I won't even demonstrate the technique. It is too vulgar, too savage. The entire style is deserving of its wretched name. – Arch-Blademaster Sonja E'lial, referring to the martial art style known as the Seven Vile Blades of the Abyss

They were a few stories up in the air, seated at a table in an outdoor pub called Oolac, which was high atop a scale-plated platform that overlooked the lower levels. The stench wafting up from below assaulted Dorja’s olfactory nerves and made her want to vomit. “This place,” Dorja said. “It is evil.” She looked over the guardrail at the Scales far below. She saw skyrakes buzzing around the pub, and a coil came so close to their table that the wind from its wings caressed Dorja’s face.

“What do you mean?” said Kirek, pushing back his moppy hair and sipping at his third straight drink. It was some kind of swill the locals called groggik.

Dorja shook her head. “You can’t feel it? Desperate people feasting off the dying body of a noble creature? It is horrid.”

“What is their other option, Dorja?”

She scratched her chin, and gave an irritable shake of her head. She didn’t like lacking words for what she was feeling, but it was a common enough occurrence that she was used to it. This place bothered Dorja on so many levels. She could not articulate why, for she was not a poet, but there was something unnatural about a place where men and women cowered from the Doom and fed off the corpse of a beast that was, itself, a victim of the same Doom as they. Though Dorja had been accused at times of acting feral herself, a barbarian even, her notion of barbarism at least came with a code. Do harm to yourself if you must, but not to others.

There was no place for her Candle here, not unless she consecrated the ground first, and that sort of job was too big for her. Not possible. And as for law…

“That Gower back there said to ask the Keepers for any help,” she said. “Who are the Keepers?”

Kirek finished his drink, then waved at the air to summon a holopane and ordered another one. A servitor-bot came racing over with a fresh mug of groggik. “They are, or were, a kind of militia. There was no law here on Wyrmdov for the first hundred years or so. Maybe longer. It wasn’t even considered part of the Kingdom, really, no castellans were charged with this place’s safety. Pirates lived here, fugitives. Once refugees started outnumbering the bad people, they demanded some kind of justice system. Then a few citizens joined together and formed the Keepers of the Peace. At first they were just a neighborhood watch, but once the governorship was put in place, they became something more official.”

“What governorship?”

“The son of a disgraced Noble House called Tenevaen has been the ruler of Wyrmdov for a couple hundred years now,” Kirek said. He burped, took another sip, wiped his lips. His face was turning red. “The latest inheritor of the title ‘Governor’ is a man named Edwin Tenevaen.”

“A what about this Edwin Tenevaen? Is he a man we can trust? Perhaps if we petitioned him, he would see that we need help finding the Hekkites who have Senjelica.” Dorja had lain awake at night thinking about the poor girl, wondering if she was even alive, and if she was, what state she was in. Dorja’s dreams had sometimes turned into nightmares, where she imagined she was back in the dungeon she had been placed in when she ran away from her Master, before he rescued her. The fear she experienced then…it would be tantamount to what Senjelica was experiencing.

Kirek rubbed his eyes. “Tenevaen’s hold over the masses here is always brittle. He relies on groups like the Hekkites to help him keep the peace. Many Hekkites are Keepers themselves.”

“Pirates are law officers?”

“Sometimes.”

Dorja was scandalized. “But who leads them?”

Kirek shrugged. “Man by the name of…Lilac? Lollok? Something like that. Dangerous…very…very dangerousssss.” He was started to slur his words.

“How dangerous?”

“He has a lot of power. Many people pay him tribute. All the gangs: the Lepers, the Swift-purses, the Night Merchants, a few others. And he knowssss…he knows the Seven Vile…”

Dorja’s ears perked up. “Say again.”

Kirek pinched the bridge of his nose like he had a headache. “The Seven Vile Blades…”

“The Seven Vile Blades of the Abyss?”

“Yes. Those. You’ve heard of them?”

