No one expected Lucan to survive the venom of the Sea Lions, least of all him. Three days he lay abed, frothing, gargling, white like a beached fish, thrashing and spilling his guts. But when the seizures ended, and the froth fizzled out, and there seemed nothing left in his stomach, guts, or bowels to expunge, sense and life miraculously returned to the Governor. He rose from his putrid bed like a dead thing awoken, and demanded Daimonwine—as much as could be spared.

  His survival only reinforced his legend among the crew. They had perhaps not literally believed him to be a god before that moment, merely one of their emissaries, but now they wondered whether he might indeed be something more. Lucan thanked his constitution, and the unknown parent he had inherited it from, for yet another roll of the die in his favour.

  A week ago they had landed at the northern port of Drake’s Landing. The place had been named after a daring explorer who had found a more rapid, if not more safe, route through the jungles to the Hideous Towers. Pi’dan and his crew remained in Drake’s Landing, guarding the Black Heart and their route of egress, and killing time the way sailors always did: with dice, drink, and whores. Lucan did not begrudge them their pleasures. They had served well enough on the challenging journey.

  But that meant they needed to find a mercenary escort. Without Xarl, he was not prepared to chance the dangers of the jungle with merely Orfus and their crippled prisoner for company.

  Thus, he had delved into the deep coffers of his treasury to procure five mercenaries.

  Two had died on the first day, taken by Slithgors. What they had thought to be islands of mud in the quagmire became hulking monstrosities, dredged from literal hell. Their jaws were longer than Lucan was tall. Their feline bodies leant them a disgusting agility belying their size and weight. The mercenaries died before they could draw their swords. Lucan and the others fled, only escaping because the Slithgors—which were, he believed, a mated pair—seemed content to gorge on the two corpses they had already made.

  The third mercenary, Jerome, died on the third day. He had been a twitchy fellow. Lucan thought from the start he likely suffered from some kind of substance withdrawal. Lucan had assumed drink, and he had believed it might make Jerome easier to manipulate. Unfortunately, this proved true not just of Lucan, but other forces in the jungle. When the music washed over them all, Jerome bolted. They pursued him, the other mercenaries clamouring warnings about sirens. But Jerome paid them no heed.

  Lucan only glimpsed what waited for the man in the grove. The beauty of it might have taken him too, were he interested in women, but alas, the glowing silhouette left him slightly cold. The sirensong was not meant for him, but for Jerome specifically, it seemed.

  Her voice reached Lucan’s soul, though. It pierced him and quickened his blood and made his mind’s eye a living flame of vividness. He wished he could turn the song into liquid and drink it—he would never need alcohol again. And he might even have begun to develop a taste for poetry and finer things.

  But the song ended when the mercenary stepped into the bower. What had seemed a woman surrounded by floating fairies revealed its true form: a mycelial horror, an organism of dust and rot and ghastly, ululating orifices. A moment Lucan saw the thing—then it closed on the mercenary. The music ended; so too did Jerome’s screams. He was subsumed. In seconds, there was nothing but mouldering ground, like vomit still quivering from its expulsion.

  Lucan had thrown up. Orfus had merely watched impassively, immune to horror, it seemed.

  The fourth mercenary had died to save Benjamyn Hart. They dragged the prisoner along on a makeshift gurney of cloth, hempen rope, and two wooden slats with their ends shaved into handles. Where required, two people could lift the gurney over difficult terrain. On flatter stretches, which were few indeed, they could simply drag him along.

  Something resembling a cross between a monkey and a serpent, bearing all the worst characteristics of both, had swung down from the trees. The mercenary had remembered Lucan’s stern terms—that no payment would be awarded if the prisoner came to harm—and stepped to intercede, sword drawn. The heroism of the act was almost moving. Alas, his blow against the monkey-snake was ineffective. The next thing, a wormlike appendage had latched onto the man’s groin, causing him to scream. Fangs bit into his waist and Lucan actually heard the sound of blood leaving his body. Two thick, furred arms closed about the mercenary’s chest and crushed. Ribs cracked like dry twigs. Still screaming, although the screams were gargled now as his lungs filled with blood, the monkey-snake hoisted the mercenary up into the shadowed canopy and vanished from human sight.

  Once again, they fled.

