And reassembling our afflicted Powers,
Consult how we may henceforth most offend
Our Enemy, our own loss how repair,
How overcome this dire Calamity,
What reinforcement we may gain from Hope,
If not what resolution from despare.

-Satan, Paradise Lost

---

A ferocious wind tore through the jagged peaks of the Claws. They funneled through the sharp, angular slopes, of the mountains to blow down across the lower slopes and promontories in violent howling gusts. Pebbles and small stones, loosened by the ever-shifting squalls tearing down the peaks, tumbled down sheer cliffs to the talus-covered foothills some dizzying distance below. Ascending such mountains, even under comfortable conditions, would be a formidable undertaking; under such adverse conditions it was nigh-suicidal.

Such adversity failed to give pause to Aurelius Verxilis, armiger of the Order of the Castigati. For Aurelius had lost everything, and his own life had scant meaning anymore. His unshaven, bristly cheeks pressed against the jagged face of the mountainside as he searched for some fissure or ledge in which to place his foot. A tattered cape - once dyed black but now sunbleached a dark gray - flapped furiously in the downdrafts, threatening to tug the Castigate from his precarious footing and send him tumbling to certain death. Aurelius reached out with his right leg and wedged the toe of his boot deep into a cleft in the cliff face. He shoved off with his left leg, leaving the safety of a ledge that he could seize a protuberance in the rock with his left hand and then found haborage for his right hand in another fissure.

Aurelius took a brief moment to catch his breath, and looked up toward his destination. Far above him, his destination was at last in sight: the half-collapsed spires rose into a sky of tempestuous clouds. The remaining half of this mountainside was all that separated the Castigate from the destination he had sought for these past five months. The ruined citadel of Arkhagon Zul was just above him now.

Before continuing the ascent, Aurelius reached around to feel the satchel under his cape, to ensure the reason for this great journey was still in his possession. His fingers ran across the contours of his pack, reaching under the crossbow secured to the outside of the satchel until he could feel the reassuring hard, flat surface of a huge grimoire pressing against the inside of the bag. Contented that it was still with him, the Castigate continued his arduous climb up to Arkhagon Zul. If he discovered that he had lost the great tome, all would truly be lost. Contained within the Demonslayer's pack was the key to the only remaining purpose of his life, the reason that the entire Order had been dispatched to hunt him down.

For in Aurelius' satchel was the Liber Demonica: the spark that would ignite Nagath and set all of Geryon ablaze.

The Cursed Sea, North of the Broken Arm

Water exploded over the prow, a huge bloom of white foam showering the foredeck, drenching the already drenched clanswords. Jago grinned as the freezing sea washed over him. His left hand tightened around the grip of his short sword, his right around the handle of his axe. He lived for this.

The Almalexia lurched beneath his feet as the ship climbed the oncoming wave. As it crested, their quarry came into view. The Ushtobal was listing badly, the choppy sea around it churning and red. Their prey was a chariot-ship, sleek and fast but poorly armed, pulled through the sea by a harnessed zama whale. A masterful shot from one of the Lexia's ballistae had wounded the monster in an earlier skirmish, and now the sharks had set in on it...leaving the Ushtobal adrift.

"Axes!" shouted Blackteeth, Jarl Valen Vymar's favored thane and right hand, "Axes out!"

A clatter ran up and down the deck as the clansmen armed themselves. Jago bashed his sword and axe and let loose a warcry so loud it left blood in his mouth. The men around him took it up.

Another plunge, another plume of water washing the warriors. Another rise...and they were on them. The Almalexia crashed into the Ushtobal with a splintering crunch.

"Get the child!" shouted Blackteeth, "Everyone else is sharkfood!"

Jago had leapt the gap and was on the other boat before the thane finished shouting. A deckhand rushed at him with a harpoon. He swatted the rusted tip away easily with the flat of his sword and beheaded the man with an axeswing. The head skidded across the planks, blinking in shock, before it tumbled into the waves.

