When they left Hell for Hell, sunset had been falling, the shadows across Ragged Square had grown long and large and strange, as if the bizarre nature of the city had infected them. The sun just barely still peeked over the tops of the buildings. It would be twilight soon.

Sark stalked swiftly ahead of them, sometimes seeming to vanish into those shadows, but apparently confident that they would not lose him either. He only walked along a proper road for a little bit before he ducked into a narrow alleyway, and then the man found himself following him down what seemed like an entire secret warren of alleyways, sloping downward, ever downward.

He had hoped he would have had the chance to ask this before, but he might as well get it out now. “Look,” he whispered to Zhura and Paravel, who were walking back with him - Zhura was almost sulking, one might say - “Is your boss…Doza…is he going to…”

Zhura sighed before he could finish. “He’s not going to hurt you. Probably. More like he’ll want to hire you. A dweomer and someone with the Gift? Oh yeah, he’ll want that.”

The man frowned. From the way Zhura had been acting, he had half-suspected that meeting Doza was something like being marched off to his death. Well, maybe not quite so bad as that, but he hadn’t been expecting a job offering. “I could use some money, I suppose…”

She snorted. “Is that so? I don’t know if you’ve managed to piece this together yet, but we’re not exactly in the legal sort of trade. And when it comes to working for him, I don’t think you’ll be given a choice in the matter.”

“Zhura does not like Doza”, Paravel murmured from underfoot in a soft purr. “If this was not obvious. He can be tricky. And…difficult. Dangerous. But he also might be able to help you.”

“Just remember,” Zhura muttered, lowering her voice even more so that Sark definitely would not be able to hear them, “Any help he gives you is going to have a price. He bears a false face.” She nodded grimly, as if this were a dangerous thing to say.

The man opened his mouth to ask the question, but Paravel was already answering him, apparently having ‘tasted’ it right out of his head. “Many in the City of the Lost are…very strange. Deadly. Or even predators. If people saw them for what they were, they would be killed. So these…deadly ones, they learn to hide themselves very well. Sometimes as simple as pretending to be nice. Sometimes, they disguise their entire appearance. Or even more. They have a false face, yes? Doza is like this.”

“With Doza, it’s false faces all the way down.” Zhura’s eyes were hard and suspicious once again. It seemed the effects of drink were wearing off quickly.

She fell silent, and the man did not answer her, lost in his own thoughts. They followed Sark, unspeaking, as he led them through what seemed like an endless warren of alleyways, with no indication of how he could have possibly known his way. Twilight fell, then dusk, and it seemed almost as if the buildings on either side of the alleys were leaning together to form a roof, leaving them in a wet, dark tunnel of grimy black stone. The man considered trying to summon the witch-light again, but before he could, torches set into the walls flared into life, dancing with an eerie green flame.

The buildings here looked abandoned. No lights danced behind their windows, many of which were cloudy with dirt or outright broken. Through the windows he could actually see through, the man could see empty rooms and collapsing floors. Sometimes, out of the corner of his eye, he saw movement in the shadows, though he never caught a glimpse of what was lurking there.

“Ah, here we are,” Sark muttered from ahead of them, and despite his tone there was genuine happiness in his voice. “Home sweet home.”

Before them lay a peculiar arch, one apparently made from twisted and tortured metal, the reflections of the torchlight playing over it almost making it seem to glow a foreboding, sickly green. As he passed below it, the man noticed that it was actually made of the disassembled remains of one of the “brass boys”, the metal giants of the city guard, torn apart and forged back together with little regard for aesthetics.

Past the arch was what had once obviously been meant to be a public space - a paved square, much like the Ragged Square, ringed by close-crowded buildings that must have once been shops, judging by their open faces and large windows meant for displays. But it was like the inverse image of the Ragged Square; where that had been open and full of business and life, this one was dark and closed off, fortified even. All roads that led to it, except the one by which they were entering, were blocked by humongous piles of debris, or in some cases actively walled off with ramshackle fortifications made from broken wood boards.

