14.

The Desperate Road ran far deeper and straighter through the Panteran Wastes than any other crossing, and consequently it was infested with perils. The only time bandits weren't lying in wait was when something even worse had fallen upon them, taking their place in the caves overlooking the road's entrances at the southern and northern edges of the desert. While the narrower, shadier canyons of the Desperate Road put off most godguanas, the far worse dunecrocs preferred the cooler sandslides and shale piles that routinely blocked the path, and wastewasps wove their barn-sized nests wherever the slightest rumor of a spring bubbled out of the rocks.

Even if one wasn't robbed, eaten, impregnated with larvae, or befallen by some worse fate still, it was weeks of long nights from either end of the Wastes to the road's only way station, the Shrine of the Hungry Sands. The lepers who ran it insisted that travelers perform a number of absurd, dangerous, and heretical rituals-on top of paying the stiff toll-before passing through their gate. Maroto had traveled the Desperate Road but once before, nearly thirty years prior, and clearly recalled promising himself that he would never again enter the Wastes if he could help it... and even if he could not, under no circumstances would he take this particular route.

He was fairly decent about keeping his promises to others, above average, even, so why was he so inconsistent with himself?

But hey, the nobles were happy with him again. It had been touch and go when he'd first proposed the Desperate Road at the tavern in Niles, the fops having grown less easily wooed by their guide's counsel. But then Captain Gilleland and several other bodyguards had advised against that course in the strongest terms, insisting it was far too dangerous for their wards, and that was that. As they rolled out of the caravansary, the party had saluted itself with a twenty-one-cork salute.

Their first night they lost an entire wagon of supplies when a funnel python dragged the camel team into its conical pit, and during their first day four of the bodyguards standing watch were carried off, presumably by the cannibal cult that hunted the southern end of the Wastes. Of course, it might have been something worse that got them. It could always be something worse, out here. Yet Maroto's mood had never been better, not in the company of his fops, nor in the Wastes in general.

For one thing, if they were going to be ambushed by bandits, it probably would have happened already. No robber would be so mad as to eke out a living on the Desperate Road proper, rarely as it was taken in these enlightened days when one could sail down to Usba at a fraction of the cost and risk. No, any sane brigand would have made an arrangement with someone at the caravansary to be informed whenever a prime target departed, so they could dry-gulch their quarry before they entered the inhospitable desert. Rumors had been raised suggesting the local cannibal cult had once been a humble outlaw gang who tarried too long in the Wastes, but Maroto cared little for speculation.

In addition to enjoying the typical satisfaction one experiences at not being robbed, Maroto felt his spirits rise in equal measure to the declining humor of the fops, as though they sat across from one another on a dunking board. Well, the nobles were entitled to a decent pout-the clammy, sulfur-stinking canyon walls that hedged ever tighter around them would take the wind out of anyone's sails. That, and the company's temperament had never fully recovered from the shock of seeing Lady Opeth yanked wailing into the funnel python's pit when she had heroically sought to save the last crate of pate from the sinking supply wagon. Based on the hollow stares the remaining nobles directed at the swirling sands where she'd vanished, Maroto supposed the sight of her wig being pulled down into the earth would haunt them for the rest of their days. He certainly hoped so.

Let's have an adventure in the Panteran Wastes!

Yes, yes, let's! Beyond the more immediate relief of having a good day's sleep, since the party seemed disinclined to roll dice and hoot and giggle in the perpetually dim, stagnant, and inexplicably swampy heat of the Desperate Road, there was also the bartalk that had drawn Maroto here. A blue-haired captain with a devil dog helm. Accompanied by one of the Five Villains, if not more, and flying the old flag. Each time he allowed the pilgrim's voice to repeat in his head he felt shivers from his toes to his elbows. Deep down, in spite of everything, Maroto had always dared to hope... and stranger still, some worrying sensation at the back of his brain, like a nearly forgotten dream-or an almost-remembered one-told him that he had always known this, that he had been waiting all along.

