Prologue

Perfectly cleaned tools put in their places on tall racks and shelves, bottles and vials sorted by colour, volume and toxicity. Master Haemonculus Cymhellol checked his laboratory in detail after every working day. No other savant, let alone his wrack apprentices, could ever dare to step away from the rules he'd imposed on his Coven of the Incisive when his followers, a squalid bunch of survivors, settled in this part of the Dark City. Most of his colleagues grew extravagant and even eccentric as centuries passed by, but Cymhellol was still holding on to his principles, old age making him grow even more paranoid and obsessed with compulsive daily routine.

He took another look of an unfinished pain engine at the back wall and sprouting poison lilies in rectangular boxes under a row of purple lamps powered by the training workshop upstairs. He was quite short of captives recently, and the haemacolytes had yet to hone their technique, so the lilies grew slower than he expected. Cymhellol took a vial of finely distilled venom of a hundred rare beasts mixed exactly in his favourite proportion and closed his eyes hovering over the floor, trying to relax with the exquisite sounds of screams from adjoining laboratories. He felt delighted to finally have a rest after a few days of concentrated hard work. With a shadow of a smile he gave the empty vial to a wrack and headed to his private quarters to replenish his strength.

'I am sorry, Master,' the wrack bent his knee taking the vial. 'The Beggar Archon has arrived to see Your Excellence.'

Cymhellol's good mood vanished. He crossed his lean arms on his chest, not even bothering to hide his displeasure. Ymgarth Llygoden, the pretentious but ineffective ruler of the once powerful Kabal of the Poisoned Rose, had been a burden the haemonculus still cared for only because the archon's main rival had pledged for the coven led by his personal enemy from before the Fall. The Beggar Archon's visits were even more frequent now as his management of the Kabal was about to collapse.

'Such an honour to receive you in my modest laboratory, Archon,' Cymhellol said dryly. 'I hope the visit has something to do with the latest party of rose cuttings.'

'I was quite pleased with the black ones, Master Haemonculus, the incomparably delicious agony they deliver,' Llygoden's shrill voice made Cymhellol wince. 'I'm wearing all black nowadays, so I enjoyed inserting a rose...'

'I meant another thing. We've been discussing the matter since the very day you needed the assistance of the coven to dethrone your mother. It might sound impolite, but my eyes and ears reported me a while ago your Kabal had fallen on hard times. I'm keeping constant records of all sales and debts since my first day here. I've supplied you with so many seedlings and cuttings they'd be enough to make a garden the size of a maiden world. I've been treating your wounds for all the years of your rule, after your raids, after your reckless swims in the Oceanarium. I've tamed a mandrake for your service.'

'You know what's happening in the city,' Llygoden''s tone got nagging. 'There're hardly any perspectives at all, as we're surrounded by the most horribly mindless imbeciles. I'm feeling out of place among the vain, plain individuals of my stagnant Kabal.'

None of the roses of Llygoden's famous garden could be half as toxic as his constant whining. Cymhellol found himself thinking about the archon's mother with some approval. She had been rash and unreliable but with an ally as worthless as her son the coven was likely to lose most of its profitable clients. Maybe he should have agreed to her proposition of making a grotesque out of her rebellious son.

'I need at least minimum gratitude for my devoted work, Archon. You will try to poison me instead like half a year ago when I reminded you of the debt but your experience is not enough to deal me even the slightest damage.'

'I'm actually suggesting sharing bountiful loot of an extraordinary venture.' Llygoden pursed his pierced lips painted black. 'A croneworld full of unspoken treasures from the great millennia of the Empire.'

'The Webway around them is tainted and dangerous. I'm not going to waste my precious engines.'

'Something much better. Meddwyn and her wyches captured a corsair ship during their latest slave-raid. Among other costly items there was a piece of a relic map. Access to one of the fabled intersection worlds. If we get there, we have a chance to visit a few croneworlds in no time and return back. It's located in a relatively quiet area of space.'

'I'll give it a thought.' Cymhellol nodded. 'Let's discuss that after the engine is finished.'

The proposition sounded lucrative, so Cymhellol concocted a raid plan after Llygoden had left and sent a scourge to inform the newest customers that the fabrication would be postponed for a few days. But, as all denizens of Commorragh, Cymhellol had no illusions about the archon's eagerness to leave him a decent share.

'Prepare a portion of antidote for the statue number forty,' he ordered the wrack. 'Just in case.'