It was lit by both those flickering green torches and, now that the sky had opened up, by the light of no less than three moons, two large and white and pockmarked with craters, and one much smaller and red-tinted. Though not a soul could be seen, the man could not shake the feeling of being watched from the shadows. Ahead of them loomed a large striped tent, and as filthy and patchwork as it was, it might have seemed almost festive in the daylight. Now, in the dark, it seemed foreboding, its peaked top rising nearly as high as the buildings that surrounded it.

Sark stopped once through the archway, breathed in, and then turned to Zhura and Paravel with a snap. He waved them off dismissively. “Alright, run along now. Boss wants to speak to him alone.”

Zhura gave a start, gritting her teeth at Sark’s snide tone, and she seemed ready to argue. Apparently, she had not been expecting this. “I-I thought that Doza would have wanted us there, to -”

“If Doza wanted you there, I’d be telling you to come along now, wouldn’t I,” Sark snapped, interrupting her. “You’re free to go. So go.”

The man felt a little nervous about this, watching Zhura and Paravel both shuffle their feet, lingering. The last time he had seen Sark, the man had tried to kill him. And then he got incinerated, and somehow got better. Don’t forget that. He summoned the courage to speak up. “Well, how do you know that?”

Sark turned slowly towards him. The moonlight gleamed off his expressionless silver mask. “Because Doza told me,” he said, as if explaining something to a child. “Did you think that you could just pop in for a drink at the local tavern without being noticed? Half a dozen groveling nits came running to Doza to tell him that Zhura and Paravel were done with their search of the Tangles, and they were talking to a beautiful stranger.” His voice was full of contemptuous mirth as he said that. “He’s known you were coming for a while now.”

Zhura looked as if she wanted to argue the point further, but Paravel tugged at her pants leg, and she finally gave in, giving him a sad little wave as she walked off and disappeared into the shadows. Paravel simply gave him a grin that he thought might have intended to be reassuring, but right now all the man could see was just how many teeth she had, and just how sharp they were.

And then he was alone with Sark. That cold silver mask turned towards him. Its blank stare settled on him in silence for a long, uncomfortable moment.

“You really can’t remember anything?” Sark asked quietly. It seemed half-threat, half-question, as if any moment that emotionless silver mask was going to grow fangs and rip out his throat.

The man swallowed his fear. Sark isn’t going to kill you, even if he wanted to before. Zhura said Doza would want to hire me. He’s not going to kill me. Still, he couldn’t help but think about that moment down in the Tangles, when he had been certain Sark was going to gut him. “If I told you I couldn’t remember,” he said, “would you believe me anyway?” He had meant it to sound defiant, but it came out sounding confused more than anything.

There was silence again for a moment. Sark shifted beneath his dark cloak, and the man’s heart leapt into his throat. Was he going for a dagger? But the black-cloaked man merely shrugged. “Sure. Not like it’s the oddest thing I’ve heard here. I can relate.”

The man blinked, taken aback by Sark’s tone. It seemed at odds with the flat deadliness of that silver mask. It seemed casual, sympathetic - almost friendly, even.

“Don’t worry too much about Doza,” Sark went on, turning and walking off towards the large tent in the middle of the square, not waiting to see the man hurrying after him. “He’s not the sort to kill you for no reason. A warning, though. To look at him, you might think that you, ah, might want to take your chances getting physical.” That silver mask turned towards him in the dark, and it almost seemed to be laughing. “Take my advice. Don’t get physical. Don’t threaten. It won’t go the way you hope. You saw the arch, right? Carved from the guts of the brass boys? Boss did that himself.”

Sark stopped. They had reached the tent. Wordlessly, he reached over and pulled aside a flap, stepping to the side.

