The tower was nearly as big around as the village in its shadow, and tall enough to bisect the sky. It tapered almost to a point, had neither ornament nor window, and flew no flags. Not even the weather had stained the stone, which looked like it had been cut from a quarry the day before.

The soldier who'd done most of the talking outside the mine rode in the carriage with the Armory, sandwiched between Vice, who was staring at nothing, and Saber who kept giving him suggestive, sidelong glances. The soldier shifted in a futile effort to get some space for his shoulders between an object that didn't care and one trying to care too much under the circumstances.

"That's a lot of palace for such a small village," Dagger muttered to herself.

"That's the Citadel," the guard said.

"Citadel, palace," Dagger said with a dismissive wave. "Whatever."

"That isn't the palace. You've never heard of the Citadel of Stairs?"

Saber snapped his fingers. "Of course. The Citadel of Stairs. I remember now..." Saber paused and cocked his head. "No, sorry. That was the Shithouse of Doom."

"What's the Citadel of Stairs?" Dagger asked.

"Better if her majesty explains," the soldier said. "We're nearly there."

The carriage stopped outside a low, one-story building.

"This is the palace? It looks like a tavern," Dagger said.

"It is," the soldier said. "And brothel. The finest in town."

Powder leaned across the carriage. Her tone was sly and confiding. "It's the only one isn't it?"

The soldier nodded reluctantly.

"Brothel, huh?" Saber said.

"Later," Dagger said. "If you're good."

When the Armory entered the tavern's common room, every patron kept their dull eyes on their cups. Even the odd working girl or boy sitting in a lap or rubbing shoulders was staring off into the middle distance.

The soldier ushered them through the meager crowd to a set of stairs at the back that led down into a rough-cut, well-lit basement. A dozen more soldiers stood or sat, but all turned to watch as the Armory entered. At the center of the room was a gray-haired woman with weathered, heavily lined features behind a battered wooden table. She wore a boiled leather vest over rough brown canvas. There was a pistol by her hand.

The soldier who escorted the Armory greeted the woman with a spare bow. "Your majesty, I've brought them."

"Thank you, Ghired. Please sit, all of you," the queen said and gestured to empty chairs around the table. She poured ale from a jug into five cups and served the Armory with her own hand.

"This is interesting," Dagger said, and drained off half the ale in her cup with a single swallow.

The queen grunted. "You were expecting more ceremony? A throne room?"

"That's usually how we meet with monarchs," Dagger said.

"Met a lot of those, have you?"

"One or two," Dagger said. "Generally, it's their factors who hire us."

"And I bet you thought that overcompensating stone dick trying to fuck a cloud was my palace."

Dagger nodded.

"Naturally," the queen said and chuckled darkly. "But there's not much majestic about this place, or me. Did they tell you my title? I would repeat it for effect, but I can't remember it. Don't know how they do. It's not even really my title. Nothing here belongs to anybody."

"Why are we here, your majesty?" Dagger asked.

"That's a good question," the queen said. "I certainly didn't invite you. Yet, I heard a band of armed strangers went down into that mine. And now here you are. Alive. You cleared it out?"

"That's what we do."

"Why? Who hired you? How did you even get here?"

Vice stiffened and was about to speak, but Dagger put up a hand and talked before he could.

"We don't discuss who hires us, your majesty," Dagger said. "Most seem to prefer it that way."

The queen jutted her chin toward Vice. "The one in the hood seemed about to say something."

"He doesn't speak for the Armory," Dagger said, "I do."

"The Armory. Interesting. Honestly, I don't care," the queen said. "You did us a great service, even if you didn't know it. Is your job done?"

Dagger nodded. "And what can we do for you?"

"The aforementioned eyesore. The Citadel of Stairs. Heard of it?"

"Not before today," Dagger said. "If it's not your palace, then whose is it?"

"Belongs to our jailers," the queen said with a heavy sigh. "The jailers of all who came before me. You," the queen said to Pitch. "All those jars and vials. You smell like an apothecary. What are you? An alchemist?"

"I am," Pitch answered.

"How do you conduct your experiments?"

"I don't have much time for study these days, your majesty," Pitch said with a wry smile. "I'm just a working man."

"But you're familiar with the concept?"

Pitch nodded. "A distant memory, but yes."

"These lands. My people. All are an experiment conducted by the ones who live in the tower. They both support and exploit us. Food and building materials, whatever we might need, though I don't know how they know that. We're rats in a cage. We cannot leave. Our only contact with the outside world is the occasional merchant vessel. Very few know we exist to visit, so you understand my confusion at your presence."