That she had not sought out Maroto before starting up the old business did not trouble him a great deal. It troubled him a little, because he was only human, for saints' sake, but not a great deal. She had surely tried to find him, but he could be a hard man to run down. Surely. Maybe she even thought he was dead-he had believed her to have fallen, so why not the reverse? It would be just like Kang-ho's sorry arse to talk her into thinking Maroto was dead as some sort of a sick joke. Well, they'd sort that out soon enough, when he- "I'm talking to you, beast!" said Count Hassan, bouncing a grape off of Maroto's nose. The nobles and Maroto all sat around a merrily blazing fire while the servants brought them supper and the remaining guards took their posts on the edge of camp. Dawn lingered longer down here on the Desperate Road, and so they'd stopped for the day much later than usual that fifth night out from Niles; everyone had an excuse to feel worn out and grumpy. That said, throwing food at Maroto was a mistake no peasant nor princeling would make more than once. "I said-"

"If you ever do that again I'm going to give you the adventure of a lifetime, your lordship," said Maroto, so quietly that perhaps the junior patrician didn't hear, or perhaps Hassan had taken the threat as some sort of challenge. Whatever the reason, another grape plinked off of Maroto's cheek. A third fell from Count Hassan's fingers as Maroto lifted him out of his divan chair by his thin neck, having leaped over the fire in a blur of furious motion. It felt damn good to hoist a man by his throat again, and Maroto spoke loud enough for all assembled to hear, and hear well: "I've never met such a pack of middling, chickenshit gasbags in all my days, and I've spent a season or two at Diadem's Court. You runts can do whatever you like in your wagons, or when I'm not about-fuck each other, cheat each other, insult each other, even kill each other. But from here on out, there's a new king in camp, and the king demands respect."

Silence. Blessed, righteous silence. Well, except for Hassan's gurgling. He clung to Maroto's wrist, trying to take some of the pull off his neck, but the more he struggled, the more Maroto's fingers tightened. Old habits and all. He would let the noble go in a moment, but first he wanted to make sure his point had well and really, truly stuck. Looking around the fire, he supposed he was closing in on it.

Pasha Diggelby had not risen from his rattan throne but had dropped his wineglass in horror, paying no mind as the cerulean liquid soaked through his hose. Princess Von Yung had frozen in her seat, a fork-speared morsel of melon hovering at the bow of her lips. Kshaku Koz had jumped to his feet but was clearly unsure what to do now that he was the only one up, frantically puffing on his cigar as though he could hide behind the wall of smoke. Duchess Din fanned her husband Denize, who seemed to have fainted. Zir Mana, who had talked endlessly about the expertise of this blade tutor or that martial trainer, held a pudding spoon in a defensive manner, spangled earrings clattering as the ninny shook in fear. Even Tapai Purna appeared humbled by Maroto's display, the girl numbly clinging to a silver plate even as she dropped to a crouch, ready to flee. Beyond the nobles, the bulk of their servants waited and watched, although Maroto was calming down enough to suppose that more than one had hurried off for the guards, and so decided that he had best wrap this up quick lest things take a turn.

"You wanted adventure, you cut-rate royals? The king shall provide!" Maroto at last released Hassan, who had gone as green as the fashionable patina on his laurel crown. The second son collapsed gasping on his divan as Maroto cast a wagging finger over the party. "King Maroto will deliver all the entertainment you wish, ladies, lords, and lapdogs, all you need do is ask. And unless one of you craven, conniving curs works up the moxie to usurp the king, my word is law. Let's call this adventure of yours 'A Mouthful of Thine Own Evil,' and see how you posturing, primping, posing little losers enjoy the taste."

A single beam of morning sunlight finally penetrated the narrow canyon, and while it shone directly in Maroto's eyes he stood still in the hope that it might reflect upon his sweaty brow like a crown of light. He couldn't decide which was odder, the fact that no guards had yet appeared to tackle him, or that no nobles had yet screamed. Squinting through the glare he saw that the expressions on most of their makeup-plastered faces were not quite what he had expected.