The man paused for a long moment, mouth open, squinting at Sark. Was this really the same man who had been so keen on bleeding him earlier in the day? But there was no time to ask questions; Sark was already gesturing impatiently. Without any further stalling, the man stepped in, and the flap closed behind him.

The interior of the tent was warm, much warmer than the cool night air, though there was no apparent source of heat. Within, the cobbled pavement of the square had been covered up with many thick, luxuriously woven rugs that his boots sank into. Ringing the edges of the tent were heavy wooden tables and desks, finely carved and polished, and seeming very out of place within the tent. Some were stacked high with thick, leather-bound books, the sort that were so large that you couldn’t possibly imagine anyone actually reading them. Another, the man noticed with some concern, carried a collection of knives that looked inventively cruel. And others held curiosities that he had no idea what to make of - a shattered glass statue of a long-necked creature that looked as if it were in the middle of being put back together, jars of murky green liquid that seemed to have obscured objects floating in their murky depths, and what looked like to be a miniature replica of a lighthouse.

In the center of the tent lay a large stone well, nothing more than a raised hole in the ground. Seated around the well were various comfortable armchairs, their wooden legs carved into the shape of grasping claws, seeming to be made of well-padded brown leather. And seated in one of those chairs, staring down into the well, was a curious little man.

The man actually thought it was a child at first. The little man could not have come up beyond his waist. But he had gray, thinning hair, and a lined, clever face. His ears were slightly pointed. He wore a green vest patterned with gold thread, and brown pants, tucked in below the knee into white leggings, wrapped with black ribbon and tied in ostentatious bows. His smart black shoes, with polished buckles, curved upwards at the toe.

The little man glanced up, and smiled at him - a kindly smile, full of warmth. “Ah,” he said, “I’ve been expecting you. Come in, come in, have a seat.” He waved the man over, smiling as he sank into one of the chairs. “Good, good. I’m Doza, as I’m sure you’ve heard. And you must be the poor soul my associates fished out of the Tangles. You are alright, aren’t you? An excursion to the Tangles can be trying for the most experienced of us.”

The man tried to keep the warnings he had heard in mind, but for some reason it was difficult to do so. How could such a small, gentle old man be dangerous?

Doza has a false face, fool! Remember that! His mind screamed at him, and for a moment he didn’t know if it was his own thoughts, or something coming from his memory. Did he…remember Doza? He was unsure. Already, whatever he had felt had begun to fade. “I’m fine, thank you for asking,” he said, opting to be diplomatic.

“That’s good, that’s good.” Doza gave a warm smile, crow’s feet appearing in the corners of his eyes. “I’ll have a healer take a look at you, anyway. And get you a nice hot meal. The City of the Lost can be a hard place. I was glad to hear that Zhura and Paravel treated you kindly. Well, as kindly as a visit to Hell for Hell can be. The clientele there can get a bit rough.” He gave a hearty chuckle. “At least, I’m glad they got you clothes. I’d rather not have to have this little chat with you while you were naked.”

“They were very kind,” The man said, sighing with contentment as he sank into the chair. It was very comfortable; the sort of comfortable that almost immediately would send someone to the edge of sleep.. “It’s been a very strange day for me.” And exhausting, the man thought. He realized, sitting here, how lonely he felt. In this strange city, surrounded by strangers - he had kept his guard up all day, even when Zhura and Paravel were being kind to him. There was a part of him that wanted to trust someone, that wanted to believe in a face showing him friendliness and kindness without ulterior motive. Some part of him, despite all the warnings, desperately wanted to believe this little man in front of him was as friendly as he appeared. Don’t be an imbecile. You want to know if he can offer you anything, and if not, whether he’ll let you go. “If you don’t mind me asking, why did you want to talk to me in the first place?”

Doza waved his hand, gesturing towards the tables full of curiosities that surrounded them. “I’m a scholar of sorts, believe it or not.” He pointed to the well - down into the well, into the darkness. “I study the Tangles. I’m interested in whatever people find down there. I want to know as much about it as I possibly can.”

