Fate bowed. “Sorry! Sorry,” he said, wincing under Gerard’s stare like he was some fresh serving-boy who’d made a silly mistake his first day on the job. “I’m here now. You’re safe—you have my word!”

It was poor timing that a bomb—maybe the loudest thus far—rocked the city at that moment. In the distance plumes of thick smoke spurted up.

“You should know,” breathed the Auctioneer. “That Jez is in the city. He will be here shortly, and he has no fear of your name.” Unlike the Auctioneer himself, evidently, who had to flick two unruly beads of sweat from his eyes. “You should leave, if you know what’s good for you!”

“I never have. It’s one of my failings, I confess…” Fate shook his head. “Sire, you have my friends! I would ask that you hand them over. That is that, as far as I see it. I will not be moved on the matter.”

Another explosion, a muffled thunderclap and a puff of distant smoke as the Auctioneer scratched thoughtfully at his chin. Behind him a spire in the skyline groaned, went sideways, thudded to the ground.

“You’ve made a mess of my palace,” he said, turning narrowed eyes on Dorian and Gerard. “You’ve broken my laws. And I have it on good authority you’ve planted and detonated bombs in my city...”

He jerked his head at a tower of smoke. Hard to tell which one, there were so many now. “So I feel perfectly within my rights to hold them! And so I will.” He licked his lips and smiled that slick, confident smile, and Dorian knew then Fate had him. You didn’t even need to look at the hunched tightness in the shoulders, the cautious crouch or the taut back. No-one truly confident in their position felt the need to flaunt it. “What do you have to say to that, oh great Fate?”

Fate gave a helpless little smile, his signature. “I sense this is one of those times words won’t resolve our conflict.” He inclined his head. “Would you like to dance with me, sire?”

So politely. So calmly. And he said it with so little menace, almost like a nervous schoolboy asking out a girl.

Yet the Auctioneer went stiff. The tiny darknesses of his eyes pulled in, and you could sense the vicious undercurrents buoying the moment. One wrong move, and it would all erupt.

He hesitated. Then—

“Will you give me no face?” he said, gnashing his teeth. “In my own city, no less?”

Fate considered his words. “I’m afraid not.” He brightened. “If you like I can compensate you for the damages, though! Perhaps we can discuss this over tea, in a few weeks’ time? It would be my honor to host you!”

By the look on his face the Auctioneer had half a mind to go.

But Dorian saw the other half in his cold, dead, sly eyes.

“I sang nursery rhymes bearing your name,” he whispered. “As a boy. My mother whispered them to me. ‘Don’t be late! Don’t you dare wait! In all paths you tread, both small and great, seek out Old Man Fate.’”

“Why,” said Fate. “You’re making me blush, sire.”

“I think… I ought to follow her advice.”

And he pounced, fists swinging.

Fate yelped, eyes bulging. Like in this tense confrontation he somehow hadn’t been expecting it. Knowing him, he probably hadn’t.

Now the Auctioneer was fast. Very fast. Faster than even Dorian, maybe. So fast he moved like teleportation, and the only thing that proved it wasn’t was the shriek of air marking his passing.

But Fate was fast in a different way, fast in a way a physical creature simply could not match. It was not that Fate was fast. He was simply not where he was. Indeed he was somewhere else—right in front of the Auctioneer! But he hadn’t moved. He was always there, in the past, the present, and the future. Dorian’s eyes had been wrong, seeing him somewhere else. And the only thing that proved he’d moved at all was the dustings of Laws of Fate where he’d been and where he was now. Winking, like he’d played a fun little joke on reality.

There was a massive needle in his hand, a sewing needle for giants that he gripped like a spear. He and the Auctioneer passed one another mid-air. And all Fate did was prick him, pulling a thin green line through the Auctioneer’s skin.

And then they landed, and turned, and stared at each other.

“What have you done?” There was a quiver in the Auctioneer’s voice. He tried righting himself but the movements came out herky-jerky. His fingers shot out straight. His legs and and arms would not bend. He took one step and toppled over, CLANKing to the floor.

“I have changed your Fate, sire,” said Fate.

“There was a hitherto undiscovered structural flaw in your cultivation Technique, I’m sorry to report.” He shook his head. “You see—all this time you’ve been cycling through a defective meridian! It has caused a great deal of metal poisoning in your system… I fear much of your body has been made metal as a consequence. Fate does enjoy its ironies.”

The Auctioneer tried to curse him, but his voice came out warbled. His tongue did not wiggle like a tongue; it wiggled like a bar of gold.

Dorian doubted the effect was permanent. As soon as the threads of Fate holding him in place unwound it, too would fade. Still, though…

He sure was glad Fate was who he was!

