off to the side, conspicuously planted among the filth, was a trim wooden cart with blue steamers, yoked to a fine leather-skinned ram. Standing guard - a single uniformed man of the Empress's own, the unlucky recipient of the short straw.

"Another easy pull," said the old man, stepping forward.

"Wait," Cotter rasped, placing his palm on the elder's shoulder. "Let us observe."

The old man grunted impatiently, but Cotter stood still, arms folded, face a mask. He watched as a fresh-faced young man was seduced by a perfumed whore, pulled into an alleyway, then bludgeoned senseless. He watched as the massive black ram stamped in the dust, snorting. And he watched the sole guard, most of all, who didn't seem to be paying attention to his charge.

Already the costumed ladies of the night were blowing propositions in the poor man's directions. A dwarf jester rolled under the card, and was about to climb upon the blue covering tarp. The guard brashly drew his steel, eliciting growls and roars form the more violent denizens of Basetown.

Cotter shook his head. "He's getting anxious. His nerves are on end. Making a move now would be disastrous. The courtyard is too open. We shall wait."

But the sun would not wait in its descent, and soon the long shadows in the dusty courtyard were filling in, growing deeper. The streetlights flickered on of their own timing, pale purple illumination from crystal mana extract. The final rays of the setting sun splintered through the rooftops, then were gone.

"They are now behind schedule," Cotter whispered. "The Empress will have their hides, and I think our man knows."

"You speak with foresight. Look." The old man pointed towards the Empress's cart, where the guard was fretting about. He nervously peered towards the yawning entrance of the pleasure den, then back to the threatening shadows.

The Empress's man, knowing his deadline, placed a white knuckled hand on his hilt and dashed into Joys N Jollys, leaving the cart abandoned.

The old man was sweating. He peered up at Cotter, who was still motionless. Now was his chance.

He quickly sidestepped Cotter's grasp and shuffled into the courtyard.

"Fool!" rasped the rogue, still hidden in the outskirts.

The old man trotted past the stumbling drunks and twirling entertainers to the back of the cart. He lifted the blue tarp, revealing the bountiful stash of seyemi underneath. Then he grabbed a single wooden box, flapped down the tarp, and sprinted off, shouldering through the crowds into the black alleyways.

"Curse him..." muttered Cotter. The four guards were now emerging from the pleasure den, the first striding angrily forward on sober steps, the trailing three intoxicated and annoyed. They were berating their responsible comrade with rude gestures and taunts.

Now they were moving away from the courtyard, towards the Mainway. The broad highway would lead up into the Merchant zone and their next checkpoint. The black ram shouldered the cart with rippling tendons, stamping through the loose pebbles and cobblestones. The sober guard held the lead rope, guiding the beast through dark and noisy streets.

Cotter followed, watching the procession with an inquisitive eye, always pressed into the shadows. He knew these streets as well as anyone, and it would not be long before the cart pulled onto the brightly lit Mainway. He would have to move fast.

The single remaining choke point was Beggar's Gate, a rusted portcullis spanning a bridge over a fetid brook. Tall stone towers rose on both sides of the bridge, effectively creating a blind ally. This would be where Cotter would strike.

But first he needed to be in position - attacking from the rear would be unforgiving. The guard captain would simply spur the ram to a gallop and Cotter would be unable to give chase. No. He needed to come from above.

Still a good half kilometer from the choke point, Cotter shimmied up a gutter onto a low lying roof. He silently dashed along the slate shingles until he was even with the procession. He peered down on them with contempt.

They were still bickering, two of them severely drunk, the other light footed and animated, all angry with the captain. The latter had unsheathed his sword twice already, a gesture that made the men uneasy. For a moment their shouts rose above the evening cacophony.

"No matter," thought Cotter. "Their disarray will be their undoing."

He left them then, sprinting ahead to the higher roofs. He had to scramble up a vertical stone wall, digging in the tiny crevasses with bleeding fingers.

But the urge was back, the vision of a slowing turning seyemi vial in a black abyss. The purple heat and all it entailed. For Cotter, here and now it brought anger and bloodlust. The cowardly old man was a catalyst, but even the puny squabbles of the guards made him clench his teeth in fury. He wanted to flay them alive, to watch their broken bodies dissolve into puddles of pain. They were pathetic pawns - and their actions were not self chosen. For that, they disserved no better than the slaughterhouse.

His anger became adrenaline, his heart racing in anticipation of what was to come. But his face stayed a mask, mouth shut in an emotionless line, eyes and pupils dilated wide in the night. His movements were becoming more animalistic - dashing along the narrow beam of a gutter on all fours, swinging through rafters with inhuman dexterity.

Then he was at the choke point, crouched on a wooden windowsill of the north tower. The damaged portcullis hung open, its chain secured by an old lock above the archway.

The gap from the windowsill was a good three meters, but Cotter made it was easily, his cloak fluttering through the evening atmosphere. He landed solidly, knocking chunks of loose masonry into the muddy brook below.

The procession would be here in minutes.

Eying the lock in the hazy moonlight, Cotter reached into a side pouch for a set of crooked picks and pins. The lock was a simple mechanical contraption, not even secured with a spring hatch or crystal mana automations. With a deft flick of his wrist, the lock popped open. Now, the portcullis suspended only by a single metal pin, which Cotter could dislodge with a swift kick of his boot.

He could now see the approaching cart and the four guards. They seemed to have stopped their verbal battles, and were resigned to simply glare at one another rand plod forward.

Still as a stone golem, Cotter removed his blade from his back sheath and placed it between his teeth. His saliva mixed with the dried residue of blood and garbage, and a bitter taste filled his mouth. This only served to reinstate his beating anger.

