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The Manse of Mirrors - Nick Horth

About the Author

An Extract from ‘Callis and Toll: The Silver Shard’

A Black Library Publication

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THE MANSE OF MIRRORS

Nick Horth

I don’t do break-in jobs, as a rule. The crucial thing about my line of work is that it involves searching for items of incalculable value and historical significance. Relics of a lost age, the sole remaining cultural evidence of civilisations ground down by time and damned by the gods. It is one of the immutable laws of existence that such precious things tend to fall into the hands of the realms’ very worst people.

So I remain unsure as to the exact reason I agreed to break into the manse of Phylebius Crade, noted master of amethyst magic, former high thaumaturge of the free city of Lethis, and by all accounts one of the most dangerous men you could ever wish to meet. Fortunately, he’d been dead for something approaching fifty years, so running into him seemed an unlikely prospect.

As usual, Rhodus gave me the hard sell. Over a glass of overpriced Cyphian amber in an overpriced private room of the Silvermoon tavern, he massaged my ego and played upon my desires as only a merchant of the Ivory Circle could. Our meeting place was a fine, if rather gloomy establishment, its walls and chairs fashioned from polished black wood and decorated with all manner of gewgaws: dreamcatchers, rope-charms and brass tintinnabula that tinkled unsettlingly in the breeze. A lamp filled with whale tallow burned softly above our private table, releasing a strange, blue-white glow. The Lethisian aesthetic was not one I particularly admired. It felt as though I were drinking in a gigantic coffin.

Rhodus signalled a cadaverous member of the serving staff to refill my glass, and I made no objection. I never pass up an opportunity for free food or drink. The life of a roaming treasure seeker is one of dramatic highs and frequent, penurious lows, and currently my resources were worryingly meagre. It had not been easy to gain passage to Shyish; at great cost I had booked a berth upon a trade fleet out of Excelsis that had passed through the Lixian Realmgate, carrying vast quantities of augur-stones for the Raven City’s markets. That journey had taken a season and more, and had drained the last of my coin. I was weary and broke. The perfect mark for a rogue like Rhodus.

‘No one’s heard a whisper from the place since the old wretch passed,’ Rhodus was saying. ‘And you must have heard the rumours. By the time Crade died he had gathered himself a hoard of Stygxxian relics, the sort of treasures that would bring in a cog-fort’s worth of Azyrite coin on the shadow market. Now don’t tell me that doesn’t strike your fancy, because I know you better than that, Shevanya Arclis.’

He leaned back on his chair, his legs swinging ridiculously like those of an overeager child.

I took a long, slow drink, trying to mask my interest. It never pays to let someone like Rhodus know he’s got his hooks in you. I had an inexplicable fondness for the odd little man with his gaudy robes and silly little pince-nez, but he was a business associate first and friend a distant second. You don’t get to be a member of the Ivory Circle unless you have the predatory instincts of a wraith-spider. I liked Rhodus Blithe, but I sure as sigmarite didn’t trust him.

‘If that’s true,’ I said at last, ‘I’m sure someone’s already broken in and looted everything of value. It’s been decades, Rhodus.’

‘No!’ the merchant squeaked, shaking his head excitedly. ‘That’s the genius of it! You know what these Lethisians are like, Shevanya, they can’t empty their bowels without reciting half a dozen canticles of obeisance to Morrda. Besides, as far as the common folk are concerned, Crade may as well be Nagash himself. The entire city trembles at the mention of his name. No one goes near his manse, and those who’ve tried…’

I flashed him a look. ‘Go on.’

He twitched a little, and flashed me a slightly sickly smile. ‘Well, there’s no profit without a little risk, is there, my dear? I have it all in hand. I have obtained the services of three most accomplished… ah, retrieval experts. But I require your discerning eye, Shevanya. In return I can promise an equal share of any items that we extricate, as well as fitting compensation for your efforts.’

The offer of coin was welcome, of course – show me a freelancer who doesn’t appreciate a decent payday – but it was the chance to root through Crade’s belongings that really piqued my interest. Of course I’d heard the tales. No one had explored as many of the dangerous wilds of the Land of Forgotten Gods as the former high thaumaturge. Stygxx is a land of mystery, home to the remnants of a thousand lost cultures. A graveyard of history. To someone like yours truly, an archaeologist who specialises in unearthing the bygone secrets of the Age of Myth, it’s unendingly fascinating.

‘I’ll need to meet your crew before we continue,’ I said, before draining my glass. The amber burned pleasantly as it slipped down. ‘We need the best for a job like this. You know how protective wizards get about the things they’ve stolen. And by all accounts Master Crade was something of a prodigy amongst his kind.’

Rhodus couldn’t keep the smirk off his face. He knew he had me, despite my attempts to feign professional disinterest.

‘Of course,’ he said, fairly rubbing his hands together in glee. ‘Believe me, Shevanya, this is the best decision you’ve ever made. We’ll be in, out and away with a fortune in priceless treasures before the week is out!’

As it turned out, Rhodus was wrong about all of that.

Phylebius Crade’s mansion was not exactly what I expected. I’d pictured your typical wizard’s abode, a monument to its owner’s towering ego, some form of ludicrously extravagant tower looming over the city in a display of gaudy excess. In fact, the manse was an attractive yet rather nondescript building constructed in the Azyrite fashion, with a columned portico and a great domed roof. It stood amidst a tangled forest of hedgerows, which had been left to grow unchecked for many years. Spidery vines wrapped the mansion in a tight embrace, and patches of luminescent moss gave it a strange, silvery sheen, like meat gone bad.

I couldn’t help but feel a tinge of unease as I gazed upon the house, not solely due to the typically Lethisian weather. An early morning mist had settled over the free city. Above, a baleful moon peered out of the clouds, bathing everything in a sickly green light. A gathering of black birds sat atop the dome, silently observing the grounds. These were the creatures that had earned Lethis its epithet – the Raven City. The locals worshipped them as living agents of their silent god, Morrda, an ancient deity of death whom they believed had escaped the clutches of the Great Necromancer. I found the cold and calculating stares of the carrion birds profoundly unsettling.

My companions joined me by the iron gate at the front of the property.

‘Not much to look at, is it, aelf?’ said Dhowmer, leaning against his ivory staff, smirking at me through bloodless lips. I had taken against the mage at first glance. He was a young, sallow human with an air of practised insouciance, dressed in richly embroidered robes with a high, sweeping collar, and sporting a painstakingly fashioned moustache. A prodigy of the Collegiate Arcane, according to Rhodus. That didn’t explain why he had joined our little expedition. I had an inkling that if any of Dhowmer’s masters caught wind of his business tonight, the punishment would be severe. Probably fatal. Not an unpleasant thought, as far as I was concerned.

