It was a tinderbox atmosphere. The crowd was seething, shoving against it itself in a directionless fever of anger and fear. Not everyone believed Suffi’s accusation, but everyone knew something was wrong here, and more and more of them were choosing to slip away, not wanting to be there when the axe finally fell.

That was the mood as Immer vaulted onto stage, long jacket trailing behind him. “People, people!” He cried, holding up his hands. “What is this nonsense I hear? From a dwarf who can’t even follow the rules of our market, no less?”

His self-assurance failed to calm the crowd Suffi had stirred up against him; handsome smiles and smug charisma were all well and good when people were already on your side, but they made him look untrustworthy now. In the wary and paranoid atmosphere his oozing confidence made him an outsider.

“Fuck your rules, Immer! You have my people’s blood on your hands!” Suffi yelled back, and the crowd lifted their voice in echo- fuck your rules!

“Any proof of that? Any proof at all?” Immer demanded, mouth twisting up into a furious scowl. His smiling face was as thin as paper. One thing went wrong, I noticed, and he turned from charm to rage. “Am I supposed to defend myself from an idiot’s baseless accusations?”

It was the wrong thing to say. I couldn’t have been more delighted than to watch him flounder, trying to manipulate the strange, fickle moods of humanity and running right into a wall of hatred. It was already too late for him.

I had my cloth-golem, disguised as just another hooded figure in the crowd, sign to its neighbors ‘Where is the unicorn?’

The question caught on like wildfire, and soon enough I was hearing it hurled at the stage, as Immer started to pace back and forth. “You lot. Have I ever done anything but dutifully tend to this market? Have I ever betrayed any of you?” His face was ugly and red with fury.

I saw the familiar face of the Storm Cormorant’s captain surface among the crowd, cupping his hands to his mouth to shout, “Yes you have, you two-faced bastard!”

That was when it happened. First a blazing flash of light, and then darkness spread across the market.

It was time.

My little spies had brought the phosphorus in carefully, bundle by rat-sized bundle wrapped in airproofed wax. They piled them into a corner of the market, within an empty stack of crates, and carefully spilled open the first package. As it touched the air it let off a pale glow that was the beginnings of ignition.

And as the bloom of white flame roared above the market, crackling and flickering and spitting off sparks, the rats moved.

In the crowd, the cloth golem collapsed into an empty pile of clothes as rodents poured out from within.

Dozens of them leapt out of the rag-man, carrying with them pouches of nightvein dust that burst apart in clouds of darkness. They were like tendrils of shadow, reaching out to close their grip on the market, all the light swallowed up by the billowing grey powder. Soon it was as dark as the tomb. Rats were everywhere. They rose from the sewers and from the shadows, stealing openly from the stalls. In the sudden dark there was nobody to stop them as they snatched up everything that shone. Others were close behind, not thieves but firestarters. They carried packets of phosphor and scattered the blazing powder across stalls, merchandise, the guards.

More flames roared up, their brilliance briefly pushing back the dark. They were pale, vivid flames, the color of bone, the world rendered in black and white.

I had planted the seeds of beautiful chaos.

To his credit Immer knew immediately what the true goal was. “Guards! To the ship, now!”

And to his ruin, he’d just ordered his men on a collision course with the panicking, furious crowd he’d stirred into a furor against him. In the deathly gloom spread by the nightvein powder there was no coordination, only animalistic fear. As they hit the frontline of the fleeing people truncheons were swung, swords drawn- the market erupted into riot.

Suffi and her soldiers were the first into the fray, indiscriminate to whether they were cutting down the market’s guards or customers. They pushed both factions away as they swept out with their polearms, hacking open flesh and bringing out screams.

And all the while the Serpentine was coming up the river, oars slicing through the water as the green sail billowed in an invisible wind. Blood-red timber and rusting bronze clad the sides of the sleek vessel. Its nightvein figurehead swallowed the light as it passed by the moored ships of the market flotilla, snuffing out their lanterns one by one.

Aboard the Underqueen, without their captain, the first mate was laying about his whip trying to keep order. “Swords out! Eyes sharp! Where did that fucking unicorn go!?”

Because it was already gone, hauled to the doctor’s tiny vessel at the edge of the market. Only a skeleton crew of guards had followed along, leaving it poorly defended, with the chaos in the market keeping anyone from rushing to reinforce.

My golem-ship was trim and fast as it cut through the water, the Underqueen’s many lights going dark as it rushed past like a shadow. Who knows what the guards stationed there thought, seeing this deathly ship pass them in the night of white fires, crewed by a single figure?

All I know is they panicked, and not even the first mate’s whip could keep them under control.

We came upon the doctor’s ship, and the faun golem leapt from the deck of the Serpentine to the little cutter with a clack of his glass hooves. Before the guards could even cry out, his spear had pierced the first of them through the throat. The second managed a scream before his blade was shoved aside and the spear took him in the chest.

The third man, to his honor, got as far as swinging his blade down before the faun twisted, using his horns to deflect the blow and flicking the tip of the spear across the man’s throat to open a line of dripping red. The haft spun and smacked the fourth dumb across the head. One more thrust, one more kill, and the way was clear.

The glass golem stepped down the stairs to the lower deck, where the doctor cowered. The unicorn lay in chains, shackles keeping it from moving its legs in more than a hobbled trot. A swing of the glass spear against the chains couldn’t break them- spellwork flashed across the metal and repelled the speartip.

It wouldn’t stop us. The unicorn let out a humiliated bray as it was hefted like a sack of potatoes over the golem’s shoulders, the diminutive faun struggling up the stairs with the horse slung over its back. The tips of their horns scraped the stairwell as the doctor shivered and sucked from his flask in the shadows.

Immer would probably kill the old fool. Not my concern.

The plan had gone off without a hitch, and now we merely needed to get away. Already, the first wave of ragged guards were rushing across the web of gangplanks and bridges that connected the moored merchant ships in the market’s harbor. They were coming for the Serpentine, with torches and swords, axes, spears.

That was when the ships started to sink. For days now, my rats had gnawed open the underside of the hulls, and now one by one they broke through, ripping the louse-ridden timber apart to let water rush through. The guards went tumbling over as the decks they stood on pitched and lurched to a diagonal tilt, beginning to sink. Rope bridges snapped as one or the other ship began to pull away.

Another layer of chaos.

The glass golem laid the unicorn down on the deck of the golem-ship, turning back to face the few men who’d made it over the scuttled ships. They had weapons, yes, but nothing that could pierce his glass flesh. He simply waded through them, striking left and right and claiming lives with every sweep of his spear.

But now was when things started to go wrong. The spellwork chains on the unicorn’s legs were starting to glow hot, runic letters peeling off the iron to rise into the air above. They joined into a circling swarm that let out a high-pitched scream, alerting the entire market to what we were doing. The Serpentine was pulling away now, oars beating in reverse, but as I watched from dozens of ratty eyes, a figure lifted from the deck of the Underqueen.

A mage floated into the sky, lifted by a rotating diagram under his feet. Chains of golden letters wrapped around his tattooed arms.

They had a wizard.