Doza spoke with such a warm richness to his voice, and he smelled vaguely of smoke and cinnamon, a pleasant, soothing smell. And it was so warm, and the chair was so cozy. A scholar, was he? That didn’t sound so bad. No, idiot! Remember what Zhura told you! His eyelids were drooping. Had he been so tired when he walked in here? “Why so curious about the Tangles, though?” he asked dreamily.

“Why, he asks,” Doza replied, mirth - not mocking, simple mirth - seeping into his voice. “Why, I’m sure you know. They seem to go on forever; descend without end. And you find the oddest little curios in them.” He swept a gnarled hand towards the tables in the tent, with all their oddities. “Everything there is from the Tangles. And now I’ve fished you up, and I have to say I think you might be the most interesting thing I’ve found there so far.”

“I’m afraid I might disappoint you. I think I’m probably not all that interesting.”

“Oh, you’re interesting, all right.” Doza leaned in, his large, gray eyes twinkling as he regarded the man shrewdly. “I mean, first off, my dweomer associates felt the pull of whatever it was you did - and it was you, wasn’t it? I mean, too much of a coincidence for it not to be, of course. I can see it in you, my man, that you are a dweomer, lest I miss my guess. Either way, they felt what you did all the way down in the guts of the Tangles. That is quite impressive. What were you doing down there?”

The man felt almost bad at the answer he had to give. Doza, he thought, was really not all that bad. Sure, Zhura had clearly not been fond of him…but Paravel and Sark, they hadn’t seemed so down on their boss. Perhaps Zhura was the type to exaggerate. She was a drunk, after all, wasn’t she? A small, quiet voice inside him whispered that he should be careful, but he pushed it aside. “Really, I wasn’t doing anything. I think you must be mistaken. I am sorry,” he added. “I wish that I could tell you myself, but…”

The man trailed off. Doza was watching him, his expression never changing, but the tent seemed to have grown strangely quiet. The little man’s smile grew wider, and when he spoke, his voice was soft. “Mistaken. Hmm. Perhaps. What is your name, my good man?”

The man remembered what he had been told, about lost names seeming cursed. What was it that Zhura had called him at the bar? “Adahn,” he answered.

The smile didn’t leave Doza’s face. “Adahn,” he said. “Adahn, Adahn.” He tilted his head back, looking to the ceiling of the tent, seeming to speak to someone only he could see. “Adahn. Isn’t that cute, folks. Isn’t that clever. Oh ho ho ho. Hee hee. Aha.” He snapped his head back so quickly the man thought his neck might break. Any sort of friendliness or kindliness had vanished from Doza’s face in an instant. If he still looked like a grandfather now, it was the sort that your parents wouldn’t like leaving you alone with. “No, your name isn’t fucking Adahn, is it? Is it.”

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

His voice came with the hard snap of rage, and as it did, the man thought he could see, just for the slightest instant…something, behind Doza, something large, and black, and crooked and sharp, leering at him, growling, reaching out - just a flicker, and it was gone.

The tent’s warmth no longer seemed relaxing, and the chair he sat in seemed all knobs and bumps.

The question lingered in the air. “No,” The man said quietly, “It isn’t.”

“Then what is it?”

“I don’t remember.”

Doza mulled this over for a few moments, sharp and suspicious, eyeing the man the way a cat might eye a mouse. “So you’re nameless, is that it?” He sniffed the air, as if he could smell the lie. Perhaps he could, because he seemed to relax. “You lost your name, did you? Oh, poor, unfortunate soul.” He tutted, shaking his head. “But oh, what does a name matter, really? The City of the Lost had a proper name once, but it lost it. Oh, it has had its nicknames through the years. Lud. Dis. Limbo. But its real name has been gone for a very long time.” He gave a laugh, much less kind this time. “Good riddance, I say! Burn the names. So maybe you belong here, boy. Maybe it’s very fitting. Now let me ask again: what were you doing down there in the Tangles?”

