PROLOGUE

Sektis Gandaw stood high upon his ocras mountain and gazed out over the bleached bones of the Dead Lands toward the Sour Marsh. His coat whipped and snapped behind him in the breeze. In his metal-clad hand he held the stone statue of a serpent, sunlight glinting from its amber eyes. His desiccated lips curled into a smile. They had not done that for quite some time. Years. Centuries, even.

And so, he smiled and he chuckled, though it seemed to him a gurgling, rasping thing. And he held the serpent statue aloft in triumph, brandishing it against the world he had judged and found wanting.

From so high up, he could see it all laid out before him: the fetid tangle of the swamp, the clumping of the clouds, the jagged teeth of distant mountains—all so flawed in their design; all so imperfect.

But that would change now he had the statue, for it was no ordinary statue; it was the fossilized remains of the serpent goddess Etala, and at last his agents in Vanatus had brought her to him.

The Mad Sorcerer, they called him. Well he would show them who was mad. The people of this continent of Medryn-Tha, same as the people of the Vanatusian Empire and all the peoples of the whole sick world of Aosia, were blinded to the imperfections all around them, imperfections mirrored in their very selves. Instead, they heaped praises upon imperfect gods for making such a mess out of the primal dark they had slithered from.

That was madness, in Sektis’s book. Madness and collusion with the malign powers behind the world. But he had questioned, and he had carved out answers. He knew just what to do to set things right, how to unweave the tangled threads of chaos and set them straight; and now he held within his grasp the power source that would enable him to do so.

He had tried once before and come up short.

This time he would not fail.

1

Albrec clung to the crystal-spangled plinth as the room tilted. His legs scissored in the air behind him, loose change cascading from his trouser pockets like hale on a tin roof. A klaxon blared briefly and then shut off as the floor came level once more. Albrec heaved a sigh of relief. He should never have stowed away! Whatever had he been thinking?

But Shadrak the Unseen had entered this strange craft with a man and a woman, and Shadrak never did anything unless there was money involved. Money and murder. Neither did Albrec, which is why he had snuck aboard when no one was looking. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Nooo! Albrec wailed as his feet flipped over his head and he found his face pressed against the cold hard surface of the black mirror atop the plinth. The glare of dozens of crystals blazed across his vision in a kaleidoscopic blur, and acid bile swilled into his mouth.

Stop it moving, stop it moving, stop it— A particularly pungent reflux stopped his prayer before it led to rapture. Not that he was praying to anyone in particular, mind; it was more like a message in a bottle.

The room slammed down again, and Albrec shot across the floor arse over head until his feet hit the wall. He couldn’t quite situate the rest of his body: his paunch was practically smothering him, his chin was in his chest, and his trouser legs were cutting into his knees where they had run up his shins. Just his rotten luck if someone came in right now and caught sight of his lily-white calves hanging like bloated sausages behind that infernal strip of black hair that was forever slipping towards the nape of his neck.

But at least it had gone still.

Before he dared move, Albrec’s hand crept into his jacket pocket in search of the reassurance his cheese-cutter always brought. It was an old friend, a faithful aid, equally at home in the kitchen or wrapped around a victim’s throat. He inside-outed the pocket, scrunched at the fabric, did the same with the other pocket and then, in a paroxysm of terror far greater than he’d just experienced, he flopped to his side and flipped to his knees all the better to pat himself down.

The cheese-cutter was gone. The pats turned to slaps, which turned to thumps, the last of which was aimed at his forehead. This was insufferable, intolerable, inconceivable. He never ceased fiddling with the cheese-cutter; it was always between his thumb and forefinger like a holy man’s prayer cord, only infinitely more useful. The habit was so ingrained as to be unconscious. Perhaps it was so unconscious as to have been forgotten. Albrec glanced around the chamber, dived in amongst his scattered coinage and put his face to the ground like a bloodhound.

