“I can’t believe you’ve already reached your second Advancement,” Elsbeth pouted. “Just how much have you been grinding?”

Tyron raised a brow and took a sip from his cup, a wry smile twisting his lips.

“Can you blame me for being driven? All things considered?”

His old friend sighed and shook her head, looking sad.

“No. No, I suppose not.”

She looked as if she wanted to say something, but ultimately restrained herself with a shake of her head.

“Well, it’s still a good thing you managed to reach this point,” she said, looking for the positives. “Are you planning to celebrate? Some sort of party?”

The Necromancer looked at her as if she were crazy.

“Of course not. You want me to wave a banner and announce I’m a level forty Necromancer?”

“Well, you have a fake first Class right? You could pretend you advanced in that.”

“Then I would have to get branded,” he told her acidly. “On my documents, I’m a curse mage, which is a registered combat Class.”

“Oh, that’s right,” she sighed, deflated. She rested her cheek on her hand, looking glum. “It would have been nice if we got to celebrate something for you.”

“It’s not like you can celebrate advances in your Class openly,” Tyron observed wryly. “Or do they welcome priestesses of the Old Gods in the taverns and restaurants these days?”

“In some of them, they do,” she replied seriously. “I reached my first advancement two years ago, and the other priests arranged a gathering for me. It was fun.”

“I’m not really bothered by it,” he said.

She pounded the table.

“But I am!”

“Calm down and drink your tea,” he scolded her. “We’re supposed to be talking about revolution and uprisings, not advancement parties.”

“Fine.”

She harrumphed and took a quick nibble on her pastry to calm herself.

“It’s taking time to connect everyone together. There’s always been a loose association between pockets of believers, but never a firm, reliable network. The Gods are taking an active role now for the first time since… possibly ever, so connecting all the groups and establishing lines of communication is happening faster than I would have thought possible.”

This was big news. The Old Gods actually doing something? He could only imagine how shaken the believers were.

“How’ve your fellow clergy taken this… change in divine policy?” Tyron wondered, a twinkle in his eye.

Elsbeth frowned at him.

“I know you don’t really like them, but they’re gods, Tyron. Try to show a little respect. And the change has been met with… confusion, for the most part.”

“You’d think they’d be happy their gods are taking a more active role in the realm.”

“Then you don’t know the Old Gods as well as you think,” she snorted. “Drawing their gaze can be a blessing or a curse and it’s a flip of the coin which one it’s going to be. Just because the Three are being active, doesn’t mean they’re being helpful. It could be quite the opposite.”

That was sadly true. From what Tyron knew, drawing the gaze of Crone, Raven or Rot was celebrated amongst the faithful… to an extent.

“Rebellions against the Nobles and the Magisters have never succeeded before, but they’ve never had the support of the true divinities either. The Old Gods aren’t going to smash the empire to pieces, but they’re willing to assist their clergy and followers. This is a momentous step.”

“That’s something worth thinking about,” Tyron muttered. If the Old Gods wanted the empire to fall, they could do it easily, most likely. “How much can the Five Divines resist them? Can they really just do what they like?”

Elsbeth made a face.

“Nobody can answer that question. The Old Gods would laugh and say they can tear them apart with a thought, but who knows if that’s true? Perhaps they can do that, but don’t because they want the mortals to rise up and throw the false gods down, or because they want them to suffer as their power is slowly stripped away.”

“Or perhaps they can’t do it and are just lying.”

“Or that. Personally, I think it’s the suffering angle. They can be extremely vengeful.”

“I’ve no doubt.”

“At any rate,” Elsbeth pressed her palms to the wooden table. “The centre of this rebellion is going to be at Cragwhistle.”

“What? Why?”

Cragwhistle was as far from civilisation as one could get. Which might be the point, but that distance and isolation would make a lot of things difficult.

“There’s a rift, and almost no Magister control,” Elsbeth shrugged. “And the Old Gods have been gathering followers there for years. You wouldn’t recognise the place now if you saw it. A lot has changed.”

“I bet. It’s probably the best place for me to hunt as well,” Tyron mused, “considering the lack of Magisters and Slayers. Only problem is, it would take weeks to get there, and weeks to get back.”

He pondered the issue for a moment before he noticed Elsbeth shifting uncomfortably in her seat. The two of them were together in Tyron’s upstairs rooms above the shop, protected by wardings that dampened sound and prevented scrying.

“What’s wrong with you?” he asked after a moment. “The bathroom is through that door.”

“I don’t need the bathroom,” she blushed. “I was just… thinking on whether or not I should share a thought I’d had.”

Tyron leaned forward, intrigued.

“Well, you’re going to have to share it now you’ve got me interested.”

“I suppose,” she sighed. She fell silent for a moment. “Obviously, reaching Cragwhistle would be difficult for you, and for your minions. But… there is a way you could travel that distance much faster.”

“Elsbeth… where did you learn about this method?” the young mage asked with narrow eyes.

“From Raven,” she replied, hesitantly.