They no longer seemed afraid of him. They looked... disgusted. Or, in the case of Zir Mana and Princess Von Yung, enraged. Good. Fuck these twerps. Maroto snatched an open bottle of bubbly out of the ice bucket built into the arm of Hassan's divan and turned his back on them-if the devils saw fit to temporarily spare him a beating or worse at the hands of their guards, he was damn well going to enjoy the rush of having schooled these punks for as long as possible.

Count Hassan landed on Maroto's back with a shriek, his arms closing around the bigger man's bull neck while his legs wrapped around Maroto's ribs. It reminded Maroto of how Purna had pounced on him during their faux-affair, only even less effective-now that he was aboard his target, Hassan didn't seem to know what to do next. Maroto ignored his shrill stowaway and knocked back the bottle, guzzling the fizzy grape juice even as Hassan tried to squeeze his throat. There hadn't been as much bubbly left as he had hoped, so he stretched his arm back and casually rapped the empty bottle against Hassan's noggin. Something cracked, and as the noble fell away Maroto held up the bottle to make sure he had just broken the glass and not the boy's skull. Devils knew, Maroto hadn't meant to murder him, and truth be told he respected that the lordling- Maroto's left knee buckled as a pointy patent leather shoe connected with the soft tissue there, but it wouldn't have been enough to bring him down had Purna not immediately followed the kick with a silver platter to the back of his other leg. He fell forward and landed on his knees in the rough sand, eyes widening at the improbable sight. Guards he'd expected, yes, even a bandit ambush would have made sense, but this?

"Get the king!"

The nobles bum-rushed him, and Maroto scrambled up just as the wave of taffeta and velvet broke over him. Kshaku Koz's cigar burned his cheek, and Duchess Din's platinum-veined fan snapped into his nose. He knocked them back, his open palm sending them rolling. Pasha Diggelby hurled a card table, which crashed into his shoulder. Princess Von Yung came at him with a bread knife. Zir Mana dove at one leg. He intercepted the knight with a kick and the princess with a punch to the jaw, but then Purna slammed a chair into the small of his back.

Maroto stumbled, fallen fops rising even as others tumbled back, and the cry came again: "Get the king!"

There were a lot of them, was the problem. And all right, sure, some of them were better at this than he'd expected. Duchess Din went low and nearly headbutted him in the crotch, but he danced over her. He swung and missed Diggelby's ruffled throat by inches, and, cocking his elbow back for another go, smashed it into Kshaku Koz's painted mouth. Teeth loosened, blood flowed, and Maroto threw a second elbow, this one connecting with Koz's temple and sending him tumbling into his comrades. Someone pulled a Hassan, landing on Maroto's back in a flurry of brocaded silk. He fell backward on top of his assailant, letting his rider break the fall as they crashed into a table. Tureens tipped and plates shattered, with Princess Von Yung left moaning on the board as Maroto slipped back into the fray.

The punches Maroto took ranged from the pitiful to the unexpectedly painful, and in short order his shirt was shredded and bloody from the rings adorning the fists that pummeled him. There'd be some broken fingers, no doubt. He deflated Purna with a sucker punch, but as he pulled back Duchess Din seized his wrist, and Zir Mana caught his other arm. They held him in place just long enough for a deranged Pasha Diggelby to splash his face with liquor. It blinded him, burning his eyes, and the fops who clung to either arm were lifted into the air as he howled in indignation-these runts had just doused him in Pertnessian absinthe, and if so much as a spark landed on him he'd go up like one of their flambeed songbirds.

Before, he had been too amused to take the fight seriously. Now, as one coxcomb flew loose from his thrashing while the other held tight, shanking him with a fork, he realized that things were perhaps not as cut-and-dry as he'd expected. For weeks these bastards had insisted they wanted to hunt something, to catch it and kill it, and all along he had scoffed at their ambitions. He wasn't scoffing now, fighting blind and dirty, ripping wigs and tearing out piercings, as the fops yowled and hissed, mad as wet cats. What if one of them hit him with a lantern, or if he stumbled into the fire? A few years ago he would have laid these scoundrels out with one blow apiece, but his blows weren't falling as heavy as they should have, too much old muscle given over to fat, and despite his attacks the fops harried him as mercilessly as hounds barding a bear.

