***

  The rest of the evening passed with the morbid tension of familial ties severed. Jan Jin and Mila made excuses and retired early, exactly as Quen Yu had hoped. Jan Jin so loved to play his little games—he was an avid Tarod addict among other things—but he had been more right than he knew when he said that Daimonwine had slowed him. He was not the same dagger blade he had once been. He still played the buffoon, but there was less underneath it now. At last, unable to goad Quen Yu, he had petulantly declined to have any real meeting of minds, retreating to his bedroom with his frightened wife in tow.

  Quen Yu would have to have them both killed, eventually. But tonight was not the night. Not when he lay at the nadir of disgrace, and not when his brother’s significantly larger retinue waited behind a veil of ricepaper for the slightest sound of betrayal.

  Instead, Quen Yu had other ideas in mind. He needed diversion. The endless pretense bored him to insanity. His flesh itched. His brain felt as though it were too swollen from his skull, and needed lancing. Yes, he would use the information his brother had provided him to find welcome distraction.

  His room was situated on the third story of the Dominion, some seventy-five feet from the ground. As Quen Yu leapt from the highest window he thought again of Shia’sha, of her descent. Had she resembled a pale cormorant hurtling towards the black of the night-clad sea for food? Had she felt the joy of flight moments before she struck the stone ground and was rent limb from limb?

  He summoned the name, holding an image in his mind. Invocation is merely directed imagination, he heard his old master say. Feel the atoms of existence. The feeling is the key. The feeling, the image, and the name. This is the art! Children know it instinctively. We must learn to remember their wisdom as adults.

  “Nereth, who wears the wings of crows,

  Grant wings to me,

  That I may soar above the woes of men!”

  Halfway to his death, the energy condensed. It shifted from his head to his hands and then his hands to his spine. Wings erupted, black and nearly invisible against the night sky save for an absence. The wings ballooned, catching the air. And suddenly he was gliding rather than falling, descending towards the lip of the battlements with smooth flight.

  Soldiers patrolled there, ever vigilant.

  “Koronzon, darkest lord, conceal my form,

  that I may be as black-wormed loam,

  unseen beneath the tread of feet.”

  He felt the darkness envelop him, and as the soldiers cast their eyes upward, hearing the beat of wings, they squinted and scanned the sky, but saw nothing. The most perceptive of them might have descried a movement of darkness, more shadow than substance, passing over the golden orb of Nilldoran as though the planet were a winking eye. They might have felt the prickle of sorcery, like the nearness of a scalding vapour. But if they did, they said nothing. In the land of sorcery, some mysteries were best left unsolved. This was something Qi’shathians learned from youth.

  As a winged nothingness, Quen Yu flew over the wall and the heads of the soldiers and alighted in the filthy streets below. His invocations faded, like the details of a dream upon waking. He shivered, and felt a current running through him, alive, not just from the use of magic, but from the awakening of anticipation.

  The bright disc of Nilldoran illuminated his path, drenching rooftops in subtle gold. He found his way through the warren of abodes easily enough. Xi’ten was not large by Qi’shathian standards, though it might have daunted a Yarulian newcomer, unused to larger settlements and dense populations.

  Soon, he stood before the numberless, nameless house. Such places were numerous across Qi’shath, identifiable only by a unique perfume—a mix of fumeseote and jasmine that burned in a small brazier dangling from its eaves. They were entirely legal and beyond repercussion, but as with all things Qi’shathian, face and public perception were everything. To be seen entering or leaving such an establishment was social oblivion.

  What went on unseen was not of concern.

  He approached the door and knocked. It opened silently, a woman of middle years standing there, her aura redolent of sorcerous power, a red robe draped across a body still lithe and athletic—likely with the practice of martial arts. She wore white powder, her hair tied tightly back, her lips pursed austerely.

  “What business brings you here, traveller?” Her eyes never seemed to leave his, but he knew she had already marked the quality of his cloth, the cast of his face. He bore the features of a Jin. He, more than any of the others, resembled the Great Mother.

  “I seek a Way,” he replied.

  It was a form of code, known throughout Qi’shath, indicating honest intentions for simple pleasure. She smiled warmly then, stepping aside and allowing him to step within.

  The room was lit only dimly by candles and blood-lamps. The smell of Daimonsblood was faint, masked by burning incense.

  “We are humbled to receive your person,” the matron said, bowing. She came as close to acknowledging his rank without outright stating as was seemly in Qi’shathian manners. He bowed in return, a silent expression of gratitude for her discretion now and in future.

  “We have a number of fine Flowers for you, should you care to choose.”