‘Certainly his groundsman’s work leaves a lot to be desired,’ I said.

‘Crade weren’t ever a flashy one,’ said Goolan, scratching at a week-old tangle of grey stubble. This one was a master amongst thieves, allegedly, though at first glance he looked like any random drunk one might stumble upon in a seedy drinking pit in the early hours of morning: overweight, foul-smelling and with teeth like broken nails. Only his eyes gave his true nature away; they sparkled with the vigour of a man half his age, flicking to and fro restlessly without missing a trick.

‘The old vulture Crade didn’t need no flashy tower or a set of gaudy robes like yourself, boy. All he needed was his name. People whispered it in fear. Still do, and he’s been dead a long while.’

El-malia sighed theatrically. ‘If we’re going to do this, shall we press on? Lord Zainton hosts the Evenmoon Ball tomorrow eve, and I should like to attend if it’s all the same to you three.’

Tall, statuesque and with enough knives strapped about her person to equip a butcher’s shop, Lady Nazira El-malia was of Azyrite stock, or so she said. She certainly had the coin and self-assurance to back that up. I marked her as a noble-born thrill-seeker, and was not overly impressed. I’d seen plenty of her kind in my time.

‘She’s right,’ I said. ‘The longer we linger here, the sooner the Blackshore Guard or the Raven priests show up. I’d rather not see the inside of a Lethisian gaol. Your taverns are bad enough.’

Goolan worked his skills upon the gate and had it open in short order. It creaked ominously as it swung open to allow us passage. We advanced along the overgrown path towards the front door, the only sound the distant howling of the wind. All else was eerily still and silent, and the ravens perched atop the domed roof watched our progress with judgemental stares.

The mansion’s main door was a great wedge of black iron, inlaid with a spiralling pattern of symbols that I could not decipher. In its centre was a huge brass ring, and beneath that a circular panel etched with more odd, angular runes. The disc glowed with a faint silvery light.

‘Hmm,’ said Goolan. ‘Clever little enchantment. You got to press the right combination of the symbols, else it knows you’re an intruder and boom… you’re coiler-meat.’

‘How do you know that?’ I asked, impressed.

‘I’ve been doing this a long time, girl,’ he said. ‘I’ve seen every type of lock, trap and enchantment you can imagine. These wizardly types, they always figure an ignorant thief’s got no chance against their unmatched genius. I like to prove ’em wrong.’

‘Can you break it?’ asked El-malia.

‘Course. You just keep your eyes open and your mouths shut, and let me work.’

The thiefmaster set down his backpack, and began to rummage through it. After a moment, he withdrew a conical brass instrument inlaid with purple gems, and a leather belt containing a selection of odd-looking implements whose function escaped me.

‘Magic leaves a trace, same as anything else,’ Goolan said. ‘Just got to learn… to read it.’

He held the cone-shaped object near to the panel, and moved it slowly over the surface. The gems inlaid upon the device began to pulse gently. Goolan passed the cone over the area several times, and after each circuit he scribbled down something in a little leatherbound notebook.

Meanwhile, the rest of us shivered and shuffled about nervously, expecting a patrol of black-clad Freeguild to appear at any moment. A sudden gale picked up, scattering dead leaves as it whipped across the gardens. I frowned. For a moment the rush of wind seemed to take on an almost human sound, like a susurrus of hushed whispers. It passed in a moment, and I told myself it was just my ears playing tricks on me.

‘Right then,’ said Goolan at last. ‘Think I’ve got it.’

‘And if you don’t?’ I said, knowing the answer.

‘Then I’ll likely be splattered about these flagstones, along with the rest of you. Here goes nothing.’

El-malia, Dhowmer and I all took a discreet step backwards.

The thiefmaster’s slender fingers danced across the panel, and the silvery glow intensified. There was a deep, low clunk.

With a groan, the door yawned open. Beyond, I could see a narrow corridor, shrouded in darkness.

Goolan got to his feet with a nod of satisfaction, and regathered his tools.

‘After you,’ gestured Dhowmer with a bow and a smile, clearly expecting me to defer.

I managed to refrain from rolling my eyes. My golden rule of exploration has ever been this: always take the lead, and trust your own eyes over anyone else’s. Not being the one to trigger a trap yourself won’t make you any less dead if one goes off in close proximity. No matter where in the realms they hail from, trap designers tend to operate on the same basic principles as Ironweld cannoneers – the more destruction and death you can leverage at a single location, the less likely there are to be any survivors.

I fetched a raystone from my belt, thumbing the central depression in the oval rock. Then I tucked the object into a pocket on the lapel of my coat, where it began to glow softly, illuminating the path ahead. These imports from Hysh aren’t cheap or easy to get hold of, but unlike a flaming torch they don’t go out, and they have the advantage of leaving one’s hands free. I proceeded slowly along the hallway, scanning the walls and floor for any telltale signs of imperfection, any sudden gusts of air or strange smells that might signify something untoward. The stonework was flawlessly smooth obsidian, the floor richly carpeted with a length of crimson fabric upon which were embroidered skeletal pipers, cavorting madly across a corpse-strewn battlefield. Cheerful, I thought.

Eventually the passage opened into a large central chamber, dominated by a great spiral stair that ascended into the darkness of a domed ceiling. Lining the chamber on all sides were great oil paintings and embossed murals, arranged so tightly upon the walls that I could barely see the masonry beneath. I don’t profess to be an expert on Lethisian art, but judging by the quality of the pieces, Crade was something of an aesthete.

‘Oh my,’ said Lady El-malia. ‘Is that an original Ruthean? Throne of Azyr, that can’t have come cheap.’

‘A master of the Collegiate Arcane does not want for resources,’ said Dhowmer. ‘And Crade was one of the most powerful men to ever hold office in Lethis.’

There was a scattering of imposing landscapes. An immense mural depicted the towering presence of Deific Mons, the Mountain of the Silent Gods, rays of heavenly light bathing its highest peaks in a golden glow. I believe I recognised the darksome forests of Tzlid, and a tremendously unsettling image of a sea vessel caught in the crushing embrace of a great skullcoiler eel. Yet the majority of the gallery was comprised of portraits. Pale, austere men and women glared down at us disapprovingly. The majority wore fine robes and collars of fur, and were bedecked with golden jewellery and Azyrite sigils. Several possessed a more military bearing, clad in ornate armour and accompanied by similarly proud-looking animals: star-eagles, astral lions and hook-beaked gryphons. The gloom rendered these strangers ghostly and foreboding, and gave their hawkish stares an uncomfortably lifelike appearance.

