THE CHRONICLES OF THE NAMELESS DWARF

FIRST CHRONICLE

THE ANT-MAN OF MALFEN

D.P. Prior

THE CHRONICLES OF THE NAMELESS DWARF

FIRST CHRONICLE

THE ANT-MAN OF MALFEN

D.P. Prior

First Edition, 2010

Copyright © D.P. Prior 2010

All rights reserved

The right of D.P. Prior to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All the characters in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not be, by way of trade or otherwise, lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form, binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed upon the subsequent purchaser.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Theo Prior for the map of Central Malkuth, and for listening to my interminable ramblings on those long walks to the comic shop in Naperville;

Jessica Gallegos for the space in which to write;

Melanie Knill for the use of the dining room table;

David Dalglish for reading the initial short story;

Harry Dewulf for help with the Aeternam.

I am also vastly indebted to C.S. Marks for her support and encouragement, the incredible gift of the cover art, and for braving the blizzard to get it to me on time.

Praise for the SHADER series by D.P. Prior:

“Rich and varied, touching, maddening, and addicting. Elegant, polished, and believable characters in an amazing world.”

Archelle Baker (eBook Alchemy)

“Ever-widening in its scope - fearless in its telling.

I cannot help but be reminded of Stephen King's The Dark Tower series, not just in the interweaving of time epochs and worlds but also in the author's sheer fearlessness.

From earth to heaven to alternate worlds, the story is unrelenting in its incredible vision.”

David Dalglish (author of The Half-Orcs series)

“Complex and intriguing; intelligent and engaging; descriptive enough to invoke all senses. The style is a nice mix—fast-paced and contemporary, yet with classical prose and imagery to satisfy those of us who love the old masters.”

C.S. Marks (author of Elfhunter)

Foreword

It’s perhaps unusual to offer a foreword for a novella, particularly in its first edition. I thought it might be helpful, however, as The Ant-Man of Malfen isn’t simply an island.

Whilst the story stands alone—whatever background is necessary has been provided along the way—it does have a definite place in my fantasy works.

The Nameless Dwarf first saw the light of day more than thirty years ago. Back then I was an avid role-player. My brother, Peter, and I were members of a war-gaming society that met in a shabby hut at the back of the public toilets at the Archery recreation grounds in Eastbourne.

Peter had penned a great hack and slash dungeon that no one had ever survived. Finally, after countless dismal efforts, a mighty party of adventurers was assembled. We’d stopped caring about subtleties of characterisation, secondary skills, and attempts at realism. Instead, some of the finest gamers I’d ever played with put together a team designed specifically to take on The Octon’s Lair. It was with such a mission in mind that the original Nameless Dwarf was born, a veritable tank, plate-armoured from head to toe and wielding a vicious battle axe.

Nameless survived. The Octon and his goons, alas, did not.

Nameless was a long-lived character who went on to survive campaign after campaign, finally growing so powerful that I decided to retire him. He wasn’t just powerful, mind, he was also a lucky bastard.

About ten years ago a friend decided to relight the old D&D spark and so I brought Nameless out of retirement—in a sense. I recreated him from scratch and nearly lost him on that first adventure when he drew the Death card from a Deck of Many Things. Luck prevailed again: Nameless hadn’t lost his knack for getting just the right roll of the die.

That would have been an end to the character as I lost interest in role playing games (the endless tomes of rules seemed to completely miss the point of the earlier editions).

When I first conceived the SHADER series of books, I thought it would be fun to give Nameless a cameo. As the plans began to grow, however, and I fleshed out the world, it became clear that there was a much bigger role for him. By the time I’d started drafting the third book in the series, The Archon’s Assassin, Nameless had moved firmly to centre stage, along with his old D&D buddy, Shadrak the Unseen.

Nameless leaves the SHADER story at the end of The Archon’s Assassin, and this is where The Chronicles of the Nameless Dwarf begin. They recount the aftermath of his tragic rise to power and chart the course of his journey towards either death or redemption.

CENTRAL MALKUTH

From the Nils Fargin Collection, Scriptorium of the Academy, New Jerusalem

(Year of the Reckoning: 916)

THE CHRONICLES OF THE NAMELESS DWARF

First Chronicle

THE ANT-MAN OF MALFEN

D.P. Prior

Nils ducked into the tavern’s porch and pushed his rain-slicked hair out of his face. He shivered and hugged himself, wondering how clear violet sky in every direction could suddenly give way to a sagging sheet of blackness.

Where the Abyss had the cold come from? Only minutes ago he’d been sweltering. If Nils had known it was going to be like this he’d have packed some warmer clothes. He fancied he could hear his mum’s nagging voice all the way from New Jerusalem: “What did I tell you? You’re just like your father, Nils Fargin—you never listen, the pair of you.”

Nils threw a quick look at his companion who waited in the meagre shelter of a barren yew. The dwarf’s face was swamped by a mass of sodden hair and beard. He too was hugging himself for warmth but other than that he stood stock-still; so still in fact that he appeared as rooted as the tree. His sombre clothes, all blacks and browns, merged with the charcoal skies. If Nils hadn’t known the dwarf was there he would have looked straight through him.

Sticking up above the dwarf’s shoulder was the cloth-wrapped head of an axe, which he’d bundled up to protect it from the rain. He carried a bulging pack on his back; whatever was inside had scraped and clanged as they walked.

Shifty bastards, dwarves, thought Nils. Canny, his dad called them, and tough as mountains. Least they had been till they’d up and left the land of Malkuth, abandoning their ravine city of Arx Gravis following the defeat of their tyrannical ruler. As far as Nils knew, his nameless companion could be the last of his kind, for if the rumours were true—if the survivors of Arx Gravis had gone into the nightmare realm of Qlippoth—there was slim to no chance of seeing them again.

The thrumming of the rain on the tin porch gave way to the fierce pelting of hail and sleet. The racket was deafening, making it hard for Nils to think.

The dwarf didn’t seem to notice—he was like a stony statue set beneath the yew tree to glare perpetually at the entrance to the tavern. It was as if he served as a warning to the ne’er-do-wells and rogues within. Either that or he was cursed, barred for all eternity, and desiring nothing more than to enter into the warm, smoky interior so that he could taste some ale.

At least that’s what Nils thought taverns were like. They seemed that way in the stories, the sort of place a weary traveller could hang up his hat, cross his feet atop a broad oak table and grow mightily drunk. Heck, there might even be a serving of hot broth and a buxom wench to ease away his travel sores.

Nils knew next to nothing about any of that. What he did know was that he was shogging cold and wanted nothing more than to finish this job, warm himself by the fire, and then get as far away from the borders as he could. For all his griping, his home back in New Jerusalem suddenly seemed like one of the Seven Halls of Araboth.

He lifted one leg at a time to brush off the dried mud he’d picked up on the trail. Five days of hard going across some of the wildest land in Malkuth.

They’d left New Jerusalem by the Old Straight Road that had been built by the dwarves centuries ago as a sort of penance following the Technocrat, Sektis Gandaw’s first attempt at unweaving all of creation. After fording the Origo River and cutting west through Clarus Wood, they’d crossed the inland Chalice Sea to Lowright. There had followed an arduous trek beneath the Gramble Range and then over the great plains of the Outlands until they’d spotted the scattered settlements of what were effectively tribes of brigands.

No one came out here unless they were desperate. Either that, or they had dealings with the proprietor of the only tavern for miles around. The dwarf, Nils figured, was the former, whereas Nils himself, being a professional, was most definitely the latter. He might never have been in a tavern before, might never have snogged a woman, and might have only had his first shave a week ago, but at this moment, Nils Fargin was someone important.

Since Shadrak the Unseen had fled New Jerusalem following the assassination of the newly elected mayor, Mal Vatés, Nils’s dad had been the top dog in the underworld. Anyone who wanted a job doing came to Buck Fargin and his Night Hawks. It was a guild to be feared, and Nils was rightly proud of that. Mind you, back home, Nils was a little fish in a big pond; out here in the borderlands it was a different story. Big fish, little pond, Nils nodded to himself. No—more than that—he was a bloody shark.

And so, with a final look at the stoic dwarf and a last minute straightening of his collar, Nils puffed out his chest, sucked in a deep breath, and pushed open the door of The Grinning Skull.

The pelting on the tin roof gave way to the hum of voices, the clatter of spoons in bowls, the jingle of change and peals of barking laughter. The place was heaving and thick with smoke. Hops were strong in the air, blending with the scent of ripe apples. Nils took a step into the throng and found his face pressed against something soft and warm. Sweet musk inflamed his nostrils, sending a delicate thrill along his spine.

“Steady there,” said a husky voice.

Nils drew his head out of a mountain of cleavage, barely able to take his eyes off the milky flesh pressed up high above a black leather bodice.

The woman was looking at him with her head cocked and one eyebrow slightly raised. Nils pretended to peer over her shoulder as if he were searching for someone in the crowd, but he still managed to notice her cat-like eyes and the scar running down one tanned, high-boned cheek. Her hair was glossy and black, tumbling loosely over her shoulders.

Nils squeezed past, mumbling apologetically. He glanced at her arse as he went, noting its lift and the way it pressed against her leather breeches. He also registered the length of steel strapped to her hip, and the bone hilt of a dagger sheathed on the opposite side.

Nils had never set foot in a tavern before and wasn’t quite sure what to do next; but he was a quick learner, so his dad always said. Back in New Jerusalem he’d picked a few pockets as the drunks spilled out of the bars, and they’d been good pickings. Those were city-folk, though, all dolled up and dandified; nothing like this crowd. These were hard folk—bandits, thieves and assassins. These were his kind of people.

Nils took another big breath and fingered the pommel of his sword, peering through the milling bodies. He knew Jankson Brau was a mage of some sort but it seemed unlikely he’d be decked out in a pointy hat and silken robes. Best place to ask was at the bar, he supposed, and so he squirmed through the drinkers and leaned over the counter, first crossing his arms one way and then the other.

He caught the barmaid’s eye and opened his mouth to order. He wasn’t sure what to ask for but everyone else seemed to be downing frothing flagons of beer.

“Ale—”

The word was swept away in the hubbub and the barmaid turned to a swarthy no-neck with a head like a leathery egg. Nils was about to protest but thought better of it when the bloke shot him a smile that resembled a gaping wound. His forehead was deeply lined and protruding like tiers of trellises; close-set hard eyes studied Nils coldly. The man’s great bulk was at least as much muscle as fat. Nils winked his approval that the bloke was welcome to be served first.

Someone roughly pushed past him to get to the bar and Nils found himself straining on tiptoe in an attempt to attract the barmaid’s attention.

“Buy you a drink?”

It was the black-clad woman again, her mouth pressed close to his ear. Nils hadn’t seen her approach; he’d heard nothing either above the din. He was starting to feel exposed and vulnerable, but nevertheless, he couldn’t resist breathing in her scent.

“Nah, I’m okay, love.” Nils raised his purse and jingled it at the bar.

Silence fell around him in a small circle that swiftly spread like ripples across the surface of a lake. The only sound that remained was the striking of flint on steel as a grimy young girl tried to light the fire.

“Put it away,” the dark-haired woman took hold of his hand between hers and pressed it down.

She gave Nils a motherly smile, but he couldn’t help noticing how her lips glistened; how the tip of her tongue peeked through and wetted them. Nils dropped his gaze to her swollen breasts and then lowered it again until he was staring at her boots. He felt his cheeks burning and knew he’d gone bright red.

“Mina,” she broke the silence without raising her voice. “Ale for my young friend here.”

“Right you are, Ilesa,” the barmaid said with the sort of deference you’d expect from a courtier to a queen.

The moment she pulled on the pump and the amber liquid splashed into the tankard, the hubbub resumed and Nils no longer felt the entire tavern was looking daggers at him.

“All that money you’re carrying,” said Ilesa passing him the tankard. “You looking to hire someone?”

“Hardly,” said Nils, sipping the ale and doing his best not to wince at the bitter taste. “I’m up from New Jerusalem on a job.”

He watched her closely to gauge the reaction. Her pupils widened slightly but she remained stony-faced.

“What kind of job?”

Nils tapped the side of his nose with his finger.

“Oh, you know the sort of thing. Guild business.”

“Really?” said Ilesa, her eyebrows lifting. “Well I guess you must be someone. Not like this rabble, eh?”

Nils glanced around the room whilst pretending to drink the ale.

“Yeah,” he chuckled. “Could say that. Mind you, you don’t exactly look like one of the local—” He leaned in close so that he could whisper. “—riff-raff. Reckon you must be someone too.”

Ilesa’s eyes flicked to Nils’s money pouch. When they returned to his gaze she looked bored and disinterested, as if he’d somehow failed a test.

“Listen, I’ve got things to do,” she said. “Enjoy your drink, and don’t go waving that money about anymore.”

“Sure,” said Nils, raising his tankard. “Oh,” he called to her back. “Do you know where I can find Jankson Brau?”

A corridor immediately opened up between the drinkers, leading to a long table beside the fire.

Three men sat one side of the table, all wearing studded leather and armed to the teeth. Opposite them sat a robed and turbaned man whom Nils took to be a merchant, judging by swell of his belly beneath his velvet robes, and the jewels dripping like sweat from gold chains beneath the rolls of his chin. He was flanked by a hunched over scribe and a lean bespectacled man whose hands clutched a bulging pouch as if it were a chicken’s neck. Between the two groups, at the head of the table, sat a man in robes the colour of blood, and sporting a crooked pointy hat.

“I think he’s making it easy for you,” said Ilesa, indicating the wizardly looking man with a flick of her wrist. “Good luck,” she cast over her shoulder as she strutted away with a mesmerising roll of her hips.

Jankson Brau was studying Nils with the intensity of a rattle-snake about to strike. His eyes were unnaturally blue, like polished sapphire, and ringed with a disturbing corona of yellow. The tip of his sickle-shaped nose almost met the rising curve of his chin, and sandwiched between the two was a narrow slit of a mouth. It was an ancient face, bloodless and mask-like.

Nils’s heart seemed to flutter down to his stomach like a trapped bird. His mouth was dry so he took a swig of ale, coughed, and then tried to meet Brau’s gaze.

“Buy you a drink?” said Nils, doing his best to imitate the confidence Ilesa had exuded when making the same offer to him.

Roars of laughter went up around the tavern and the corridor began to close. Nils slipped through and stood at the edge of the table.

“Why would I need you to buy for me what is already mine?” Jankson Brau’s voice was thin and lisping.

“Point taken,” said Nils, wondering how to proceed. He wracked his brains thinking about what his dad would say next.

“Don’t bother,” said Brau without changing the expression on his face. “Your father’s an idiot who’d struggle to articulate a request for somewhere to shit.”

Nils’s mind reeled. He hadn’t expected that, and more to the point, how had Jankson Brau known what he was thinking? His eyes alighted on the pointy hat and that particular matter became much clearer.

“My father’s head of the Night Hawks in New Jerusalem,” Nils stuck out his chin and checked to see who was listening. “I doubt you’d say that to his face.”

The three goons snickered, but Brau showed no reaction besides drumming his fingers on the tabletop. Nils could have sworn that little tongues of fire sparked off at the contact.

Without warning, Brau swept his arm towards the merchant and his men. As if struck by a hurricane, they flew across the room on their chairs and crashed into a huddle of drinkers. The fat merchant scrambled to his feet and hurriedly ducked out of the tavern followed by the hunchback. The bespectacled man stooped to pick up the coins that had spilled from his pouch, thought better of it, and bowed and scraped his way to the door. No one complained in the slightest. Apparently, the clientele of The Grinning Skull knew better; a couple of them even reset the chairs at Brau’s table before nodding and backing away.

Brau turned his palm up to indicate that Nils should sit.

“Little men often carry big ideas of who they are,” he said as Nils seated himself opposite the armed men. “In the case of Shadrak the Unseen, I’d say he wasn’t too far from the mark; but he’s the exception rather than the rule. Whilst it is admirable for a son to look up to his father,” Brau inclined his head towards Nils, aureate coronas shimmering, “it is far more important that an operative in your line of work learns how to see clearly. Your father is an arse. Do I make myself clear?”

Nils gulped and felt his face flush again, only this time for a different reason.

“Clear sight,” Brau went on as if he didn’t really expect a response. “Take the example of our friend, Ilesa. Your brain was addled by the size of her breasts, am I right?”

Nils shook his head but couldn’t think of anything to say.

“You’re not the first. I’m sure they are magnificent.”

There were nods and grunts of agreement from the three heavies.

“But,” said Brau raising a finger to emphasise his point, “they are not real.”