Blinking one eye clear of the stinging liquid as he beat Purna and Mana away from him, Maroto saw that Diggelby's use of the liquor had been well thought out, the dirty so-and-so returning from the firepit with a brand blazing. They meant to roast him alive! And after all he'd done for them, too.

Duchess Din crept up on him from the side, meaning to take advantage of his preoccupation with Purna, Mana, and Diggelby, but Maroto spied the sneaky lass and made his move. Before Din knew she'd been spotted, he had her by the bejeweled belt, and, hoisting her over his head, he hurled the squealing woman into Diggelby. Both nobles went down hard, and Maroto gave a triumphant whoop to see the brand go flying from Diggelby's hand...

Directly into the tent wall of the cooking pavilion, which quickly caught fire. Maroto hurried over to extinguish it, brutally slapping Purna and Mana aside when they tried to flank him, but he paused when he licked his lips and tasted licorice. Going anywhere near the growing inferno would be suicidal. He looked back to the fops, meaning to give the obvious order that they postpone their fight long enough to contain the conflagration before it spread to the wagons, and the magnitude of what he'd just done truly sank in. There was foolish, and then there was this...

The center of the camp was a ruined battlefield, broken furniture jutting out of the sand like crooked palisades, shattered glass, crockery, and spilled food ground into the earth like shrapnel. And everywhere he looked, bodies, bodies, bodies. Silky ones draped over tables. Satiny ones lying on the ground. Velvety ones staring at him from the dirt, blood oozing from their slack mouths. Oh shit.

He felt hands grab him, the long-delayed guards finally arriving to do unto him what he had done to their employers... but no, they were servants, forcibly moving the war-dazed Maroto out of the way so they could try to put out the burning pavilion. When he turned back to the carnage, letting the servants swat at the blazing tent as best they could, he saw that most of the nobles were stirring now. More servants were coming out from their hiding places, giving him a wide berth as they hurried to tend to their fallen masters. A limp hand rose from behind a crushed divan, and he saw Count Hassan wave a bloody handkerchief that might have been white, once, before everything got out of control.

"Villainy!" Captain Gilleland appeared from between the wagons closest to Maroto, four of his heaviest heavies and Princess Von Yung's valet in the wings. The muscle had their weapons in hand, and the valet pointed, rather unnecessarily, at Maroto. His eyes fell to where he had left his mace-beside his discarded dinner plate, on the far side of the fire. Now that the guard dogs had finally returned, the nobles set to groaning and moaning and crying, the post-battle calm gone along with the cooking pavilion. He stepped farther back from the blaze, but even this innocent movement was enough for a guard he hadn't noticed on the far side of the circled wagons to fire his crossbow. The bolt whipped beneath the hand Maroto was raising in peaceful protest of his innocence, passing so close that the fletching grazed his palm.

"Hey now!" Maroto said. "Let's not get carried away. This isn't what it looks like."

"Captain Gilleland," Hassan managed, a pair of servants lifting him enough to lean against his ruined chair. "Captain, get him..."

"They started it," said Maroto, as if the truth ever did a doomed man any good.

"I heard." Captain Gilleland waved Maroto silent with his broadsword. The blade glowed in the light of the collapsing tent. "Hardly the end you saw for yourself, eh, hero? Should have kept that pride of yours locked away, for all the good it's done you now. Do you think the singers will remember it was we who cut you down, or do you think it'll make a better song if they leave us out, let these richies here take the credit? Captain Maroto Devilskinner, Villain of the Noreast Arm, put in his grave by unarmed dandies!"

"Not in my grave yet," said Maroto quietly. A guard was creeping up behind him, and in three quick steps he could wheel around the sneak and have some human protection from the crossbows. "You want to be in a song, Gilleland, all you got to do is ask."

"Captain, get that man..." Hassan paused to spit out a tooth. "Buh!"