Upon a landing at the top of the first flight of stairs was the largest painting of all. It depicted a stern-looking man in a white skullcap, standing beneath a full moon. In one hand he held aloft a cracked timepiece that trickled black sand. In the other, a staff of bone and gold, topped with the symbol of the comet. I recognised the staff of office. It resembled those carried by the masters of the Collegiate Arcane.

‘So that’s our host,’ I said.

‘High Thaumaturge Phylebius Crade himself,’ nodded Dhowmer. ‘Before my time of course, but the masters of the Centrellum can’t talk for more than a minute without invoking his name. Most tiresome.’

I shivered, despite my warm rhinox-hide coat. Somehow it was colder in the empty hall than it had been outside. Each breath unleashed a curling wisp of fog, and the tips of my fingers ached painfully. There was an unnatural stillness to the house, as though we were frozen in time. Looking around I saw no dust upon the carpet, and no signs of life. The curtains and drapes framing each of the great murals were not moth-eaten and ragged, but richly coloured, as if they had only just been installed.

‘This hardly resembles a house that’s been abandoned for fifty years,’ said Dhowmer, echoing my thoughts. ‘Someone’s here, or has been until recently.’

‘That arcane ward on the front door’s not been breached in at least a decade,’ said Goolan. ‘I’d bet my teeth upon it.’

‘Perhaps our host is not, in fact, deceased,’ said Lady El-malia, nervously clutching a thin-bladed throwing knife.

‘Come on,’ I said, starting for the great stairway. The cold eyes of Crade’s painting followed me across the chamber. I could tell the others were as unnerved as I. The look of self-satisfaction had temporarily disappeared from Dhowmer’s face, and Goolan’s eyes darted to and fro like those of a cornered alley rat.

The stairs curved around and led us to a circular landing. Directly ahead lay a pair of doors, their surface panelled with amethyst glass. Cautiously I approached, the sensation of being watched growing ever more potent. My scarred visage stared back at me from the frosted surface – the ragged marks were the legacy of an old injury, an ever-present reminder of a time I’d rather forget. I stopped, my heart hammering. Reflected in the glass I saw a ghostly, withered hand reaching over my shoulder, taloned fingers stretching out to caress my neck. At the same time I felt something brush lightly across my skin.

I whirled about, panic seizing control of my limbs, and struck at the figure looming behind me, which recoiled with a shriek of its own. It was Goolan. He cursed as he clutched his face.

‘What in Sigmar’s name is wrong with you?’ he growled.

‘I saw…’ I began, turning back to the glass door. No longer was there any sign of the gruesome apparition, only a deeply irritated thief nursing a bruised jaw.

Embarrassment battled fear for control of my emotions, and emerged triumphant. I muttered an apology, but I could not shake the image of that cadaverous hand coiling around my neck. I had the same feeling an arachnophobe experiences when they know that a spider is crawling and scuttling somewhere close by, but they can’t lay their eyes upon it. It’s somehow worse than being confronted with the creature itself. My gut was telling me that we should abandon this fool’s errand right there and then, but foolish pride and a desire to lay my hands upon Crade’s collection refused to allow good sense to prevail.

‘Can we get a move on?’ asked Dhowmer looking even paler than usual, trickles of sweat running down his face despite the cold air.

Cursing my overactive mind, I pushed open the double doors. A long corridor of dark, panelled wood stretched off into the distance. Lining the walls on each side were handsome dress mirrors set into oval frames of silver and gold. The raystone tucked into my coat illuminated the passage, causing the looking glasses to flicker unnervingly and sending a cascade of rippling light across the ceiling.

Cautiously, I proceeded down the corridor. Reaching the first mirror to my left, I glanced into its depths, half expecting to see that same withered hand wrapped around my neck. My reflection stared back, but to my disquiet it stood not in the halls of Crade’s mansion, but upon the crystal steps of a teetering spire, a city of glass and shadow stretched out far beneath me, nothing but utter blackness above my head. As I watched, my mirror image raised a trembling hand, my mouth open in astonishment.

‘Throne of Azyr,’ whispered Goolan. He too was staring into the depths of the mirror as if hypnotised. To my disquiet I could not see his reflection in the glass, even though he stood no more than a few inches from my side.

‘Beautiful,’ said Dhowmer. ‘It reminds me of a tale my mother used to tell. Of the City of Mirrors, where the damned are trapped for all eternity to suffer and rot, never granted the peace of death.’

‘You Lethisians really are a cheerful lot, aren’t you?’ I said.

‘All of these show the same location,’ said El-malia, studying each mirror in turn.

She was right. The landscapes displayed were bizarre and incongruous, their physical dimensions impossible, but there was a uniformity in the architecture: grand, gothic spires and soaring arches; cramped, switchbacked streets; and above all, the ornamental use of dark, green glass. Entire walls and towers were shaped from the substance. In the midst of this dark grandeur there at first appeared to be no life at all. Yet as I looked closer, I saw hunched, crook-backed shapes lurking in doorways, slumped and hopeless. In the shadows of oubliettes and catacombs half-seen figures shuffled, avoiding the light like vermin.

More than anything I felt a sense of sorrow and anguish radiating from the city beyond the glass. The sensation was palpable, yet it was tremendously difficult to tear one’s eyes from the strange sights. I dragged myself away, and continued on down the hall.

I shivered and clutched my coat around my chest. Across the walls and ceiling I could see a patina of hoar frost glittering in the half-light. As I watched, it began to spread, trickling down the walls in spidery patterns.

‘This place is wrong,’ El-malia said, and I could not disagree. Yet I set my jaw and tried to banish my unease. I’ve faced down slavering monsters and deranged sorcerers alike, visited cursed temple-cities and conversed with ancient beings whose sheer, alien otherness made me question my own sanity. I was not about to abandon our prize just yet.

‘We press on,’ I said. ‘We’re close, I’m sure. Just keep your eyes peeled.’