Nils frowned his lack of understanding.

“Magical enhancement,” said Brau. “Illusion. Ilesa changes her appearance in order to get what she wants. Now that she knows you’re not looking to hire, she’s probably as flat-chested as you are.”

“Shame,” said one of the heavies.

“Shut up, Danton,” said Brau without even sparing the man a look.

Nils twisted his neck to peer over his shoulder as someone started strumming a banjo and crooning in a voice like a suffocating bear. The crowds started to pull away from the fire to stand in a rough semi-circle about the musician. Tankards were raised and a chorus of whoops and jeers went up before most of the tavern was singing along.

“Entertainment,” Brau said, stifling a yawn. “Keeps the masses distracted. Keeps them in their place; but I guess you know that, what with you being a big man from the big city. Must have been terribly exciting during the siege.”

Exciting wasn’t exactly the word Nils would have chosen. He’d been packed up and ready to flee with the rest of the guild. They’d forced the mad mage, Magwitch, to open up a portal that would have taken them into the middle of nowhere, but thankfully the siege had been broken, and the dwarves had fled back to Arx Gravis.

Nils didn’t know a lot about the causes of the war, only that it began when an upstart dictator overthrew the Council of Twelve in the ravine city, butchered his opponents, and then fanned the flames of hatred against the Senate and people of New Jerusalem.

No one had seen hide nor hair of the underground dwellers for centuries until they spilled forth from the earth like an army of ants whose nest had been disturbed. Within days they’d torched the lands around New Jerusalem and set their sappers to work on the Cyclopean Walls.

Rumour had it that Shadrak the Unseen played a not insignificant part in the defeat of the despot, but then he’d taken off and left the guild up for grabs. The dwarves withdrew from contact with the surface once more, and soon after they left Arx Gravis. That was kind of the point of Nils’s mission.

“My client,” he said with the requisite gravity, “seeks the survivors of Arx Gravis; those who fled the ravine city after the siege of New Jerusalem.”

Jankson Brau sat up and clasped his fingers before him on the table.

“Really? And who is this client of yours?”

Nils was a little embarrassed about that. He didn’t rightly know. He shrugged.

“Don’t know his name. Said he didn’t have one. He just said he needed to find the dwarves.”

Jankson Brau’s eyes narrowed.

“Did he now?”

Nils didn’t like the tone of his voice. He felt he was being toyed with, mocked.

“Paid my dad a lot of money for information. Our snitches said they’d been seen heading towards Malfen.”

Nils suppressed a shudder. Malfen was the last outpost of Malkuth, a border-town of cutthroats ruled over by the notorious Shent, said by some to be a left-over from the experiments of Sektis Gandaw. Nils didn’t know about that and didn’t really care. Dad had been quite clear in his instructions: lead the dwarf to The Grinning Skull amongst the bandit dwellings outlying Malfen, introduce him to Brau and then head straight back home.

Brau apparently knew everybody’s business in this neck of the woods. All traffic passing through Malfen came to his attention. He undoubtedly had some sort of arrangement with Shent, maybe even warned him of pending visitors. It wasn’t a lot of traffic, mind, for what sane, self-respecting person would have business in such a den of scum? Besides which, there was nothing beyond Malfen save for the cursed lands of Qlippoth. No one would go there. At least no one without a death-wish.

Brau was leaning towards Nils now.

“So, where is he then?”

“Outside,” Nils cocked a thumb towards the door. “Said he didn’t want to draw attention.”

“Attention to what?” asked Brau.

“Fact that he’s a dwarf.” Actually, Nils thought the dwarf had mumbled something about avoiding temptation, not drawing attention, but his version seemed to make more sense.

Brau sat back in his chair and made swirling patterns on the table with the flat of his hand.

“A dwarf looking for dwarves in the vicinity of Malfen,” he mused out loud.

Nils nodded.

“Funny that,” said Brau to the grunted agreement of his thugs. “Whole bunch of dwarves passed through here not so long ago. Hundreds of them, I’d say. Said they were heading for Qlippoth. Good luck to you, I said, but—” Brau rocked suddenly forward and fixed Nils with his two-toned eyes. “—no one gets into Qlippoth without first passing the Ant-Man.”

Nils swallowed.

“A-a-ant-man? You mean S-S-Shent?”

“He’ll expect payment at the very least,” said Brau. “As do I.” He held out his hand.

Nils shook his head.

“I’m sorry?”

The three heavies pushed back their chairs and stood, hands on hips. They were all watching Nils with dark eyes. Nils cast a look around. Maybe Ilesa was still there. She’d seemed friendly enough. He thought he saw her amongst the spectators gathered around the musician, but no one even batted an eyelid in Nils’s direction. He may as well have been alone with Brau and his goons.

Reluctantly, Nils opened his purse and began to count out some coins.

“How much?” he asked in as manly a voice as he could muster.

Brau snatched the purse from him.

“More than you’ve got there, boy.”

“But—”

One of the heavies reached over the table and dragged Nils out of his chair by the collar. Nils knew he should do something, knew he should draw his sword, but it was all he could do to stop his bladder from leaking.

“The choice is simple—” Brau was saying as the door flew open and a gust of wind sprayed them with sleet.

The thug released his grip on Nils’s collar and everyone in the tavern turned to look at the figure in the doorway.

The dwarf stood there, sodden and miserable. His beard and hair were plastered to his face. His eyes were like pools of mud. He stood motionless, the rain dripping from his dour clothes and forming a puddle on the floorboards. The axe was in his hand, unwrapped, its twin blades gleaming orange in the glow from the fire.

The dwarf sniffed the air and nodded in the direction of the bar. He then casually leaned the axe against a table, un-shouldered his pack and dropped it on the floor. Raising a curling eyebrow at Nils, he took a step into the tavern.

“You okay, laddie?” his voice rolled out across the room.

Nils swallowed and smiled lamely at the man holding him.

“Um,” was the only thing he could manage to say.

The dwarf grinned and waved to the gawping crowd.

“Carry on lads, carry on. Madam,” he winked at Ilesa and gave a little bow. “A tavern is a place for making merry. Play on, sir bard, and if you’re half decent I’ll stand you a drink.”

Nils slipped back down in his chair and watched as the dwarf strode up to the bar. He couldn’t quite see over the top but he reached up with a meaty fist and rapped hard on it.

“Bar-wench,” he called. “A flagon of stout and the same again for my friend.”

The dwarf then turned to Jankson Brau with a big toothy smile gaping beneath his moustache.

“Toss that over here, laddie,” he indicated Nils’s purse and then patted his own pockets to show they were empty. “Unless this round’s on the house.”

Brau looked like he was about to comply, but then took a hold of himself.

“Who the shog do you think you are to talk to me like that? Why, you shogging little stunted—”

The dwarf reached up and took the two flagons from the bar and sauntered over to the table, plonking himself in the chair next to Nils.

“That’s a lot of wasted words, laddie. I don’t mind an insult in a tavern, but two is taking it a bit far. Now little and stunted mean pretty much the same thing, so I’ll grant you that as one. Shogging has an altogether different meaning, making it two. If you stop there, you’ll be all right. Three, though, would be no trifling matter.”

Brau’s jaw hung slack as the dwarf took a deep draught of his beer and then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Froth clung to his beard like the scum hemming the coast of the Chalice Sea.

The three thugs didn’t seem to know what to do with themselves. Their eyes flicked between Brau and the dwarf. Finally, one of them spoke.

“Do you want us to sort him, guv?”

The other two drifted into position behind the dwarf’s chair.

Brau’s eyes lingered on them for a long moment and then he turned his gaze on the dwarf.

“Your friend says you are looking for the dwarves of Arx Gravis.”

“True, true,” said the dwarf, taking another gulp of stout and raising his empty tankard. “More!” he bellowed across the room.

“What happened?” asked Brau with a sneer. “They leave you behind?”

The dwarf glowered at that and all his good humour seemed to dissipate.

“Not exactly,” he mumbled into his beard. “It’s more a case of them fleeing and me following.”

Brau’s eyes widened.

“It’s you,” he said at last. “You’re the one who made them march on New Jerusalem. You’re the one who slaughtered them if they refused.”

A lump suddenly formed in Nils’s gut; his mind was whirling with the possibilities of what might have happened on the journey from New Jerusalem—what still could happen. The Ravine Butcher! Here. Right next to him.

Nils inched his chair back but stopped dead when it scraped against the floor. He ground his teeth and cringed as a nervy tingle crept across his skin. It was the same feeling he used to get whenever Magistra Archyr raked her fingernails across the chalkboard to silence the class.

The dwarf stared into his empty tankard. “Then you know I must find them.”

Brau laughed and clapped his hands.“Why? So you can finish what you started? No wonder they’re willing to risk the horrors of Qlippoth.”

“No,” the dwarf looked up from under craggy brows. “I need to show them there’s nothing left to fear.” He spoke almost to himself. “I need to bring them back from Qlippoth before it’s too late; before they are lost forever.”

The barmaid approached the table like an obedient dog and set a full tankard in front of the dwarf. He gripped the handle and studied the froth.

Brau glanced at his thugs and, with the slightest of gestures, sent them over to the bar. They took up their perches on stools and made a show of watching the musician, but Nils could tell they were still keeping an eye on the table.

The dwarf tilted his head back and drained the tankard in one long draught. He belched loudly, wiped his mouth and then shook the tankard at the barmaid for another refill.

“I told you, laddie,” he let out a rancid burp in Nils’s face, “it’d be too much of a temptation coming in here.”

Nils grimaced and coughed as far back in his throat as he could manage. He was starting to see what he meant. He was also getting worried that the dwarf was playing right into Brau’s hands. The wizard was watching him drink with a slightly bemused but self-satisfied grin. He caught Nils’s glance and the grin turned into a smirk.

“Tell me,” Brau said to the dwarf, “why is it you have no name? I’d understand if the shame of your recent activities led to your being stripped of it, but I heard you had no name when you usurped power from the Council of Twelve.”

“Nothing wrong with your hearing then.” The dwarf accepted another drink from the barmaid, who’d had the foresight to bring a huge pitcher to the table. She glanced at Brau, who nodded.

“You’ve heard of the Pax Nanorum?” said the dwarf.

“The Black Axe of the Dwarf Lords?” Brau made a steeple of his finger-tips. “I heard that was the source of your power. Funny, though, I’d always thought it was just part of the foundation myth of Arx Gravis.”

The dwarf sloshed some more ale into his tankard from the pitcher. His eyes were glazing over and he was starting to slur his speech.

“It’sh real enough,” he said. “Though my brother got shmall thanksh for dishcovering it. Bashtards killed him. I went after the axe. Found it in Gehenna.”

Nils was starting to lose interest. Either the dwarf was talking nonsense because he was drunk, or he was mad. He suspected it was a bit of both. Brau, however, was listening intently. Perhaps he was just humouring him, Nils thought.

The dwarf swilled the beer in his tankard.

“Shuch...shuch power,” he said as if he were speaking about a lost lover. “Shuch shtrength. Could have been the shalvation of my people.”

Brau leaned forward, keeping his voice soft.

“But they took it from you; didn’t trust you with all that might. They wanted it for themselves, am I right?”

The dwarf continued to stare into the depths of his flagon.

“No. They didn’t want it at all. It was the axe they didn’t trusht. I…I grew angry. I…I took control of the counshil.”

He turned and indicated his pack by the door with a jab of his thumb.

“Shogging phiosh…philosho…wizard trapped me. It’sh in the bag…Shogging helm broke the link with the axe. Shtole most of my memory and my name with it.”

The dwarf turned back to his drink and took another gulp.

“Couldn’t remove the helm and the shogger had to feed me with magic. Told me there was a way to remove it without me shuccumbing to the axe. Shtupid shogger got it wrong. I grew…grew too shtrong. I did…shuch things. Shuch things.”

He looked up and there were tears in his eyes.

“That’sh why they’re running. My people. I harmed my people.”

Jankson Brau poured him another drink from the pitcher.

“So the helm stole your memory and your name, eh?”

The dwarf nodded, a trail of drool rolling down his chin.

“S’right. Memory came back once the helm was broken, but the name’sh gone. Gone. Without a name you’re no one. Can’t be a dwarf with no name.”

“So what do we call you?” said Brau.

“Shadrak used to call me Namelesh…Nameless. A good friend. Good, good friend.”

Nameless’ head thumped onto the table.

Nils winced. That had to hurt. Or at least it would when the dwarf came round.

Brau rubbed his hands together with glee.

“I’ve heard of this helm,” he said clicking his fingers and pointing to the dwarf’s pack.

One of the heavies fetched it for him. Brau unfastened the straps and pulled out a concave piece of black metal. Nils leaned closer. It was one half of a full-faced great helm. The black metal was veined with green, which sparkled even in the dim light of the tavern.

“Scarolite,” Brau said as he pulled the other half of the helm out of the pack. “The puissant ore of the homunculi. Worth a bloody fortune. Gentlemen,” he raised the two halves of the helm so his thugs could see. “We’ve hit the jackpot.”

The crowd around the musician broke away so that they could gawp at the helm, muttering to each other, nodding and pointing.

Nils stood and tugged down the front of his shirt.

“Well,” he said. “I guess that’s our business concluded. Introductions made and all that. I’ll be off then.”

Two beefy hands clamped down on his shoulders. He’d not even seen the heavies move, he’d been so focused on the dwarf and his helm.

“There’s still the small matter of my consultation fee,” said Brau.

“Everything I have is in that purse,” said Nils. “You can keep it.”

Brau stuck out his lower lip and looked genuinely sad.

“Not enough. Not by a long chalk.”

“That’s right, boss,” said one of the thugs. “Reckon we should sell him to the Ant-Man.”

Nils struggled to break free but both his wrists were deftly twisted into locks. The thug on his right tweaked the back of Nils’s hand, sending shooting pains all the way to his shoulder. Nils squealed and bent double, both arms held up straight behind him, his elbows extended almost to breaking point.

“Ordinarily,” said Brau, “I’d demand a ransom, but knowing your father for the scum-bag he is I think it’d be a waste of time. Tony’s right, I could sell you to Shent, but he doesn’t pay too well these days. Might be easier if we just slice and dice you ourselves, unless you’ve got a better idea.”

Brau looked at Nils expectantly.

“My dad will pay,” Nils insisted. “I know he will.”

“My dear boy,” said Brau, “you really must get a grip on this emotional thinking. Your father would laugh in my face if I asked him for a ransom. Do you really think he prizes you above money? Clear thinking is what’s needed here, not idealistic fancy. What do you think, Danton?” He turned to the third thug who was looming over the unconscious dwarf. “Is it worth the effort of taking him to Malfen for the sake of a few Dupondii?”

Danton rubbed his chin and then his eyes lit up.

“There are two of them,” he said. “Double the takings.”

“No, no, no,” said Brau. “The dwarf’s too dangerous. If any of the stories about him are true, we can’t risk him getting away from Shent and coming for revenge. Take him outside and kill him. No, take them both outside. I really can’t be bothered to think about this anymore.”

Nils tried to kick out at the shins of both men holding him, but with his arms locked behind him all he could manage was to prance about on tiptoe. With practised coordination, the thugs bent his elbows, and ran his wrists through to the front of his body, gripping his hands by the thumbs. Then they leaned into the back of his shoulders and frog-marched him towards the door.

“No,” Nils cried out. “I can get you the money!”

Brau wasn’t listening. He was fitting the two halves of the black helm together and muttering to himself. Nils caught Ilesa’s eye but she just blew him a kiss.

His captors turned him around to face the table once more.

“What about him?” one of them asked, indicating the dwarf.

“I’ve got him,” said Danton, grabbing a fistful of beard and yanking the dwarf from his chair.

Nameless hit the floor like a sack of potatoes and Danton started to drag him along. The thugs were about to turn Nils around again when Nameless’ hand shot out and grabbed Danton by the ankle. With a terrific surge of strength the dwarf flipped Danton onto his back and clambered to his feet. Before Danton could recover, the dwarf’s booted foot came down on his neck with a sickening crack.

The two thugs holding Nils dumped him on the floor and drew daggers.

The Nameless Dwarf snatched up a chair and grinned. Nils was shocked to see the sparkle in his dark eyes—the dwarf was clearly enjoying himself and not showing the slightest sign of drunkenness. In fact, he looked fresher and more alert than he’d done before he started drinking. It was as if the thrill of violence had burned the alcohol from his blood.

The man Brau had called Tony lunged at Nameless, who deftly side-stepped and smashed the chair over his head. Tony collapsed from the waist, right into the path of Nameless’ knee. There was a spray of blood as his nose split like ripe fruit, and then the dwarf stepped in to pummel Tony’s torso with his fists as if he were tenderising a shank of mutton.