The Ushtobal crewmen fought like demons- knowing that capture meant thralldom or worse. It was well known that the men of Nagath's northern shores consorted with ghouls and monsters, that even their kings and chieftains answered to decrepit things that supped on the flesh of men. The Ushtobal's captain had taken a real risk sailing so close to the shores of the Broken Arm, depending on his vessel's speed to outrun reavers on his dash to Port Nailbite in Northmarch.

The gambit might have worked, had the northmen not been ready for them. Perhaps the circling shadows in the overcast skies following the Ushtobal since Ozgad's Folly had not been seabirds, after all.

Jago cut down three more deckhands. More northmen were aboard now, and the slaughter was general, the sleek ship's deck slick with blood.

"One more step and she's dead!" screamed a shrill voice. Jago glanced up. The Ushtobal's captain stood beside the wheel, a bug-eyed dandy, his cutlass drawn across the neck of a girl of nine or ten. Dirty blond, dressed in a colorless shift, skinny. Her eyes were closed, her expression resigned.

The child they had come for. The one the Stryge wanted, gods and devils help her.

"I know you're here for her," said the captain, shaky but calmer now. A half dozen clan warriors formed a semi-circle around him, bloody weapons in hand, "I'll make a dea-"

There was a crack like thunder and the captain collapsed, his sword clattering to the deck.

Jarl Vymar stepped around the cluster of clanwarriors, a smoking flintlock in his hand. He was a tall man, grave, dressed in a salt-stained black cloak, with black hair going gray at the sides.

He grabbed the girl by the arm. She opened her eyes.

"You're safe now," said Vymar, then to the clan-warriors, "Get her on the ship, then cut this hulk loose."

Clanging metal reverberated faintly though the stone, heavy footfalls pattering somewhere far above. Somewhere in the citadel's upper reaches the orcs were fighting once again. The sound of the distant skirmish was the first sensation that the devil had registered in a long time indeed. How long was impossible to say, for he had not only lost track of time but all interest in it. There were few things interested him anymore.

The demon Arkhagon laid upon the cold stone floor in pitch blackness. In more hopeful times, this was the deepest hold of Arkhagon Zul, the nexus of power of the once-mighty stronghold. Falling water from the citadel's great dam was harnessed, used to generate arcane energy, and condensed here for use by the master of this place. The arcane conduit that in centuries past crackled with life was now stone cold. For a long time indeed, this place was naught but a great emptiness in the deep.

Arkhagon had laid here for many years in agonized torpor, scarcely moving at all. So still, that a thick blanket of dust had formed over him. He shifted slightly, twitching to hear the sounds of combat somewhere far above. He regarded the orcs fighting in the upper levels with contempt. How foolish could the greenskins be, to spill their blood over this worthless ruin? In the past century, a great earthquake had all but toppled the stronghold's twin spires and severed the conduit running between this chamber and the hydromancy engines. The engines themselves had been torn apart and stolen for their precious metal, as had everything else this citadel had once contained. The tremors had likely broken the dam itself as well. There was nothing left to fight over in Arkhagon Zul, only an imposing ruin for some greenskin warlord to call himself master of.

Perhaps, Arkhagon thought, he was no less foolish than the orcs for remaining here.

He had laid here for many years, ever since returning to Geryon from a twelve-year journey in the Beyond. He had been combing the underworld of Hmegoth, fighting the indigenous demons of that plane and questioning the doomed souls there, asking if they had seen him. But even in the Beyond, Arkhagon's master was nowhere to be found. Daigon, the Dark Lord of Nagath, was nowhere to be found in any of the numerous hells and underworlds.

Ever since the realization that he would never again see his master and only friend, Arkhagon wept and agonized, relegating himself to an enternity of loneliness and misery.

Arkhagon considered - not for the first time - that perhaps it would be better to end himself. After all, there was some small chance that his soul would encounter Daigon's somewhere in the Beyond. And that was slightly more hopeful than laying in the darkness until the end of time. But for the devil lord, ending his own life was easier said than done. Daigon's Gift - the dark ritual in which Arkhagon was transformed from mortal man into a demon - was a powerful blessing indeed. Arkhagon was effectively immortal now, and exceedingly difficult to kill in battle. During Daigon's rise, Arkhagon had once led his master's forces in a the charge across the lava fields of Thagarond. There, he and the vampire thralls he was fighting against broke through a thin spot in the volcanic stone, and fell into a pool of glowing magma. The enemy combatants were instantly incinerated, but Arkhagon was coughed up from a nearby lava vent a fortnight later - encrusted in volcanic glass and horrifically burned - but alive nonetheless. It would take a powerful foe indeed to end his life.

