“The rules,” Sethian Skin said as he pushed Amo onto a pedestal in the back room, to one side of where Phaeduin’s body still lay in black-and-red-wet armor. “To start with, you believe you’re in the northern city of Gray Watch. There is a door to the Maniaque in that city, but the Maniaque only exists in that city at night.”
“I’d wondered why you were only open sunset to sunrise.” Amo watched Sethian Skin look over several bolts of cloth and volunteered, “Blue is my color.”
“Oh, no, it isn’t.” Sethian Skin picked the purple silk that Amo had used to clean the blood off the stained key. Bringing the fabric to a nearby table, he unrolled and pulled off a perfectly cut strip without any need for measurements or scissors. “One can only enter and exit the Maniaque at night. If you’re here during the day, you’re trapped. Open the door during the day, and you’re dead, a promise and a guarantee.”
“Makes sense. I really think blue-”
“Blue and silver, the national colors of the unified southlands. Patriotism is fine, but it’s not fashion. Look at your hair! I guess you can’t. Black hair and ochre eyes belong with purple, not blue.” Sethian Skin paced beneath where Amo stood on the pedestal, wrapping the purple silk around Amo’s waist and throwing it over one shoulder and then the other. “Rules. You must never bring any kind of metal, stone, wood, or earth into the Maniaque. Lest you end up like your headless friend over there.”
Amo side-eyed Phaeduin’s body. “I’ll not forget what you did to him.”
“Not my doing. I warned him not to touch things with those metal hands of his. Ignore the rules and you get what you get.” Sethian Skin backed away, studying the hang of the purple silk on Amo’s body. Then, lifting their hands, they began to move their fingers in the gestures of conjury. “Don’t move.” A strange sensation, how the cloth split and wove into itself even as it clung to Amo’s body. Wrinkles smoothed. New folds appeared. A strip disconnected and wove itself into a sash, curling and knotting into a permanent shape. The cloth made a sound as it moved, a high-pitched but quiet wail, like distant rodents or stretching rubber.
Amo said, “What fuels this magic?”
“Rules,” said Sethian Skin. “If you bring someone to me to provide energy for your transformation, you must bring them alive. This includes Norgash if you choose to target her. I can’t use a dead body. They must also enter of their own will; no kidnapping anyone. They must walk through the door on their own.”
“How many people?”
“It depends on the people. You need youth, so bring me youth. Unless you bring me Norgash. In that case, bring her alone.”
“Can’t you just tell her that you’ve changed your mind and want her to come back again?”
Sethian Skin laughed without smiling. “Oh, she would see through that before I uttered the first syllable. She’s a genius of the game, dear Amo. I do recommend not choosing her as your opponent. You’ll get another knife in the back.”
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“Then what do you recommend?”
“Gold thread and a black skirt.” Sethian Skin stepped aside to pick out a spool from a case. “Bring me your enemies, dear Amo. Officers of the northern armies. People you’d love to kill anyway. Don’t ask me how to lie or lure them in. I’m an honest man, unskilled with deception. I could never do it myself. Oh, which reminds me. Rule: no lies or deception can be spoken inside the Maniaque.”
“Ah. Is that why I admitted so easily to being from the south?”
“No, you could’ve chosen to lie, though it would’ve ended badly.” Sethian Skin approached with a bolt of black silk and a spool of gold thread. “No, no, you chose to open up to me. You did that on your own. Do you feel it, dear Amo? Friendship has a gravity to it, like all attraction does.”
Amo grimaced. “No, I don’t feel anything like that.”
“Hold still now.” The black silk wove impossibly into the purple silk, the color of one blending into the color of the other to create a gradient that ran from Amo’s bust to where the new skirt hung near their ankles. Then the gold thread ran through it all, creating patterns of leaves and tree limbs along the bottom of the skirt, over the sash, near the collar that was open almost as low as Amo’s sternum.
“Are your… victims…” Amo said, watching the gold thread run through the garment, “Often people that you consider to be… guilty?”
“I don’t have victims, dear Amo.” Sethian Skin stepped back to look at the garment from afar. “Materials wander in all the time, and I’ve nothing to say about any of them.”
Innocents, then. People in the wrong place at the wrong time. Were their spirits being stitched into these clothes? Or did they just become some kind of unbiased energy, the idea of spirits mere superstition? No, that was justification. Sethian Skin was a monster, the magic a monstrosity. But if Amo could return home with the north’s magical weapons, then it would be worth it. The whole goal of stealing the weapons was to take northlander lives, after all.
“A little too much.” With a few quick gestures, Sethian Skin caused the sleeves to open below the shoulders and hang off Amo’s arms, then cut two slits in the skirt that ran all the way up to Amo’s hips. “There. Perfection.”
“Hey.” Amo grabbed the slit skirt. “Now I need leggings.”
“Don’t insult the dress with leggings. You look good. What you need are boots, but you can buy those on your own elsewhere. Remember, no buckles, no studs, no wood or metal of any kind.” Sethian Skin approached and held up a piece of paper. “Another thing. Not a rule, but it doubles as a request and just common-sense advice.”
Still frowning about the slits, Amo took the paper. It was a list of names and addresses inside the city of Gray Watch. “What’s this?”
“My client list. Stay away from these people.” Sethian Skin pulled down on the brim of his hat, double-checking that his face was still concealed beneath it. “These are my most exceptional clients. If they see you, they will immediately perceive our bond and will kill you because of it. Think of each of them as every bit as dangerous as Norgash will be.”
“Clients?” Amo frowned at the list. There were a few dozen names. “You mean, more who buy energy and youth from you. A list of the monsters you work with.”
“Monsters? Now, that’s not a word I like to use. One last matter before you go, and this I must demand. Call it a good faith return for the artistry I put into your outfit just now.”
Amo squinted dubiously. “What?”
Sethian Skin gestured to the armored corpse of Phaeduin, all stained and stinking in the middle of the room, and spoke with a low growl. “Get that horrible metal out of my Maniaque! All of it, all of it! Leave not a scrap of it here. I don’t care what you do with it. But night has fallen and the door is open, so get rid of it!”