The man didn’t try to contradict Doza, this time, and he didn’t lie - he had no reason to, anyway. And he didn’t want to attract the attention of that crooked, sharp thing that lay behind Doza’s false face, besides. He told the little man of everything that had happened to him, how he had woken up, to making his way out of the dark. He stumbled over the part where Sark had been killed, but Doza just waved his hand dismissively and said “A Sark is easy to make.”

When he had finished, it was almost as if some Doza’s kindly demeanor had returned. Or at least, he had stopped staring at the man as if he wanted to skin him alive. Doza, it seemed, believed him without question. Maybe he really could sniff out lies. “Interesting. You’re very lucky, you know. I’ve sent hard men, in groups, that deep into the Tangles and never found even the slightest trace of what happened to them.” His fingers drummed along the upholstered arm of his chair. “But what a shame that you don’t have your memories! How did you get there, is what I want to know.”

If ever there was to be an opportunity to ask, this was it. “I’d very much like to have my memories as well.” The man did his best to adapt a conciliatory tone. “I had heard that you might be able to help with that, in fact.”

Doza tented his knobbly fingers, leering over them. His smile was beginning to make the man uncomfortable. “I may,” he said idly, as if he was not, in fact, all that interested at all. “I do have a nose for these sorts of things.”

“Well, I had also heard that you were interested in having dweomers work for you. Since we’re both interested in getting my memories back, I’d be willing to work for you until they were found.”

Doza’s smile grew wider. Unnaturally wide. He had, the man realized, too many teeth. Far too many teeth. “But, my boy, this is not much of an offer at all, is it? You will work for me, regardless. I dredged you up from the Tangles, you are mine, you belong to me.”

Something about that stung. The man knew that he ought to be diplomatic around Doza, and whatever it was that this little-man charade was hiding. And he knew, he knew he ought to keep his mouth shut, but he could not stop the indignation from flaring up within him. “I don’t think I belong to anyone,” he muttered quietly, but enough to be heard.

Doza’s grin somehow grew even wider, until it seemed like it must be about to split his face in two. He had not just too many teeth in his jaw, the man saw. He had rows of teeth. Or if he hadn’t before, he did now. “Oh, you don’t belong to me? Shall I throw you aside, then?” Doza climbed down from his chair and began stalking forward, jabbing an accusatory finger, and the man wanted nothing more than to leave, to just get up and run, but something kept him pinned there. “What do you suppose will happen to you? Ungrateful little wretch, all you have experienced here has come from the very heart of my own kindness. Do you think the City of the Lost is charitable to strangers? I’ll throw you on the streets and in two days you’ll be robbed, beaten, violated and left for dead. The city guard will charge you with vagrancy and throw you in with all the abominations and horrors in Pollux Mire. The inmates there will skin you alive screaming and one of the gaolers will come by the next morning to collect your bloody, broken skull! That’s what will happen to you without the charity of me giving you some work, boy! You won’t refuse it!”

Doza’s voice had grown louder as he spoke, until he was practically screaming, and the crooked black thing flickered in his shadow, awful and stomach-churning, like living flesh carved from shadow itself, with eager, hungry eyes. As he spoke, it was like his words conjured up all the horrors he described. The man found his mind full of visions of himself, stalked through the streets, knifed, and then finally thrown in a dark pit where grinning, pale things in the dark spilled his blood against the stone.

By the end of his tirade, Doza was breathing heavily. Abruptly, calm settled upon him; unnaturally, unnervingly. His face, red with fury, slowly assumed its natural complexion. “No, no,” he said, panting, walking back to his chair. “We’ll avoid all that unpleasantness. Of course I’ll give you a job, my boy. As for your memories, well - I’ll look into it for you. We can figure out the price later, can’t we? A trifle. Let’s just agree that until your memories should be restored, you’ll work for me. Deal?”

