With payment secured, Tosh and Bors followed the girl, winding her way through the snaking alleys and dismal side streets of Renkaska. Tosh noted that Tessa kept looking up, freezing or hurrying and waving them to stop if they were close to an Observer. They were constructs conjured by some fear-monger of a previous age, from what Tosh remembered. Semi-intelligent as well, for House du’Vaul used them occasionally to monitor the youths of the House. They were about the size of a child’s rubber ball, with four-to-six eye stalks that branched out from the central bulk of the creature. Each stalk ended with in a different-colored eye and a massive golden eye in the center of the bulbous creature. Some Observers were used to watch and report back. Some constructs possessed augments to their physiology that made their eyes weapons deadly and silent. The ones in and around the spaceport proper weren’t the observation-only ones. Tosh witnessed one of the Observers use one of its eye weapons to slay a rook that blundered too close to the floating monstrosity. A bolt of wan, greenish-yellow streaked from an eyestalk, striking the rook. The wings, then the body, slumped towards the streets below. With terrifying speed, the ball of bulbous purple grey flesh lurched and fell onto the corpse, feasting on it with a mouth of razor-sharp teeth. The crunching and snapping of bird bones sent slivers of ice through Tosh’s veins.

House du’Vaul used them as guardians of the compound on Deimos. It was a stroke of luck and some skill that Tosh slipped away from the Observer without alerting the creature or being attacked by one of the little monstrous creations. The ones in the spaceport were thicker and meaner. The singular golden green eye in the center, above a thick, double row of sharp teeth, stained with red rust of old blood. Each stalk of the gray-purple flesh emerged at various points to twist and afford the thing a 360-degree view.

“Why are we keeping clear of the things?” Bors asked. “Why not cut them down?”

“The Guild sent the things to watch for passengers, and to monitor any Guildie that might try to contact you,” Tessa explained with a great sigh of annoyance.

“Wait, if you are part of the Guild, and these are part of the…” Tosh stopped talking for a moment. “How did you know we were looking for—”

Tess shrugged. “I had a feeling,” she said with a forced smile.

“You’re lying,” Bors said. “I won’t—”

“I work, indirectly, for The Drumgag,” she said, not suppressing a violent shudder. “Sent to find you and make sure you get to your destination.” Nix copied Tessa’s shiver moments later.

“He helps us with one hand while he tries to stab us in the back with the other?” Bors asked. “A strange creature.”

“Near-Human.”

“No, he’s not human or near-human,” Tessa said, looking directly at Tosh. “Trust me on this. He’s a vile creature. I wish I’d find something to free me from his influence.” She scratched at the head of the creature again as she spoke. The creature burbled and purred as she did. Her shoulders relaxed as she petted the strange creature more and more.

“What exactly is Nix?” Tosh asked, trying to change the subject as they all lurked around the next corner as an Observer floated closer.

“He’s a vereen. He helps with certain things that I run into on the Gate Path and other people.” She gave Tosh a hard smile and turned to wander down the alley that the Observer had left.

Tosh felt his jaw drop. He’d heard of such creatures, but never thought he’d set eyes on one. Rumors were that the Guild used them for their eldritch abilities with the Gates. Tosh gave a nod, strengthening the fact that Tessa was a Guildswoman, given how protective of the creature she was. Neither of them were very keen on Tosh, he was sure. The vereen, prized and desired by the Twelve Families, those who together owned over ninety per cent of the Known Worlds. Even The Drumgag was considered an employee of one of the Families. House du’Vaul would pay good coin for an adult vereen. And a way to get from under my doom.

Nix turned his frilled, bullet-shaped head and snarled at Tosh. Small but razor-sharp-looking teeth bared in malice while the creature pulled deeper into the folds of Tessa’s jacket.

“I don’t think he likes me,” Tosh said.

Tessa said nothing for a moment, soothing the creature, then extended an arm to touch a random ramshackle door. She looked back when she placed her hand on the half-rotted wood slats. “You want to sell him? He is against that,” Tessa said as she pressed the door open. It swung on rusted hinges with a horrible loud creak. “Come on, in here,” she said, smiling, while looking directly at Bors. It turned to a scowl when she turned to Tosh. “If he must enter, he better be careful.”