The next mirror showed a tower of emerald glass, its spires twisted into the image of a gargantuan, skeletal face. Hooded figures knelt before the tower. They bent and rose in supplication. As I looked in fearful fascination, the figure at the centre of the gathering rose and turned to face me. A gaunt, thin-limbed creature, its flesh pale as a corpseworm. It began to stride towards me, reaching up with spider-like fingers to pull back the hood of its robe. Beneath was a face from my darkest nightmares, a sunken horror with blackened teeth and a snakish slit of a nose. Yet far worse were the cadaver’s eyes. Shards of green glass had been thrust through its eyeballs, and dried blood caked its cheeks. The robed corpse opened its arms, as if to welcome me home. A withered hand reached out, and with a crackle of splintering glass, black fingernails pierced the mirror and thrust into reality, reaching for my face.

Lady El-malia’s gasp of horror stirred me from my trance. I tumbled backwards as the disembodied hand brushed past my face, its grasping claws missing me by mere inches. I fell on my backside and scrambled away across the floor. El-malia thrust out with her dagger, and the thing in the mirror withdrew its hand with a hiss of pain, falling to its knees. It began to sob and wail, pressing bleeding palms against the glass surface. As it turned its eyeless face towards me once more I registered not fury, but boundless sorrow. To my surprise I felt a stab of pity along with my revulsion.

Inhuman shrieks filled the air. All around us the glass portals stirred, as the skies above the strange city flared with emerald light. Soaring above the spires and glass-towers came shrouded horrors wreathed in ragged cloaks of black, their skull-like faces gleaming in the twilight. They wheeled and turned in the air, unleashing piercing cries filled with bitter hatred. In the presence of these apparitions the distant, praying figures fell to the floor and prostrated themselves in terror. Then, as one, the wraiths turned and fixed their soulless gaze upon my companions and me. I felt my heart stutter as dozens of pairs of baleful eyes bored into my own. I could keenly feel their predatory hunger. With another awful cry the spectral nightmares swept down towards us.

Behind us, glass shattered, and a ghostly form swept into reality. Then another mirror burst into pieces, and another, and suddenly the hall was filled with swirling, aethereal forms and flying shards of glass. Gaunt faces leered down at us, and clawed hands clutched rusted blades and verdigrised chains.

‘God-King preserve us!’ cried Goolan.

‘Run,’ I hissed, tearing my eyes from the awful sight. ‘Run!’

Scrambling to my feet, I raced for the door at the far end of the chamber, icy rime spreading across the wooden floor ahead of me with a terrible crackling sound. Goolan was faster. His boots clattered across the floor, and I could hear Dhowmer and El-malia rushing close behind us, their breathing ragged. As we ran, I could see shapes stirring within the mirrors on either side, stretching out their hands to pierce the veil between worlds. The far door was barely a dozen feet away when a spider-limbed horror wrapped in pale rags burst from the mirror to the left of Goolan in an explosion of shattering glass, wrapping its spectral arms around the thiefmaster. Goolan was torn from his feet, and with a scream the gheist dragged the poor man through the glass portal.

As I raced past, I saw from the corner of my eye the thiefmaster struggling helplessly, borne away into the shadows of the mirrored city.

Again came the sound of shattering glass, and a high-pitched, terrified scream that I was almost certain was not my own. Ghostly hands swiped at me, but I threw myself into a headlong dive, tucking my shoulder and coming to my feet just a few feet from the door and, I hoped, sanctuary.

My shaking hands grasped the handle, and I tore it open. I would like to say that I stopped then for the sake of my companions, but in fact it was only the shattered remains of a broken table that halted my escape. I stumbled and nearly fell, one hand slamming down upon a carpeted floor to steady myself. Turning, I saw Dhowmer in full flight, his robes billowing behind him. He rushed into the room.

Lady El-malia was on his heels. She had made the threshold of the chamber when she froze in place, her body stiffening. A spectral claw tore through her chest, its long, curved fingernails protruding from her heart. The noblewoman collapsed to her knees, eyes glazing over, her face locked in an expression of purest horror. Then she too was dragged away.

I kicked the door shut, even though some distant corner of my mind registered that against the spectral dead such physical barriers were all but pointless. For a few, terrible moments I expected our hideous pursuers to come flooding through the thick oak of the door and into our chamber.

But silence fell once more.

Dhowmer began to chant urgently, weaving his staff in a figure-of-eight pattern. There was a burst of white light, and the mage fetched a leatherbound bag from his belt and began to sprinkle a fine, white powder across the floor beneath the door.

‘Saint’s Wort,’ he explained. ‘Mixed with Azyrite starwater and ground with the bones of a Devoted battle-priest. A ward against the dead.’

‘Will it hold?’

He shook his head helplessly. ‘If it doesn’t, we’ll be joining our late companions in whatever cursed place lies beyond.’

The thought stirred me into motion. I clambered to my feet and took in the chamber for the first time. It was a high, square room, almost every inch of it piled with workbenches and stacks of yellowed tomes. Around the edge of the chamber were a number of towering glass cabinets, filled to the brim with one of the most eclectic collections of magical and historical ephemera I have ever seen. Rhodus had been right about one thing: Crade’s collection could have rivalled that of any Azyrite antiquarian. I saw Thraxian gunshields crafted from blue invictunite, sun carvings from the Hyshan sky-plains, a suit of ensorcelled plate bearing the sun and eagle of Lantea. My fear ebbed away somewhat, replaced by astonishment and wonder.

For all the splendour of the wizard’s hoard, Crade had clearly had greater things on his mind than mere appreciation of his treasures. Several of the great cabinets had been shunted aside, stacked together about the edge of the chamber. The doors of some were hanging open, their contents lying scattered about the floor or piled up absent-mindedly upon stacks of unwashed plates and notebooks scrawled upon in an untidy hand.

Crade had been clearing space for a bizarre tangle of arcane machinery that occupied the centre of the room. Three pillars of gold were arranged around yet another looking glass. This one was far larger and more ornate than the others, almost reaching to the ceiling. It was wrought of gleaming obsidian and fashioned with the skill of a master craftsman, filigreed patterns of silver worked into every inch of the metalwork. The stone pillars were marked with runes and scrawled notes and arcane formulae written in what looked like glowing chalk. Each was capped by a disc of blue metal, upon which rested a geometric fist of violet crystal. I am no student of the arcane, but I could feel the power surging from these objects, sending an aetheric charge fizzing across my flesh. Looping trails of metal spilled from the base of the pillars like iron intestines, coiling across the floor.