Bloody shitting hell, Albrec, you stupid, silly cun— He clamped his mouth shut before he could say the unmentionable word. Even now, so many years after her unfortunate death, he winced at the slap Mumsy would have given him—right on the lug-hole, as she would have put it, sending shock waves through his skull that would gradually ebb away to a persistent ringing. He was sure she’d dislodged a year’s worth of memories with every clout. If nothing else, the recollection of the old trout gave him pause for thought and allowed him to reassert the rational over the primitive mind. It took a lot these days for Albrec to lose control, and loss of control was a habit he couldn’t afford to slip back into. Not in his line of work.

Master poisoner, he reminded himself. Deadly assassin.

He stooped to roll down his trouser legs, tugging them smooth over the tops of his ankle boots. His heart still ricocheted from the loss of the cheese-cutter, but his mind was back where it belonged, firmly grasping the reins.

The crystals on the plinth winked out one by one, and then the silver wall in front of him parted with a whoosh.

It wasn’t me. I didn’t do—

Before he could complete the same automatic response he’d always blurted out as a child, Albrec caught a whiff of fresh air coming up the passageway beyond. When he’d entered the room with the plinth mere minutes ago and the wall had closed behind him, he feared he would never get out alive. Which is why he’d twiddled several of the crystals on the plinth, just to see if any of them opened the walls; and everything had gone to shit in an instant.

Before the wall could close up again, he hurried out into the passageway then followed the same maze of silver corridors he’d entered by, until he arrived at the entrance to the craft. The silver door must have slid open of its own accord because there was brilliant daylight coming through the rectangular opening. Albrec almost wept with joy as he crossed the threshold and stepped outside.

And gasped.

He’d expected to see the verdant hills above Vanatus City, which is where he’d followed Shadrak and the others into the strange craft; but instead ocher terrain spread as far as the eye could see, and here and there outcrops of what looked like limestone stood as high as a man. There were craters dotted all over the place, reminding him of that perforated cheese they produced in the provinces.

He stepped out onto the desert sand and scanned the horizon. Way off in the distance he could just about make out the hazy peaks of a mountain range.

Albrec hadn’t felt so crushed since Dana Woodrum had scoffed at the beautiful cupcakes he’d presented her with for her birthday. Unbidden came the vivid recollection of his revenge: Dana’s red face and swollen lips; her hands clutching uselessly at her throat as yellow drool dripped down her chin; the stench of her shit as her organs collapsed and she slopped to the floor like a drowned invertebrate. Oh, the gloating satisfaction. He’d observed her for weeks, haunted all the parties she attended, endured her scathing remarks, but it had been worth it to find out that she couldn’t resist sugared cherry tart with a dollop of cream and chocolate sprinkles.

Albrec became aware of his fingers questing through his jacket pockets. He could almost feel the wooden ends of his cheese-cutter and started to run his fingertip along the wire—but it wasn’t there.

Miles and miles of ocher desert.

He could have a concussion, he supposed. Maybe someone was playing a trick on him—Shadrak most likely. The pallid little shit doesn’t want anyone muscling in on his profits.

He stared down at the ground, back up at the suns, the far-off mountains. In the opposite direction, light shimmered and sparkled where the horizon became a faint strip of blue. Off to the left, a fair few miles away, was a vast city surrounded by white walls with tall towers and minarets poking their heads above. Whatever it was, it wasn’t Vanatus.

When he glanced behind, he gasped again. The craft was gone. He reached out and recoiled as he felt the cold surface of the craft’s hull, but he could see right through it to where a trail of dust snaked along a broad road. There were wagons and pack horses amid the dust—a caravan of some sort, and it was heading his way.

Albrec crouched down and gathered some pebbles into the shape of a cross to mark the entrance. Brushing the dust from his palms, he straightened up and found his eyes drawn to one of the craters.

It was one of those things he knew he shouldn’t do, but there were times his curiosity was irrepressible. It’ll be the death of you, Mumsy always used to say. Funny that, he thought as he set off toward the crater, because her favorite saying had certainly rung true for her in the end.