Fate beckoned now to Dorian and Gerard. He smiled. “Come, friends! Let’s make our way out of here, shall we?”

***

It was all gone.

Jez stared.

Warehouse six. The last of his stores, a smoking, sparking mound of slag and ash. Crates full of missiles. Armories’ worth of swords and scimitars, battle armors and healing elixirs, and qi elixirs, and spirit stones to fuel it all—mid-grade stones stacked in the hundreds of thousands…

All gone.

Just like the last five storehouses he’d gone to check up on.

And just like that, the legs had been cut out under his army.

Whoever had done this was surgical. They knew exactly where the stores were. And they timed it exactly before his army’s arrival. Leaving them bereft and undermanned.

But how could they have known? Jez shook his head. One warehouse he could understand. But no one troupe had access to multiple arms depots. This had to have come from higher. A traitor in his ranks? A lieutenant? Perhaps even higher?

He pursed his lips.

What a bother.

It seemed he’d need to divert some more power to this node cluster to push his assault through. He hoped Fate—he assumed it was Fate behind all this—hadn’t sacrificed too many men to push this mission through. What a sad waste! When the outcome would be the same regardless.

But you could hardly fault the beast caught in the steel trap for thrashing. He felt for Fate, and the rest of the resistance he’d thrown together. Truly. But surely he must see the inevitable. A god as wise as he ought to. Must he throw these temper tantrums? Surely he must see that because of him, good men would die—

Streaks of red flashed overhead. Frowning, he turned to face the Royal Palace.

Were those…

Phoenixes?

Oh.

Oh, no.

***

Outside, Ur was in turmoil.

A host of Empyrean Phoenixes did battle against a motley of threats. There were lizardmen guards riding rocs. There were the shadow-wreathed limbs of wraiths, swiping at them out of random cracks in the air. Littered on the ground were yet more guards. Dorian recognized the limp body of the First Princess of Ur, burned so badly he almost didn’t. All about them the monsters—tourists, ‘citizens’ of Ur—had taken one look at the mess, saw all law enforcement either tied up or dead, and promptly shed any veneer of civility. Brawls careened through the streets. Jiangshi tore at minotaurs. Rocs tore limbs off of drakes. Madness.

“Come, come!” yelped Fate. He made a hand gesture and two phoenixes dove from the skies. Third Form legendary beasts with proud sun-tossed manes and feathers the color of autumn leaves. Phoenixes were among the fastest mounts in the Multiverse. They were also among the proudest, which meant very few ever got to mount them. Only those they deemed worthy.

Though apparently Fate had secured an exception for their party. Sun was already atop one, clinging onto its neck with hands and feet both, face pressed in, eyes squeezed tight. Every inch of fur on her body was straight as a pin. She looked vaguely traumatized, but she still did take a brief break from her death grip to smile, frazzled, at Dorian and Gerard. “Oh! You made it!”

“Barely. But yes,” said Dorian, sliding atop his mount. Gerard clambered behind, coughing lightly, and Fate strapped them in with thick knots of rope like he was hog-tying prisoners to a tree. Which, judging by what Dorian remembered of how fast these suckers could get, was entirely justified.

“Take them back to camp,” said Fate, and he secured two nods from their mounts. “Go!” They shot up like firecrackers. So fast Dorian was sure one of his eyeballs had popped out in the launch. Certainly his ears had popped.

Then they came to a stop just as fast.

A net of strong gold qi crisscrossed the sky before them. A cage spun out of thin air. Dorian’s phoenix mount whirled around, puzzled, and he saw the culprit striding across the air toward them.

Kaya.

Or, rather, Jez. Her eyes glowed gold, but it was her expression that really gave her away. A deep frown, bordering on angry, something like a disappointed father. His eyes were watery, Dorian noticed. He was itching to grin. Itching to poke the man. But something told him this was not the time.

He had a strong enough sense of madmen to know when they were about to snap. And Jez looked on the brink of something ugly. Not murderous rage, perhaps, like he was used to from these types. But something more disturbing.

“Why must you force me to hurt you?” whispered Jez. Staring down two of his most hated enemies. Fate held his gaze. “Why must you… resist so?”

“You don’t need to hurt us,” said Fate softly. “Please. I… implore you, sire. Let us go. Find it in your heart—I know you can. This needn’t devolve to violence!”

Even as violence boiled everywhere around them.

But Jez simply shook his head.

“I want you to know,” he said. “That I take no pleasure in this.”

Jez’s finger touched the air, drawing a line. Where his finger passed a weapon was unsheathed, like he’d drawn it from nothing at all: a blade whiter than white, older than time, incandescent in the light of the dusk.