Dorja drummed the fingers of both weeping hands on the table. Indeed, she had heard of the Seven Vile Blades of the Abyss. It was a fighting style known for its ferocity, its focus on kill shots over any sort of peaceful resolutions, and there were scarce few people alive who had ever trained in it, but she knew naught else about it. She knew that Master Jerrod had found it too savage, and spat whenever he heard the name of the martial art spoken. “The Seven Vile Blades is a fighting style for men without honor,” he had said once.

Dorja leaned back in her seat, thinking about Korvix trapped inside the essence box. He was an old, dead Blademaster. Perhaps he knew something about it? “Does Governor Tenevaen answer to the Kingdom?” she asked, bouncing back to another thought. “Does he pay tribute or any fealty?”

“Does anyone?” Kirek laughed, and hiccuped. “Wyrmdov is its own operation, Dorja. Like most placessss. Even Herenov was mostly run as a vassal state to the Suzerain as a matter of habit more than anything. There was no one for ol’ Lord Lamplight to answer to, no one coming to help him. The castellan, the steward, their court, they were all just killing time. Like the rest of us. Sure you don’t want a drink?”

“No.”

“Want to come to my bed tonight?”

She looked at him, annoyed. “No. You’re getting stupid. People get stupid when they are drunk. This is why Dorja does not indulge in it.”

“I see. So you’re not going to get drunk—”

“No.”

“—and you’re not interested in me romantically—”

“Not in the slightest.”

“—and you want to remain professional—”

“Yes.”

“—so what exactly…” He paused to belch. “…are you doing here? You want to help this girl, Senjelica, I get it. But…well, you’ve seen this place now. You see how big it is, how messy. You’ve heard me lay it all out. This task of yours, it isn’t doable. The Keeperssss won’t help you because they are in league with the Hekkites. You won’t find justice here, Lady Dorja, or anyone to help you attain it.”

“Then Dorja will mete out her own justice.”

Kirek sighed, sipped, and hiccupped. “Good luck.”

She looked at him. “Not long ago, you asked to share my Candle, to help spread it.”

“I did. And that was foolish. We are all Doomed, Dorja. All of us.” He pushed his mug out of the way, and laid his head down on the table. “Good luck…from the bottom…of my heart.” He yawned. “And…beeeee…be careful.” His voice became distant, dreamy. “Be careful…those four men have been followin’ us since we left the spaceport.”

Dorja winced. “What? What men?”

“The ones outside…wearin’ black sashes,” he said, his head lolling to one side. “And I think…they haff blades. And if you hurt any of them…they’ll ssssound the low horn”

“What is the low horn? Kirek? Kirek! Answer me, what is the low horn?”

His eyes closed. “You asked the Gower about Hekkites. So beeee care…fullllll.” Soon he was snoring.

Dorja looked around the pub. She looked at all the faces, a few of which were turned in her direction. Doubtless, they were pondering what sort of creature she was, but they might also be the allies of her enemies.

Foolish Dorja, she chastised herself. The implications of what Kirek had just said now hit her. She had asked the Gower about the Hekkites, and Kirek had just explained that the Hekkites were in league with the Keepers, with Wyrmdov’s only law enforcement. The Gower told the Hekkites someone is looking for them. Foolish Dorja! Master always told her she was impetuous! Dorja should have learned.

She walked to the railing and looked down into the street. A wyrm was flying between buildings with two passengers on its back, and a dozen skiffs hovered down the scale-plated streets below. Dorja snatched up her glaive, went downstairs, and stepped outside.

* * *

The pub’s door groaned on ancient hinges. Dorja stepped outside and onto a wide veranda, the canopy above concealing the dome and weighed down by wyrm dung. Just beyond the pub’s steps was a long street teeming with life-forms. Not just sapients, either, but weird potted plants that grew jaggedly from the scale-plate street and wound their branches around buildings, and some sort of green, mucous-y vine that occasionally slithered slowly away from the trees and snatched up random litter, tasted it, and spat it out.

She tried to appear nonchalant, walking without a purpose. She approached a woman in rags walking towards her. The woman had three children orbiting her like fast moons, and she gasped when she saw Dorja in her path. “Excuse me, gentlelady, is there an embassy close by?”

