I wrote a recommendation saying Sally – that, the woman of the night informed me, was her name – had been very helpful in guiding me about the city after I’d hit my head, and recommending that she be released early from her sentence.

Then I left her to conduct her business, and went about my own. I wandered for some time, with the sky turning gradually lighter.

I met a few souls along the way, but most scurried off into alleys or overhangs when I hailed them. One threatened to knife me if I looked at him again. Felt like high school all over again.

Finally, I decided to stop wandering, and just ask for directions. My objectives told me that the test subject career path hours ran from eight to eight. Assuming Williamson was on the same schedule, he’d be heading in to work before too long.

I didn’t want to miss him.

So I called Kharon, and he shimmered into existence. “What can I do for you, Soul?”

“I need to find the Alchemerium,” I said.

“Ah. I wish I could congratulate you on finding honest employment, but I suspect you are in pursuit of hidden knowledge.”

“You suspect rightly.”

“Ah well. You cannot say I didn’t warn you.”

“I won’t. Now, how do I get there?”

He started to rattle off a list of directions. Turn left at the intersection of such-and-such street with something-else lane, then go straight for forty yards before taking a right turn onto some other street, and so on.

I couldn’t keep the directions clear as he said them, so there’d be no chance I would remember them. “Just show me.”

“What?”

“You can show me, right? Walk ahead of me. Or float or whatever you do?”

“You wish me to guide you?”

“Sure.”

Kharon shrugged, and his ghostly cape shimmered. “I am a guide, after all. This way.”

His legs moved as he walked, and I wondered if he was simply miming the action, or if he needed to move his legs to get around.

He turned left at the next street, and then right, and left again, and so on, in a dizzying series of directional changes. The streets got a little lighter as the night lifted.

All at once, ash started to rain down on us, falling slowly and softly like snow. Gray snow.

“What the –?”

Kharon turned to observe the source of my surprise. “It is only ash.”

“Is something on fire?”

“The souls of the damned.”

I shivered. “Tell me this isn’t – like, people dust?”

“Ash.”

“Whatever. I’m not walking around breathing in dead people, am I?”

“No. The ash is merely an aesthetic choice, and not sourced from the Sector of Damnation.”

“Oh. That’s a relief.”

“The Alchemerium is very close now.”

“How often does this happen?”

“What?”

“The ash.”

“At semi-random intervals, every four to forty-eight hours.”

I stared at him. “Why?”

“As I say, an aesthetic choice. To remind the unenlightened soul of how fortunate they are.”

“To live in a hellscape that literally rains ash down on them at regular intervals?”

“Semi-regular. And yes. They could be in the sector of damnation, serving their sentences in the fiery pits. Instead, they have been granted a chance to redeem themselves.”

“Lucky them.”

“Lucky you, for you are one of the blessed. Though you seem determined to squander the chance that has been afforded you.”

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Grimacing, I bade him save the commentary and lead on before the next shift change, which he did at a quick trot.

There was not much to distinguish one part of the city from another, but the longer I traveled and the lighter it grew, I picked up a few subtle variances.

A series – how many, I couldn’t be sure – of straight, broad streets ran through the sector like spokes on a wheel, moving farther apart at the outer border and closer together nearer the Sector of Ascension.

Each of these streets seemed to be paved in a slightly different shade of gray cobblestones, from pale and almost white, to dark and nearly black.

That was as far as order extended, however. The rest of the streets ran helter-skelter, this way and that. Like the tenement buildings, they looked like the architects had relied heavily on chemical inspiration during the planning phases.

The builders too, for that matter. Some of the roads were nothing more than dry dirt tracks, while others combined everything from cobbles to bricks to half-charred planks. Nothing ran straight, most of the intersections were a few degrees off, and a few literally touched the shacks on either side.

But like the colors of the roads, the buildings and building materials shifted as we moved from one area of the sector to the next.

Nearest the library, the homes were built of rice paper. When we passed Quintus’s build site, the homes leaned less, and tended to be constructed of a single material rather than a hodgepodge mix. And as we approached the Alchemerium, dark purple and black vines encircled the buildings all around, crawling and creeping up the housefronts, draping themselves over windows and doors alike.

The vegetation became so thick it crisscrossed over the roads, and more than once a vine caught my foot and I nearly faceplanted. After the second time, I took more care.

It might have been paranoia on my part. But I was pretty sure, when it continued to happen, that the vines were quite literally and deliberately catching me.

Before I could put the question to the AI, however, he drew up. And there, against a backdrop of falling ash, stood a purplish black structure. I say structure, because it wasn’t quite a building, and it wasn’t quite a plant.

It looked like a growth. Something fungal and grotesque, rising out of the charred landscape.