  Now, on the Fifth Day of the Ninth Moon, there was only one mercenary left. Thankfully, he seemed the most competent and skilled of the lot. They were apparently close now to their destination, the settlement of Scumbay, which was near the Hideous Towers and, as rumour had it, the Shadow Market. Benjamyn Hart had yet to talk, but talk he would. It would be impossible for the prisoner to maintain his stoic silence once he stood within reach of their goal; of that, Lucan was certain. Fight as Benjamyn might, his body would betray him, revealing subtle clues, speaking even if there were no words. Or at least, that was Lucan’s hope. Failing that, he was in the process of devising other methods of making him talk. He did not have the prisoner’s daughter to inflict savageries on, which was a pity, but he could perhaps inflict agonies on some other innocent; it was the only strategy he was yet to deploy. In Wylhome, such a feat would have been difficult. But here, in the wilds, where no governments reigned, no order prevailed, disappearing some infant scab would be child’s play.

  The mercenary, whose name was Hythe, crouched in the low undergrowth. Lucan and Orfus did likewise, though altogether more awkwardly. Benjamyn lay on his pallet, his mouth gagged. The look in his eyes was of longing for death. Lucan supposed they had made him injure many ignominies, including lying in his own faeces. Yet the will to live is still stronger, Lucan thought. Even now, he holds out hope of seeing his daughter—in this Gods-forsaken place! It was laughable, really, how hope warped men’s minds. Lucan had long ago learned Hope was never to be trusted. Planning and strategy were what secured the prize.

  “This track up here...” Hythe was saying, pointing to path worn through the jungle—but not by the tramp of human feet. “It’s a common route for Ursidaes. The bastards are huge—and fast. And despite their size they’re surprisingly good at hiding.”

  “Then what do we do?” Lucan was growing impatient. They had been days in the jungle, and still no sign of Scumbay. He had taken the route through Drake’s Landing on the hope of reaching his goal more quickly. He knew rationally that Memory was vast, almost unchartably so, but it still rankled him to have his destiny so close in grasp, and yet unseen.

  “The best thing to do is lure them out,” Hythe said. “Then, when they’re distracted, we sneak past.”

  Lucan did not like the grin spreading across Hythe’s face.

  “And how do you propose we do that?”

  “Well… It seems to me one of us is going to have to act as bait.”

  Lucan froze as the words sank in.

  “Wait—”

  Hythe drew his sword, striking as he unsheathed, aiming for Lucan’s neck.

  But he had not counted on Orfus’s reactions. Old and deformed he might be, but there was a predatory instinct within the old man that belied his decrepit exterior. The poison-dipped needle was in his hands in a flash, arcing towards Hythe’s neck.

  A lesser man would have fallen, but Hythe was a practiced warrior. He pivoted the trajectory of his blade and intercepted Orfus’s attack at the wrist. The old man let out the first cry Lucan had ever heard from him, a piteous wailing sound as flesh as rent. The hand and needle dangled from a string of flesh. Hythe drew his blade back, raised it, and cleaved through the old-man’s skull. That curious brain Lucan had so long wanted to study spilled over the jungle floor. Hythe levelled his blade at Lucan.

  “I’m sorry, Governor. Truly, I am. But the tracks are fresh. The Ursidaes are nearby. If I hadn’t lost my entire crew getting here, I wouldn’t need to do this. But only one of us can make it through. It’s you or me. I’d rather it be me.”

  Lucan sneered.

  “It is you.”

  Beneath the folds of his robe, he had found the cylinder of the sky-spear. He depressed the button and the spear shot through cloth, across the gap between the two men, and straight into Hythe’s neck. The mercenary’s eyes widened in pure surprise. He tried to move, but he was impaled. Blood geysered from his neck, running down his battered armour, painting it a beatific crimson.

  Lucan rose. He retracted the spear and let Hythe’s corpse fall. He moved over to Orfus—or what was left of him.

  “Orfus, dear friend… Now this is a blow. You served me well. I shall not forget you.”

  He was sincerely moved; he might have kissed the old man’s head, were there a head left to kiss.

  A roar sounded somewhere. It was not a sound made by any natural lungs, it was a magical wail, the whining of a curse as it strained at the seams. Lucan looked around but saw nothing. The jungle was deep, dark, lustrous. He hated the place, yet it held a certain beauty, a fascination like that of an abyss. He had not been here very long and yet it already seemed a strange thought to leave, to return to his manse and the world of men and bright lights and hideous Engines that sputtered and belched.

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  The cry came again and he realised there was no time for such fantasy. He grabbed the handle of Benjamyn’s gurney with his free hand and pulled. He dragged the prisoner behind him. Benjamyn made some kind of choking sound. Lucan turned to check he could breathe through the gag and saw the creases across Hart’s face. Laughing. He’s laughing at me!