  The matron rang a bell that would have been invisible to him. Its clear, light sound made his flesh tingle. From secret doorways emerged three beauties. One was clad in white, one black, and one a dark emerald.

  The one in emerald immediately drew his eye. She stood between the other two, her head lowered slightly. She was by far the youngest, though clearly a woman grown. Her features were pale and, to his mind, indicated a mixed ancestry. Her hair was not quite the lustrous black common to Qi’shathians, but rather a brunette so dark it reminded him of deep loam. Her eyes, again, were neither obsidian nor jade, but the darkest shade of hazel, like wood wetted in rain. He found her fascinating.

  “This one,” he commanded. Instantly, the matron clapped her hands, and the other two women departed.

  “Her name is Ynia,” the matron supplied.

  Quen Yu reached into his robe, produced a pouch, and paid the matron her Demons. She bowed and vanished without a further word, knowing her place in this dark dance.

  Ynia, without looking at him, indicated the doorway. Quen Yu approached and stepped through. The door was slid shut behind him, forming a seamless wall.

  His pulse began to quicken. His heart hammered in his chest.

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  The room was small, tiled with yellow-gold squares. There was a bed upon the ground—not raised like western beds—and a small cabinet, filled with drinks.

  Ynia approached him from behind. She placed her small hands upon his chest. She was trembling.

  “Are you afraid of me?” he whispered.

  “No, my lord.”

  “Liar,” he snarled. He turned and saw she was still averting her gaze. He grabbed her chin and forced her to look upon him. “Do you find me so hideous?”

  “No!” she squeaked. She was trembling more violently than a victim of palsy. Her alien eyes were wild, filled with a bovine terror. Perhaps he had made a mistake in choosing her? “No, it’s just… Your power…”

  “You mean my reputation,” he snarled. The world, it seemed, had heard of what he had done, of his appetite—and the consequences. “Oh bitter irony! A whore thinks I will ruin her reputation!”

  Suddenly, the door to the room sprang open. Ynia slipped from him and fled. He snarled, took one step to pursue—then faltered. Some power, or perhaps more accurately instinct, prevented him from following. Beyond the door, all was darkness, as though every last candle had been snuffed out. There was only mist and black shadow. A penumbra of sweet scents, drowsy and languorous and yet full of threat.

  His eyes narrowed.

  “Show yourself! Whoever you are!”

  Within, he began summoning the energies of magic. He thought of the Kwei-Shin Beltanus, and a great shield of metal. He would deflect whatever came forth from the darkness.

  But all was still. The smoke, even, seemed frozen in place, as though he gazed upon a painting.

  Or a dream.

  “Quen Yu Jin…” The voice was a black whisper, an utterance of decay. It was somehow familiar to him, and yet he was sure he should be able to identify such a voice with more certainty. “The dark prince… Keeper of the Twin Flames… Heir to the Jade Throne…”

  A chill went down Quen Yu’s spine. This was a trap, one he had willingly walked into. But how, how could they have known he would come here, when he had not known himself until an hour before setting off? Unless, of course, his enemy was also a sorcerer, a haruspex of uncanny predictive abilities… He had known one or two fortune tellers kept at the Palace of Eternal Dream. He had at first dismissed them as charlatans preying upon his mother’s increased paranoia, but when more of their predictions came true than not, he had begun to revise his opinion. Clearly, there were some who could read the webs of Fate. He was highly skilled in the magical arts, but this was one ability seemingly denied to him.

  “Who are you?” he cried. “I warn you, my death will be swiftly avenged!”

  Laughter answered him. The hairs on the back of his neck rose. He nearly released the magical force gathering within him in a scream, such was the shock of fear that ran through him, but he just held himself in check.

  A shadow appeared in the smoke. It moved towards him with horrible deliberateness, the slow shuffle of something perhaps physically disabled, but of unbreakable will.

  He saw the red robes first—the same red robes of the matron who had greeted him at the door. But where the robes had adorned a beauty in her middle years, they now mantled a crone. She looked amphibian, such was the distortion time had wrought upon her features. The hair was lank, tangled like bindweed. The eyes were suken so far into the skull they seemed shrivelled. Her smile was toothless. One leg was game as she hobbled, using a stick for support.

  “Who are you?” he asked a third time.

  The crone laughed again.

  “Not quite the pretty Flower you saw before,” she crooned. “Appearances can be deceiving, can they not?” She sniffed, and he sensed she was scenting him, apprising herself of more than ordinary knowledge. “Take you. You walk and talk like one disgraced. They whisper of you in the smoking dens and the parlours. They say ‘Quen Yu is nothing, nothing but a dog. He will die forgotten’.” The crone smiled at Quen Yu’s look of horror. “You know it is true. But I, I see differently. I see before me the Emperor of Qi’shath, crowned in resplendence.”