The man had kept his mouth shut since Doza’s outburst, and truth be told, was afraid to do anything other than agree. The visions that had filled his head stupefied him, and getting a glimpse of - whatever it was that Doza actually, truly was - was enough to twist his stomach into knots.

But he couldn’t just let himself be dragged around, could he? He might have no memories older than this morning, and he might not know anything about this damned city that he was doomed into, but some source of steel within him refused to bend. Not for this, at least - not for a deal that might see him signing his life away. “Wouldn’t that have me in bondage to you in perpetuity if you simply decide never to look into it?”

Doza nodded, eyes twinkling mischievously, then flashed a too-wide, too-sharp grin. “Clever. Believe it or not, I do like my associates to be clever. How about this: If I have not made progress in retrieving your memories within a year, you can choose whether to stay or to go. With my complete blessing. And if I restore your memories before this, your obligation ends. Now, I think this is fairly generous.”

The man was not so sure about that, but he didn’t know that he had much choice. He was quite certain that if he refused, Doza would absolutely ensure that all the horrific things he had described would come true. He wished that he might have had more time to consider such a commitment. It had been such a long, strange day. “How would you plan on retrieving my memories, though?”

Doza was quiet, for a moment, his face growing dark, and the man thought that he might have pushed things too far. But then the little man (But he isn’t a man at all, a voice in the man’s head said, is he?) brought his fingers to his mouth and gave a sharp, shrill whistle, so loud and sudden that it made the man jump. “Waxwallow! And Mirri, you too! Get in here!”

In a few short moments, two figures appeared at the flap of the tent. The man twisted around in his chair to look at them. One was a tall, thin man in a robe that seemed made from rags and dirty gristle, not even extending far enough down to cover his bone-thin shins, with a head of twisted, knotted and undoubtedly filthy hair.

The man’s eyes widened. He had actually seen this peculiar fellow before. It was the man he had seen in the Ragged Square, screaming at bored looking passers-by about ‘The Worm’.

Doza had hopped down from his chair to make his way towards the pair. With some trepidation, the man rose and followed after him. “This, my friend,” Doza said, indicating the skinny, filthy-looking man, “Is Waxwallow. My historian. Waxwallow, this is…Adahn,” he finished with a smirk.

“May the love of the Worm drown and devour you,” Waxwallow said with beatific grace, as if he were delivering a normal, sane blessing. His eyes seemed to tremble slightly in his head, and he had a dreamy, far-off demeanor.

“You’re a historian?” the man asked dubiously.

“But of course,” Waxwallow said solemnly. “It is our duty. The Worm…” In a moment, his far-off look had been replaced by one of feverish focus. “The Worm devours us all, but it’s a sin, a sin to let it eat something without first knowing what it is. This City, oh, it is always forgetting, and it sinks down into the tangles forgotten, in sin, but it is for us to remember. For the Worm!” Spittle flew from his lips.

The man was about to ask what in the world the Worm was, but Doza interrupted with a cackle, apparently finding this all very funny. “What this warp-headed nit is trying to say is that he knows much of what has happened in this city’s past. Certainly more than I’ve ever cared to remember. Isn’t that right, you rambling idiot?” His laughter cut off abruptly, and a dangerous gleam came into his eye. “Stow your blather about the worm and say something useful.”