Maybe Nameless was still a little drunk, Nils wondered, as the dwarf paid no attention to the other thug who was advancing more cautiously. Nameless seemed lost in his own world, thumping out a rhythm on Tony’s rib cage. Incredibly, Tony kept his feet but he swayed and swaggered until Nameless cracked him a meaty right under the chin and Tony went down hard.

That was the moment the other thug leapt. Nameless turned and grabbed his wrist, staying the knife a mere hair’s breadth from his face. The dwarf swung with his other fist but the thug caught his forearm and the two were locked in a grapple. The thug’s neck veins stood out like earthworms and his face turned purple with effort. Nameless’ arms were knotted and swollen but his face was eerily calm. The thug made the mistake of looking him in the eye, clearly trying to rattle him, the way boxers did at the fights Nils’s dad had taken him to. It was a mistake. The man saw the effortless ease with which the dwarf held him and must have realised he was being toyed with.

Nils saw an orange flare out of the corner of his eye and turned to see Brau, still seated, with fire forming at the ends of his fingers. Nils tried to shout a warning but his mouth was dry and no sound came out. Without thinking, he drew his sword and ran the thug through the back. The man crumpled to his knees and toppled sideways to the floor.

The flames swelled around Brau’s hands, the air about them rippling. Nameless suddenly spun, overturned the table and leapt at Brau. Before the mage could react, Nameless had him by the wrists and shoved his flame-wrapped hands into his own face. Brau screamed as his flesh popped and sizzled, and when Nameless released him his face was a charred and weeping mess.

Cold steel touched Nils’s throat and he froze.

“That’s enough,” said Ilesa. “Back away or I bleed the boy.”

Nameless took hold of Brau by the hair and slammed his head against the wall. The wizard slid to the floor.

“There’s a touch of magic about you, girlie,” said the dwarf, advancing on her.

Nameless’ eyes smouldered and, to Nils, there was an aura about him that made him seem as hard as stone. He was like the indomitable elements outside. Right now, Nils wouldn’t have wanted to be Ilesa for all the gold in Aethir.

“Last warning, stumpy,” she said, pressing the blade a little harder and breaking the skin.

Nils felt a trickle of blood rolling down his neck. He was shaking now and the pressure in his bladder was getting uncontrollable. What if the dwarf didn’t care? What if he just came at her and she slit his throat to make her point? This was not a good situation. Not good at all.

Nameless glowered and strode towards them. Ilesa backed away, pulling Nils by the hair as she kept him between her and the dwarf. Suddenly, she yelped and fell, Nameless’ axe clattering to the floor behind her. Nils broke away and ran to stand with the dwarf.

Ilesa still had hold of her dagger and rolled to her feet. She retreated through the door into the porch, drawing her sword with the other hand and narrowing her eyes. Nils noticed the absence of cleavage. Clearly she preferred the flat-chested look for fighting.

Nameless continued towards her unperturbed and picked up his axe. He slapped the haft into his palm and gave a satisfied growl. Ilesa stumbled back, almost tripped over her own feet, then turned and scarpered.

“Hmm,” said Nameless watching her go. “Nice arse for a human.”

“Don’t go there,” said Nils. “She can change shape to get what she wants.”

“Interesting,” said the dwarf. “Do you think she could lose a bit of height and sprout facial hair?”

Nils frowned at him but Nameless was already on his way back over to the upturned table. He picked up the two pieces of the great helm and stared at them for a moment before placing them back in his pack. He gave Jankson Brau a prod with his foot but the mage just groaned.

“Shog,” said Nameless. “I was going to ask him if he’d seen any dwarves come through here.”

Nils puffed out his chest.

“They did. Told me that before you came in. I was just on my way out to tell you when you barged in and nearly ruined a bloody good piece of work. That’s what you hired me for: professionalism they call it.”

Nameless snorted and his eyes narrowed beneath their ledge-like brows. Nils felt an icy knot in his stomach and licked his lips so that he could carry on.

“He said a whole bunch of dwarves passed through on their way to Qlippoth. That means they must have gone to Malfen. It’s the last border town and there’s nowhere else for food and supplies within a hundred miles.”

“Good,” said Nameless chewing on the end of his moustache. “Good, good, excellent. Coming?” The dwarf strode to the door and peered out at the roiling clouds beyond the porch. “It’s a fine day for a stroll.”

Nils scampered after him.

“That wasn’t part of the deal, remember? My job was to get you to Brau, nothing more.”

“True, true,” said Nameless. “And I thank you for your service. Good. Very good. Well done.”

With that, the Nameless Dwarf wandered out into the rain bellowing a tuneless song. Nils couldn’t quite catch the words, but he was sure there was something about a fat-bottomed girl and a flagon of ale.

Nils watched the dwarf disappear into the storm and then went to gather his coins and pouch. Jankson Brau stirred and muttered something. Fearing it might be a spell, Nils made a run for it.

He briefly considered going after the dwarf, but then common sense got the better of him and he turned east for the long trek home to New Jerusalem.

***

The rain clouds scattered before a fierce northerly wind. By the time Aethir’s twin suns had dipped below the horizon, Nameless’ good humour had passed behind a heavy curtain of blackness.

The dark moods were never far from the surface these days. He’d always been prone to bouts of melancholy, but they’d grown more frequent and crippling since the atrocities at Arx Gravis; since the finding of the black axe.

Even now, the merest thought of the Pax Nanorum sent the acid burn of desire through his veins. Nameless could still taste its promise of power, and still thrilled at the clarity and focus it gave him—the supreme confidence in his own righteousness.

Had he been so easy to dupe? Was the axe playing to his weaknesses—like the raven-haired woman’s arse? For all his strength, for all his training and battle-hardiness, Nameless—or whatever he’d been called before the great helm had stripped him of his name—had fallen at the first hurdle. He’d been nothing more than a pawn of the Demiurgos, a puppet no different to the Technocrat, Sektis Gandaw. Worse even, Nameless mused, for at least Gandaw had had a plan, a purpose. Under the spell of the axe, Nameless had achieved nothing but senseless destruction. If he hadn’t been stopped by Shadrak, he would unquestionably have been the last of the dwarves; and the streets of New Jerusalem, bastion of the free, would have turned into canals of blood.

Where would it have stopped, Nameless wondered? Would he have slaughtered everything in Malkuth? Would he have carved up the lunatic lands of Qlippoth? For all he knew, he’d have wreaked ruin on the underworld of Gehenna and taken the axe to the very gates of the Abyss. But, of course, that’s where it would have wanted to go. He’d learnt, way too late, that’s where it came from. Another deception, another trap carefully set by the Demiurgos, frozen at the centre of his self-made realm and perpetually reaching out with malign intent.

Stopped by Shadrak.

Nameless pictured the diminutive assassin, cloaked in black but with the pallid face and pink eyes of an albino. Killed more like. Shadrak’s shot had been perfect—straight through the eye-slit of Nameless’ great helm. He should have died; he sometimes wished he had; but the axe hadn’t let him. Nameless shuddered as he recalled what had happened next, when Shadrak had held high the skull of Otto Blightey, its eyes swirling pits of flame that sucked at his soul.

Nameless winced, clamping his eyes shut and rubbing his forehead. Enough. It was not a train of thought he could endure.

With a deep breath he opened his eyes and scanned the craggy escarpment he’d been traipsing across for the best part of an hour.

There was a spray of scraggly trees skirting the banks of a crater to the west. As good a place as any to set up camp for the night, Nameless thought, and so he set off towards it with the grim resolve to drive all thoughts from his mind, before he ended up dashing his own brains out with a rock.

The grey half-light of dusk had given way to night by the time he’d got a fire going. He’d not brought a bedroll; he’d not even given it any thought upon leaving New Jerusalem and had spent the last few nights cold and miserable.

Nameless found some jerky in the bottom of his pack and held it up before his face. Eating had been a chore since the removal of the helm. Before that, he’d not needed food or drink: the philosopher, Aristodeus, had supplied him with magical sustenance through tubes inserted into the veins. Nameless guessed it might not have fully worn off as he was never hungry. He’d have sooner not eaten at all, but somewhere in the back of his mind he was nagged into doing so.

He ripped off a strip of meat with his teeth and chewed. Its saltiness roused his thirst but he was out of drink. He spat out the half-chewed jerky and stared into the fire. The wood he’d found was damp and sent up more smoke than flame. It spat and hissed, popped and crackled, and whatever warmth it gave off was lost on Nameless.

His head had started to pound from the ale. That’s how it always was with him. He drank until he dropped and then, at the merest sign of trouble, he was sober in an instant. Unfortunately, that didn’t spare him the hangover. He’d also noticed that, whilst drink picked his mood up, especially when in good company, afterwards he was plunged into a deep depression. Already his limbs felt heavy and the bones seemed made of ice. His face had tightened into a mask of rapidly drying clay. It felt like some malign sorcerer had cursed him, causing his body to slowly petrify.

A distant screech tore through the night air. Nameless raised an eyelid but was met with only the heavy blackness of the sky, interspersed with pin-pricks of silver.

Aethir’s moons would appear soon. They were always late on the heels of the setting suns. First would be the tiny disc of Enoi, the furthest of the three; next, pock-marked Charos, and then finally the immense orb of Raphoe would climb above the horizon so close you could reach out and touch her. Raphoe’s ivory glow would provide as much light as the dawn on a clear night.

The screech, whatever it was, must have come from over the border. Malfen was only a few miles to the west, nestled between the Farfall Mountains and guarding the pass into Qlippoth. The denizens of Qlippoth never crossed the mountains, and if the rumours of their creation were true, it seemed likely they could not.

Aethir, so the myth had it, was a sort of cocoon thrown up around the Cynocephalus, the dog-headed ape born to the goddess Eingana following her rape by the Demiurgos, her brother. Malkuth, the so-called ‘Bright Side of Aethir’ had been tranquil, until the coming of the Technocrat, Sektis Gandaw, from Earth. Qlippoth, however, was populated with creatures from the nightmares of the Cynocephalus; the horror was limitless, for who could say what kind of dreams afflicted the abandoned son of the Father of Deception?

But that was where the dwarves were heading, such was their fear of what had happened in Arx Gravis; their fear of what Nameless had done to them. The dwarves had always been wary of action—at least since their betrayal of the goddess Eingana to Sektis Gandaw. They no longer trusted their own actions, and so they had hidden away in the depths of Arx Gravis at the foot of the ravine.

Nameless’ brother, Lucius, had rebelled against the centuries of isolationism and had finally located the Pax Nanorum, the mighty axe of the ancient dwarf lords. Lucius was condemned by the Council of Twelve and fed to the seethers in the pit of Gehenna.

At least that’s what Aristodeus had told him during the feedings in the bowels of Sektis Gandaw’s former mountain, the Perfect Peak. The philosopher had attempted to fill in the gaps in Nameless’ memory, but he’d studiously avoided the real details that would have given Nameless a sense of his past, a handhold on the fractured identity that diminished like a melting iceberg.

For all Nameless knew, Lucius could have been a made up name: it evoked no corresponding image in his mind; no familiar face; no firmer ground upon which to reconstruct himself.

Whether from rage or sorrow—Aristodeus didn’t say—Nameless had taken up Lucius’ work, travelling the deepest strata of Gehenna until he found the axe. He remembered almost everything from the instant he’d touched it—not even the Scarolite helm had the strength to eradicate such rapture. The Pax Nanorum had not been as he’d expected—it was black rather than gold or silver—but there’d been no denying its puissance.

All deception, he now realised bitterly. It had been a plant to ensnare the dwarves, to lure them out of hiding so that they could fulfil a hidden and terrible destiny. The dwarves may have been an ancient race, but even in that they had been deceived. They were amongst the first experiments of the Technocrat, Sektis Gandaw, who had used his dark science to alter the structure of Earth-born creatures in his exploration of the building-blocks of life.

During Gandaw’s first attempt to use the Statue of Eingana—the fossilised power of the goddess—to unweave creation, the dwarves had made a horrifying discovery: Gandaw hadn’t simply moulded them from the flesh of humans, as they’d thought: the dwarves had been joined with the substance of the homunculi, the diminutive humanoids who lived in subterranean cities in the depths of Gehenna.

The homunculi were creatures of great age and knowledge. They had been instrumental in some of Gandaw’s greatest discoveries—including Scarolite, the ore from which Nameless’ helm had been made. It was when the homunculi refused to mine the Scarolite, on the grounds that they weren’t built for manual labour, that Gandaw conceived the idea of making dwarves.

The homunculi, however, were not of Gandaw’s creation, nor were they creatures from Earth. They were begotten, not made: creatures formed from the very substance of the Demiurgos himself.

That was the discovery that led the dwarves not to trust themselves, a feeling that was validated by their betrayal of Eingana—and by extension the whole of creation—to Sektis Gandaw. Nameless had thought them weak and deluded, but following his mistakes with the axe he now knew them to be the less deceived.

Images of blood erupted in his mind. Images of slaughter. He’d been consumed with an insatiable frenzy. He had tolerated the dwarves, but only so far as they enhanced his power. Any who obstructed him were butchered—and not always cleanly.

Nameless groaned and tried to tear his thoughts away from the atrocities he’d committed with the axe. He removed the sundered great helm from his pack and then pulled out a heavy leather-bound book. Raphoe was half visible above the horizon now and he could just about read by her light.

He opened Shader’s Libram at random, hoping to find some nugget of inspiration. The knight had given him the holy book as a parting gift. Shader’s eyes had been full of pity, and he’d offered the Libram with a despairing shrug, as if he were saying it couldn’t hurt, but he doubted it would do much good either. Nameless had accepted it as he’d had nowhere else to turn. So far, the Libram represented nothing more than a vague hope—a hope that never lasted beyond the opening of its first pages.

He scanned the Aeternam words looking for some sort of guidance. His Aeternam was patchy, to say the least. He’d gleaned what he could from his brother’s writings, but he really only recognised the odd word or phrase. The language was alien to Aethir, but it nevertheless struck a familiar chord—as if it was in the blood. It had caught on in New Jerusalem and had grown to become the language of formality. The dwarves of Arx Gravis, however, had shied away from its study.

Nameless flicked idly through the pages of the Libram but saw nothing to latch onto. It was a hopeless activity in this mood, he decided, closing the book with care and putting it away. He was about to replace the pieces of the helm, but instead picked them up and studied them by the light of the fire.

The helm had been Aristodeus’ desperate gambit. It had isolated Nameless from the axe, but then Aristodeus had fallen prey to deception himself, sending Nameless and his companions on a quest to retrieve three artefacts that could, together, destroy the Pax Nanorum: the gauntlets of the Fire Giant, Sartis; the invulnerable armour of the Liche Lord, Otto Blightey; and the Shield of the Cynocephalus. The resulting catastrophe had proven costly to everyone, Aristodeus included.

It was a pity the helm’s memory-stripping capacity didn’t extend to the deeds Nameless had committed whilst wearing it. Instead, he’d been bereft of a past that, for all he knew, held his childhood, his family, his accomplishments on the way to adulthood—the story of his life; his name. Surely the dwarves of Arx Gravis would remember who he’d been before. Nobody had said during his tyranny, but then nobody would have dared. Maybe if he caught up to them; maybe if he could atone for what he’d done…

Nameless dropped the two halves of the helm into the flames. He knew they wouldn’t burn, but he didn’t really care.

Some sins can never be atoned for. The best he could do was tell his people they were safe to go home. He should be the one to stay in Qlippoth.

Nameless tried to drag himself away from his thoughts but his body refused to move. He sat as if he were entombed in stone, condemned to spend an eternity wallowing in misery and regret.

He twitched some life into his fingers and slowly curled them around the handle of his sheathe-knife. With his other tremulous hand, he opened the front of his shirt and then drew the blade across his chest leaving a deep wet gouge in its wake.

Action is what was needed. Nameless dropped the blade. Decisiveness. A course to follow.

He lay back on the hard ground as a new warmth seeped into his veins.

As soon as he’d rested, and morning had broken, he’d head into Malfen. There was something he needed to do before he continued with his quest: a badge that needed to be worn, a statement that he was no longer fit to be called a dwarf.

Nameless yawned and studied the pallid face of Raphoe. Another screech sounded in the distance and something fluttered across the moon. Probably just a bird, he thought, as weariness numbed his mind and slumber overcame him.

***

The milky disk of Raphoe loomed above the jagged horizon like a frosted mirror. Charos’ cratered face glowered opposite, spurned and vengeful; tiny Enoi hung lonely in the darkness between them.