The blasted crater was farther off than it looked. Sweating so much his finely tailored jacket and trousers were positively drenched, he scrabbled up a scree bank and saw that what he had thought was a crater was actually a large hole set into a gentle incline where the ground had blistered into a low mound. Hole probably wasn’t the best way to describe it either. Cave mouth might have been better. It was as wide as a house and the height of two grown men. The edges of the entrance glistened with what looked like dew, but on closer inspection he saw it was metallic.

Oh my gilded backside! Gold!

Be careful… All that glitters is not—

—Not in my experience. He soon shut that train of thought down. He wouldn’t be who he was today if he gave in to that kind of negativity.

The moment he stepped across the threshold, the stench struck him like a slap round the face with a dead fish—a cross between putrefying compost and off-meat. He whipped out his handkerchief and held it over his nose and mouth. The damned thing still stank of snuff. Washing seemed to have no effect, and yet he couldn’t bring himself to throw it away. It was the only thing of Papa’s left.

He took a couple of wary steps into the cave mouth, marveling at how the specks of gold, or whatever it was, continued to sparkle even out of the sunlight. When he went in deeper, it was like walking on golden stars that wound downwards into the receding distance. Not a cave, then, Albrec mused: a tunnel; and a big one at that. It hardly looked natural, the way the width remained uniform; the smoothness of the walls.

He pressed on until the light from outside was lost around a bend. The steady downward gradient became more sheer at that point, and he had to touch the lefthand wall for support. He’d gone no more than a few steps when he trod in something sticky. His foot came free, sock and all, and he had to balance on one leg and bend from the waist to retrieve his shoe. It came away from the ground trailing a thick rope of goo. He scraped off what he could against the wall and then dropped it so he could put his foot back down. He was still wiggling his toes and straining to get his heel in fully when a blast of wind rushed past him from the depths. Rotten wind, if such a thing existed, like a belch from a toothless crone with a mouthful of vomit. Not wind, then, he realized.

An exhalation.

The ground shook as something squelched and rustled down the tunnel to the accompaniment of an echoing hiss. The darkness ahead shifted and then got a whole lot darker as the specks of gold winked out or were smothered.

Albrec took a step back, crouching so he could use his finger as a shoehorn, and then he was retreating up the tunnel. More of the gold flecks were swallowed by shadow, and another rush of fetid breath blasted over him and sent Papa’s handkerchief into a crazy spiral. He watched it like an enraptured child at a puppet show, reaching out a lazy hand to catch it.

In that instant, a colossal maw ringed with serrated teeth opened right in front of his face. Albrec whimpered, broke wind, and stumbled backwards at the same time. The handkerchief hit the ground, the monstrosity roared, and Albrec squealed his most high-pitched squeal and ran back up the tunnel as fast as his legs could carry him.

When he reached the cave mouth, he glanced back over his shoulder.

Papa’s hanky—

A gargantuan flat head surged into the light, trailed by a purplish segmented body. A dozen yellow eyes flickered open and locked onto Albrec. He stumbled outside, not daring to take his gaze off the thing as its sinuous body coiled into the cave and then undulated towards him.

Albrec half-slipped, half-rolled down the scree slope, leaping to his feet with the grace of a far more agile man. The monstrous worm roared from just above him and Albrec never stopped to look back. He scanned the ground for sign of the pebble cross he’d left, heart galloping so fast he feared it would burst.

There! He spotted the cross and started toward it, but the earth ruptured in front of him, and another giant worm started to emerge.

Shit!

He turned and ran to the left, figuring he could cut a semicircle behind it, but another wriggling body burst from the earth to block his way.

Double shit!

Albrec whirled and sprinted in the opposite direction, even as the first worm slithered down the scree slope in a cloud of dust and rubble. A fourth head split the ground ten yards in front of him.

Shitting, shitty shit!

Dozens of the things were surfacing all over the place. Albrec just kept moving, jiggling and wobbling this way and that, screeching and whimpering every time a new worm emerged. He was done for, he knew it.

Curiosity will be the—

Oh, fuck off!