  Clearly, Benjamyn Hart expected them to die. He was laughing because he believed Lucan’s plans had all come to naught.

  But he underestimated the Governor. He might prefer the comfort and luxuries of a manse; he might prefer to plan and strategise. But he’d proved many times now he could get his hands dirty; he could do what needed to be done.

  He pulled again. Benjamyn weighed very little indeed—being mere skin and bone. And yet after a minute, Lucan was covered in a sheen of reeking perspiration. Robes were a poor choice in the heat of the jungle, yet he’d been unwilling to relinquish the signs of station. I am still Governor here. And will soon be Emperor!

  He reached the monstrous track, trees, flowers, and mud flattened by the tramp of colossal feet. He had never seen an Ursidae, but he overheard men talking about it in Drake’s Landing. Bear-like, they were. But not bears. Horrifying in a way no one seemed to want to explain.

  He gritted his teeth and pulled. Thee gurney was stuck on some putrid briar. He cut it down with the sky-spear, whose edge never lost its keenness, and pulled again, his muscles straining as it sloughed through the dirt. The cry of the monsters came again and he heard footfalls now. Huge, earth-shaking.

  Panic gripped him. His first thought was to abandon Benjamyn Hart, but then all would be for nothing. The secret would die with him. And Lucan would have the secret even if it meant burning the whole world, even if it meant assailing the Godshome and dethroning the Gods.

  He pulled with all his might. He was nearly across the track. But then light fell on him. He thought at first it was a break in the canopy above, but the light was blue. He turned and saw the twin eyes blazing. Indigo flames blazed in the sockets of a skull. His breath hitched in his throat. Yes, it might have been a bear—once upon a time. But it had died and been revived. It was all bone now, with a few flakes of mouldering flesh remaining. Or perhaps they were pieces of bark and flower and plant-matter. It seemed part of the jungle, moulder and mushrooms and barbed vines growing out of its bones. It was skull and white sharpness and teeth that looked wrong in its maw.

  It saw him. And he felt his death as though it’d already happened. Benjamyn Hart spat the gag from his mouth and began to laugh in earnest, loudly, uproariously, the whole jungle reverberating with it.

  The Ursidae shrieked. Then it began to charge. The earth shook as its clawed feet trampled over tree and stone as though it were nothing. If it could pulverise rock like that, his flesh and bones would be nothing.

  But a single word kept Lucan still, kept him rooted where he should have fled.

  Destiny.

  He was a man of destiny. Assassins had come into his secret dungeon, but he had survived. Daimons had attacked his ship, and he had survived. Sea Lions had poisoned him; he had survived. Fate was preserving him. Fate was on his side. He really was chosen, or so it seemed. How could he die now, to this wretched, nameless creature? How could he die alone and unwitnessed in the jungle?

  He could not.

  He raised the sky-spear and with a motion so heroically swift it was as though he were a champion javelin thrower, he hurled the spear. It sang as it sped through the air and struck the thing square between the eyes. The target was huge, after all.

  Bone shattered. The spear cared naught for its defences. The Godsteel perforated its natural armour as though it were the thinnest sheet of glass. An eruption of flame gushed out of the aperture as fragments of bone spewed across the jungle. The formidable charge was halted as the Ursidae staggered and then collapsed, blue flames still spilling from its wound.

  Lucan knew now was the time to run. He would never know if he killed the thing, but that did not matter. The spear had served him, and that was all.

  He grabbed Benjamyn’s gurney two-handed and hauled him with all his might across the track, into the undergrowth. He did not look back now but ran as fast as his legs could carry him, feeling muscles burn that had hardly been used before. He panted like a dog. His brow, armpits, and groin burned with the sheer heat of exertion and sweat. He was dizzy, his feet struggling to find purchase.

  But he ignored it all. He ran. And ran.

  Benjamyn no longer laughed. He seemed stunned by what he had witnessed.

  Maybe it was half an hour later, maybe an hour. He knew not how long he’d been running. But just as her was about to collapse from exhaustion, he saw the outskirts of a settlement. This sight renewed his strength just enough to bring the gurney rattling to a halt before the outer building.

  He saw the sign, “Scumbay”. He had made it. The mercenary at least had not lied that it was close.

  But the elation he felt swiftly died when he saw the place.

  It was deserted. Doors to the shanty houses stood open. The bathhouse dwellings below ground, dug into the clay-like earth, were devoid of bathers. The House was a mausoleum, devoid of light or sound. The jungle was a croaking chorus of alien song, but this place was mantled by a silence too terrible to comprehend.