Feeling a trickle of dread creep along my spine, I edged around the front of the mirror, peering into its calm surface. There was the faint outline of my reflection, but beneath it I once again saw an image of the strange city. This time I saw no eyeless ghouls or malevolent spirits. Instead I looked upon the interior of an emerald cathedral, a great, vaulted hall that possessed a cold and terrible beauty. The floor was polished obsidian, the walls lined with statues of tall and foreboding figures. Rising from the floor in the centre of the cathedral was a frozen river of glass that disappeared into the domed roof above. Swirling patterns of light rippled along the length of this strangely organic structure, and though the distance was too great to be sure, I thought that I could make out vaguely human shapes drifting within its crystalline depths, floating as if carried along by a swift current.

‘This one feels different,’ said Dhowmer, shaking his head. ‘These pillars. The magic is beyond me, but I can sense their power.’

He frowned, then closed his eyes and fell silent.

‘I don’t want to distract you from your meditation,’ I said with no small amount of frustration, ‘but any minute now a horde of vengeful spirits is going to come flooding through that door.’

The mage’s eyes snapped open.

‘It’s not my magic holding them at bay,’ he said. ‘There’s an arcane barrier surrounding this chamber, radiating from the pillars. But it’s more than that. There’s an echo of something else, the lingering residue of a very powerful enchantment.’

Deciding that I was not going to be much help deciphering the mysteries of Crade’s magic, I began rummaging through piles of scrollwork and scattered trinkets, searching for something we could use to escape. Crade had apparently kept nothing so organised as a journal. Instead, his writings and observations were scrawled across scattered scraps of parchment in an untidy hand. I found several mentions of ancient ruins and subterranean chambers that the wizard had excavated across Stygxx – several of these I pocketed for my own use. Crade did not appear to be particularly interested in uncovering the anthropological history of the region, rather he appeared to be searching for something he referred to in rather unembellished terms as the ‘catalyst’.

‘I see you find my studies intriguing,’ came a thin, frail voice from behind me, almost causing me to jump out of my skin. Dhowmer started violently too, spinning around and knocking over a teetering pile of scrolls that collapsed in a cloud of choking dust.

In the surface of the mirror a small man had appeared. He was old and stooped, dressed in flowing white robes and wearing a grey skullcap, yet despite his frailty there was still immense power in his piercing grey eyes. I recognised him at once from the picture hanging in the manse’s great hall.

‘Phylebius Crade,’ Dhowmer whispered.

‘My wards still hold,’ said the wizard. ‘Good. You are the first in many decades to make it into this chamber. I have been waiting for you for a very long time.’

‘What curse has taken hold of this place?’ I said.

‘A malediction brought about by my own arrogance,’ Crade sighed. ‘This prison in which you find me trapped, it is a vector for an ancient and terrible curse. In my folly I thought to break this dark enchantment, or even harness its power for my own ends. But as you can see, I failed.’

‘The Mirrored City,’ whispered Dhowmer. ‘Shadespire.’

‘Aye,’ said Crade. ‘Not a myth. Not just a story told by mothers to frighten unruly children. No, Shadespire exists. An entire city cursed by the Tyrant of Bones to an eternity of deathless torment. And just as Nagash’s power swells with every passing year, so has the curse of the Mirrored City grown more powerful and deadly.’

‘It’s spreading,’ I said, and Crade nodded gravely. It made a horrible kind of sense.

‘So it is. This mirror you see here belonged to the Katophrane Demius Mavos, one of the masters of Shadespire-That-Was. It has a potent connection to the Mirrored City, and it left in its wake a trail of death and misery as it passed from noble house to merchant’s hoard, from one collection to another, eventually finding its way to the Raven City. I believed that I could use my own magic to study this relic, and gain insight into the nature of the curse of Shadespire. Perhaps even curtail it.’

He laughed. It was an empty, mirthless sound.

‘For my troubles, I was claimed by the very curse I sought to understand. Yet the power of my magic still lingers. I formed a chain between two places in time – my own manse, and the Mirrored City. That is all that anchors me to reality.’

‘How can we stop this?’ Dhowmer asked. ‘Can we destroy this mirror somehow?’

‘The device you see before you is a soul-circuit,’ Crade said, gesturing at the three pillars and the crystals mounted atop them. ‘Powered by Chamonic echostones and charged with the wind of Shyish. For decades I have held the curse at bay, but my power wanes. With every passing day a portion of my spirit is claimed by the Mirrored City. I am weak, and when I can no longer hold open this connection, the curse will spread like wildfire throughout Lethis. But you…’

He lowered his staff at Dhowmer.

‘I sense power enough in you. Nothing to match my own, but perhaps enough to overload these echostones. Doing so may cause a cascade of arcane magic strong enough to shatter the Mirror of Mavos.’

Dhowmer flashed me a nervous glance, and I gave him a shrug in return.

‘Don’t look at me,’ I said. ‘You’re the master magician, or so you keep telling me.

‘And what happens to you if the mirror shatters?’ I asked Crade. The archmage shot me a strange, narrow-eyed look. Either suspicion or frustration, I could not tell which.

‘I will be lost of course,’ he said. ‘Trapped in this cursed place forever. It is not a prospect I relish, but it serves a greater good.’

‘It’s not like we have a choice,’ said Dhowmer. ‘We can’t let the curse spread beyond this place.’

‘I will join my power to yours from this side,’ Crade continued. ‘Begin now.’

Dhowmer nodded, and closed his eyes. The air sizzled with actinic energy as he began to mutter words in a tongue I did not understand.

‘You, aelf,’ said Crade. ‘As soon as the process begins, it will disrupt the wards I have placed around this chamber. The dead will be granted entry.’

‘And what exactly am I meant to do about that?’ I said, helplessly. ‘Throw books at them?’

Crade stiffened, and shot me a sour look. Clearly he was not a man used to dissension.

‘The cabinet to your left,’ he said, in curt voice.

Within was contained an array of polished weapons and unpleasant-looking instruments: hooked chains, iron masks with vicious spikes that would put out the wearer’s eyes, and ritualistic daggers. I swung open the doors and made a quick inventory of the contents. Hanging from a chain above this collection was a broadsword with a golden, fluted blade. The ridges pulsed with blue light, and engraved upon the hilt in duardin runes was the epithet Grum Damaz. Grudgesettler. The weapon thrummed with barely contained power.

‘Crafted by the forge-kings of the Dhammask Mountains, as a gift for their Lantean allies,’ said Crade. ‘A blade made for a king’s hand, imbued–’

‘What about this one?’ I said, pointing to a blade that looked entirely incongruous amidst Crade’s otherwise impressive collection. It was a dull-looking dagger of rough, black crystal. Runes were crudely etched across the flat of the blade.