Didn’t I tell you? All that glitters—

Shove it up your arse!

He cut a zigzagging course between the monstrous worms, and suddenly he was through and pelting along hard-packed earth towards the dust cloud following the caravan he’d spotted earlier.

2

Someone had spoken, which must have been what had awakened him.

It was black as the Void, and it stank like a gibuna’s mangy hide.

Or bad breath.

His breath.

His heart lurched, and he gasped.

He must have fallen asleep in a tavern somewhere, drinking himself into oblivion, because he was sitting upright on what felt like a bench. He tried to open his eyes, but the lids were stuck together. He went to wipe away the gunk of sleep, but a chain rattled and his hand came no more than an inch off the bench.

Cloth rasped. Boots scuffed on stone.

Panic bit and he would have stood, but his legs were chained too.

Who’s there? he wanted to ask, but his lips were as sealed as his eyelids. Ice sluiced through his veins. What if they meant him harm? What if they had come to kill him? But who? And more importantly, why?

And then it hit him: the realization that not only did he not know where he was and who was there with him, but he had no idea who he was.

A ruddy haze came into view behind his eyelids. Or was it a stain?

Blood.

He could smell it now.

It had drenched his skin and soaked right through. He saw it in his mind’s eye: rivers of blood, and him bathed in it from hands to elbows, from feet to knees. It spattered his face, matted his beard. He remembered chopping. The rise and fall of an axe. Screams. Mountains of the dead. Demons. He thought he had been killing demons, but they had been dwarves.

And he was a dwarf.

A dwarf with no name.

They had taken it from him, shamed his family forever, made him an outcast lower than even the baresarks who lived at the foot of the ravine—Arx Gravis, the city he called home.

Made him a nameless dwarf.

Which meant things were bad. Things were very bad. Or had it all been a dream? Was he still dreaming?

He needed light. He needed to see. There was something covering his head, which is why it was so hard to breathe.

His eyes strained open, but through the stringy muck that clung to the lashes, all he could see was a strip of grey bordering on black. He blinked and refocused. It was the grey of the walls: finely mortared bricks. Good stonework. Dwarf stonework. But he could hardly see up or down.

He dimly remembered a helm being settled over his head; relived the sensation of it meshing with the flesh of his neck, never to be removed. That’s how they’d done it, how they had stolen his name.

A bald human… That was it: the philosopher who had encased him in an ocras helm. The helm that had belonged to…

It was there one instant, gone the next.

But the voice that had woken him—that stayed with him clear as anything. He knew that voice. It had been the last thing he’d heard before falling into an unnatural slumber.

The philosopher’s voice.

The man who had put him here!

His lips came unstuck and he roared. Fired flooded his veins as he strained every muscle. Bolts shrieked, chains snapped, and he stood.

The Nameless Dwarf swiveled the helm, searching for a toga and a bald head. But the eye-slit came to rest on a brown coat, worn over a white surcoat with a red symbol on the front—a stick person with curves for legs and a horn-topped circle for a head, within which was a single crimson eye. Chainmail glinted beneath the surcoat.

He craned his neck until he saw a lean, angular face beneath a broad-brimmed hat, and dark hair that fell below the shoulders.

The man in his field of vision stepped back, and the Nameless Dwarf pivoted the helm to track him.

There was an iron door in the background, with a grille at head-height to a dwarf, but chest-high to this human. The room itself was circular, the ceiling festooned with cobwebs. Dust was steeped about the floor.

The man’s hands came up, and the Nameless Dwarf raised his fists instinctively. Fear or rage glinted in the human’s eyes. It was difficult to say which, given his stony face. Rage then, the Nameless Dwarf decided, advancing a step, for the man had the look of a fighter.

The human feigned one way then darted the other. The Nameless Dwarf slung out a hook that should have pulverized him, but his timing was off and he struck the wall instead. Pain flared, and the skin of his knuckles split. He went for an uppercut, but the man was fast and twisted aside. He backed the shogger against the door, saw the rage turn to fear in his eyes. But then he saw something