“The Alchemerium,” Kharon said.

“People actually work in there?” I asked with a shiver.

“A good deal of experimentation happens there,” Kharon said. “Many great alchemical discoveries have been made. Now, the shift changes in fifteen minutes. If you wish to apply for a job, you should present yourself at once to Archimedes.”

“Thanks. I’m good.”

“Better to tell the truth,” the AI said.

I stared at him. Was that an attempt at humor?

“Now, have you any further need of me?”

“No thanks.”

With a flicker of silver light, Kharon disappeared. I stood staring at the Alchemerium, the large, lumpy main compound surrounded by dark, spore-like outbuildings. Now and then, red and orange lights glowed through dark-paned windows. Now and then, I thought I could hear a scream on the wind.

Somehow, Kharon’s absence made the whole thing spookier than ever. I wanted to turn and leave, as fast as I could.

But I didn’t. I needed to find the Grotto, and to do that, I needed to talk to this Williamson. You didn’t come all this way just to bitch out now, I told myself.

And so, I held my ground.

In a few minutes, the first of the shift change arrived. People of every race and age filed past. Orcs and elves and men and dwarves, women and men, teenagers and geriatrics. A few shot me inquisitive looks. Most didn’t bother.

So I approached them. I knew very little about Williamson, except that he was older, male, and ill-tempered. The temper didn’t help me narrow anything down. Sure, some people gave off crochety vibes, but not every curmudgeon had RBF. And not everyone sporting a fierce RBF was really a curmudgeon.

I narrowed my parameters to middle-aged and up men. Which still left me with a lot of people to talk to.

Luckily, I can talk fast.

“Hey, are you Williamson?”

“Excuse me, do you know a Williamson?”

“You’re not Williamson, are you?”

Most shook their heads. A few looked at me as if I was off mine. And a not inconsequential number laughed and wondered what trouble “the old bastard” had gotten himself into this time.

None of them, however, were Williamson himself.

I’d just begun to think I’d missed him in the crowd when a wizened figure with a serious case of RBF hobbled up the path.

Bingo.

“Hey,” I called. “Are you Williamson?”

The RBF morphed into an active snarl. “Who wants to know?”

“Hey,” I said again, trying to sound as cheery and nonthreatening as possible. “I just need to ask you a quick question.” Then, to allay the growing suspicion in his eyes, added, “Sally gave me your name.”

“Sally?” He practically spit the word out. “What does that thieving strumpet want?”

Okay. So maybe that was a mistake. I moved toward him slowly, as I might a snarling dog, and spoke placatingly.

“Nothing. It’s nothing to do with her, just, she mentioned your name. As someone who might have information I needed.”

“What information?”

“I need to find a place.” I’d reached him by now and lowered my voice. “The Grotto.”

His light eyes narrowed until they were tiny, suspicious slits. “The what? Never heard of no grotto.”

“Look, I’m trying to reach a goddess, and from what I hear, the only way to do that is in the Grotto.”

“Never heard of no grotto,” he said again, crossing his arms this time. “And anyone who says otherwise is a liar. And a strumpet. Now, if that’s all you’ve got, I’m going to be late for work.”

“Come on, dude. All I need is directions.”

He snorted. “You deaf, boy? I don’t know anything. And even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you. And you can tell that miserable strumpet, it’s the last time I’ll be coming to her for favors, if she’s bandying my name around to spies.”

I wanted to say I didn’t think she’d consider it much of a loss, but stayed on point. “I’m not a spy.”

“Like hell you’re not. I’ve never seen you before, and all of a sudden here you come, asking me about the Grotto?”

“You’ve never seen me because I’m newly dead.”

“A likely story.”

“It’s true.”

“Which is exactly what a spy would say.”

“Or someone who just died.”

He snorted. “Nice try, spy. You can tell Bartholomew I’m not that easy to catch. Not that I’m admitting to doing anything untoward, mind. But if I were – if, mind you – he’d have to work a lot harder than that.”

“I’m not a spy, dammit,” I said, ignoring the inevitable zap. “You can ask Sally –”

“Sally. That – that –”

“Strumpet?” I supplied.

“Strumpet!” he sputtered. “Bringing my name into this. That’s what I get for trusting a woman, I suppose. You can tell her –”

“I’m not a messenger, dude. All I want –”

A sudden peel of bells rang from the fungal structure, and Williamson jumped. “I’m going to be late.”

At the same time, the doors burst open and a throng of bodies rushed out. Well, some rushed, quite literally on fire. Others staggered. A few crawled.

“Fifty years, and I’m going to be late,” Williamson fumed, rapping me hard on the shoulder. “Damn your eyes.”

And before I could say anything else, the old man hurried off into the sea of bodies.