The woman shrank from her, and clutched her children close and walked away quickly, making signs of abjuration in the air.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

No matter, Dorja had what she wanted. While she had approached the woman, her eyes had been seeking within the crowd. She saw no one wearing black sashes, but she found the spirit of the young girl standing across the street. Dorja crossed the lanes, pausing to let one of the crustacean-like draft animals pass—Kirek called them Unktas, she recalled—and walked along a pedestrian walkway and made as though she were window shopping.

When she approached the spirit, she spoke in low tones, just above a whisper. “Do you know who you’re talking to, gentlelady?”

“Of course. You are Dorja Oathkeeper, Dorja Blade-sage,” the young woman said, tears in her eyes. She smiled like she had just seen the sunrise after eons in darkness. Spirits often did this whenever Dorja spoke to them. They lingered between worlds, unseen by living beings, unable to finally cross over, going without human contact for ages, and rejoicing to be seen. Dorja did not know why they could not pass into whatever afterlife lay beyond, nor had she ever really dared to ask, just like she had never asked how they always knew her name. It seems like their reasons may be very personal to them. “Thanks be to Krahza you’ve come.”

Dorja winced. “Who is Krahza?”

“Our god, of course.”

Perhaps the god of your time, she thought, and wondered how long the spirit had been trapped here. Dorja looked into a window, pretending to view the foods on display inside. It was a bakery, and several loafs of fungal bred sat on a table. In that window, she could also see the reflection of the dome behind her, and saw that Mago was showing an enormous crater just then, with a swarm of starships coming in to dock. Across the street, a group of children were gawking at her. Some of the people walking past gawked, too. Some of them carried blades, but none like hers.

Dorja saw many eyes, but she saw no sign of men in black sashes.

“Dorja saw you screaming at her before. Do you need something?”

“Yes. I need to warn you.”

Dorja looked at her. “About men in black sashes?”

The woman smiled, fresh tears pouring from her eyes. Her hands came up to wipe them away and she looked at the glistening droplets in her own hands like they were precious diamonds. Spirits sometimes appeared as translucent, smoky, insubstantial things, but this one seemed almost tangible, like Dorja could reach out and touch her. “Yes! They’re coming for you. But, oh, Dorja, you must leave! You mustn’t let them find you!”

“They have a girl. Her name is Senjelica. Do you know where she is?”

“No, but you must leave. Oh, Dorja, we would be distraught if they were to hurt you.”

We? Dorja often wondered if the spirits all had a loose network, if they spoke to one another like a community of townsfolk. “Dorja must find the girl. It is why she’s here. If you know Dorja, you know she will not be deterred.”

“Yes, but—” She broke off and looked around like she had just heard something.

“What is it?”

“They know I’m here,” the ghost whispered. “They know I’m talking to you.”

“Who?”

“The shades. The shades who serve the priestesses. They will tell the priestesses what I’ve told you, and then the shades will be sent to hunt me!” She dropped to her knees, while all around pedestrians walked through her. Only Dorja saw this poor soul. Only Dorja could give the woman the dignity of seeing her. “Please! You must go!”

“Where are the men in black sashes?”

With a trembling hand, she pointed. Dorja followed her finger to an alley down the street. Just in time, she saw a pale, hooded figure slip back behind the corner.

“Thank you,” she said. “Dorja is indebted to you.”

“If you see my Jon, tell him that I love him. And I miss him. Tell him…tell him to come find me.”

Dorja nodded. Spirits occasionally left her with such missions. They seemed to think she possessed more power than she actually did, that she could somehow magically heal their wounds. “I will,” she said. “If I see him, I will.” She turned and walked down the street, eyes cast up at the dome. In her periphery, though, she was aware of four dark silhouettes slipping out of the alley, oozing onto the streets, merging with a crowd of Unktas coming down the street. They followed her.