‘An unremarkable object,’ said Crade, clearly irritated at being interrupted in mid-flow. ‘One of many items found within the tomb of an Amethyst princeling. Loosely translated from ancient Fleizchan, those runes upon the blade denote the phrase “From the end.”’

‘No,’ I said. ‘They don’t.’

Crade’s voice grew even icier, if that were possible. ‘I have spent a great deal of time exploring the ruins of the Amethyst Princedoms. My grasp of Fleizchan runeography is unrivalled, I assure–’

‘It can be a difficult language to grasp,’ I said. ‘The subtleties can fool even the most learned scholars. My father had something of a professional interest in the history of the region, and it took him many years to master the language. The placement of the rune “ucht” changes the entire meaning of the words. Really, it’s closer to “Death’s ending.”’

‘Fascinating,’ said Dhowmer, with potent sarcasm. ‘But is this really the time for a linguistics lesson?’

I took up the dagger and flipped it in my hand, then balanced it across one finger. Despite its crude craftsmanship, it was beautifully weighted. As I clutched the weapon, the chill air of the chamber seemed to bite into my flesh with less intensity. Though the etched runes were in Fleizchan, the dagger itself was clearly not crafted in the elaborate manner of the Princedoms’ weaponsmiths. It barely looked shaped by mortal hands at all, more like a shard from a broken rock. I didn’t quite understand why, but merely holding it steadied my heartbeat and filled me with a strange calm.

‘King Rhanuld Fireheart slew the Drake of the Void with Grudgesettler after a duel that lasted three days,’ said Crade. ‘I used that worthless relic you’re clutching to break open wax seals.’

‘I’m not much of a duellist,’ I said. ‘Think I’ll keep this, if it’s all the same to you.’

‘I have no time to argue,’ said Crade, waving his hand in disgust. ‘Are you ready, boy?’

Dhowmer gave a determined nod. ‘If those things try to take me, you use that dagger,’ he said. ‘I’ll not be dragged away to some lightless prison for all eternity.’

‘Oh, don’t worry,’ I said. ‘When the opportunity arises I will be all too happy to stab you.’

He snorted with laughter.

‘Enough!’ barked Crade. ‘Begin!’

Dhowmer took a deep breath and stepped to the nearest golden pillar. He levelled his staff, and purple lightning spat from its bone headpiece, dancing across the echostone. At the same time, Crade began to chant arcane phrases, weaving his own staff in an intricate pattern.

The room was bathed in purple light, and the floor began to shake beneath my feet. The pillars surrounding Crade’s mirror began to slowly rotate, creaking and groaning as they moved. A piercing whine filled the chamber, sending a wave of agony pulsing through my skull. There was a sudden and violent pulse of white light.

And then the howling began.

With screeches of blood-chilling hatred the dead swept into the chamber. Five spectral, shrouded figures, clutching cruel weapons stained with verdigris and glittering with hoar frost. They swooped down over our heads, empty eye sockets blazing with deathly light.

I threw myself to the floor, seized by panic, all thoughts of defending myself or my companions instantly obliterated by a desperate desire to flee. As my palms struck the wooden floor, I turned into a half-roll, scrabbling across the surface on my elbows as the gheists soared above me, circling the ceiling. One of the dread things rushed towards me, one clawed hand outstretched to pierce my heart. I twisted aside, but ice-cold talons tore across my arm. Immediately I felt a terrible numbness creeping across my flesh, accompanied by a surge of revulsion and horror. The spirit whirled about and came on again, raising a rotting club to strike me down.

Unthinking, delirious with fear and pain, I slashed out with my crude dagger.

There was a keening note, and a quivering tremor ran up my arm. The dagger swept through the spirit’s arm, parting aethereal matter like smoke. The gheist-thing howled, not in triumph this time but in an agony I had not imagined it was capable of feeling. It careened away from the blade, its translucent form coming apart in a cloud of spectral motes.

The remaining gheists recoiled. I brandished the dagger like a drunk with a broken glass, swiping it back and forth madly. They feared this weapon, I realised, and the thought granted me a measure of hope.

‘Yes!’ came Crade’s voice, sounding fuller and more insistent than ever. I looked to the mirror and saw the wizard pressing his hand against the glass, a look of wild-eyed triumph upon his skull-like face. ‘I am so close!’

Dhowmer did not look so jubilant.

The mage’s normally pale face was puce with strain. Trails of amethyst light coalesced around his body, and his staff spat purple sparks of fire that scorched his flesh and the sleeves of his robes. He trembled as he tried vainly to control the potent magic coursing through his body. The coils of twisted metal spilled across the floor were pulsing with blinding light, and the air shimmered like a heat haze.

More spectres drifted through the walls, and glowing skulls rose through the very floor, spectral chains rattling as they turned their baleful gaze in my direction. Another gheist swept down upon me, and I stabbed out again. The rough stone blade sank into its eye and the thing came apart in another eruption of spectral matter.

Dhowmer began to scream. Beneath his skin I could see something straining, yearning to break free. Crade’s eyes were fixed upon the young mage, filled with a terrible intensity. The old archmage’s face was strained with concentration. His fingers pushed through the glass of the mirror, unleashing a spider’s web of cracks.

Crade was laughing, the effort turning his face into a rictus grin.

‘At last,’ he was muttering to himself. ‘At last!’

‘Dhowmer!’ I shouted. Something began to seep from beneath the mage’s skin, a translucent shadow of purple light. He was convulsing madly now, yet the purple flames still poured from the end of his staff.

Glass shattered. I turned to see Phylebius Crade almost free of the mirror, his face as twisted and filled with bitter madness as the gheists that circled above. His hand was outstretched like a claw, and he was reaching for Dhowmer’s face like some ravenous ghoul, his eyes full of hunger.

I was certain at that moment that Crade had lied to us. This was no noble act of self-sacrifice. The mage was siphoning Dhowmer’s very soul solely to enable his escape from the City of Mirrors.

I made the decision in a split second. Trusting to my instincts – a strategy that has proved varyingly successful in the past – I raced to the nearest pillar and leapt atop it. The device continued to spin madly, and I felt a surge of nausea as it whipped me about. My hands burned where they touched the golden metal, but I held on tight. Flipping my dagger into a backward grip, I thrust it into the centre of the glowing echostone at the top of the pillar. I felt the crystal splinter under my strike.