"Uh-huh." Captain Gilleland was not an ugly fellow, but one would never make the mistake of thinking him handsome. He usually looked like he was gloating, and at a time like this, when he actually was, the effect on his countenance was as off-putting as adding another ladle of oil to an already over-greased curry. "We'll just see what they sing about this night, you soft old fossil. I've been waiting a long time to-"

"Captain Gilleland." Count Hassan's voice had steadied a bit now that he'd taken a swig from the flute one servant held and a pull on the smoking bone the other lackey had raised to his lips. "Captain, get this man a drink!"

Maroto had set his foot to pivot backward and seize the creeper behind him, but was so flabbergasted by Hassan's hoarse cry that he nearly stumbled into Purna as he twisted around. It was she and not a guard who had snuck up on him, a long, curved dagger in one hand, a bottle in the other. Before Maroto could decide whether or not to put her in a headlock to use as a meatshield, the battered little lordling extended the bottle toward him, neck first, then sabered off the cork with her blade. Cold bubbly exploded in his face, going up his nose but also washing off the cougar milk.

"Huzzah!" cried Purna. "A drink for the king!"

It was difficult to say whether Maroto or Captain Gilleland was more dumbfounded when the rest of the haggard fops took up the cry, and as Maroto wiped sticky wine from his face he saw that everyone save for Duchess Din and Kshaku Koz was cheering him from where they sat in the sand or stood propped up by their servants. And who knew, had Din and Koz been conscious, they might have joined in, too. Maroto grinned at Purna, then grinned even wider at Captain Gilleland.

"Long live the king, eh, Cap'n?" he said, licking the finest sparkling brut he'd ever tasted off his lips.

"Or not," said Captain Gilleland, and Maroto didn't like the man's wink as he turned away, not one bit.

CHAPTER.

15.

Zosia returned to pain, as she so often did these days. Not the familiar aching in her knees and joints, but a chisel in her brow, right between the eyes. As she had aged, hangovers had grown from annoyances into ordeals, but this was an entirely different sort of bullshit, one she had not experienced in many a thankful year: the comedown from a poisoning. The dim echoes of monstrous visions reverberated through her skull, but already the hallucinations or nightmares or whatever the fuck they were started fading, fading fast, and she had made no effort to hold on to them. Kicked away from them as hard as she could.

Opening her eyes, she found herself splayed out in a tastefully appointed bedroom. Choplicker lay beside her, but the beast had the sense to stay on the floor instead of sharing the sleeping mat. Candlelight silhouetted two figures who sat on cushions by the foot of her bed, their shadows looming halfway up the painted screen behind them. Kang-ho, and a handsome older man in sumptuous Ugrakari silks, his scarlet wig pinned up in half a dozen small buns.

"You're the King of Hwabun?" Zosia asked, trying very hard not to notice just how awful her mouth tasted. "Jun-hwan?"

The lord of one of the Star's tiniest sovereign states nodded. "Mistress Clell, I am pleased to make your acquaintance, and apologize for any misunderstanding that arose this afternoon. I hope you are recovered from your fainting spell?"

"Uh-huh." Zosia closed her eyes, willing the pain to recede. She'd actually been able to pull that sort of thing off, once upon a time, but now the grief in her skull just laughed at her presumption. "Thanks for your concern."

"Now, I have other guests to attend to, and so I will speak plainly with you and expect you to do the same with me. Do we have an understanding?"

"Absolutely," said Zosia, sitting up in the sheets and taking a better stock of the room. None of her possessions were present, save the devil who lounged beside her. Kang-ho looked nervous, as well he might-the cheek of the man, selling her out to his husband.

"We've already spoken very plainly, you and I, while you were under the influence of the harpy toxin. Do you remember what we spoke of?" Whatever face Zosia made must have pleased Jun-hwan, for he smiled all the wider. "Mistress Clell, I assure you that anything you divulged shall be kept strictly between us. Not even my husband was party to our discussion."

"No?" What in the devil's ken was this creep playing at?

"I was deeply saddened to hear of the death of your husband, Mistress Clell. I am sure that if anything happened to Kang-ho I would likewise seek justice, even if such a course was not strictly judicious."

Zosia sighed, lying back on the warm mat. So much for the element of surprise. Staring at the black-paneled ceiling, she said, "You claimed we'd speak plainly, so let's get on with it. What happens next?"