* * *

They would attack soon. That much was clear. They had taken on the predatory pattern of Kellelial snag-cats, separating for a time to flank her, converging on her again whenever she started to make too much distance, then fanning out again to cover her possible exits. Dorja tracked their reflections in the huge, glimmering compristeel pillars that marked the entrance into a marketplace called the R’sabb. They followed her there, too, moving deftly behind stalls, stalking her while she pretended to peruse the vendors’ goods.

Every vendor looked at Dorja’s glaive, some with jealousy. One or two offered to buy it. She smiled politely and kept walking. She was certain her hunters must also be curious how good she was with the long weapon, or else they probably would have pounced by now.

Wyrmdov passed behind Mago, and night fell over the glowing city. Fungal strands ran like glowing varicose veins down every wall, sometimes in jagged lines, sometimes in smooth spirals. Between the bioluminescent fungus and the streetlamps, which turned on automatically, there was plenty of light.

And that was the problem. Long ago, while hunting with her mother, Dorja had learned that bright lights on dark nights, while illuminating certain areas, also made the remaining dark areas easier to hide within. The brighter the light, the denser the surrounding shadows. Especially if one was standing on the other side of a light source—and her hunters seemed to know that. Whenever Dorja saw them become exposed, they quickly moved to the other side of a streetlamp, keeping just out of the reach of the light.

She kept walking, looking for a way to draw them out, to force a confrontation on her terms.

Dorja decided to play poor-little-me. That’s what her mother called it whenever they lured out a slagger, those huge predatory snakes that only came out when they heard the cries of an animal in need. Slaggers’ ears were especially attuned to the wails of young animals, including di’goji children. Dorja would hide safely in a metal cage and cry, and when the slaggers came, her mother had been ready with a slingbow.

Dorja crossed down a couple of ill-lit lanes, pretending to have a hard time seeing in the dark. She slammed into stalls a couple of times, aggravating vendors, and bumped into a number of strangers, issuing her apologies. She rubbed her eyes in a way that was meant to look like she was hiding it, but she wanted her hunters to see. She wanted them to think the darkness was a problem for her.

Then she walked down an open lane, gazing up at the dark side of Mago, which took up half the sky. The other half of the sky was coated with stars, like flecks of salt flung across a black tablecloth. The sun would return soon, so she had to move fast.

Dorja started back the way she came, back to the pub. But on the way back, she pretended to get a little lost, and turned down a wide, dark alley. There were a few threads of fungus growing here, but not nearly bright enough to see farther than what was a dozen feet ahead of her.

That’s when they finally decided to make their move.

“Dorja, you’re called,” a voice said. He separated himself from the shadows at the head of the alleyway. Tall and slender, but also graceful. His silhouette was turned towards her in a way that let Dorja know he kept a weapon concealed behind him. The fungal glow of a nearby wall caught part of his face. It was flat, white, and nose-less, with bad synthflesh that had tried and failed to remedy his deformity. “We be the people you’re looking for, us-us?”

Another silhouette emerged. A second man stepped around the first.

“This is Dorja you see here,” she said, pointing at her chestplate. “She assumes you are Hekkites, and she understands you have authority in many things in this city. You are welcome to them all. Save one. Dorja only came to find a girl.”

“What makes you think we have any girl, you-you?” said the second man.

“Dorja found a girl on a planet called Herenov. The girl said she was a slave. She doesn’t remember much, but she has a brand on her. A three-headed serpent.”

“We’re just simple businessmen, us-us,” shrugged the first man. Dorja took him as the leader.

Dorja heard footsteps behind her, the hissing of cloth. She turned. The other two men were oozing out of the shadows behind her, their long black sashes swaying slightly, a pair of knives sheathed in each. They were quiet, she had to give them that. Their chilled breath came out in tiny white clouds. She looked back at the leader. “Dorja only wants the girl set free, and any other children you have in your custody.”

The man threw his head back and laughed. “Oh, is that all? And just a moment ago, all you wanted was just one girl! Now you want all the girls, you-you! Your head must be gone missing, it must-must!” He laughed louder and his men joined in.