There was an explosion of white light that lifted me into the air and sent me crashing into a glass-panelled armoire, in the process earning me several new scars to supplement the ones upon my face.

Crade screamed, a wordless cry of outrage.

The room was filled with snaking chains of purple lightning that licked the roof and swept across the floor, leaving smouldering, black flames in their path. Dhowmer was slumped on the ground, unmoving, his staff lying broken and smouldering at his side. Yet I could see that the man’s chest rose and fell with shallow breaths.

‘Curse you!’ Crade was screaming. He was poised halfway through the mirror, struggling vainly to push into reality. ‘You have damned us all, fool!’

Shards of the sundered crystal were embedded in the ceiling and floor. I felt a burning scorch mark across my neck where one had narrowly missed decapitating me. The pillar it had rested on was toppled and melted, gold bubbling across the floor and setting fire to scraps of scattered parchment. The remaining two pillars shuddered, and the echostones mounted atop them began to glow fiercely. I saw cracks of light ripple across their surface. A lash of purple fire spat from the nearest stone and whipped straight past me, slamming into the wall of the chamber and blasting apart masonry and woodwork. Lurid moonlight spilled into the breach, and with a rush of relief I saw the open air and the looming spires of the Lethis skyline. Freedom, if I could just summon some strength to my aching limbs.

Dhowmer groaned. The gheists, driven back by the sudden explosion of magic, swept back towards the prone figure, hands outstretched.

I could have run. I didn’t particularly like the man, and charging a pack of ravening gheists is not the sort of thing I would normally consider my area of expertise. Yet for some ridiculous reason, I clambered to my feet and charged towards Dhowmer, swinging my new-found dagger madly.

What can I say? It was one of my nobler moments.

My first strike slashed another spirit to pieces, my second drove its fellows back with shrieks of hatred. I bent and grasped Dhowmer by the collar and began dragging him away from the rapidly disintegrating machinery. Crade was screaming threats and curses, promising a cruel and bloody vengeance upon me and everyone that I cared for. Dhowmer stirred at last, muttering insensibly.

‘Get up!’ I bellowed directly into his confused face. ‘Get up or I swear to Sigmar I’ll leave your useless backside in this cursed place.’

He stumbled to his feet, leaning on me for support.

‘I will find you!’ Crade was screaming, his formerly serene face twisted in rage. ‘If it takes me a thousand years I will free myself from this place and find you! I swear it.’

The hooded gheists descended upon Crade, locking spectral hands around his throat and his arms. His eyes were wide with terror and rage, and he struggled helplessly against their freezing grasp. They dragged him screaming into the depths of Mavos’ mirror, which no sooner than he had disappeared exploded in a shower of glass and torn metal.

Ignoring the stabbing pain of a twisted ankle, I hobbled towards the blasted opening in the wall, Dhowmer groaning as I dragged him along. Behind us the echostones were glowing with the fury of a purple sun. Cracks began to open in the walls and floor. With a deafening roar the crystals shattered, unleashing a shock wave of magical power that swept across the room, shattering glass and stone and sending priceless relics flying across the chamber. The force of the blast caught me and my injured companion and lifted us into the air, hurling us bodily through the breached wall and into the cool Lethis air. The world was a blur of sickening motion. I waved my arms helplessly as I tumbled towards the earth.

Thank the God-King for Crade’s poorly maintained grounds. I struck an overgrown tangle of hedges, feeling stabbing pains across my body as thorns sank into my flesh. Yet mercifully the vegetation prevented me from dashing myself to pieces upon the flagstones of the entranceway to the manse. I rolled, tumbled and fell free, smacking my jaw painfully upon rough gravel. Just as I was staggering to my feet, Dhowmer landed atop me and drove me to the ground once more. Cursing and groaning, we clambered to our feet. Above us the sky was limned with fire. Stones and masonry rained from the ruin of the domed roof, and cracks spread across the front of the building like splintering glass. Spectral forms burst from the breaches, rising into the night sky with terrible cries. The ravens of Morrda screeched in warning, flocks of the black-feathered birds swarming about the swirling spirits.

Hobbling like the newly risen dead, Dhowmer and I made our escape along the tangled pathway, the screams of restless spirits echoing in our ears.

Just as we reached the front gate, still hanging open, there was a tremendous explosion that momentarily turned night to day. The entire front of the domed manse was hurled into the air on a sheet of purple flame, smouldering debris thrown a hundred feet into the sky to shower across the grounds. I threw myself down and tucked my arms over my head as the cacophonous explosion went on. Heavy chunks of stone and metal struck the stone around me. The thunder rolled on for several terrifying moments, and then there was abrupt and blissful silence. Warily, I rolled onto my back and looked up at the night sky. Where the manse once stood was little more than a smoking pile of stone and rubble.

‘Well,’ said Dhowmer, nursing a bloodied scalp and observing the devastation. ‘Hell of an evening.’

I grunted in acknowledgment, temporarily unable to form a coherent sentence.

‘How did you know?’ he said. ‘That Crade meant to seal me in his place?’

‘There was just something about him that I misliked. It may have been the way he cackled in triumph as he crawled through a haunted mirror.’

‘Mmm. In retrospect I was perhaps a little too eager to heed his word. In any case, you have my thanks. I thought for certain that was the end of us.’

‘Fortune smiled upon us this night. And I did not leave entirely empty-handed.’

I raised the strange dagger, which gleamed in the moonlight. There was a mystery to unlock there all right. And safely tucked into my coat pocket were the notes I had purloined from Crade’s chambers. Not exactly what I had been hoping for, but perhaps the old wretch had stumbled upon some worthwhile secrets during his exploration of the Stygxxian wilds.

‘All in all, it could have gone a lot worse,’ I said.

Something cold and metallic pressed against the back of my head. Slowly, I raised my arms and turned around. There stood four burly men, clad in black and white jackets with gleaming breastplates of silver. Each clutched a blackwood musket, hung with trophies of polished bone and pouches of sacred herbs.

‘You,’ said the leader, his expression grim, ‘are under arrest.’

And so, in the end, I found myself visiting the dungeons of Lethis after all.

About the Author

Nick Horth is the author of the novels City of Secrets and Callis and Toll: The Silver Shard, the novellas Heart of Winter and Thieves’ Paradise, and several short stories for Age of Sigmar. Nick works as a background writer for Games Workshop, crafting the worlds of Warhammer Age of Sigmar and Warhammer 40,000. He lives in Nottingham, UK.