For a moment, silence save the heavy footfalls of the ram on cobblestone, and the creaking of the cart. The moon shot out from behind its haven of clouds, and the scene was lit with ghastly shadows, like the heart of a seyemi crystal.

Then the moment was right, the procession directly under the portcullis. Cotter kicked the pin and watched the heavy iron fall, bisecting the harness of the ram.

The shuddering thunder of the metal on stone was quickly replaced by the screaming beast, which had been brought to its knees as the wooden yoke was splintered.

The men were also up in cries, shouting in alarm. One of the drunks was on the ground, groaning, reaching for his ankle that had been crushed by the falling gate.

The party was now perfectly divided: the captain and the ram on one side, the three intoxicated guards (with one injured) and the cart on the other.

The Empress's men were still stunned when he struck, a black blur falling off the gate to sink his teeth between unprotected shoulder blades.

Cotter let the guard break his fall, landing with his full weight into the backstab. The severed vertebrae made a satisfying crunch, and the rogue grinned, eyes afire.

Planting his feet, he pivoted around the dead man, cutting out the throat of the next before the first could fall to his knees.

The ram continued to scream, plowing into the cobblestone with its mighty forelegs, mouth filling with bloody froth.

The three guards on his side dispatched, Cotter stared down the captain, who was watching with increasing dismay.

"I'll find you," Cotter whispered, moving forward, his blade dripping. The captain shrieked, sprinting north towards the Mainway.

Slowly, silence returned to Beggar's Gate. The ram had tired of its struggle, and now panted in the dirt, head down. The crippled guard watched Cotter with fear, knowing he was hopelessly exposed.

But Cotter ignored him.

His eyes were on the prize, a cart filled with freshly harvested seyemi. It was far too much for him to carry, unfortunately. He would have to make do with as much as he could haul away.

His eyes glazed with lust, he pulled down the blue tarp and laid it on the ground. He then piled seven boxes neatly in the middle. Gathering the corners of the tarp together, he lifted the bundle to his shoulders. It was unbelievably heavy, but his adrenaline and desire gave him strength.

He dropped off the side of the bridge into the narrow culvert of dirty water. It was up to his calves with a moderate current. Hopefully it would be enough to throw off the Empress's tracking hounds.

The canal meandered along walkways and residence halls, under bridges and through filthy rat-infested tunnels. Cotter hauled his burden through the water as silently as he could, breathing hard.

Once, he hunched with baited breath under a narrow bridge as men shouting and carrying torches rushed back to the site of the ambush.

But soon he entered the final tunnel, a yawning maw leading under the Mainway, into the abandoned sewer system.

Cotter stopped to catch his breath and still his thrashing heart. But the thrill was too much - an addiction forcing his steps beyond self-control.

Deeper into the darkness he trudged, leaving the dirty brook behind. Here, the air was dank, filled with the scents of earth and garbage and decay. The Empress's hounds would be howling in disgust if they made it this far.

Finally, the pitch was too thick for his attuned eyes, so he set his bundle down. He pried open one of the wooden crates, and the seyemi glowed.

He pulled out a single shard, warm and pulsing with a magic within. The purple aura painted the rotting walls like a mystical cave, and the rats and roaches seemed frozen in rapture.

When finally the iron grates and slimy stonework gave way to roots and veins of mottled rock, Cotter stopped. He was deep under the world, perhaps even nearing the very source of the seyemi.

This made him pause. He was bringing the magical gem full circle - away from the greed of the city above, back to the purity of the earth. He felt cleansed and stoic.

He pulled out a metal syringe from a hip pocket - a thin gleaming needle and shiny engraved handle.

Staring at the shard of seyemi, he watched the patterns in the light. The magic of the crystal mana was revealed in its patterns. The living runes beneath the hard face were what contained the power.

Sometimes the patterns were circular, twisting in upon themselves without a straight line or jagged edges. Other patterns were composed of triangular formations or crystal lattices.

A popular bardsong revealed the myriad uses of the seyemi. Cotter only knew a few stanzas:

"When the curves align,

light the night;

When the runes do sink,

then you may drink;

When the edge disperse,

beware the burst."



He was watching for the sinking runes, a unique pattern of harsh lines and gouges of light overlapping one another.

When finally the purple pattern emerged, Cotter rammed the seyemi shard into the syringe base. Breaking the crystal skin trapped the pattern in its current state, the runes frozen in his hand.

In a seyemi binge, his mind would be in another place, his mortal vessel no better than a corpse. That is why he had to worm himself into the deepest dungeon, the most hidden of places. It was only here he could freely escape.

He sat with his back to the earthen wall, feeling the roots and the squirming vermin. He breathed deeply of the damp air, the last breath he would consciously inhale before the plunge.

Then he closed his eyes and inserted the metal needle into the artery of his neck, squeezing the handle.

Glittering colors spread throughout the underground lair, first the purple of the seyemi vial, then fractalling into the infinite variety of the spectrum.

A sweet rhythm tickled his eardrums, the calling of fair maidens, loving mothers, battle cries and merchant calls. He was sitting on a bed of velvet, then floating in a warm salt sea, then heavenly mist.

His senses thoroughly inundated, he was leaving this world. He managed to withdraw the syringe from his neck, place it beside him, and fold his hands.

The last thing he noticed before being overwhelmed was a shadow moving towards him, and the glint of hard steel. By then the dreamscapes had become more real than the dark sewer he was burrowed in.

By the time the manacles were placed on his hands and feet, they were no longer needed, for his body was comatose, and his fiery soul was gone.