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"We get around," Dagger said.

"Perhaps you're just another one of their experiments," the queen said.

"We aren't," Dagger said. "If you have a job, we'll take it."

"I doubt you would tell us anyway," the queen said. "Maybe it doesn't matter." The queen trailed off, lost in thought, or perhaps just a wish for better.

"Your majesty?" Dagger prompted.

"It's always something," the queen said. "The mine was just one of their games. Every tragedy, and every deliverance, comes by their hand. They probably sent you. Whether you know it or not. Maybe they want to know what a little hope can do."

"Why don't you attack?" Dagger asked, "you have soldiers and weapons."

"We're like children with sticks and kitchen pots playing war. We have weapons, yes. We've sent soldiers. We've sent mercenaries like you, who also seemed to wander here by accident, hence my skepticism. Almost everyone we've sent, everyone my forbearers sent, most never even got past the guards on the stairs. The ones who made it inside vanished."

"Did the tower retaliate?"

"No," the queen said. "At least not in a way that was clear."

"Any why don't you just leave?"

"Every ruler is taken shortly after birth to the gate of the tower. One of their... priests, I suppose you could say, comes out and blesses the child. That ruler is bound to the tower and the people to the ruler, we're told. Should the tower fall, so will we all."

"That's interesting," Dagger said. "Do you think it's true?"

"There are journals left by previous rulers," the queen said. "They write of trying to leave by land or sea. Weather turned them back. Or hostile beasts. Their food all went mysteriously bad, or their water turned toxic. The moment they stopped trying to leave, the torments ceased. That guessing game ended years before my time."

The Armory looked around the room. They noted the slumped shoulders, the general air of defeat. They'd never seen an armed group look so weaponless. Even the queen, who seemed as solid as stone, appeared to be near to crumbling.

"There were demons in that mine," Pitch said.

"Is that what they were?" The queen asked. "In any case, what does that matter? It was just another sick game."

Pitch shook his head. "Nobody would want those things loose in their land. They are beyond control. The destruction would have been immense. There would have been nothing left. If that was an experiment, it would be like trying to discover the boiling point of water by setting the laboratory on fire."

"Perhaps," the queen said. "I can tell you from experience that no cataclysm the Citadel unleashes is beyond their control. Nothing happens here that the tower doesn't have a silent hand in. Even random events can't be trusted not to be some play. I want it gone. I want my people to have lives that aren't predetermined. Ordinary bad luck. Poor fishing. Bad harvests. Disease. Not strange death at the hands of whatever the Citadel decided to unleash that month."

Dagger looked at each of the members of the Armory in turn and saw agreement on each face. She nodded.

"We can do that," Dagger said. "What are you offering in return?"

"What do you want?"

"Gold," Dagger said. "What else?"

The queen snorted. "Gold? Take as much as you like once the job's done."

"I'd see the coin first."

The queen gestured to one of the guards who, with two others, dragged a chest over and heaved them onto the table. They opened the lid. It was filled with yellow nuggets of varying sizes.

"That didn't come from the mine," Pitch said.

Powder picked up one of the nuggets. It was the size of her thumb. "How can you tell?"

"Did you see any veins of ore?"

"I was a little busy."

The queen's expression was grim. "I told you. They give it to us. That mine never yielded any metal of any sort. We hoped for something. We dug and dug. We only mined apathy, and then horror."

"Typically, we get paid in coin," Dagger said.

"We don't bother milling it into coins," the queen said. "We don't need to buy anything. Do you have any idea how many of my people want to just be simple shopkeepers? Bakers? Butchers? Our economy is a puppet show."

"Dagger," Vice said in a low, urgent tone.

"Yes, Vice. I know," Dagger said and gathered herself, knowing if she let Vice explain, they'd be there all day and the next while he preached. "Your majesty, what we did, we did in service of the Vigil."

"The what?"

"A god," Dagger explained. "A god that heard your subjects' prayers and sent us."

"I thought you didn't discuss your clients?"

"Usually. But when there's a purpose, rules change."

"My people aren't the praying sort. The Citadel is our god. Or good as. And those capricious fuckers aren't the sort whose attention you want to attract. Anyway, I've never heard of this Virgin."

"Vigil," Saber corrected, "About that—"

"Shut up, Saber," Dagger said.