It was then that Arkhagon felt another sensation - the smell of a man. A human? Here? For a time, he was uncertain, but it was not long before the devil lord could confirm the scent. A man was approaching, descending through the rock above. He was silent, but to the devil the air reeked of mortal man. Arkhagon could almost taste the vitriol and ambition in the intruder's very perspiration wafting now through the stagnant air of the dark chamber. Arkhagon was very interested, and rose now from the floor. Years of dust cascaded off of the demon's body as he hungrily sniffed the air. He knew what this interloper was now, for only one kind of man ventures so boldly into a demon's haunt.

Castigati.

Arkhagon felt for the first time in centurires something approaching happiness. He would have his death wish granted soon enough.

---

Rajazul, somewhere in the southeastern quarter streets, at dawn.

“To he whom has built the city…”

A familiar refrain begins from out of the switchback alleyway, accompanied by sitar strings. The player is swaddled, enmasked and dressed in chromatic rags, frayed but beauteous. As dawn breaks over the sharply cut spires and bulging domes, towering skyward as if to meet the sun halfaways, that refrain is echoed. At first, a few dozen lazing strings call back from faraway alleys and underhangs, out of rhythm. An ascetic voice sonorously rises some ways away from the first, perhaps a block away.

”To he whom has built the city,”

The dual strike of a twin-headed drum sounds from the nearby waterfront, and then more like it, rolling up into a light beat along the canals. Whining flutes, braying reeds and trumpets, more voices speaking and chorded call and respond and begin to play near the first singer, block to block, and other pockets of music afar begin in parallel with this one. More voices rise, now, and say,

”To he whom has built the city,”

The void of rhythm slowly works itself otherwise, taking to itself a shape. Strings plucked as one, to one chord, wind blowing with notes of hanging clarity, chime and rattle and struck wood chattering like hail, the drums rolling into a pealing thunderstorm of noise, rising, rising, and then nothing, as silence reigned; the players’ halt so abrupt that the specter of the music still seemed to ring out, living yet within the walls and the spires and the clear waters of the River Uma.

Ten thousand voices and more spoke then as one, unaccompanied and clear.

”To he whom has built the city, give praise.”

And the storm began anew, in full rhythm. Curtains draw, shutters are set aside, doors swing wide to air fresh and warm. The first bustlings of traffic begin to funnel outwards into the dye-stained streets. A second music begins alongside the first, that of idle conversation, greetings, callings, of endless footsteps, sounds of life. A few coins rattle into the dish at the end of the switchback alleyway, where the enmasked man plays. To the call of the Priests of the Mendicant Fable, the city lives, breathes, and awakes.

---

Washhouse, somewhere in the middle quarter, early morning.

Beneath a low roof, the churning and spattering of water underscored the din of chatter. Dozens surrounded the low basin, almost all women and girls, with a few grumbling boys, washing cloth and sheet. Above the rest, one conversation between mother and daughter begins to stand out.

“I tell you, Richa, don’t you ever yearn for the countryside?” beggared the mother. A woman by the name of Nishat, simply dressed, darkly hued, and unadorned.

“No, mother, not once have I,” was the immediate reply, sing-song with just a hint of irritation. This was neither the first nor the last Richa would hear of this, as her family and indeed many of those present had immigrated from the countryside during the last period of expansionary building through the decade. Contrary to her mother, she was dressed finely for their low-middling class, bejeweled and made up; ink ran across her skin in swirling script.

“But the open air and the uncrowded living?” Nishat queried. “They hardly compare to the splendor of Bhaskara’s city,” Richa shot back.