  “Treason,” Quen Yu said, but he only managed to whisper it, for his heart was not in the words.

  “Destiny,” she answered. “Destiny, Quen Yu. It hovers above you like the Jubjub bird. Your Fate is not the dirt of defeat nor the hovels of whores, but the skies where clouds dream! Oh, the feast is coming, my lord! The feast is coming like no feast you have known, where thy bladed beak shall bathe in the gore of your enemies, and the night-black moon shall herald the ascension of your star!”

  “Enough!” Quen Yu snarled. “Do not fill my mind with pretty fantasies. I have met many flatterers and conspirers in my time. My mother is immortal.” He paused. It was only now, speaking aloud, that he realised how truly defeated he was. He pretended towards ambition, but in truth, he had accepted his lot in life. He had accepted the squalor of the Jubjub bird.

  “Immortal, yes,” the crone said, her eyes glittering. “But not invulnerable. Even gods have been known to die, Quen Yu. This I have seen in the Abysm of Remembrance.” A shudder went through him.

  “Do not speak of such things…”

  “Why do you fear it? You are a sorcerer of rare art—possing knowledge of both Daimomancy and Invocation.”

  “How do you know this?” he snapped. But he already had his answer. She had wielded the forbidden concoction, the Abysm of Remembrance, a drug so potent that it had made men gods—while at the same time driving them mad. The drug was magical, granting knowledge of hidden places and things. But the toll it exacted was heavy: sometimes for body, sometimes for mind, often for both.

  The crone stepped toward him. The reek of decay was about her, but somehow he did not find it unpleasant. There was a richness to the smell, a thickness that reminded him of the potency of Daimonsblood.

  “Come,” she whispered. “Come to me, Quen Yu. I have seen your destiny. I have seen you sitting upon the Jade Throne, all of Qi’shath and the world bowing before you. I have seen the webs of Fate. I have descried the mysteries of the Kwei-Shin. Heaven ordains it. The Way is yours. I ask only that you allow my to serve.”

  She knelt before him, bowing her head low. Quen Yu stood, rooted to the spot, staring down at the locks of serpentine hair falling from her grey scalp. Minutes passed. The crone looked up at him, perplexed.

  Quen Yu smiled then. But the smile he wore was not one anyone living had seen. It was a smile so dreadful that the crone’s aura of mysticism was shattered, and her lips quivered, and her breath caught in her throat.

  “Fool,” Quen Yu whispered. It was not his voice, and yet it was him. His face was his face and yet it was not his face. The features, somehow, had been rearranged. The shadows of the room stuck to the wrong parts of him. His eyes were burning jewels. “You come to me with your charlatan’s ways, thinking to dupe me. You would put me on the throne as a puppet, wielding the power of the Empire from the shadows. I know your heart!”

  “N-no, my lord—”

  “Be silent,” he hissed.

  The crone turned white. Her eyes shone with tears.

  “Forgive me…” she whimpered.

  “You know not who I am, nor in what fires this blade was forged.” Flames seemed to shine from his eyes, and a black light played around him, an inverse sorcery, a kind of void-fire. “I have glimpsed secrets of Reality that make your Abysm of Remembrance seem but a child’s toy glass.”

  The crone trembled.

  “I did not understand, I am so—”

  “And still you do not…” he whispered.

  The crone’s eyes widened. It was then she realised the horror of the mistake she had made. His smile widened until it was freakish, and his eyes blazed with a flame blacker than Daimonic fire. He looked not at all like Quen Yu, now, because he was not Quen Yu. Or rather, Quen Yu did not exist. He was a fiction who believed in his own reality, being worn by something far deeper and darker. She could only wonder at the childhood horrors that’d made a man like this, a man who—like the flatworm—wore flesh like clothes, manipulating from within, and never allowed themselves to be seen.

  She gazed now upon a secret face, a face that had been hidden long decades, that could never be seen except by those about to die. She realised then that the visions she had seen had been fed to her, that what she thought of as the power of her foresight was indeed planted there by another hand, a hand of sorcery more powerful than anything she could ever imagine. She thought she had trapped the prince, but in truth, it was he who had trapped her.

  “Who are you?” she now asked him. “Who are you really?”

  “Why…” he said, laughing. “I am Quen Yu.”

  The blade of black light fell swifter than a bird of death.