"That is entirely up to you," said Jun-hwan. "Again, I am not entirely unsympathetic to your plight. In fact, I empathize with you much more than you may suspect. You see, our daughter Ji-hyeon-"

Kang-ho interjected something fast and fresh in Immaculate but went silent at a glare from his husband. Kang-ho's frown deepened, but he did not interrupt again as Jun-hwan went on.

"Our daughter, Princess Ji-hyeon, has been missing for several months. We have reason to believe she was kidnapped by agents of Samoth. Given the history that you and my husband share where the Crimson Empire is concerned, it is most interesting to me that both your family and his have been so recently targeted by their interests, albeit in different fashions."

"Huh," said Zosia, almost forgetting her headache for a moment there. Almost. "Kidnapped princess, eh? That's obviously a sight worse than the murder of a few hundred peons, but I guess I can see how you'd draw a comparison. I'm flattered, really."

"I have no interest in pitting my grief against yours, madam, I simply point out the facts."

"And the fact is, we don't actually know it was Imperial agents who took her," said Kang-ho, fidgeting. "For all we know-"

"For all we know it was simply one of my dear husband's dear friends seeking to turn a dear profit from a ransom," said Jun-hwan. "The last time one of his war buddies came to call we wound up losing our daughter Ji-hyeon, so you can understand my interest in you when I was informed that yet another unexpected guest claimed to be an old acquaintance of Kang-ho."

"How's this, now?" said Zosia, eyeing Kang-ho just as hard as his husband was. "Who?"

"He introduced himself to us as Brother Mikal," said Jun-hwan. "Supposedly a missionary of the Burnished Chain, and for reasons quite beyond my understanding my husband insisted we take him on as a tutor for the girls. As I have entrusted their education to Kang-ho, I thought no more of the matter until it was too late. That my helpmeet failed to mention he knew this Brother Mikal from his time as one of the Five Villains, albeit by another name, was a most disappointing revelation."

"Hoartrap?" said Zosia, raising her eyes at Kang-ho. "You let him around your children?"

"No, Fennec," said Kang-ho quickly, his husband watching this exchange with obvious interest. "True devils and false gods know I would never let a sorcerer set foot on this isle, let alone in my home!"

"Fennec?" It hurt to smile but there was no helping it. "You installed Fennec in your house? That's even worse than Hoartrap! I hope you people don't put a high value on the virtue of your princesses."

"That is not our primary concern here," said Jun-hwan, looking none too happy with his husband. "But I have since learned all there is to hear of this rogue's character, and I can assure you I am unimpressed with my husband's judgment on the matter."

"I doubt you've heard all there is to know about him," Zosia said helpfully as Kang-ho squirmed. "Did you tell him about the time he seduced that Usban abbotess with the-"

"He blackmailed me into giving him the job," said Kang-ho. "Swore he just needed a place to lay low for a year or two until some storm he'd conjured blew over. I turned him down initially, but then it got ugly. I relented when he gave me his word that he would play the part of Spirit Guard and nothing more, and we used to be able to put stock in one another's oaths, didn't we? Besides, he left me no choice in the end-I couldn't afford to send him away."

"That is a matter of some conjecture," said Jun-hwan sharply. "What is not is that he disappeared a short time ago, along with Ji-hyeon and one of her other guardians."

"Who's the other missing guard?" asked Zosia.

"Choi," said Jun-hwan, "my daughter's Martial Guard. She had been with our house for many years before this Brother Mikal came along. Which would imply a longstanding conspiracy to abduct my daughter, or else Choi's body has yet to wash ashore. For her sake I hope it is the latter."

"So when I rolled up you assumed I was in cahoots? Maybe delivering a ransom letter?" The man didn't give his husband's friends much credit if he thought they'd send a collaborator to negotiate instead of brokering the terms from a safe distance. "It's bad for business to keep a family waiting this long without sending something-you sure she hasn't kidnapped herself? Princesses do that, I hear."