“Splendor, she says, as every morning we wake to a racket of mantras. It was novel the first time, but...”

“I have not tired of the beauty of it even a little, even now.”

“And yet-”

“Every day with this! Would you leave the poor girl alone, Nishat?” began a centennial looking little woman- hunched and olive-hued, her name was Parvati, and she had lived there in that neighborhood as long as any could remember, regarded as no one and everyone’s grandmother. “Racket or no racket, I don’t think you would relish returning to doing your laundering in the streambed. Hm?” A chorus of giggling resounded as the nagging was silenced. Nishat, glowering and sighing, turned her frustration towards wringing work, and began to drain one end of a heavy sheet.

As graywater spilled over the basin’s lip or was thrown out into the drains, Richa tugged down a heavy pull-chain, letting freshwater flow in through a pipe cut through the rooftop. She smiled, thinking to herself that this was one thing she might never have seen in the country. And yet, following that pipe over the rooves on which it laid, it spiraled up the pillared support of a great aqueduct, reaching high over the streets, stretching on through the whole city, and out from it beyond and over the coast.

---

Traders’ galley Chrysanthos, at a dockyard on the mouth of the Savitr, morning.

Gerasimos, at wits’ end, looked on his shipmate sternly. “I will tell you what I told you when we first embarked, Emilios; I am not getting off this boat.”

This elicited a sharp bark of laughter from his shipmate. “I don’t believe you. Do you not see it? This is the city. I póli! The conflux of nations, the jewel of the east, great center of worldly trade. The seat of a demigod, the Great Archon, Justinian’s own rival and suzerain to the mortal Basileus and master of Kyriakos both!”

“Oh, yes, indeed. Demon-king of a second Tushiena, itself a second Dratha, ruler behind a weak emperor, leash-holder of the butcher of the Tshrivs & hundred-man slayer. I am dearly impressed by his overgilded labors and the illustrious company he keeps.” A scowl turned their way at this remark, cast down from a tawny mariner resting at the taffrail of the twice-taller military galleas that was their neighbor at dock. Emilios excused his companion with no more than a shrug and a politely strained smile, which was enough to put the mariner on his bitter elsewhere on the ship and out of sight.

“You are a joyless ingrate, you know that? And seditious, too. You might be able to get away with that sort of talk in Bakt, but I wouldn’t go shouting it to the heavens here. The Bhaskara certainly live here in plenty enough number, and they named themselves for him, such was their love for all this- this gilding!”

“Well, I hardly share in it, and I won’t have to shout if I don’t go into the city to begin with, will I? There’s plenty of accounting left to do below deck. It’s how I’ve avoided a tan for so long.”

“You won’t have anything to shout about if you don’t start ‘sharing,’ and I wouldn’t call transparence ‘avoiding a tan.’ Must you view life so dismally?” Emilios pinched the bridge of his nose tight enough to mark the skin, hoarsely irritated.

This sort of bickering had become quite familiar to the crew of the Chrysanthos. The rest of their shipmates and workmen had by now begun to politely ignore them as they set about their labors, or left for shore leave as Emilios clearly and dearly wished to. The two seemed to be eternally at odds; even their pallor was opposing, Gerasimos dark-haired and pale, Emilios blonde and rosey.

“Listen, I’ll tell you what. You come with me into the city. You hate it. You wish you’d never set foot in it. And you don’t get eaten by some ghastly Asura as you so deludedly expect,” Emilios began.

“And?” Gerasimos inquired.

“And in recompense, I’ll let you toss me straight into the bay soup for the merfolk to eat as you’ve kept threatening. I’ll even cooperate! Jump right into the maw of some great angler thing straight from the abyss.”

Gerasimos considered this for a moment. His face indescribably twisted in conflict. Then, a sharp outtake of breath as he stands, setting off from the ship. “If something goes awry, I swear, I’ll dive in there with you for my pound of flesh.”

Emilios clapped his hands, grinning ear to ear. “Well, I’m sure the Deep Ones will recognize you as one of their own. You certainly look pale enough to be a fishman out of water!” For this remark, he received an elbow in the ribs as the two departed down the wharf.