“Why would you take her partner?” Bors asked Tosh, his voice heavy. “I thought you were more honorable than that?”

“You know how much that creature is worth to the right buyer?” Tosh asked, pointing at the retreating form of Tessa. It was a decrepit-looking tenement, the smell of dust and old things washed over him as he and Bors drew closer to the entrance.

“Would you give her the money?” Bors asked, eyebrow cocked. When Tosh didn’t answer, Bors brushed past Tosh, walking into the rickety building. “I stole to, but only from those that could afford it.” He muttered something about “Gost,” as he pushed by.

Tosh felt queasy. Gost was part of the strange Martian tribe’s honor code. It was complicated and not something Tosh wanted to get swept up in if he could help it. Still, he needed the burly bodyguard for a little longer if he was to survive this trip. “Well, of course she’d get a percentage. Yet there’d be expenses and—”

Bors yanked Tosh inside. “Hush, Little Bird.”

“I really don’t like that nickname,” Tosh muttered while being yanked into a trash-strewn chamber. It was a single large room with piles of paper, books, and strange objects that looked like scientific equipment, or weapons of some ancient culture—Or both—that dotted the walls and the floor in heaps. Tessa moved around them with sure-footedness, and even Bors could move amongst the piles without disturbing any. The moment Tosh entered, his elbow bumped a pile of papers, and he leapt to one side as the paper crashed down about him. He leapt away, right into a leaning tower of books that crashed into discarded dishes with more crashing and banging. Tessa and Bors turned to give him a baleful look, while Tosh shrugged his shoulders and gave a helpless smile.

“More of a reason to use it,” Tessa said with a mirthful smirk and a twinkle in her eye as she looked at the mess he made.

Tosh looked up, and she gave him a smirk. Rolling his eyes, he asked, “Where are we?” exasperated. Bors walked towards him, ignoring him while closing the door.

“Welcome to my humble abode and jumping-off point.” She gave them both a big grin, holding out both arms and spinning around the room. Her arms flared outward as the jacket billowed and scarves fluttered about. Even Nix appeared for a moment, gurgling in surprise at the sudden movement of his mistress.

“What? Here?” Tosh asked without even trying to hide his incredulity, looking at the grubby little hovel of a room. Another door was barely twenty paces from where he stood. It was half-hidden by a dresser and the upturned frame of a bed. They crammed into the single chamber with junk. Plus, there was a malodorous smell gave Tosh more reason not to believe the girl that this was the place they’d enter a Gate. “You can’t be—”

Bors stopped Tosh with a meaty hand and craned his head up with ease. Looking up, Tosh gasped. Twenty feet above him was a thick stone ring, bound to the ceiling by thick coils of brass and copper wire.

A Gate? It had been some time since Tosh had laid eyes on a true Gate, since his own house used rockets, and only on rare rare occasions was a Gate passage purchased from the Guild. Some he’d heard were monolithic structures, sixty feet or more across. Some were even bigger. One was rumored to hide in the Asteroid Belt of the Sol system between Mars and the daystar Jove. This can’t be a Gate. “It’s so small.” How can this be a—

If it was a Gate, it was closed. The miasma of the room made more sense to Tosh when he looked at the stone ring. All Gates had a strong odor of age and dust. “You use the Path from here?” Tosh asked, still not fully believing it.

She nodded, smiling up at the stone ring. “Only place I really care or want to go to or from. The sanctioned places are under stricter Guild control.” She looked back at Tosh, rolling her eyes. “Besides, they are too Tuesday for me. Know what I mean?”

“Aren’t all Gates marked and regulated?” Tosh asked, ignoring the random comment.

“Usually,” Tessa said with an off-putting smile. “This one is a bit of a rogue, she is. Not truly on the books of the Guild.” Craning her neck up she said, more to the ring than to anyone else, “Isn’t that right, girl?”

An odd thrum echoed throughout the room as if in answer. Tessa nodded as if it were the response she expected.