Nils shivered and hugged his damp cloak about his shoulders. To his tired eyes, the largest of the moons, Raphoe, looked like it was teetering, about to shatter across the Farfall Mountains.

He hunkered down by the embers of the dying fire. The drizzle had petered out but the damage was done. His clothes were soaked through and his bones might as well have been made of ice.

Perhaps he should have gone with the dwarf.

Nils blew out a jet of air and watched it roil away as white mist. In his heart he knew he wasn’t up to Malfen, not if there were any truth to the stories he’d heard about the place. It was just too darned close to Qlippoth and all the horrors that festered there.

An eerie screech split the still night air and Nils sat bolt upright, straining his senses.

A shadow passed across the face of Raphoe and flitted off behind the valley wall. Probably a bat, Nils thought, and was about to settle himself back down when the screech came again, softer this time, but also nearer.

A black shape swooped down the embankment and flapped to the ground across the fire from Nils. Nils backed away on his hands and feet scrabbling for his sword. His hand closed around the hilt and he slid the blade from its scabbard. The thing opposite craned its head and stretched out its huge wings. Nils could only see a silhouette against the ivory backdrop of Raphoe, but he could tell it was a bird of some sort. A very large bird—half as tall as a man and with a neck like a shepherd’s crook. The bird-thing drew its wings around its body like a cloak, shook its head and started to grow.

Nils stood and scurried backwards as the air rippled around the creature. There was a whiff of sulphur, a fizzing crackle, and Nils found himself gawping at the night-blackened outline of a man.

“Well met, young traveller,” the man said in a voice both strong and amiable. “I am Silas Thrall, and I am very, very lost.”

“Stand where I can see you,” said Nils waving his sword. His heart bounced in his ribcage and his knees were trembling.

Silas Thrall circled the fire until he was standing in the stark light of Raphoe, half his features still in darkness. He was a tall man, lean and angular. The moonlight cast deep shadows upon his face, giving his eyes more of the look of empty sockets. It was a stern face, drawn and sallow. He had the look of a pasty scholar about him, like the academics at the Academy in New Jerusalem. He was garbed in a long black coat that came to his ankles. The frilled cuffs of a pale shirt peeked from beneath the coat sleeves and a canvass bag hung over one shoulder.

“Are you a demon?” Nils took a two handed grip on the sword to steady it. His fingers felt numb, his legs weak and ungainly. “Have you put the curse on me?”

Silas speared him with a look that blazed from the gloam.

“Fiends cannot cross the mountains from Qlippoth,” he said with a sly look to the horizon. “And the last I heard, there were no demons in Malkuth—unless you count certain senators I could mention. No, my friend, I am but a simple scholar and your curse is nothing more than the fouling of your pants.”

Nils let go of the sword with one hand so he could feel his behind.

“What you saying? I ain’t scared. I’m a guildsman.”

Silas sat on his haunches and gave a withering look to the failing fire.

“That I don’t doubt,” he said waving his hand above the embers and causing them to roar back to life. “Now, my good fellow, what say you put away the sword and join me for a late supper?”

“What we gonna eat?” said Nils. “Dirt? Maggots? I tell you, I’m starving and I’ve found nothing that will fill a rat’s belly.”

“Then you’ve been looking in the wrong places,” said Silas, snapping his fingers and sighing with satisfaction.

Nils gawped at the blazing fire. A haunch of lamb was turning on a spit, fat popping and sizzling in the flames. Fresh baked rolls appeared at his feet with a selection of cheeses and a glass of wine.

“How—?”

Silas seated himself cross-legged on the ground and lifted his glass. He took a long sniff, sipped and swilled the wine around in his mouth before swallowing.

“It’s not just demons who work wonders,” he said, breaking off a piece of cheese and holding it before his mouth. “There are a thousand ways to tap the occult energies surrounding us, and a thousand names for those who do so. I’ve known wizards and mages, sorcerers and shamans, prestidigitators, alchemists and necromancers.” He said the last in a hushed tone and gave Nils a sideways look. “Science, magic, dream-lore. Call it what you will. I choose ‘providence’ and, for myself, I take the name of student.”

Nils wanted to say something but found his eyes drawn to the feast laid out before him. His lips were dripping saliva and his stomach groaned like a creaking door. He snatched up a roll and tore into it, at the same time cramming in a hunk of cheese and slurping down some wine.

Silas watched him with eyes wreathed in shadow.

“Enjoy,” he said, “and when you’ve finished, perhaps there’s something you can do for me.”

“What?” grunted Nils through a mouthful of food. His nose drew him to the roasting lamb and he dropped the roll and took up his sword so that he could cut himself a slice.

“As I said,” Silas leaned towards him, “I am lost. I hail from the Academy at New Jerusalem and lack the practical skills necessary for such a journey as I have undertaken.”

Nils chewed rapidly and swallowed, washing the lamb down with another gulp of wine.

“Why come all the way out here? Don’t you know this is the borderland? There’s nothing beyond those mountains other than Qlippoth, and believe me, that’s somewhere you don’t want to go.”

“Oh, pish,” said Silas. “Stories to scare the unenlightened. There are things hidden in Qlippoth you wouldn’t believe. But first I must find Malfen. I’ve reason to believe a certain Shent may have information that could help me in my quest.”

“The Ant-Man?” said Nils. “You’ve got to be joking. I heard he eats travellers for breakfast.”

Silas laughed. It was a good natured laugh, honest and straight from the belly.

“More tales to frighten the children with. Call me an old cynic,” he said, “but I think our beloved senators put this sort of thing about to keep the slaves in their place.”

Nils impaled another piece of meat on the tip of his sword and slid it free with his fingers.

“What slaves? There’s no slaves in New Jerusalem. That’s why it’s the city of the free. Even when Sektis Gandaw lorded it over Malkuth, the city remained independent.”

Silas shook his head as if Nils were a naive child.

“We’re all slaves, my friend, penned in by those mighty Cyclopean walls. Oh, I’ll agree they were built to keep Gandaw out in the first instance, but what purpose do they serve now?”

“The gates are always open,” Nils said. “People can come and go as they please.”

“Ah,” said Silas with a jab of his finger. “But who does, besides intrepid travellers like you and me? My guess is that most of the citizens of New Jerusalem feel much safer holed up behind those walls, and are encouraged to feel that way by silly stories about ant-men and demons beyond the mountains. All these lands out here, all these wonders to explore, and we are kept from it by a profiteering senate that keeps a docile slave labour force.”

“I don’t know,” said Nils. And he didn’t. Nils didn’t have the slightest interest in politics. As far as he was concerned this Silas Thrall was a woolly thinking academic with his head in the clouds. If they were back in the city he’d probably have just slit his throat and run off with whatever was in his bag. But he wasn’t in the city. He was miles from anywhere, cold and hungry, and Silas Thrall had just proven his worth ten times over.

“OK,” said Nils. “I can find Malfen for you; but I ain’t sticking around while you meet Shent.”

“Excellent,” said Silas, standing and weaving his hand through the air. The fire returned to cinders and the food evaporated into the night.

“But I’m not finished,” said Nils.

“Half now, half when we get to Malfen,” said Silas crossing his arms.

Nils glowered but couldn’t think of anything he could do about it.

“Fine,” he said. “Follow me.”

***

Silas stumbled along cursing his lack of fitness. The dismal twilight was no help either: Raphoe might have cast a wide glow, but it smothered the landscape in a grey similitude that gave it a dreamlike quality. It reminded him very much of tales of the Void, where the disembodied wraiths roamed lost and uncomprehending, with no recollection of their former lives and no awareness of anything save their insatiable longing—for something as elusive as the ghostly lights that baited travellers to their slow, suffocating deaths in the quagmires of Sour Marsh.

Nils looked back at him as infuriatingly spritely and cocksure as he’d been from the beginning of the trek.

“Almost there,” his voice cut across the night like a trumpet blast. “There’s an orange glow from beyond the ridge. Probably lanterns atop the walls.”

“Or the fiery maws of hungry devils,” Silas muttered under his breath.

His good humour had vanished with his energy. He was beginning to wish he’d learned to ride rather than wasted away his youth picking pockets, and his adulthood in the ivory towers of academia. Physical prowess was for meatheads and morons, he’d always said; but now he was starting to see the other side of the coin.

“Why don’t you turn into a bird again?” said Nils jogging back alongside him.

I would if I could, thought Silas. He was still swamped with fatigue and nausea from the last metamorphosis. Plebs like Nils had no idea how demanding the mantic arts could be—particularly for a beginner.

“Mustn’t squander power,” he huffed as he started up yet another scree slope. “Never know when you might need it.”

“Soon as we see the town walls I’m out of here,” said Nils with hands on hips. “Reckon you’ve got enough power for the rest of my food?” Nils’s hand strayed to the hilt of his sword.

Silas’ eyes narrowed and he drew his coat around him.

“You’ll get what you deserve, boy,” he said in the coldest, most rasping voice he could manufacture.

Nils took a step back and tripped over a rock.

“We had a deal, remember,” he said, rolling to his feet and puffing his chest out.

Silas found it all faintly comical, particularly the way Nils’ voice went from a shrill falsetto to a gruff baritone in the space of a few heartbeats.

“Oh, I remember,” Silas drew himself up to his full height and glowered. “I never forget.”

Nils blinked rapidly. He swallowed, made a show of dusting himself off, and turned back to the slope.

Silas breathed a sigh of relief and started after him. His fingers drummed against the side of his bag and he felt the reassuring bulk of the grimoire. He unclasped the bag as he walked and let his hand creep inside to stroke the rough leather of its binding. Silas fought the overwhelming urge to sit and thumb through the ancient pages right here under the pale glare of Raphoe and the distant glow of her siblings.

The book had called him every night since he’d stolen it from the scriptorium. The pages seemed to speak to him, urge him on. Every sentence was a promise that compelled further reading. He only stopped when his brain was burning with new concepts that threatened to split his sanity. One more word, it seemed to say, one more paragraph. If you get to the end of the chapter, what knowledge will be yours! What power!

Poppycock, Silas had thought when Professor Gillis had lectured upon the insidious pull of Blightey’s grimoire. A grimoire of the Eleventh Degree, so its author claimed: the blackest and most esoteric of all magical writings. It was reputedly a record and an instructional manual of the occult practices of Dr Otto Blightey, the Liche Lord of Verusia. The bogey man. Silas had scoffed at Gillis’ melodramatic warning to the students. Another invention to frighten the ignorant.

Against the most sacred prohibitions of the Academy, Silas had used the skills he’d acquired in his youth to break into the labyrinthine scriptorium in the basement, where all the forbidden manuscripts were preserved—the records of the Technocrat, Sektis Gandaw; the Annals of the Dwarf Lords of Arnoch, the mythical lost city that had preceded Arx Gravis; the Testimonies of the Early Settlers—the people who’d been brought to Aethir from beyond the stars by Sektis Gandaw’s homunculi; and the Journals of Skeyr Magnus, the half-breed who’d stolen secrets from the Perfect Peak and sought to rival the Technocrat’s power over machines. During a confrontation with the Senate, Magnus had been killed by one of his own contraptions—

“Told you,” Nils hollered from the top of the ridge. “Malfen.”

Silas struggled up beside him and looked down the escarpment to where flaming torches hung from sconces around high walls running like a curtain across the pass at the foot of the Farfall Mountains. The mountains rose like gigantic steps into the receding distance, never sheer, their gradient long and gentle, as if the Farfalls had been poured like molten sludge upon the plains between Malkuth and Qlippoth.

“Look down there,” said Nils pointing at the immense gate.

Silas squinted. It was more of a portcullis than a gate, probably of wrought iron and virtually impregnable. Shadowy forms passed back and forth behind the grill. It seemed that Malfen never slept, and that it was going to be impossible to enter discreetly.

“What will you do?” asked Nils.

Silas was tempted to march right up and demand a meeting with Shent, but something told him that wasn’t such a good idea. His optimism had deserted him, and the scene below was unnerving.

Malfen looked like a clump of warped and twisted structures that had been randomly thrown together. The alleyways between houses were narrow and winding, giving the whole place the appearance of a spider’s web. Shapes crept through the dark spaces and a reddish haze hung over the town like a cloak of blood.

Not for the first time, Silas wished he’d never clapped eyes on Blightey’s grimoire. If it hadn’t been for the entry about the planting of the Liche Lord’s staff in a secret place in Qlippoth, nothing would have dragged him within a hundred miles of Malfen. That, and the uncovering of a poem by the foppish Quintus Quincy who’d claimed the Ant-Man knew of every incursion into Qlippoth and had captured anyone lucky enough to escape the lands of nightmare and wrung their secrets from them. Silas had caught up with Quincy in The Wyrm’s Head in New Jerusalem. The old soak had talked like a gossiping housewife once Silas had stood him a few rounds.

Quincy said the Ant-Man was just a nickname fashioned to terrorise the people of Malfen into meeting his demands—the usual sort of things: protection and extortion.

Quincy’s source had been the journal of some gold-digging chancer called Noris Bellosh who’d spent a year and a day in Qlippoth before falling into Shent’s hands. Bellosh had served Shent for almost a decade and he believed the Ant-Man knew more about Qlippoth than anyone alive. Shent, he said, had an almost encyclopaedic knowledge of the geography of the nightmare lands pieced together from the agonised testimonies of his victims. Bellosh had claimed Shent literally was an ant-human hybrid, but Quincy attributed that to the man’s sensationalism. Bellosh had been offered a small fortune for publication of his journal but hadn’t lived to capitalise on it. He’d eaten poisoned walnut and date bread—his favourite repast—and the journal had disappeared. Quincy had bought it from a man named Albert in one of New Jerusalem’s flea markets.

Silas shook his head. It had started as a playful quest. He had rummaged around in libraries, visited the most ancient sites of New Jerusalem. He’d spoken with wizards and even flown on a mysterious air-raft with the mad mage, Magwitch, looking for the ancient portals that Blightey’s grimoire stated existed between the worlds. All a wild goose chase, Silas had concluded, but still the book urged him on.

Finding out about Blightey had proven more or less impossible. As Silas had learned from the diary portions of the book, Blightey was not from Aethir. He came from a place called London, so he claimed. From what Silas could gather from the later entries, the place had subsequently changed names many times. Blightey had later ruled the country of Verusia, where he’d fought valiantly against the despotism of an evil Empire known as ‘Nousia.’ At some point, Blightey had trodden the paths of the Abyss and he’d eventually emerged from one of the gorges of Gehenna into the land of Qlippoth. He’d left his staff there, planted in the loam of nightmares to await the coming of someone Blightey called The Worthy.

Throughout all his research, Silas had been sceptical; but nevertheless, the more he learned, the more he wanted to know. He studied assiduously, and if he didn’t read through the brittle pages of the grimoire until his head was ready to burst, he couldn’t sleep. He thought of little else, and whenever he was deprived of the chance to dip into the tome he’d find himself irascible, bordering on frantic.

“Well?” Nils’s nagging voice cut through the fug of Silas’ pensiveness. “I can’t stand here all day. I got you to Malfen; now you need to keep your side of the deal.”

Silas sighed and started to weave his hands through the air when he spotted something off to the left at the foot of the slope.

A few hundred yards out from the town wall, the blackness pooled in a circle.

“What’s that?” Silas asked, pointing.

Nils took a step forward and yelped as he slid on the scree. The slope shifted behind him and he was caught in a great tide of slate and rock that carried him all the way to the bottom.

Silas trudged down after him, surfing the scree in fits and starts, flapping his arms for balance. He hopped off at the foot of the slope and offered a hand up to Nils.

“Great!” said Nils. “Shogging great! Now I’ve gotta climb—”

Silas held up a hand for silence as something emerged from the circle of blackness. It was the size of a horse, but with a segmented body and thin articulated legs. Antennae twitched upon a bulbous head and twin eyes the size of saucers shone cyan in the pale moonlight.

“What is it?” Nils fumbled with his sword and tried to back up the slope. The way the scree slid under his feet it may as well have been a waterfall.

Another creature darted from the aperture, mandibles clacking like shears. Silas’ heart thumped in his chest as scores more poured forth and scuttled towards them.

“Ants,” he said with as much awe as fear.

Nils was looking frantically to left and right but there was nowhere to run. Silas put a calming hand on his shoulder.

“Let’s just hope the stories are true this time,” he said. “For if there are giant ants, maybe there’s also an ant-man to command them.”

The ants were so close that Silas could hear the clicking of their mandibles. They stopped mere inches away, their antennae twitching, front legs pawing the air. Nils was trembling so much Silas thought the lad was going to faint.