Vice burst through the talk, unable to contain himself. "You stand in the Vigil's light, though you know it not. We have been sent to deliver you. Our god would have its aid repaid in something more than gold."

"You lot don't look particularly holy," the queen said with a look at Saber, who was whispering to the soldier who'd brought them. The man was blushing furiously. "How would your god like to be rewarded? I'll tell you for free, I've had quite enough of inscrutable powers. I won't deliver my people just to enslave them to some other thing's whims."

"Prayer," Vice said. "Faith. To stand witness. That is all. These are the currencies of the watcher of the world. It is not the heretical bondage that you have suffered under. "

"You get rid of the tower," the queen said, "And I'll build this Vigil a temple. Hell, I'll build it five."

"Good enough," Dagger said, "but—"

"The Vigil requires no holy places, your majesty," Vice broke in. "Only the one each of us carries in our hearts and minds."

"Your god comes cheap," the queen said with a grin. "Deal."

"Can you tell us anything about the inside of the Citadel?" Pitch asked.

The queen shook her head. "As I said, nobody has ever been inside and come out. The tower's servants, the ones we've seen, are either guards or priests, though we've not seen one of those since I was just a girl. I'm not even sure they're human."

"Any idea what they might be?" Dagger asked. "Generally, we like to know what we're fighting."

The queen shrugged. "At a guess? Creatures created by the tower. The journals I mentioned say other bands like yourselves were sent in, some several times your number. But whether it was a lone adventurer or a small army, and they tried every time they had visitors who looked like they could handle themselves, they were never seen again."

"You haven't sent the Armory," Dagger said.

"I bet they were confident too," the queen said with a sad smile.

"We have certain advantages. Now, your majesty, we'll need a place to get ready."

"You're standing in it," the queen said, "Do you need anything?"

Dagger looked around at the Armory.

"Is there an apothecary?" Pitch asked.

"We have one, though the inventory may be limited."

"I'm very resourceful, your majesty," Pitch said.

"Gunpowder and bullets," Powder said.

"I'll have my guards leave their supply. Not like they need it."

Then the queen nodded at Dagger, and gestured to her guards who formed up around her and led her from the basement. When they were alone, the Armory took council.

"This bullshit doesn't have to be our problem," Powder said. "We could probably just go around and tell people about the Vigil. They'll pray."

"You would lie in the Vigil's name?" Vice asked.

"If the job is to win prayers for the Vigil, and they pray, it's not really a lie, is it?"

"It's a job," Saber countered. "We said we'd do it. We go back on our word, and we'd have to fight our way out. Her soldiers are nothing special, but there are enough of them. We could die. I know we'll come back, but does anybody really enjoy it? Do you, Powder?"

"Probably more than I'd enjoy raiding some kind of wizard tower from hell," the sharpshooter said, folding her arms.

"You're gonna make hell jokes after being knee deep in demon guts?" Saber said.

Vice threw back his hood to reveal his craggy face and gray beard. His eyes looked like lanterns at the bottom of a dry well. "The Vigil's servants sent us to win new believers. That job is not done."

"You heard the queen, Vice," Dagger said, "these people aren't believers. They're broken."

"Salvation can turn an uncaring head to the heavens."

"Maybe," Dagger said.

"Either way," Pitch said." The queen is paying a lot of gold. And It's interesting. This Citadel... it's strange behavior for tyranny."

"How do you mean?" Saber asked.

"This place has a hierarchy," the alchemist said. "The queen has armed soldiers. Somebody supplied their weapons. Gunpowder just doesn't fall from the sky. Those were steel swords. Powder, what's your opinion of their guns?"

"I'd need a closer look, but it's odd. Why would you arm a population you want to keep under thumb? The powder and bullets they left are sound."

"Of course," Pitch continued, "we could be part of this Citadel's experiment and not even know it."

"You suggest this Citadel could control the Vigil?" Vice asked the alchemist.

"No," Pitch said, "I'm suggesting the prayers may not have come from these people."

"Fine," Dagger said. "Reservations noted. Any of them strong enough to keep us from doing this?"

"We do this in the Vigil's name," Vice said. "We could double or even triple the number of faithful. That is heavenly wealth."

"A monk and an economist," Pitch said with a grin.

"We hit the tower tomorrow at noon,' Dagger said. "Get some food and rest, see to your tools. Pitch, go shopping. Saber, brothel."

"No," the duelist said with a sigh.

"No?" Dagger said, shocked.

Saber shook his head. "They all look too sad."