An extract from Callis and Toll: The Silver Shard.

Sunlight trickled down through the canopy of violet leaves and crystalline tree trunks to cast a shimmering amethyst glow across the jungle floor. Shev Arclis knelt, stretched out a hand and let the light play across her fingers. Around her, a cacophony of life screeched, clicked and howled. Disc-shaped beetles buzzed by, mandibles twitching. She waved a hand to shoo them away, and their iridescent bodies flashed from blue to a bright red as they zoomed off into the treeline.

Truly, the jungles of the Taloncoast would be a beautiful place, if they weren’t quite so intent on killing her. She reached back and unclipped a flask from her belt. It was worryingly light in her hands. The journey had taken far longer than she had hoped, and the sweltering heat had hardly helped. She let several drops of precious water drip onto her tongue.

Scuffed footsteps sounded behind her, and a familiar stench of stale sweat and gunji-smoke wafted through the trees. She sighed, and turned. There he was, of course. Her shadow. His beady, rheumy eyes narrowed in a suspicious frown, while he panted like a hound worn out from the heat, exposing a row of blackened teeth.

‘What’re you sneakin’ off for, aelf?’ he hissed. ‘Tryin’ to leave us behind, I reckon.’

‘Where exactly would I run off to, cretin?’ she snarled back. ‘In case you hadn’t noticed, Howle, there’s several hundred leagues of lethal wilderness between us and any scrap of civilisation.’

Howle’s eyes narrowed even further and, as if by magic, a crude, saw-bladed dagger appeared in one hand and a barbed hook in the other. He trembled with barely contained rage.

‘You speak to me like that again, I’ll carve up the other side of your face,’ he said. ‘You won’t be even half pretty by the time I’m done with you.’

Shev rose slowly, moving one hand to her belt and the dagger stowed there. She smiled through the cold rage that filled her, and felt the familiar tautness on the left side of her jaw, where a web of scarred flesh met her upper lip. She’d had just about enough of Howle’s taunts, muttered threats and stares. Shev didn’t know quite why the old brute had it in for her so badly, but her patience was at an end.

‘You don’t frighten me, Howle,’ she said. ‘So why don’t you–’

‘Enough,’ interrupted a voice, soft and measured. Not a threatening sound, but both she and Howle took a step back nonetheless.

The Golden Lord stepped into the clearing. Despite the stifling heat, he still wore thick black robes and an undercoat of leather, revealing not a hint of bare skin. An impassive death-mask of gold gazed at them both as the figure leaned upon his black-iron staff. Not for the first time, Shev felt a shiver of unease trickle down her back.

‘We are near,’ said the Golden Lord. ‘I require you to be alert and attentive, not with daggers at each other’s throats. The city of Quatzhymos awaits. Madame Arclis, please lead the way. Howle, sheathe your blade.’

The man had never once raised his voice in her presence, never threatened or struck anyone. And yet a murderous piece of filth like Howle, a thug who’d spent his entire life killing others for profit or enjoyment, obeyed the order at once. That disturbed Shev more than any grandiose posturing or outburst of sudden violence could have.

More figures appeared, filtering through the crystal trees. Her companions. Thieves, fugitives and killers to a soul. They were dressed in a variety of hides, leathers and scraps of metal, and doused in sweat and grime. The journey from Maggerhorne had been long and hard, and only around fifty or so specimens remained – the toughest of the Golden Lord’s band. They were among the most repulsive men and women Shev had ever had the misfortune of encountering, and in her line of work, that was a truly impressive feat. Not for the first time, she questioned her wisdom in agreeing to this commission before striding off through the wilds.

Think of the prize, she reminded herself. Quatzhymos – the ancient library-city, final resting place of Occlesius the Realms-Walker. It was here, somewhere in this valley, and she never would have found it without the Golden Lord’s knowledge. How the reams of dusty tomes and yellow maps had entered his possession, she could not say, for they were relics of a bygone age. Combining these priceless treasures with her own research, a lifetime’s worth of exploring ruins and long-abandoned tombs across the wilds of the Shattered Coast, of studying, recovering and analysing, they had pieced together the truth – the true location of the Realms-Walker’s tomb.

It had not been easy. These lands had changed so much, even in the last few hundred years. It was the way of things along the Taloncoast, far to the north of Excelsis, outside the great city’s sphere of influence. Mountain ranges erupted from the land like enormous fangs, breaking the verdant earth then swallowing it beneath their rocky mass. The raging seas gnawed at the coast, opening new tributaries and headwaters. Maps became hopelessly outdated in only a few decades as this endlessly predatory realm devoured then reshaped itself.

Yet some things survived. Like this hidden valley, encircled by jagged cliffs, locked away from the world. Quatzhymos, where great scholars from across the Mortal Realms had once gathered to store and disperse their knowledge amongst peers. Where the body of Occlesius, the most prestigious thinker, scientist and inventor of his age was interred.

Shev’s steps grew lighter as she thought about the secrets that awaited her. The fresh mysteries that would inevitably arise from her discoveries.

‘I apologise for the quality of servants I must rely upon,’ came a voice at her side. It was the gold-masked lord. ‘Reliable souls are a rare breed these days, and so we must… compromise.’

Shev shook her head. ‘You’re clearly a learned man. How did you ever find yourself working with this scum?’

There was a muffled choking sound, and Shev glanced at the man. She realised it was laughter – coarse and painful.

‘I ask myself that very same question every day,’ he said. ‘The truth is that we do not live in an age of enlightenment, Madame Arclis. Reasoned, thinking people such as we are so few. Killers, however? They abound. We live in an age of war and bloodshed. In such times, we must be realistic.’

He rested a hand on her arm. The metal was icy against her bare skin. This close to the man, she could smell scented oils and a faint whiff of smoke, as if someone had stirred the ashes of a dead fire. She glanced into the black recesses of his mask’s eye sockets, and despite herself, she couldn’t suppress a shiver as she glimpsed a pair of cold, flint eyes staring back. She had never dared to ask why the Golden Lord did not reveal his face. She presumed he bore the scars of a hard life, much as she did. Yet Shev had never felt a desire to hide her disfigurement from the world.

‘These brutes will earn their gold, and go back to their wasteful, cruel lives a little richer,’ he whispered. ‘You and I will discover the truths that are buried here. And then we will move on, seeking the answers to the next mystery. This is how we change the world.’

Click here to buy Callis and Toll: The Silver Shard.

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First published in Inferno! Volume 4 in Great Britain in 2019.
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