Behind the wall of ants, two men approached. Moonlight glinted from the blades of twin daggers the smaller man carried. The other, a big man with a hooked nose, brandished a long knife and swished a net before him. The ants parted to let them through and the small man spoke.

“Trying to sneak in under cover of darkness?”

“Absolutely not,” said Silas in his most innocent voice.

“Shut it!” the man snarled. “We ain’t stupid here, whatever you civilised types might reckon. And we ain’t rude neither, are we Venn?”

The man with the net flashed a crooked smile.

“No, we’re most hospitable, Carl. That’s why we came to greet you.”

Silas didn’t like the look in Venn’s eyes: it was calculating and full of threat, like a crocodile poking its head above the surface of a swamp. He reached into the depths of his mind clutching for some strand of magic he could use.

“You the Ant-Man?” Nils asked in a tremulous voice.

Carl laughed, a ghastly guttural sound.

“No, I ain’t the Ant-Man, boy, and neither’s Venn here.”

Silas closed in on a black misty thread at the edges of his awareness and let its puissance start to blossom.

“That,” said Carl, turning to look over his shoulder, “is the Ant-Man.”

Silas froze at the sight lumbering towards them. He hardly noticed the burgeoning magic slip from his grasp and disperse back into emptiness.

A hulking man lurched past Venn and Carl. Only it wasn’t a man. It stood on legs that bent backwards, with spines jutting from the shins. The torso was a thick carapace like a black breastplate, and the cuneate head was dominated by the same saucer-like eyes and clacking mandibles the ants had. Knotted muscular arms—human arms—folded over the chitinous chest.

“Shent?” Silas whispered.

With a rush of air Venn’s net smothered Silas and something heavy crashed into his skull. As he was buried in blackness he heard pleading, as if it came from a fading dream.

“Please! I brought him to you. I’m your friend.”

Nils, thought Silas as awareness left him. You little—

***

Each stroke of the razor sent a black tousle to the mound of hair on the floorboards, through which rodents as tame as house cats scampered and gambolled. Besides the scraping of the blade, the breathing of the barber, the only other sound was the squeaking of valves on the oil lamps as a boy killed their flame. A hooded lantern hung above the barber’s head throwing grotesque shadows across the shop—a twisted demon with a great sword that hacked the scalp of a squatting aberration.

“Beard as well, d’you say?”

“Aye,” mumbled Nameless through the mummifying strictures of his depression.

The shadow demon hesitated, its sword held aloft for the killing blow.

“Just want to be sure,” the barber said. “Don’t get many dwarves in here. In fact, you’re the first.”

The barber came round the front holding the razor beside his ear, the shadows fleeing before him.

“Sure you’re comfy? I can get Davy to fetch a box to rest your feet on.”

“No.” Nameless’ voice was little more than a rasp. He tried to focus on the barber but it was like squinting through a long, dark tunnel. With the effort it would have taken for him to climb out of a hot tub on a cold day, Nameless willed himself beyond his cloying memories and forced his attention back into the world.

The barber had a hard face: wrinkles like scars, red and angry; eyes narrow and darting—the sort always seeking an opportunity. The way he held the blade was at once effeminate and clinical. His stance was both sloppy and poised, conveying weakness with a rumour of violence. As he slipped back behind, Nameless imagined the razor nicking his throat and felt the plaster of his face crack into a smile.

“D’you get much call for barbers in Arx Gravis?” said the barber. The blade glided down one cheek and came to rest by the jugular.

“Not much call for anything in Arx Gravis these days.” Nameless watched a rat scamper across the floor. “Place is empty. It’s a city of ghosts.”

“Get away!” The blade scraped below Nameless’ chin, the barber flicking hair from it with a snap of the wrist.

“News must travel slowly in Malfen,” said Nameless.

“Don’t travel at all, if you ask me. Not much call for it. We got more than one foot in Qlippoth and that works well enough for most. Reckon Malkuthians can go shog themselves, no offence meant.”

Nameless’ face grew weary of smiling. He drew in his brows as a dark mass of memories bubbled up from his gut.

“I’m no longer Malkuthian.”

The barber stepped back in front wiping the blade on his apron. “Think I know what you mean.” His eyes glinted like fool’s gold, his face unnaturally long and pallid in the lantern-light. “Guess that’s how we all feel. Nobody comes to Malfen ’less they have to. What you do?” He leaned in conspiratorially. “Kill someone?”

Nameless shut his eyes, letting the wave of faces wash over him, hearing their cries, seeing the condemnation in their eyes. His muscles stiffened, his hands gripping the chair so tightly the wood began to creak.

The barber seemed to get the message and resumed his scraping, until finally he stood back and held a mirror before Nameless’ face.

“Smooth as a baby’s…Well, you get my meaning.”

Hairless. Like an egg—pale and shiny. Nameless had never seen his face like this—naked, square-jawed and grim; etched with deep grooves swimming with shadow. His brows looked heavier, like the crags of Gehenna. Maybe it was the dim light, but his brown eyes seemed black, pooling with sin.

Nameless pushed out of the chair and peered through the gloom for his rucksack.

“Over there,” the barber pointed. “Oops, seems you left it open. Now what’ve we got here?”

He bent down and pulled Shader’s Libram from the pack, thumbing through the pages like a connoisseur. Recognising it for what it was, he dropped it like he would have done a putrid carcass and rubbed his hands on his apron.

“What the Abyss is a dwarf doing with a Libram?”

Nameless grabbed him by the collar and rammed his head into the wall. The barber squawked, his eyes bulging from their sockets.

“Friend gave it to me, laddie. Reckon it’s between me and him, don’t you?”

He fished about in the barber’s apron pocket until he was met with the clinking of coins. He made a fist around the money and raised it to the barber’s face.

“You got anything else of mine, laddie?”

“Insurance.” The barber cringed, sliding down the wall and slumping to the floor. “In case you didn’t pay.”

Nameless glowered as if he were about to strike. The barber squealed and raised his arms in defence.

“Far as I’m concerned,” said Nameless, “a man should be given what he deserves.” He pocketed the coins and scowled about the room. “Now where’s my shogging axe?”

The barber whimpered and gestured with one hand while shielding his eyes with the other. “Mercy!” he pleaded in a voice like a eunuch’s.

“Like that’s your middle name.”

Nameless snatched up his axe, shouldered his pack and booted the door open.

“Not forgetting anything, am I?” Nameless paused in the doorway, fingers drumming against the haft of his axe.

“Uh?”

“Nothing I owe you?”

“Uh, no.”

“Good. Can’t be too sure these days. Memory’s not what it used to be. It’s a shogging inconvenience when you can’t even recall your own name.”

He strode from the shop into the damp streets of Malfen—and straight into two of the most vicious faces he’d seen this side of Gehenna.

“Shent wants to see you,” said a hook-nosed scoundrel brandishing a long knife and sweeping a net before his feet. The man was tanned and muscular, towering above Nameless. He was naked from the waist up, save for leather pauldrons strapped to his shoulders.

“You a fighter?” said Nameless.

“We both are,” said the other man, dropping into a crouch and drawing twin daggers. He was lithe and sullen-looking, eyes like slits spitting venom. “P’raps you’ve heard of us: Carl the Cat’s Claw,” he gave a little bow, “and that there,” he indicated hook-nose, “is Venn the Ripper.”

Nameless shook his head as he studied the two of them, rubbed at his jaw and clicked his tongue.

“No, not ringing any bells, laddie. Suppose I could’ve forgotten. I was just saying to what’s-his-name in the barber’s thingy that I can’t even recollect my own—”

The door opened behind Nameless and he cast his eyes over his shoulder to see the barber looming in the doorway bashing a club against the palm of his hand.

“Not so tough now, are you?” the barber sneered as the Cat’s Claw and the Ripper closed in.

“One moment, lads,” Nameless held up a hand. “A question before we all commit ourselves.”

“What?” snapped Venn, the veins on his forearm sticking up where he gripped his knife too tight.

“Well I was wondering,” Nameless turned half towards the barber as if including him in the exchange, “if our friend here has an epithet to match your own.”

The barber looked blankly from Venn to Carl.

“No?” said Nameless. “What’s your name then?” He glanced at the sign above the door: Roger’s Cuts. “Shame. I can just see it now—three tombstones: ‘Here lie Venn the Ripper, Carl the Cat’s Claw and…Roger.’ Doesn’t quite have the same panache.”

“Ain’t gonna be no tombstones, baldy,” said Venn. “Unless you don’t come with us. Shent ain’t playing. No one comes to Malfen without going through him.”

Nameless did his best to stifle a laugh. He was starting to enjoy himself. He’d been wondering if the black mood was ever going to lift.

“You make him sound like a bowel, which I suppose he is in a sense, when you consider the cess-pool he lords it over.”

There was a whisper of movement to his right and before he’d had chance to really register it, Nameless’ axe crunched satisfyingly against something pulpy and pliant. Pink-stained teeth clattered from the blade. The axe-head was lodged firmly in the barber’s mouth, half way to the back of his head. Nameless looked over his shoulder at Venn and Carl and gave an apologetic shrug. The barber’s knees buckled as Nameless wrenched the axe free and he fell like a sack of rotten apples.

Carl advanced, licking his lips and weaving his daggers through the air. Venn put a hand on his shoulder, his net trailing like a cloak of cobwebs.

“What’s it going to be lads?” Nameless hefted his axe and gave them his widest toothy grin. “If it’s a fight you want, I’d suggest a little more commitment. All that sweating and creeping tells me more than you’d want me to know, and the hand on the shoulder thing is a dead give-away.”

Venn removed his hand and squared up to Nameless.

“You gonna come?”

“If you’ll lead the way. Shent’s the top man here, is he?”

A sly look passed between Carl and Venn.

“You could say that,” said the Cat’s Claw.

“In a manner of speaking.” The Ripper gave the slightest of winks.

“Good,” said Nameless. “Then show me the sights. This way?” He started down the street.

“Just follow,” said Venn striding in front and leaving Carl to bring up the rear.

Venn led them past terraces of crumbling buildings with threadbare shutters and boarded up doorways. Refuse spilled into the road, gathering in piles through which ragged people scavenged.

They took a left turn into a narrow alleyway heaped with carrion—some of it human. There was a stench like rotting vegetables mingled with bad eggs and ordure. Nameless gagged and struggled for breath. Carl tugged a handkerchief from his pocket and covered his mouth and nose, but Venn seemed quite unaffected by the smell and walked through the carcasses with the assurance of a man well at home.

The alleyway took them to a sprawl of streets where balconies hung overhead blocking out the ruddy light filtering through the smog. A crash from above, followed by screaming, tightened Nameless’ grip on his axe but he showed no alarm lest his company took any confidence from it.

Venn’s pace quickened as they came upon a sheer gradient wending downwards beneath an arch and continuing into the gloom. Shadowy figures haunted the doorways as they descended the cobbled road, sometimes stepping towards them before retreating at a wave from Venn or Carl.

“See what it means to have a name here?” the Cat’s Claw whispered in Nameless’ ear. “Not just a given name, if you get my drift, but a reputation.”

“This Shent we’re off to see,” Nameless kept his voice strident and cheerful, “Does he have such a name?” He already knew the answer, but he thought one of them might say more, reveal something of the truth of Shent’s nature.

“That he does,” laughed Carl. “Likes to be known as the Ant-Man of Malfen.”

“It has a certain ring to it,” said Nameless.

Venn flashed a malign glare over his shoulder. “It’s a name to be feared.”

“Indeed,” Nameless looked about in an exaggerated manner, his gaze returned by the hungry eyes of rats watching from the gutter.

“What is it?” asked Venn through clenched teeth.

“Trying to find somewhere to relieve myself.” Nameless rubbed his guts. “All this scare-mongering is unsettling my stomach.”

“No time,” said Venn. “We’ve arrived.”

The path opened onto a circle of flagstones beneath the central district. A giant of a man in a hotchpotch of armour—studded leather cuirass, bronze besagews, a steel gorget, and fluted silver cuisses—stood guard over a grill set into the ground. Nameless reckoned he must have been at least seven feet tall.

“Ripper, Cat’s Claw,” the giant acknowledged them in a rumbling bass. “What’s this? A dwarf for Shent?”

Nameless met the giant’s gaze, keeping his eyes hard but fixing a broad smile. “A dwarf no longer, I’m afraid,” he rubbed his shaven scalp, “but I’m sure your master will enjoy me just the same.”

Venn and Carl sniggered and the giant let out a resounding peal of laughter.

“Maybe he’ll give you to me,” he said cracking his knuckles. “That’d be fun.”

“I’d pay to see that fight,” said Carl. “A giant hammering a dwarf.”

“I’ve beaten bigger,” growled Nameless. “The last one wasn’t so cocky when I pulped his head with my fists.”

A group of rats had encircled them as if waiting for a show.

“Try that with me,” the giant scowled at him, bunching his shoulders and wringing his hands.

“Maybe later, Arik,” said Venn, swishing his net and sounding bored. “Shent’ll have to see him first.”

Arik’s glare promised violence before he growled and bent to heave open the grill.

Venn led the way into a shaft, taking hold of metal rungs set into the walls and climbing down. Nameless was next, giving Arik his most dismissive sneer as he clambered into the darkness with Carl following. The grill clanged shut leaving the three descending towards a flickering orange glow from the depths.

The shaft dropped them into an earthen tunnel with guttering torches set in brackets along the walls. Distant groans wafted to meet them amidst the constant background of clacking and scraping.

Venn shot Nameless an evil smile and a chill started to crawl along the dwarf’s spine. The passageway opened onto a vast cavern bored out of the dry earth. Shapes scuttled in the shadows by the walls and from the ceiling hung the bodies of humans, strung up by their wrists and twirling like cocoons in the breeze.

Nameless gasped as he saw that most of the victims were mutilated, missing chunks of flesh or even entire limbs. A withered old man came into focus, one leg severed at the knee, muscle and sinew trailing in strips as if the limb had been torn apart—or bitten off. There were too many bodies to count, suspended like cured meat in a butcher’s shop; some waxy and blotched with blue, others in the final stages of life, breath rattling from failing lungs. But the majority were already dead, little more than skeletons held together by fraying cartilage.

Someone stepped out from behind a spinning carcass and Nameless froze in astonishment.

“Hello again,” said Nils. The lad’s eyes flicked to the ceiling where a huge black shape was hanging, about to drop. “What happened to your hair?”

Something crashed into the back of Nameless’ head and he fell heavily. He tried to rise but was struck again, his mouth tasting mud before he was swallowed by darkness.

***

Silas Thrall saw everything, hanging by his wrists, the cords biting into his flesh and cutting close to the bone. His long legs enabled him to touch the ground with the tips of his toes but it brought scant relief. Blood oozed down his forearms, staining the once-white fabric of his shirt-sleeves. He swayed aside from the clacking mandibles of a giant ant that pushed amongst the bodies, no doubt selecting the next morsel for its master.

Silas craned his neck, looking for another glimpse of that snivelling brat, Nils. Either the lad had set him up or he’d just acted out of self-preservation. More likely the latter, Silas thought. He doubted Nils had the intelligence to plan for something like this. If he had, and Silas had just chanced upon him out in the wilds, it was an ill fate that guided him. Maybe he should have left the grimoire alone after all. Maybe Professor Gillis had been right: no good could ever come from any work of Otto Blightey’s. Knowing Silas’ luck, the blasted book was cursed.

He looked down, suddenly aware that the weight was gone from his shoulder. The bag—and the grimoire it contained—was gone. Silas thrashed about at the end of his tether and felt the first clutch of need around his heart. A thousand shards of ice pierced his veins and sweat beaded on his forehead.

Shent’s henchmen, the brawny hook-nosed one and the lean blackguard with the daggers, hauled the dwarf into position beside Silas and started to string him up. The dwarf moaned as the ropes tightened and he was lifted from the ground. Hook-nose kicked the dwarf’s pack aside and slung his axe on top of it.

“Not so smug now,” said the lean one.

“Come on,” said his brawny side-kick. “Let’s tell Shent what we got for him.”

Silas waited until the two exited down one of the many tunnels leading from the cave. The ant rubbed past him again, a human hand clutched in its mandibles, dripping gore. When he was sure it had gone, Silas swung himself towards the newcomer and kicked him in the shin. The dwarf’s head came up, he muttered something, and then sagged back down again.

“Wake up!” Silas hissed, looking around furtively in case any ants or Shent’s thugs were coming.

He took another kick, this time catching the dwarf in the groin.