"There was a witness," said Kang-ho, though his husband was again watching him with unmistakable skepticism. "Her Virtue Guard, Keun-ju, saw Fennec and Choi carrying her off, and when he tried to stop them they threw him into the cove. He nearly drowned."

"Good thing he didn't, or you'd have nobody to tell you what happened," said Zosia.

"I expect he will give you the full account on your voyage," said Jun-hwan, standing. Peering down his nose at Zosia, he cut an imposing figure. "I want you to find my daughter, Mistress Clell, and bring her home. Then I will give you what assistance I may in your quest to bring justice against Samoth."

"A princess for an army?" Zosia's headache throbbed, spoiling any emotion this proposal might stir in her. All she wanted was to bury her face in a cool pillow for the next day or three. "And how do you know I'm not really in on it with Fennec, that this isn't how we're leveraging a martial ransom out of you? Maybe we've got her squirreled away in some Linkensterne stinghouse, and I'll be back in a week with the princess to get my payoff?"

"As I said, we spoke, you and I, when you were swimming with the harpies, and at those depths few can tell a convincing truth, let alone a convincing lie," said Jun-hwan. He nodded at Choplicker. "And if I had any doubts, your companion disavowed me of them. You always keep your word, apparently."

"That a fact?" Zosia tried to shrug off the ice water that ran down her back. The Immaculate were eerily comfortable with spirits, weirdborn, and all other sorts of horrors, but it was common knowledge that only practitioners of the black arts could truly speak with devils. Drugging and interrogating Zosia against her will was one thing, getting chummy with her fiend was quite another. "Choplicker put in a good word for me, did he?"

"Choplicker?" Jun-hwan looked aghast. "You should treat such a being with more reverence, Mistress Clell."

"Yeah, I bet he said as much," said Zosia, limply kicking the sheets in Choplicker's direction. "Fucker still knew better than to get on the bed with me, though, didn't he?"

Choplicker growled low in his throat, which finally inspired Zosia to sit up straight, but only so she could swat him on the nose. That was exactly what she needed, the old monster putting on airs just because some kooky Immaculate communed with his evil ass. Jun-hwan hissed through his teeth but did not comment on Zosia's treatment of her devil, and Choplicker whined reproachfully at her. She raised her palm but didn't pop him again. Staying upright took all the energy she had.

Jun-hwan reached down and petted Choplicker, his eyes on Zosia's. "It is said that in the Black Lands, the Great Dark King craved light for his subjects and so sent two fire dogs through the Gate of the Sunken Kingdom, into our world. One tried to bring back the sun, and the other, the moon. Yet the sun burned the first dog's tongue, and so she dropped it, and the moon froze the second dog's teeth, and so he dropped it. Yet knowing the Great Dark King's disposition toward failure, the two fire dogs try over and over to carry off our celestial lights, and they will continue to do so as long as the sun and the moon rise over the Star."

"Eclipses, right?" Zosia remembered the song Kang-ho had sung her nearly three decades previous, when they had taken advantage of the distracting religious hysteria the event brought on in Yennek to sneak in and rob Castle Illicitus blind. "You saying what, he's a moon-eating fire dog? If you saw the hassle his own hindparts give him when he's munching down back there you wouldn't give him so much credit!"

"I do not suggest the old myths be taken literally, but I do know they come from an age when mortals were not so alone upon the Star as we fancy ourselves now. All cultures have legends of black dogs, and while these songs are different, the universal truth is that such beings are due deference," said Jun-hwan, offering the beast another respectful nod.

"Mister, you need to lay off your fish oil," said Zosia, though the man's legend dredged up all kinds of weird memories of her harpy dream, memories that sank back down in oily blackness before she could focus on them: enormous, squirming monsters that were but fleas upon greater nightmares still, leviathans churning in the lightless center of all things...

"Anyway," said Kang-ho, "our honored guest was just leaving, weren't you?"

"Keun-ju will travel with you," said Jun-hwan, and when his husband gave him a wicked glare, the king shrugged. "He has been desperate to go after Ji-hyeon ever since the abduction, and what use have we for a third Virtue Guard when we have but two children left?"