  Where had the people gone? Had the place been abandoned? But surely then Hythe and the mercenaries would have known this? Would had advised against coming?

  Lucan stumbled forward, dragging Benjamyn on the gurney. He peered into homes and hovels and found nothing. There were no corpses, either, which was even more disconcerting. It was as though all the people had simply up and left.

  Well, all but one.

  A lone figure knelt in the devastation. He was a young man by the looks of him, in his twenties. He was naked. A rippling adonis, too. Muscled more like a god than a man. Just the kind of lover Lucan liked. His head was entirely bald—much like Lucan’s—a shared defect of bloodline. Lucan could not see his eyes for they were buried in his hands. He was sobbing, sobbing uncontrollably. Lucan pitied him in some way, which surprised him, for he prided himself on being detached from such pathetic displays.

  He approached cautiously. Perhaps this man was the lone survivor of a massacre and could advise Lucan on what had happened—and where he might find the Shadow Market.

  “I tried to hold it back…” the man whispered, face still buried in his hands. “I tried to quell the hunger… But I am just a beast, a beast like the rest.”

  Those words made Lucan’s blood grow cold. What did he mean “quell the hunger”? Surely, this lone, naked man could not be responsible for the disappearance of an entire settlement.

  “What happened here?” Lucan said, using his most imperious tone to jerk the man out of his grief.

  Slowly, the hands came away from the face, and Lucan stared into his eyes.

  Miraculous! Oh, his eyes were jewels. Terrible jewels. Jewels of dark wonder. So many monstrosities were imprinted upon them, as though each facet had been carved with a hex, each face a grisly Daimon wrought of gemlike brilliance. Lucan had never seen eyes like that before. Though they were somehow familiar. The memory was not solid—it was dreamlike. Yet, it was there, somewhere deep, deep, deep in the recesses of his mind. Beneath the layers of jungle, corpses, and soil, there lay enormous ruins of narrative.

  “I killed them all,” the man said. “Consumed them. I thought I was the master of the beast, but the beast is the master of me.”

  Lucan staggered back.

  The kneeling man rose.

  “Stay back!” Lucan demanded. “I am armed.” But as his hand felt beneath his cloak for the spear, he remembered he had sacrificed it. He cursed inwardly.

  “Whether you are armed or not is of no consequence,” the man said. “You could not stop me.”

  Lucan felt a mixture of terror and rage, two alchemical substances that did not wish to mix.

  “Do you know who I am? Do you have any idea what I could do?”

  The man smiled—and it was a sad smile, a pitying smile.

  “I admire your courage. Truly. But you are ignorant of your very ignorance. Let me… enlighten you…”

  And then the man was not a man. Something moved beneath the surface of his skin. And then that skin was shed as easily as a whore’s clothes. And there, beneath the mask of humanity, was a roiling thing. Appendages unfolded. Limbs twitched and quivered as they searched from the ground. Wings spread. A draconian visage rose phallically from a ruin of red gore. An impossible flower. A monstrous desecration of living form.

  For the first time, Lucan had no words. Nor inspiration for action. He stood speechless, petrified with horror.

  The thing closed over him. He felt the revolting kiss of its many limbs. He screamed.

  His blood flowed out of him. It was drinking him. Oh Gods! He tried to say the words out loud, but he was already too weak to speak. He looked down and saw his arm—there was nothing there to see. A thin rag of translucent flesh hung over bones that even now were melting.

  But what came next was worse. His mind, the thing he had always prided himself on more than anything else, began to loosen. He felt it. Some disturbance at the corners of awareness. Memories were surfacing that were unfamiliar to him and yet he knew were his. He greeted the world, a swaddled babe, with a scream. And there, looking at him, was a boy with those same gemlike eyes as the man. The eyes of death. The eyes of Fate.

  He did not have long to wonder at this. It was all going now. His mind was liquid and being sluiced down into some psychical orifice. What he considered “him” was being erased, or rather, combined with something much bigger. He glimpsed it as he went, saw the immense sprawl, the mind-link, the infinite reaches that all connected about one humanoid form that yet was no longer man.

  And then he felt grief, sorrow. It rose like a cloud and unleashed its rainstorm upon him. Not his own emotions, but the feelings of the one he was becoming a part of. This man was… grieving.

  “I’m sorry, dear brother! I’m so sorry!” the man cried.

  And then Lucan knew the dreadful—but wondrous—truth.

  He knew who his parents were. And that he died now in the arms of his brother.

  The orphan was home.