“What the shog!” the dwarf roared, eyes wide and furious. It took him a moment to realise his hands were tied and that he hung like dead mutton from the ceiling.

“Quiet,” said Silas.

“Something hit me,” the dwarf grumbled, rolling his neck. There was a swelling the size of an egg on his bald head.

“You a dwarf or just a very small human?” Silas asked.

“Neither.”

“I see. In any case, my friend, you are the brightest hope I’ve seen since being accosted last night. I take it you had a good look at our neighbours before the skinny one hit you.”

The dwarf nodded, scanning the cave again, brows knitting darkly, eyes like black pebbles taking it all in.

“You have a plan?”

“Always,” said Silas. “Only, on this occasion I required a bit of muscle to see it through. You didn’t happen to see a canvas bag on your way in did you? Always sleep with it beside me and couldn’t bear to lose it.”

That was the mother of all understatements. Before the dwarf could answer there was a flurry of activity from the tunnels and scores of giant ants scuttled into the cave.

“This is new,” Silas whispered. The dwarf merely frowned. “Silas Thrall, by the way. Thought you should know that, if we’re to die together.”

“That’s your plan?”

Silas tried to quell the panic welling up within him.

“I wasn’t expecting this.”

The hook-nosed thug and his scrawny companion entered next, and behind them shambled the aberration that had confronted him at the foot of the scree slope.

“See what they mean by Ant-Man,” the dwarf muttered. “In case you’re wondering, laddie, I have no name, but friends call me Nameless.”

“Nameless?” Silas licked his lips and despised the quaver in his voice. “It has a pleasing irony.” He squirmed and wriggled, cursing his misfortune and the fact that he desperately needed to urinate.

Shent’s mandibles clacked in short bursts that were answered in kind by the monstrous ants fanning out around the room. Silas counted twenty but more were still pouring through the openings.

The Ant-Man’s body was more visible in the flickering light of the cave—his torso a parody of a human’s, but chitinous rather than fleshy. The head was pure ant, sleek and glistening, incarnadine eyes reflecting Silas’ face back at him until they mercifully turned on the dwarf. Bulging humanoid arms terminated in long sinewy fingers, but the legs were insectoid with hooked claws that caused him to shuffle.

“A dwarf,” Shent wriggled his fingers before Nameless’ face. Silas tensed, expecting the Ant-Man to rip the dwarf’s eyes out.

“A fellow victim,” Shent reached out to stroke Nameless’ cheek. “One of Gandaw’s creatures.”

“I’m no one’s creature,” said Nameless, eyes not wavering from the insect-thing facing him.

Shent made a series of clicking noises that might have been laughter. “Cutting your hair doesn’t change what you are; what he made you.”

The dwarf glowered beneath heavy brows but then dropped his chin to his chest.

“We are related in purpose,” the Ant-Man tilted his head as if trying to make eye contact. “Gandaw melded the flesh of humans to that of the homunculi to form the dwarves. Your people were made for the deep places of the earth—for the mining of Scarolite.”

The dwarf snorted contemptuously. “And what were you made for? Harvesting shit?”

Shent stiffened, his mandibles vibrating with tiny tremors.

“The dwarves were made hardy,” he went on, but his voice was strained. There was an atmosphere between him and the dwarf as taut as a bowstring. “The homunculi could find the ore and work it, but they lacked the strength to cut it from the rock. Gandaw knew the power of Scarolite and knew what it would be worth to others. That’s why he made my ants—to guard the mines, to protect his secrets.” Shent lowered his eyes and a shudder passed through his carapace. “I was made to control them, for they lacked a queen and could not understand the speech of humans.”

“What happened?” asked Silas. “How’d you come to be here?”

Shent’s eyes rolled towards him and Silas berated himself for not keeping quiet. After a pause, the Ant-Man gave his answer to the dwarf.

“When your people rebelled, when they turned against Gandaw during his first attempt at the Unweaving, there was no more use for my ants. We were forgotten. At least, we thought we were forgotten until the metal demons were sent to eradicate us. You see, Sektis Gandaw never liked to leave loose ends. He was a perfectionist, a trait that found its fulfilment in his lunatic project of unmaking the worlds. Thousands of my ants were incinerated by the death-magic of Gandaw’s Sentroids; the rest, I led towards the relative safety of Qlippoth. We got as far as the Farfall Mountains but my ants would go no further. It was the first time they had refused my command. That is how we came to Malfen.”

“And you,” Shent turned his eyes on Silas who wished he knew a spell that could stop him wetting his breeches. “What brings you to Malfen in the middle of the night? Did you think to avoid my toll? You look like an intelligent man. Did it never occur to you to wonder why others hadn’t tried your plan?”

Silas shook his head so hard it made him giddy.

“I wasn’t trying to sneak in. I was trying to help my companion who’d just slid down the scree. And whilst we’re on that point, don’t believe a word the little toe-rag tells you. He didn’t bring me to you—I came of my own accord.”

Shent gave a staccato clack of his mandibles. For an instant Silas thought that the walls behind the Ant-Man were writhing and shifting, but then he focused and saw that scores of giant ants were crawling over every available inch. He looked up and struggled to make saliva—there were dozens of them clinging to the ceiling.

“So,” said Shent, “you came to pay me a visit, did you? Did you book an appointment?” More clicking, and this time the giant ants seemed to join in. The hooked-nosed goon and his scrawny comrade hooted with mirth.

“Tell me your name,” Shent went on. “Perhaps I will remember you.”

“Silas Thrall,” the voice came out as he intended, brazen and strong.

Shent shook his head and rubbed a mandible with his thumb and forefinger.

“No, sorry. I have no recollection of any such name. Tell me, Silas Thrall, where are you from, and what business have you with the Ant-Man of Malfen?”

“I’m from New Jerusalem originally, but now I’m a traveller and a man of many talents.”

“Talents that might be of use to me?” Shent cocked his insectoid head and watched Silas with a look both malign and indifferent.

“They used to call me ‘Fingers’ in the city.” They didn’t—what they called him had been a lot worse than that. “Could pick a miser’s pocket even if he was a hyper-vigilant paranoiac with an escort of eagle-eyed legionaries. I can meld with the shadows, creep as silent as death and scale any wall like a spider.” He was exaggerating, but it was the sort of thing to impress these kinds of lowlife.

Shent folded his arms across his chest and let out a hiss. “You expect me to believe you came to Malfen for employment?”

“I seek your counsel.”

The thugs roared with laughter but Shent shushed them with a wave of his hand. “Regarding what?”

Silas grimaced and flicked his eyes towards the dwarf. “It’s a rather sensitive matter.”

“Is it now?” said Shent. “Let me guess: you’re seeking something beyond the mountains; something hidden in the wilds of Qlippoth?”

Silas sucked in his top lip and bobbed his head.

“I’ve seen what you carry in your bag,” said Shent, “and I judge that it would be foolhardy for you to persist in your quest, and even more so for me to permit it.”

“But—” Silas tried to protest but Shent turned back to Nameless.

“And what can you do?”

The dwarf glared into those blood-pool eyes.“Kill. A lot.”

“See, I told you so,” said Nils stepping out from a cluster of ants. “I’ve seen him in action. That is one dangerous shogger.”

“You backstabbing little runt!” Silas spat towards the lad but Nils ducked back out of sight.

“Excellent,” Shent’s mandibles vibrated with apparent relish.

“But not for you,” said Nameless.

Silas groaned. The dwarf just had to go and ruin it.

“If not kill, then maybe trap.” Shent drew close to the dwarf, his crimson eyes boring into him. “Your people eluded me; they found passage deep beneath Malfen—ancient tunnels seldom used, even by my ants. They owe me a toll. A sizeable one.”

Nameless stared at Shent wide-eyed.

“The dwarves came here? You saw them?”

Shent snapped his mandibles together.

“Just the stragglers,” he said. “The rest escaped to Qlippoth. If they are canny enough to survive, I want them back. No one passes through Malfen without my say so.”

“Yes,” said Silas, seeing a glimmer of hope. “We go into Qlippoth after them and bring them back. Surely a fellow dwarf could persuade them, spin a tale with your silvery tongue.” Except he’d heard no evidence that the dwarf had a silvery tongue. “On second thoughts,” he said, “leave the talking to me.”

Shent gave him a dismissive look.“I have no need of you, sorcerer, except to fill my stomach.”

Silas winced and shut his eyes, trying to think, and think quickly. He’d hoped to bargain with the Ant-Man, find out what he knew, but he was hardly in a bargaining position. He scowled at Nils as the lad re-emerged, a huge smirk stretching from ear to ear.

“And I’ve no use for you either, boy,” said Shent.

The smirk quickly dropped from Nils’s face and he stepped back, straight into the embrace of a giant ant.

“But…I…I’m with the Night Hawks—the biggest guild in New Jerusalem. Just think what we could do together.”

“All I’m thinking,” said Shent letting a thick rope of drool drip from his maw, “is how good your flesh will taste.”

“But I can help,” said Nils in a shrill voice. “I’ll do anything you like. Anything.”

Shent eyed him for a long moment and then clapped his hands together.

“We’ll see,” he said. “Go to the surface. Find The Wheatsheaf Tavern and ask for Travid Yawl. Tell him time’s up and Shent wants his money. Have you got that? Succeed in this and I may find a use for you. Fail and you’re supper.”

“Yes, sir,” stammered Nils as he backed out of the cavern. “I won’t let you down. You’ll see.”

“I’ll not lie to you, Ant-Man,” said Nameless, watching Nils scurry away. “I’ve already caused my people enough harm. If I caught up with them, I’d tell them never to come back this way.”

Shent hissed—it may have been a sigh. Silas was starting to wish he had a spell to make the dwarf shut up, or at least have the good sense to mislead Shent a little.

“Then perhaps they’ll pay a ransom,” said Shent. “If I sent this dolt after them with the message that I have you as my prisoner.”

Nameless laughed at that, a booming roar from the pit of his belly.

“They might pay you to kill me, but what would be the point? If they didn’t play your little game, you’d kill me anyway, so they might as well save their money.”

Shent’s mandibles shook and clacked. He reached out with human hands and looked as if he were about to throttle the dwarf. He paused for a moment, fingers quivering, and then Silas saw his antennae twitch.

Shent stepped away as two gigantic ants scuttled towards Nameless. One bit into his shin and the dwarf gasped but clamped his mouth shut. The other used its front legs to drag itself upright on his back and then ripped into the flesh beneath the dwarf’s shoulder. Blood spurted from the wound and Nameless twisted and twirled at the end of his rope.

“My ants will eat you piece by piece, creature of Sektis Gandaw. Little by little, sparing you no pain. It will be a slow death, a death filled with despair. Once they start devouring muscle you’ll be helpless to move, even if your bonds were released.”

Shent started to turn away.

“You really are a shogging waste of space,” Nameless growled, his face screwed up with pain. “Gandaw must have been drunk when he put you together. What did he do, get a hive of ants to crawl up your mother’s crack and spray their stuff?”

Shent stiffened.

One of the giant ants took a chunk of flesh from Nameless’ thigh. He screamed and thrashed about on the rope.

“How do ants procreate anyway?” Nameless gave a maniacal laugh as he swung towards Silas.“Because I’m buggered if I know. Maybe they dropped a ton of eggs inside her. Shog, maybe they just shat in her womb! Funny thing is Shent, you shogging freak, I don’t suppose you’ll be making baby ant-men. Old daddy Gandaw forgot to stick a cock and balls to the front of your carapace!”

Shent roared and leapt at the dwarf.

Silas scrabbled about at the back of his mind for the threads of magic that would weave his cantrip. The dark essence seeped into his veins and raced towards his wrists which grew hot, the cords holding them starting to smoulder. He was about to direct the current to the dwarf but then gaped as Nameless wrenched against his bonds, tearing chunks of earth from the ceiling and dropping to his feet with the grace of a cat—or a lion.

A meaty fist smashed into Shent’s stomach, doubling him up. Nameless pressed in, pounding the insect-head with resounding blows. Shent fell back, stunned, his army of ants surging forward to protect him. Silas blinked as Shent’s body seemed to split open, and then he saw that it was the unfurling of two huge wings from the Ant-Man’s back. Shent soared towards the ceiling clacking out commands with his mandibles.

Silas yelped as the magic burned through his bonds and he fell awkwardly, twisting his ankle. An ant thrust its head towards him but Nameless clubbed it with a right cross that sent it veering away.

Hook-nose charged, hurling his net. Nameless ducked under it and rolled, coming up in a fluid motion, his fist cracking into the thug’s jaw and knocking him from his feet.

The lean one pounced, twin daggers stabbing towards the dwarf’s flank. Nameless stepped aside and hammered him in the back, pitching him into a cluster of giant ants. Shrill screams cut across the din of combat as the ants tore into his flesh. The other ants rushed to the feeding frenzy, clearing a space through which Nameless ran to snatch up his axe, lift it above his head and bellow at Shent.

Silas hobbled for the gap, casting this way and that for his bag. He saw it deposited in an alcove a mere twenty feet away and hopped towards it like a demented stork. Something mushy hit him from behind and he turned to see the thin man’s chewed up head rolling away across the floor.

A shadow fell across the cavern as Shent swooped down, claws extended towards Nameless’ face. The dwarf swung and Shent backed up clacking loudly to his minions who discarded their meal and bore down upon their master’s assailant.

Nameless’ axe split through a thorax and reversed to embed itself in a head. The others pressed in around him nipping and groping, their clacking rising to a deafening cacophony. The dwarf hacked to right and left, his axe falling in sweeping arcs that sheered through carapace and limbs, but still the ants came on, crawling over each other to get at him.

Silas reached the alcove and shouldered his bag, but at the same instant something grabbed the back of his shirt and hoisted him into the air. He thrashed about with his arms but could find no purchase. Spiny legs wrapped around his waist holding him firm. Fingers crept from his shirt to his neck and closed around it in a death-choke. He spluttered and kicked out in a futile attempt to break free. His vision swam and blackness descended. Silas tried to dredge up a strand of dark magic but it slipped from his mind like water through a sieve.

***

Nameless was bleeding from a score of deep bites, the strength seeping from his limbs as the weight of ants threatened to overwhelm him. He’d lost count of how many he’d killed but they showed no sign of letting up. What he’d have given for his old armour! Shog, he’d have even risked taking up the black axe again in a scrape like this. It was all very well having a death-wish, but when it came to it the idea wasn’t so appealing.

Mandibles fixed on his forearm and the axe tumbled from his grasp. He wrapped his arms around the ant’s head and planted his feet, twisting from the waist until he heard a popping, tearing sound. The ant went limp and sagged to the floor, its legs still twitching. He kicked another in the abdomen and followed up with an upper-cut that threw the creature’s head back. Spinning in a crouch he whipped up the axe once more and drove the ants back with a series of scything swings.

Something dropped from above and Nameless dived out of the way as Silas Thrall’s limp body crashed into a huddle of ants. Nameless ran, bounded onto the back of an ant and launched himself high into the air. His axe followed in a vicious sweep, meeting flesh, crunching bone, and eliciting a gurgling scream from Shent. Nameless hit the ground hard, rolled and came to his feet, searching for something to hit, but when he looked up, the Ant-Man was nowhere to be seen.

Silas coughed and shuddered, drawing the attention of the monstrous ants. Nameless charged amongst them hacking wildly, his axe whirling about in a lethal circle that forced them back from Silas’ prone body. There was the faintest rushing sound, the barest hint of a buzz, and then something punched into Nameless’ back, knocking the axe out of his hands. Talons tore into his shoulders and bore him towards the ceiling, gossamer wings fanning furiously about him. Brackish blood spilled over his head and face; he twisted his neck and saw it came from an ugly gash in the Ant-Man’s belly.

Shent lurched suddenly and the two started to plummet like rocks. At the last instant he pulled up, letting go of Nameless who slammed into the ground. Before he could rise, Shent was on him again, dragging him into the air by the seat of his pants and speeding towards the wall. Nameless cracked his head backwards, striking something hard. Shent veered sharply and almost lost his grip. Not giving him time to recover, Nameless backhanded him in the face, slapping repeatedly until he felt something snap and fall away. Shent screamed his fury and ditched Nameless to the floor.

No sooner had his feet touched the ground than Nameless was confronted with the sight of the Ant-Man landing in front of him, wings snapping in place on his back like a mechanical cloak, and a new pair of arms bursting from his flesh—thin black appendages more akin to an ant’s than a man’s.