Waxwallow nodded eagerly. He looked simultaneously eager to please and frightened. Like a beaten dog. The man felt a slow knot of anger tightening in his stomach. “Yes, Lord Doza.” He gave a deep bow, the lengths of his long knotted hair nearly brushing the floor. “I, ah, I apologize for my, m-m-m-my…zealotry, Adahn. And for, hrrm, eavesdropping on your conversation.” Waxwallow’s eyes darted to Doza, and the man knew instantly that this skinny, cowering, broken man would have never had the courage to spy on Doza on his own initiative. No, Doza had invited him to listen. “But I, er, I heard what you told Doza. About wh-wh-where you woke up in the Tangles. I don’t know who you are, but I, er, I think I know about the, um, device you woke up in…and the, ah, skeletal…thing….you encountered…”

The man gave a start. “You do?” he said, not able to keep the excitement from his voice. Maybe someone would finally be able to put his fears to rest about the skeletal-machine abomination. He still felt absurdly sorry for it, in a way. It said it was my mother.

“Oh yes,” Waxwallow smiled, immediately warming to the subject. He threw a cautious glance to Doza, who merely made an idle gesture with his hand, as if to say as you will. “That er, that device you awoke in, and the…creature you met, they are both…well, the history of them is very old. Older than the Forum. It predates the outbreak of the Swiverring Mimsies, and was before the time of the Lox in his Sox, even before the arrival of the Host of Trumpets, even older than the Devil Engine...” He coughed as the man twitched in agitation. “Y-y-yes, well. It is not my area of, erm, expertise, but it sounds like the device you woke up in was made by the Slavering Carbuncular Majifrax.” He folded his arms into the sleeves of his robes and nodded, as if that explained everything.

The man waited for additional explanation, and when it was clear that it wasn’t coming, said, “Who in the world is Majiferx?”

Waxwallow jumped. He seemed to have been drifting off again. “Oh! Not, uh, ‘who’, but rather ‘what’. They were a race of, well…it’s not my area of expertise, as I-I-I said. But I am given to understand they were, er, rather nasty machine-people. Or perhaps not. They’d grow half of themselves in vats, like the one you woke up in, yes? And then implant their other half-”

“That’s enough,” growled Doza, and Waxwallow immediately slammed his mouth shut. “You see?” said the little man (beast), flashing a sly smile. “I have my sources. Not much, to be true. But a little thread. A little thread to pick at and pull. All you need is such a thread, my boy, and it’s not long before the whole big secret unravels. I promise you, I am a master unraveler. But no no no, that is all you get for now.”

A thread, the man thought to himself sourly. Barely anything at all, really. But it was, at the very least, something. He did want to know more about the…Slathering Coriander Mallitax, or whatever they had been called. Besides the occasional flashes of memory - and the little flower-globe I gave to Zhura to sell, he thought glumly - this was the only real clue he had to go on.

Doza and Waxwallow were both looking at him expectantly. They were not the only ones, though. With a start, he remembered that Doza had called two names, and another had walked into the tent with Waxwallow. Whoever it was, they stood by the flap of the tent, in shadow, looking away as if not wanting to be noticed. They wore robes as well, but much nicer than Waxwallow’s filthy rags - snow-white robes worked with golden thread at the sleeves, and with a large sun emblazoned on the chest. Their hood was deep enough that their face was almost entirely hidden.

Doza’s expectant smile slipped, and he followed the man’s eyes, then slapped his knee in merriment. “Mirri! I almost forgot about you.” His smile grew a little more sharp and twisted, and then he said in a tone that the man somehow knew was meant to hurt, “I did forget about you. Why don’t you come say hello to Adahn?”

The white-robe figure paused, then slumped and reluctantly trudged forward. It was a woman, the man realized as she drew closer. The sun on the front of her robes had a face, with a mysterious, almost whimsical expression. A heavy clasp, depicting that very same sun wrought in metal that looked an awful lot like gold, held her hood pulled forward. He still could not see her face very well; could not see anything other than the twinkling of eyes and the hint of curled tresses. “Hello to Adahn,” she said.

“Er, hello,” Adahn - no, that’s not my name - said. He couldn’t tell what the expression on her face was beneath that hood, but he was suddenly certain it wasn’t pleasant. “Nice to meet you.”