“Is it dangerous?” he asked slowly.

“Yyyes,” she replied, slowly, averting her gaze.

“What do they want me to do?” he gave in.

“I didn’t want to tell you this,” she defended herself, looking him in the eye. “I was against it, but Raven insisted. And he’s loud. To be honest, I was surprised they suggested it in the first place.”

“Elsbeth. Just tell me what it is.”

She drew a deep breath and then the words tumbled out of her in a rush.

“YoucouldtravelthroughtheAbyss.”

Tyron blinked.

“What?”

“The… Abyss.”

“That’s… a great idea… and also… a terrible one.”

She averted her gaze.

“You know what it would cost? To do something like this?”

Clearly, she herself was aware. Raven must have told her.

“I’ve paid their price before,” he told her, more coldly than he’d intended, and she flinched.

No matter how far they’d come from where they’d begun, she still thought of him as who he’d been back in Foxbridge. He was not that person anymore.

~~~

“Congratulations,” Yor smiled, showing more than a hint of fang. “You’ve reached your goal, that is to be commended. I presume that means you will be taking a more active role in securing your vengeance?”

Tyron tried to ignore the swaying walls and faint hint of intoxicating smoke that remained in the air, or the sounds of music and… other things that still reached his ears.

“Is there any particular reason you insist our meeting be held here?” he asked flatly.

“I find the atmosphere conducive to relaxing and productive conversation.”

“No you don’t,” he snorted, “I can tell you’re practically blood drunk. You know how much I hate coming here, that’s the reason.’

“Perhaps that’s the case, it’s an interesting theory. Regardless, you agreed to meet here at the Red Pavillion, and that is what we shall continue to do.”

The young mage glanced around the room, sensing with more than just his eyes.

“Is this room properly secured?” he queried. “I can never tell how strong your wards are.”

The vampire leaned back and stretched, pulling her sheer black dress tight across chest.

“That’s the key to a good defence. If someone sees a fortress, then they know you have something you want to protect. If they see a little rabbit hole, they won’t suspect a thing.”

Tyron was about to protest that no defence was hardly a good defence, but she held up a finger and pierced him with her blood red gaze.

“If they stick their hand in the bunny hole, then it gets bitten off. A powerful defence disguised as one that is weak.”

It made sense. He should take notes.

“Fine. I have a few things I want to discuss.”

“Oh? Can I expect another transaction to take place? How interesting.”

He grimaced, but didn’t deny it. There were many ways to get what he needed, but none of them were attractive. The reason he’d become a Forbidden One was so he could trade favours with his three dark patrons, hopefully without any of them getting their fingers on his soul. He’d been successful, so far.

Right now, he needed the favour of the Abyss, and he knew of only one method to get it.

From the seat beside him, Tyron picked up a small chest, similar to a jewellery box, and placed it on the table. Yor leaned forward with interest as he opened it, only to appear disappointed to see nothing but small, glass spheres inside.

“Is this a new fashion?” she wondered. “It’s… different.”

“No,” Tyron shook his head. Fashion? How did her head work? “These are vessels. I need souls.”

She immediately knew what he wanted.

“You think we are going to help you pay one of our rivals?” she grinned. “How wicked.”

“I think you would rather I owed you a favour than them. I can’t get what I need to fill these,” he gestured to the spheres, “but you can.”

That wasn’t entirely true. He could get the spirits required, but it would be difficult. Difficult and… unpleasant. Collecting them in the city would be impossible, he couldn’t be wandering the streets conducting dark rituals to bind souls every time he stumbled across a dead beggar. Gaining access to the spirits of the recently deceased right under the noses of the priests and priestesses who served the Five Divines would also be an absurd risk.

No, he would need to leave the city for an extended period of time to gather what he needed, and even that wouldn’t be without risks.

His only other alternative would be to go through Filetta and her crew, but he suspected they would baulk at bringing him a few dozen people and slaughtering them in front of him. After all, the spirits were bound to the place of death, not the corpse. He got none at all from the bodies they brought him.

For Tyron to gather the souls he needed, people would have to die. Then he would take their spirits, and feed them to the amorphous horrors that lived outside the fabric of this reality. It was a nightmarish, terrible thing he was going to do.

But he was still going to do it.

“Bring me the spirits, and I will bind them myself,” he said. “I know your coven doesn’t exactly have clean hands. You won’t need to do anything you aren’t already doing, except give me the souls of those you’ve killed.”

“It’s true there is the odd feeding accident, among other business,” Yor admitted freely. “But this favour is still a costly one. I hope you’re prepared to pay the price.”

“I’ll get a loan from the Old Gods,” he shrugged. “They seem quite well disposed to me at present.”

Yor’s eyes narrowed.

“You’re playing a dangerous game if you continue to beg favours from each in turn. If we believe you will go to the others for payment, we will ask for something they won’t want to give up. And what position will that leave you in? If you think dealing with us is hard, you can only imagine how painfully we deal with each other.”