Shent leapt, wrapping Nameless in a bear-hug with his powerful human arms, the ant-arms stabbing at his sides. Shent’s face punched towards Nameless, the one remaining mandible quivering as it sought out flesh. Nameless arched his back and strained but the Ant-Man’s grip only tightened. A giant ant reared up beside him, bit at his face and started to bear him to the ground with its weight. Others surrounded him, pulling him down whilst Shent still crushed the air from his lungs.

Knowing the end was near, Nameless sought only to give a good account of himself before he perished. He took hold of Shent’s remaining mandible in both hands and yanked it as hard as he could. Shent roared as flesh tore and cartilage snapped. Ripping the mandible free, Nameless held it like a dagger and plunged it into a big red eye. Gore splashed over his face, and Shent’s grip slackened enough for Nameless to twist and stab the other eye. The Ant-Man shrieked and writhed, his limbs wracked with violent spasms.

“We are the same,” Shent gurgled, foul fluids bubbling from his maw. “You don’t have to kill me!”

The giant ants fell away from Nameless, rolling to their backs and shuddering. He forced himself to his feet and cast about for his axe.

Shent let out a pitiful wail, human hands covering his blind eyes.

“Don’t blame me for what I am!” he pleaded in a voice like a child’s. “He did this to me. He made me—just as he made your people.”

Nameless’ hand closed around the haft of the axe.

“Sektis Gandaw,” Shent gasped. “He’s the one, not me!”

“I know,” said Nameless, raising the axe. “But he’s already dead.”

The axe swept down and Shent was still.

An urgent rattling rose to a crescendo and then fell with the flaccid limbs of the ants—the last of Gandaw’s aberrations, Nameless realised. The last of their kind.

“Bravely done, my friend.”

Nameless spun to face Silas Thrall limping towards him, willowy and gaunt, looking just as dead as Shent.

“You survived, then,” said Nameless.

“Barely, and thanks to you, it seems. Here, let me tend your wounds.”

Silas held his palms towards Nameless and greenish light effused from the finger-tips. Nameless snarled and stepped back.

“Trust me,” said Silas. “It’ll close the wounds and prevent the rot from setting in.”

Nameless forced himself to relax as the green light touched him and he felt his skin tighten and close where it had been broken. A warm tingle passed through his bones and then Silas took his hands away.

“There’ll still be scarring,” he said, “but I’m sure you can live with that. What will you do now?”

Nameless hadn’t thought that far ahead.

“Suppose I’ll carry on into Qlippoth.”

Silas’ eyes narrowed. “Qlippoth? But—”

“That’s where they fled. My people.”

“And you wish to find them?”

Nameless sighed. “I wish to help them”—tell them there’s no need to run anymore—“They face only extinction in Qlippoth. Either I’ll persuade them to return to Arx Gravis,”—and stay in Qlippoth myself—“or I’ll cut down every last horror that stalks them.”—Make the Dark Side of Aethir into a sanctuary where the dwarves can flourish.

“I see,” said Silas. “But the Cynocephalus dreams darkly. It may be a task to surpass even your talents with the axe. Perhaps we should journey together, as Qlippoth is where my studies have led me.”

“You study the dark paths?” Nameless felt his hackles rising. His mind threw up scenes from the snow-dusted forests of Verusia—a sentient mist, probing, caressing, hunting; the docile citizens of Wolfmalen; and the looming evil of Blightey’s castle with its picket of impaled victims groaning upon their spikes.

Nameless had seen his fair share of sorcery back in New Jerusalem at the hands of Magwitch the Meddler. He’d grown about as used to it as anyone could, but dark magic, that was something he couldn’t tolerate. Not after Verusia.

“No, no!” protested Silas. “Indeed, no. I’m a student of antiquities. A collector, if you get my meaning.” Silas rubbed his thumb and forefinger together and winked. “If I’m not very much mistaken, our friend Shent here was a bit of a collector too.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning that somewhere along these tunnels there must be a stash of treasure, otherwise what’s the point of being the underworld boss of the most corrupt town on Aethir?”

Nameless nodded absent-mindedly. He felt weakened from the battle and defenceless against the stultifying darkness that was already settling upon his mind. “Think there’ll be any armour?”

“Only one way to find out,” said Silas, checking his bag was fastened and giving it an affectionate pat. “Although it’s bound to be a bit on the large size as far as you’re concerned. Coming?”

They started off along one of the tunnels, squeezing past the bodies of more gargantuan ants that seemed to have simply lain down and died.

We are the same, Shent had said—both creatures of Sektis Gandaw. Nameless wondered if that’s why he’d killed the Ant-Man. Something had possessed him, and this time there was no black axe to blame. He might have been stripped of his memories; might have yearned to piece his identity back together, but there were some things it was better not to be reminded of.

Nameless stopped and ran his eyes over the carcasses of the ants. At least they’d finally given up the ghost of their aberrant existence; and the dwarves wouldn’t be far behind if Nameless couldn’t bring them out of Qlippoth. Maybe it was better that way. Maybe—

“Malfen’s a unique place,” said Silas. “It’s sort of where Gandaw’s Aethir ends and the Cynocephalus’s begins. The threshold between science and magic, I like to think. Two kinds of insanity—Gandaw’s monomania and the Cynocephalus’s paranoia. Just think, one step the other side of Malfen and we’re in another world.”

Nameless ran a hand over his shaven head. No longer a dwarf. So why did he still want to help the survivors of Arx Gravis? Save them from themselves?

The black mood was tightening its grip. If he didn’t do something soon the paralysis would set in and then he’d be no good to anyone. If there’s one thing Nameless knew about himself, really knew, deep down in the marrow, it was that he denied certain needs at his peril—needs that were written in his blood as surely as those that led the Ant-Man to feed on human flesh.

“Do you reckon there are any good Taverns in Malfen?” Nameless asked, rubbing his clammy palms together.

“Taverns?”

“I’d give my right arm for a flagon of ale.”

Silas nodded. “That’s the most welcome suggestion I’ve heard all morning. Can you hold on until we’ve finished off here?”

“I’ll do my best.”

“Be strong, my friend,” said Silas clapping him on the shoulder. “And just think how much more you’ll enjoy it.”

They roamed the network of tunnels for an hour or more but failed to find the treasure trove Silas had hoped for. Just as they despaired of coming away with anything of value, they happened upon the skeleton of a dwarf suspended by its feet from the ceiling of a cramped cell.

“So they passed through here,” Nameless said in a hushed voice.

“Been picked dry,” Silas patted the skull and gave a curious look that made Nameless wonder if he’d had an idea and thought better of it.

“Looks like you were wrong about the armour,” said Nameless stooping to examine a chainmail hauberk that had been dumped in the corner. As he hauled it up, a large rat scampered out and ran across his foot.

“You going to wear that?”

A dead man’s armour? A dead dwarf’s?

Nameless stood before the dangling skeleton and reached in his pack for Shader’s Libram. Silas peered over his shoulder as he turned the pages.

“Now there’s a surprise,” he muttered, nose wrinkling slightly with distaste.

Nameless struggled to make sense of the Aeternam, seeking out the passage Shader had used to honour the dead. Giving up, he slammed the book shut and closed his eyes in silent prayer.

When he’d finished, he buckled on the armour and strode from the room.

Silas was first out of the grill, the giant, Arik, hauling him through by the collar and flinging him onto the flagstones.

As Nameless reached the top rung Arik sneered down at him, huge head almost filling the opening, teeth all brown and misshapen.

“Shent let you go, did he?”

In reply, the head of Nameless’ axe smashed into Arik’s teeth. The giant grunted and spat them out in a shower that pattered against Nameless’ armour amidst a spray of crimson spittle.

“You shogging little runt!” Arik roared, grabbing hold of the axe-haft and pulling Nameless from the hole.

Nameless felt his nose break as the giant’s fist pounded into his face, the other hand wrenching away his axe and slinging it aside.

“Get up!” Arik growled, flexing the slabs of muscle on his chest.

Nameless made a show of clambering weakly to his feet and shaking the grogginess from his head. He held up a hand for time and wiped the blood from his nose. Arik put his hands on his hips and spat out another tooth.

“That all you got—?”

Nameless’ boot struck Arik’s knee, snapping it backwards with a sickening crack. Arik toppled straight into the path of a bludgeoning hook that turned his head and sent him reeling to the ground.

“Pugnacious little fellow, aren’t you?” said Silas handing him his axe.

Nameless snorted, wincing at the pain from his nose. Nevertheless, his black mood was starting to lift. It was as if someone had opened the curtains onto a bright new day. It wouldn’t last—he knew that from experience. He just had to grab these moments when they came.

“You haven’t seen anything yet,” he beamed at Silas. “Coming?” he called over his shoulder as he staggered ahead.

“Eh?”

“Tavern, remember? We’ve got us some serious drinking to do. By the mythical Dwarf Lords of Arnoch, I feel a song coming on!”

“I can hardly wait.”

“Then you shan’t!” Nameless declaimed before breaking into a booming shanty that sent Silas’ hands to his ears and the rats of Malfen scurrying for cover.

***

Nils shuffled from foot to foot impatiently, glaring across the street at The Wheatsheaf. It must have been an hour now. Travid Yawl had pleaded for the extra time so he could call in a few debts. There had been a lot of hard-faced men in the tavern but none of them had lifted a finger to Nils, not even when he’d drawn his sword and stuck the point against Yawl’s throat. Oh, they were scared of the Ant-Man, no doubt about it, and now they were scared of him too.

“Time’s up,” Nils growled, wrapping his fingers around his sword hilt. He was gonna enjoy this.

Nils bounded up the wooden steps and reached for the door handle. No sooner had he touched it than the door swung open and knocked him on his arse. A dreadful din gushed out of the tavern as Nameless and Silas staggered onto the porch.

“A salty slug and a harlot’s hug, then we won’t need booze no more, no more; then we won’t need boooooooze—no more!”

Nils’s mind did a somersault as he stood and straightened his shirt.

“Nameless,” he said. “Silas! Thank the gods you’re all right.”

Nameless appeared to be holding Silas upright but he let go as his eyes fell upon Nils.

“Ishn’t that the boy from the shitty?” he slurred.

Silas toppled to one side but managed to thrust one foot out to keep his balance.

“You back-shtabbing little bashtard!” He pointed a shaky finger at Nils.

Nils waved his hands in front of him.“No, you don’t understand. I was coming back for you. Why d’you think I’m here? I was getting help.”

Silas half staggered and craned his neck to look at the door.

“In there?”

“Yes,” said Nils. “In there.”

Silas furrowed his brow and swayed.“Nah!” he said and then bent double as he threw up.

Nils saw his opportunity and turned to flee but a heavy hand clapped down on his shoulder.

“Oh, no,” said the Nameless Dwarf. “You’re not going anywhere. I have a special job for you.”

No slur? Just a moment ago he’d been as drunk as Silas!

Then Nils remembered the fight at The Grinning Skull and his heart caught in his throat. He inched around so that he faced the dwarf and looked into his brooding dark eyes. Nameless was stone cold sober.

“Here,” the dwarf said, shrugging off his pack and handing it to Nils. “Put it on.”

Nils felt powerless to do anything but obey.

“And hold this,” said Nameless, passing Nils his axe.

Nils stooped under the weight. How had the dwarf carried it all this way, never mind fought with it?

“Pass him your bag,” Nameless said to Silas.

Silas wiped the vomit from his face with his coat sleeve and made a feeble flick of his fingers.

“No, s’alright,” he said. “I’ll keep hold of it.”

“Suit yourself,” said Nameless before shooting Nils a toothy grin.

“Consider yourself duly employed, laddie.” He sauntered down the steps with Silas groaning and shambling behind.

“What do you mean?” said Nils struggling to follow. “I ain’t coming with you, and I ain’t carrying all this.”

Nameless spun, his face hard like chiselled stone. Nils tried to swallow but found he had no spit.

“Repeat after me,” said the dwarf in an uncompromising tone. “I am a pack mule.”

Nils shook his head. “No way.”

Nameless raised an eyebrow ever so slightly.

“I’m a pack mule!” Nils squealed. “I’m a shogging pack mule! Satisfied?”

“Extremely,” said Nameless turning on his heel and heading out across town towards the shadow of the Farfall Mountains.

“Wait up,” said Silas looking as green as a week old corpse and stumbling along the cobbled road in pursuit.

“Come on,” Nameless called over his shoulder. “It’s a perfect day for adventure. Let’s pass through the gauntlet of the mountains and into the promised land. Shog, if the mood doesn’t leave me I’ll run the length and breadth of Qlippoth and have my people home before the suns set.”

“Right,” muttered Nils under his breath. “Either that or we’ll be torn apart the minute we cross the border.”

A dark shape slunk out from behind one of the shacks flanking the road.

Nameless seemed heedless of the danger. He was skipping in his excitement to reach the pass and almost collided with the emerging woman. Silas was jogging in fits and starts to keep up with the dwarf, his breath coming in gasps.

“Hello,” said Nameless looking suddenly timid and uncertain.

Nils drew alongside Silas and looked the woman up and down. Swollen breasts, wide hips, and garbed in black leather like the strumpet back at The Grinning Skull. Only this one was short. Extremely short. Dwarfish even.

“By the tug of my beard—” Nameless rubbed his barren chin. “Are you—?”

Nils lifted his eyes to her face, half expecting to see whiskers and a moustache.“No,” he said with sudden realisation.

The dwarf lady’s eyes narrowed; only she wasn’t a dwarf lady. Nils shook his head and clucked his tongue.

Nameless swung towards him.

“No? What—?”

He turned back to the newcomer and then wagged his finger.

“Ah!” said Nameless. “The woman from the pub!”

“Ilesa,” said Nils.

Ilesa gave a lop-sided smile and then blew Nils a derisive kiss.

“So you’re going then?” she said to Nameless. “Into Qlippoth?”

“That’s where my path is leading me,” said the dwarf, his voice still straining at the edge of song. “Coming?” He eyed her up and down.

“Would you like me to?”

“Oh, please!” groaned Silas. “If this isn’t the most blatant beguilement I’ve ever—”

Nameless thrust a hand over Silas’ mouth.

“You certainly possess rare talents,” he said in a voice tinged with bashfulness.

Ilesa drew herself up to her full height—which was a tad below Nils’s shoulder now.

“I can track, hunt, and kill,” she said, her hands casually resting on the hilts of her weapons.

Silas mumbled something beneath Nameless’ hand. It sounded like “Cook and sew?” to Nils but he couldn’t be sure.

“Only thing is,” said Ilesa, “I don’t come cheap.”

“No,” said Nameless. “I don’t suppose you do; but I’ve a pouch of gold and a gladdened heart so name your price.”

Ilesa held out her hand.

“Five Dupondii now, five more when we get back.”

Nils scoffed out loud.

“Done,” said Nameless fishing about in his pocket and slapping the coins in her palm. “On the condition, mind, that you stay just the way you are.”

“Sorry, it’s time limited,” said Ilesa, “but I’ll do the best I can.”

“Hmm,” said Nameless. “Can’t say fairer than that.”

The dwarf’s good mood was starting to get under Nils’s skin. He almost wished they’d get a move on. Surely Qlippoth couldn’t be any worse than this.

“Welcome aboard,” said Silas in a feeble voice. He proffered his hand to Ilesa and then turned aside to vomit.

Ilesa wrinkled her nose and sidled up to Nameless.

“Shall we?” she said, taking his arm.

Nameless’ grin spread from ear to ear.

“Indeed we shall.”

Nameless and Ilesa left Silas doubled over beside the road and skipped towards the looming iron gate that marked the edge of town. It was as if the dwarf had dropped a heavy burden and found a new wellspring of youth.

Nils shifted the weight of Nameless’ pack on his back and hefted the axe with both hands. He cast a longing look over his shoulder as he trudged after his new companions—not so much at Malfen, with its spew of ugly dwellings, but at the fractured gorges and rocky outcrops; the swathes of green and the distant plains that marked the outermost reaches of Malkuth—the only home he’d ever known.

Tears streaked his face as he turned to his companions and lumbered after them towards the wastelands of the Cynocephalus’s nightmares.

GLOSSARY

ABYSS, the

The creation of the Demiurgos. A realm of deception, where residents are granted that which they most desire for eternity. The Abyss lies outside of time, and those of its denizens who can reach beyond its boundaries can influence all the times of Aethir and Earth. It is home to the first begotten of the Demiurgos, the Dweller. The Abyss is accessible from Aethir via the gorges that lead down to Gehenna. Hangs over the mouth of the Void like a gaseous spider web.

AETHIR

The world created from the Cynocephalus’s dreams, one side (Malkuth) light, the other (Qlippoth) dark and populated with creatures of nightmare.