Doza gave a chuckle, like one might hear from an indulgent parent. “This is Mirri, my most trusted dweomer,” he explained. “Mirri, this is the man that created that ‘ripple in the Art’ you felt earlier today. Isn’t that something?”

“This one?” The woman leaned forward, enough that her chin escaped the shadow of her hood; the man could make out her mouth twisting in a small frown. “He is a dweomer, certainly, but no one dweomer I ever knew could have done that.” She shook her head dubiously. “And he doesn’t feel all that strong.”

“Oooh, well that’s the thing, my dear. He’s lost his memories.” Doza clapped his hands and pointed towards the man. “When he works for me, you and Adahn will be spending a lot of time together. I can’t have a dweomer around who can’t remember how to work the Art. I’m sure he’ll be a quick learner. And who knows! Maybe helping him remember the Art will help jog some other memories loose!”

Learning more about the Art. The man hadn’t given it much thought - his introduction to the city had been too chaotic - but that felt right, somehow. The same way it had felt like remembering to breathe when he had summoned the witchlight, the same way it had felt like intuition, muscle memory, when he had plucked the skeleton-machine’s last thread. He realized he was giving a smile of satisfaction, and wiped it off his face when Doza began to speak again.

“Oh, so you like that idea, eh? I knew you would. So you see, Adahn, working for me won’t really be so bad at all, will it? Never let it be said that I offer my associates nothing. I am no slaver.” Doza looked sharply to Waxwallow and Mirri. “Am I?” Waxwallow shook his head eagerly. Mirri merely made a small, thoughtful “hmm” sound. “So, now. You will work for me, boy. Won’t you?”

Well, the man thought, It’s not as if I have much of a choice in the matter. Zhura was right about that. He was quite certain that if he refused, Doza would personally ensure that all his horrible predictions about what would happen would actually come true. And the man thought he wasn’t even sure if he’d refuse even if he had the choice. He was quite certain he didn’t want to be stuck in the City of the Lost all alone. He was being offered a place to stay, training in the Art that he sorely hungered for, and the only clue he had to go on to how he came to be here. What was the downside?

Oh yes, being forced to work for a bloody-minded criminal who looked like a little old man but was, almost certainly, not. The man knew it, and Doza knew that he knew. What if he asks me to kill people? Actually, would he even care that much about it? The man realized he didn’t know. He thought he would. He had felt a little bad when he killed the skeleton-machine abomination down in the Tangles. Not really that bad, though. And that thing had called itself his mother. Was he really the sort of person that didn’t care if he killed someone? Was that the sort of man he had been? Well, there’s really only one way in front of me to find out.

“What about your price?” the man asked. “The price for…finding my memories.”

“A trifle,” Doza said, but his eyes promised that it would be anything but. “A favor to be named later, my boy.” His shadow flickered, and grew, as if the thing that lived behind his false face ached to burst forth from it. “But I am done negotiating with you, boy. You will work for me, under these conditions, or out into the streets you go.”

Where he will certainly make sure that I will be murdered and worse, the man thought glumly. “I suppose I will,” he said slowly, reluctantly. “I suppose I will work for you. Deal.”

All at once, the man knew that what he had just done was more than the mere words he had spoken. There was no sound, no indication that could be heard or seen, but he felt it. He felt Doza growing stronger, more vital, as the little man’s vicious smile grew wider. He could feel the import of what he had just agreed to sink into his bones, and it felt cold.

He wondered if Waxwallow and Mirri could feel it. Waxwallow was looking at him with wide, staring eyes. Mirri, almost imperceptibly, nodded her head.

But whatever it was, Doza did not acknowledge it at all. “Good. Good!” He clapped his hands. “It has been a delight talking to you, Adahn. I do love a good negotiation. But you must be tired, my boy, and hungry. We’ll get you a room, don’t you worry, and some hot slop to fill you. You really ought to have your strength.” Once more, he smiled, and he seemed to have more teeth than ever. “You’ll need it. Now that you’re in my service.”