“Dorja’s head is where it’s supposed to be. As is her heart. That is more than she can say for you. You have no Candle. That is why you are so cold.”

The leader chuckled, stepped forward, and brandished a blade. It was a short sword, well made, with Evvi runes carved into it like elegant thread. A nobleman’s weapon. Far too fine a thing for a skag like this to drag around. He killed someone and took it from them. If she needed any more proof of the kind of men she was dealing with, there it was. “Perhaps you don’t know where you are, you. Perhaps no one else told you. Tsk, that’s sad-sad. You’re on Wyrmdov. This is not a place where people come if they have a choice, you fei’ya?” He touched a forefinger to his temple. “No one comes here if they have a choice. So everyone here is used to having no choices, them-them. Used to it. Fei’ya? So someone has to make choices for them.”

“Not children. Children haven’t been given the power to choose yet. Other people can choose to do your will or not, but not children.”

“That’s why we take them. Children blank slates, them. You can make them into whatever you want. Make them say whatever you want. Fei’ya?” He smiled. “Nice blade you got there. Think they call that thing a glaive, that.”

Dorja’s pulse quickened, and her grip on her glaive tightened. “Dorja wants to speak to Lilac.”

“Who?”

“Your leader.”

The tall man shut one eye, thinking. Then, he threw his head back again and guffawed. The others did, too. He laughed so hard he started crying, wiping his eyes. “Lullock!” he said. “It’s Lullock you want, you daft witch, you!”

“Lullock, then. He has the children?”

“We are his children, us. Fei’ya, witch?”

“Are them arms real, them?” asked one of the skags standing behind her. He and his friend had produced rapiers, and short daggers in their off hand. “Them two dangling wee arms,” he said again, pointing. One of his eyes was missing, the other was a piece of fine cyberware. A low whine coming from his skull indicated the eye was zooming in on her.

Dorja clasped her glaive by her reaching-hands, and slowly, slowly, pointed the blade at the ground. The men had been inching forward, but paused now as Dorja extended her weeping-hands. “These are real. These are Dorja’s.”

“Wonder what they’ll feel like,” said another one.

It was dark, and though they were close, their dimensions, stances, and exact postures were half concealed. Hard to tell where one ended and the other began. Their voices came from darkness, their breaths sometimes coming out in clouds.

Slowly, as she talked, Dorja took a half step back, surreptitiously shifting her weight to the rear. “Will you not tell Dorja where Lullock is?”

“Sweetie, if you found Lullock, he’d cut off all four of your arms and mount them on the door of the House of Red.”

“Give us the glaive, sweetie,” said the leader, taking the smallest step forward. “Then we’ll talk it through, us-us. Maybe even come to some…arrangement?”

Dorja looked at him. His eyes caught the fungal light, and glittered. “Dorja is not giving up her weapon.”

“I’m only going to ask this once more, then. This is your last chance—”

“No. This is yours. Your last chance to do the moral thing, your last chance to reclaim what’s left of your honor.”

The leader tilted his head to one side. “Honor?” His blade came up. “Honor. Witch, you’re in Wyrmdov, you. Haven’t you figured it out yet? Honor! We can’t even spell the damn word. You lost your honor the second you set foot on these Scales, same as all of us.” He tapped his foot twice on the dead scale-plate that was the foundation for the city. “You’re in here with us, you-you. Fei’ya? You’re down in the muck with the rest of us, and don’t delude yourself otherwise.”

“No. Dorja has the Candle.”

“Candle?” said one of the skags behind her.

“And Dorja’s candle shines bright.”

“Candle? What is she going on about, her? Candle, she says! What candle?”

“Well, you’re gonna need a candle, witch,” said the leader. “If you want to see what we’re gonna do to you.” He chortled. “I’d really like to see what’s under that chestplate. Too bad we don’t have a candle of our own, us.”

Dorja looked at him. “Here,” she said. “Let Dorja help you. She is only too happy to show her Candle.”

image [https://i.imgur.com/f6fHUfp.jpg]