AIN

The Monad; the Source; the Infinitely Concealed; the All-Seeing Eye. Known only as darkness to the light of human wisdom.

ALBERT

Assassin from Earth who came to Aethir with Shadrak the Unseen. An accomplished chef and poisoner.

ARABOTH

Paradise. The future world. The afterlife in Nousian belief.

ARCHON, the

Angel of Nous. Stands between humans and the transcendent Ain. Serves Nous uncompromisingly. Carried an enchanted Sword through the Void—Vade in Pacem. Used it to cut the Cynocephalus from Eingana’s womb.

ARISTODEUS

A philosopher, originally from Graecia on Earth. Is known on both the worlds of Earth and Aethir. Led a doomed assault on the Technocrat Sektis Gandaw and subsequently manipulated beings from both worlds in a second attempt to thwart Gandaw’s Great Work of Unweaving.

ARNOCH

Mythical lost city of the ancient Dwarf Lords, who were said to have preceded Sektis Gandaw’s creation of the dwarves of Malkuth, and may even have been his inspiration.

ARX GRAVIS

‘The Heavy Citadel.’ A dwarven city carved from the rock within a ravine. Multi-layered, criss-crossed with stone walkways and vast buildings. Doorways of stone that can be passed through by those who have access. Since the shame of the dwarves, brought about by Maldark’s betrayal of the Hybrids, Arx Gravis has been ruled by the conservative Council of Twelve who have a policy of withdrawal from the world above.

Following the tyranny of the Nameless Dwarf, the survivors of Arx Gravis fled to wastes of Qlippoth.

BUCK FARGIN

Leader of the Night Hawks. Father of Nils.

CARL THE CAT’S CLAW

Henchman of Shent.

CYNOCPEHALUS, the

Dog-headed ape. Son of the Demiurgos and Eingana. Creator of Aethir and the Hybrids. Maker of Gauntlets of Strength, a Shield of Warding, and Armour of Invulnerability, with which he sought to protect himself from his own paranoid delusions upon discovering (with the arrival of the homunculi on Aethir, whom he had not made) that he was not the Primordial Being.

Challenged by the Jötunn, giants bred by the homunculi to evict him, he gave his gauntlets to Sartis the fire giant who used them to destroy his own kind.

The Cynocephalus eventually fell into the core of Aethir, his own mind, chased by shadows of his own imagining. The darkest recesses of his mind open up onto his father’s abode, the Abyss. He was tracked down and almost destroyed by the Liche Lord, Otto Blightey, who stole his armour and left the Cynocephalus cowering beneath his Shield of Warding.

DEACON SHADER

Former knight of the Templum Elect, the Ipsissimus’s elite force who are sworn to obey without question. Shader was born in Britannia and educated by the philosopher, Aristodeus.

He was a distinguished veteran of the Battle of Trajinot, leading the charge that broke through Otto Blightey’s undead army and forced them back into Verusia.

Shader won the Sword of the Archon at a tournament held in Aeterna to find a successor to the previous champion. Reneging his vow of obedience, he fled back to the Abbey of Pardes in Sahul, where he became embroiled in the battle for the Statue of Eingana.

Shader met the Nameless Dwarf during his first trip to Aethir and later fought alongside him in Verusia.

DEMIURGOS, the

The False Architect; The Deceiver; The Ancient of Days. Came through the Void with Eingana and the Archon. Raped his sister, Eingana. Father of the Cynocephalus. Driven to the brink of the Void by the Archon for his crime against Eingana. Sustained himself with the creation of the Abyss. Trapped in the heart of his own creation.

EINGANA

Creator Goddess of the Dreamers. Sister of the Archon and the Demiurgos. Takes the form of an enormous snake. Also worshipped as a goddess of death, believed to hold all beings in existence by a thread.

Dwells in the Dreaming (within the fabric of Aethir, the dreams of her son) and radiates to Earth when the portals are open. Gave birth to the Cynocephalus by the Archon cutting her womb open with the Sword, Vade in Pacem.

Fled from the Technocrat Sektis Gandaw in the form of a snake. Protected by the Hybrids and the dwarves led by Maldark. Betrayed by Maldark to Sektis Gandaw and was petrified in amber.

The Statue of Eingana was used by Huntsman to inaugurate the Reckoning.

GAUNTLETS OF SARTIS, the

Made by the Cynocephalus to double his own strength, but later given to the fire giant Sartis to enable him to destroy his own race.

GEHENNA

Underworld on Aethir that reaches to the core of the world. Accessed through gorges across Malkuth and Qlippoth. Subterranean cities peopled with homunculi give way to the abode of the Dweller and the entrance to the Abyss.

HUNTSMAN

Dreamer shaman. Formerly Adoni (‘the Sunset’). Inaugurator of the Reckoning using the power of the Statue of Eingana to unleash the creatures of Qlippoth upon the Earth.

JANKSON BRAU

Long-lived mage and unofficial head of the bandit communities outlying Malfen.

LICHE-LORD’S ARMOUR, the

Made by the Cynocephalus to ward off all attacks below the head. Utterly invulnerable. Stolen by Otto Blightey, whom it enabled to walk through the Black River of the Abyss.

LUDO, Adeptus

Nousian cleric and a former tutor of Deacon Shader.

MAGWITCH THE MEDDLER

A mad magician from New Jerusalem. Magwitch ekes out a living supplying magical security systems and inventing contraptions from scraps of Scarolite he scavenged from the Perfect Peak after the fall of Sektis Gandaw.

MALDARK THE FALLEN

Dwarf of Aethir. Marshall of the Guardians of Eingana—renegade dwarves who rejected their creator, Sektis Gandaw, and elected to serve the Hybrids.

Maldark betrayed the Hybrids and delivered the Statue to Sektis Gandaw, having believed his lies about the Hybrids being creatures of the Demiurgos. Realising his mistake, Maldark led the Guardians of Eingana against Gandaw but they were wiped out. At the instant of the Reckoning, Maldark was propelled through a portal to Earth where he sailed the seas in despair until he was called once more to the protection of Eingana.

NEW JERUSALEM

Vast city; the capital of Malkuth on Aethir and once considered the last bastion of the free against the rule of Sektis Gandaw.

The city’s impenetrable Cyclopean Walls were a penance and parting gift of the dwarves following their betrayal of Eingana and the whole of creation.

New Jerusalem is presided over by an elected Senate and fashions itself to a great extent on the mythical past of Aeterna on Earth.

NIGHT HAWKS, the

Guild of rogues in New Jerusalem. Formerly headed by Shadrak the Unseen, but now under the leadership of Buck Fargin.

NOUS

First male Aeon. Logos, reason, clear thinking, truth. Deity from beyond the Void. Distantly remembered by humans and still worshipped by the Templum under the Patriarchate of the Ipsissimus. Individual worshippers are known as Nousians. Served by the Archon. Symbolised by an Endless Knot, said to contain all the mysteries of Creation—all eminently reasonable, but beyond human ability to unravel in their entirety. Wisdom only comes through the Sword of Faith, which cuts the infinite knot.

OTTO BLIGHTEY

Also known as The Liche Lord of Verusia. First of the Nousians. Once a contemplative in the Old Religion at the time of the Ancients, roughly equating to our middle ages, Blightey had a succession of dark visions (having penetrated the veil between Earth and Aethir through the austerity of his devotion and contemplation). The dreams showed him ways to draw upon the magic that spilled forth from Aethir’s dark side, and whispering voices promised him great power and eternal life. He had heard the voice of the Dweller, the first begotten of the Demiurgos.

Blightey prolonged his life at the expense of others—initially tentatively, leaching on their psychic energies, but finding his needs ever greater until he needed their deaths. He left the Old Religion to pursue his hunger—both for lives and for wisdom. He discovered much of the nature of things through alchemy and later science. He also discovered something of the ontological secrets of the cosmos and became aware of the truth of Nous. His shame at what he had become, however, caused him to retreat from Nous.

Due to his wisdom, he became the most respected thinker in the Templum that emerged from the ashes of the Old Religion in the aftermath of the Reckoning. He brought in elements from other religions and esoteric traditions, claiming the Old Religion had perished because it was false.

Although the Templum still sought the truth of Nous, Blightey’s amendments obscured the perennial wisdom beneath layers of obfuscation. The Templum, under the guidance of the Archon, stuck with Blightey’s reforms as they were seen as a strengthening of a once weak religion, with elements of popular appeal and a ladder of grades for the more ambitious. The Archon felt this would lead more people to Nous and strengthen his base in the worlds.

Betraying the trust the Templum held in him, Blightey murdered the Ipsissimus and the Champion of the Sword of the Archon. Taking the Ipsissimal Monas and the Sword, he used their combined power to render his skull impervious to attack, but before he could do the same for his body, he was captured and burned at the stake. The skull had learnt to suck the souls from the living, and so it was locked in a casket made from Scarolite that the Archon brought from Aethir. The casket was taken to Aethir and cast into Gehenna, falling into the Abyss.

Blightey escaped from the casket and searched out the Cynocephalus. Threatening to drink the Cynocephalus’s soul, Blightey forced him to find a body for his skull from the dead of the Abyss. He then stole the Cynocephalus’s armour and waded through the Black River to the heart of the Abyss.

Hundreds of years passed, during which Blightey whispered dark secrets from the Abyss to an Old World scientist called Sektis Gandaw. Gandaw, with the help of homunculi from Aethir, constructed the Gate of Worlds in Earth’s Great West and used it to bring Blightey through. Gandaw, however, did not remain subservient, having grown beyond superstition and magic. He rebelled against Blightey and used technology to drive him into the forests of Verusia.

Blightey built a community based on Collectivism and styled himself First among Equals, the Prior of Wolfmalen. He maintained his docile community by occasionally culling the more free-thinking with unimaginable torture and impaling. He had no ambition beyond perdurance—it is no longer his time. To this end, he kept a collection of headless bodies to which the skull could attach itself. He used disguises to weed out enemies and to ensnare new victims.

The Nameless Dwarf fought against Otto Blightey, alongside the knight, Deacon Shader and their companions in The Archon’s Assassin (Book 3 of the SHADER series).

PAX NANORUM

‘Peace of the dwarves.’ A black battle axe etched with sigils, formed from the essence of the Demiurgos by the homunculi. It was retrieved from Gehenna, beneath the deepest gorges of Aethir, by the Nameless Dwarf—before he lost his name— who then assumed control of the ravine city of Arx Gravis and forced the dwarves into a war against New Jerusalem.

PERFECT PEAK, the

The mountain of Scarolite designed by Sektis Gandaw and built by the dwarves and the homunculi.

QUINTUS QUINCY

Foppish poet from New Jerusalem. An utter failure who spends his days drinking.

RECKONING, the

The cataclysm that destroyed the world of the Ancients on Earth nine-hundred years ago (2,256 AD). Faced with the destruction of his people, the Dreamers—the last humans not to succumb to the technological despotism of Sektis Gandaw—Huntsman used the power of the Statue of Eingana (entrusted to him by the gods of his people, the Hybrids) to tear the veil between Earth and the Dark Side of Aethir. The creatures of the Cynocephalus’s nightmares poured through and destroyed the known world. Sektis Gandaw escaped to Malkuth, on Aethir, in a plane ship.

The dark magic of Aethir gradually withdrew like the tide going out, but not until the technological achievements of the Ancients lay in ruins, their secrets consigned to the archives of the emerging Templum.

SEKTIS GANDAW

Born in the Old World of the Ancients in England in AD 1568, he was a student of Dr Dee and studied alchemy and occult science. With Blightey’s help, who spoke to him in dreams from the Abyss—which lies outside of time—he developed technology to prolong his life: technology which he guarded jealously.

He became Professor of Science at a leading university and selectively released his technological secrets to build a business empire, forcing his rivals out of business and monopolising all areas of the technology industry. He expanded his empire until his Global Tech corporation threatened to dominate the whole world and only the Dreamers held out against him.

Blightey remained his shadowy advisor until Gandaw succeeded in bringing him back from the Abyss. Gandaw, and the world, had moved on, however, and Blightey proved something of a disappointment. Their ideas conflicted and a power struggle ensued. Gandaw had been preparing for such an event and had the technology to force Blightey into the forests of Verusia.

At the time of the Reckoning, Gandaw fled to Aethir in a revolutionary Plane Ship. After the Reckoning, when Otto rose to a position of great influence in the new Nousian religion of the Templum, Gandaw started to rebuild his power on Aethir. Using Plane Ships, he kidnapped humans from Earth and experimented on them, forcing evolution into each and every direction in an attempt to gain control over the building blocks of life. Technology alone had failed: this time he would learn to unweave Creation and rebuild it—better than before—in his own image.

He spent the next centuries improving his technology, creating new variants of human DNA, and seeking the power to un-create—power he had learnt was to be found in the grandmother of all life on Aethir: Eingana.

Devising machines to draw the essence of Eingana from the world, Gandaw pursued her until she fled in the form of a snake.

He created a new race from the genes of humans and homunculi—evolving them into the dwarves, hardy, devoted creatures who were nevertheless infused with the homunculi’s nature of betrayal and deception. The dwarves were designed primarily to mine the Scarolite the homunculi had revealed to Gandaw. With the patience of the immortal, he sent them out into Aethir to build their own civilisation and left them clues as to the ‘real’ source of their life—the Serpent Goddess, Eingana.

Eventually the dwarves found the Hybrids who were sheltering Eingana. Gandaw attacked, but some of the dwarves betrayed him and joined the other side. The Serpent evaded him until he fooled the leader of the dwarf Guardians of Eingana, Maldark, who delivered her to him.

Gandaw petrified the snake with his machines (literally turning her to amber) and immediately set about harnessing her power in order to begin the Great Work of Unweaving.

Maldark and his Guardians realised their mistake and tried to set things right. They stormed Gandaw’s mountain with the Hybrids and stole back Eingana’s statue. Maldark was the only Guardian to survive, along with four out of hundreds of Hybrids.

SHADRAK THE UNSEEN

Diminutive albino assassin who became a firm friend and ally of the Nameless Dwarf.

Once a member of the notorious Sicarii, a guild of assassins in Sahul on Earth, Shadrak made a new life for himself on Aethir in New Jerusalem.

Shadrak played a significant part in the Statue of Eingana affair and also accompanied Nameless on the three quests set by Aristodeus that were designed to free the dwarf from the influence of the Pax Nanorum.

SHIELD OF WARDING, the

Made by the Cynocephalus to ward off all magic and missiles, but remains vulnerable to melee attacks.

SKEYR MAGNUS

Part human, part reptile. Magnus was altered by Sektis Gandaw, but then escaped the Perfect Peak, taking a limited knowledge of technology with him. Killed by his own machines during a confrontation with the Senate of New Jerusalem.

TEMPLUM, the

The People of Nous on Earth, presided over by the Ipsissimus. Servants, of Truth and Love. Bound by the Virtues and guided by scriptures from before the time of the Ancients collected in the Libram.

VENN THE RIPPER

Henchman of Shent.

VERUSIA

Country on Earth, independent of Nousia. Barbaric except for the region controlled by Otto Blightey.

VOID, the

The empty place. The eternal dark that divides the world of Creation from the Supernal Realm. Inhabited by Lacunae and the shades of those either not taken by the Abyss or not worthy of Araboth. The Archon, Eingana and the Demiurgos fell through the Void almost five thousand years ago.

The Ant-Man of Malfen has been published independently as part of a serialisation. If you enjoyed this story and would like to read more, please look out for future releases from D.P. Prior.

The Nameless Dwarf also features in the epic SHADER series by D.P. Prior:

Book 1: Gods in the Dreaming

Book 2: The Unweaving

Book 3: The Archon’s Assassin

Book 4: A Dark Perdurance

You might also want to check out The Memoirs of Harry Chesterton by D.P. Prior:

Thanatos Rising (Part I) is now available for Kindle:

http://www.amazon.com/Thanatos-Rising-Memoirs-Chesterton-ebook/dp/B003ZDP2E8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1288433270&sr=8-1

News and updates are available from:

www.deaconshader.wordpress.com

It is always helpful to independent writers if you take the time to leave a short review on Amazon or other sites like Barnes & Noble or Smashwords.

Photograph by Theo Prior

D.P. Prior read Drama, Classics and History at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. He studied Mental Health Nursing at the University of Sussex and read Theological Studies at the University of Notre Dame, Western Australia. He is the founder of the online discussion community Mysticism Unbound. He works as a freelance editor and author.

You are welcome to contact the author with any comments/feedback at: derekprior@yahoo.co.uk

Table of Contents

Start