The morning broke thin and gray.
Mist clung to the gutters of Lowriver as we slipped into the southern market—a maze of broken stalls, shuttered doors, and old iron grates. Few dared this quarter anymore. The Purge had left its mark here deepest of all.
Ashra pulled her hood low. Liran walked close, hand always near his blade. I clutched my father's journal beneath my cloak, feeling its quiet weight against my chest.
We needed allies. And in this part of the city... that meant only one place.
The Broken Seal.
A tavern in name only—really a ruin of black stone and old glass, where the last of the Guild's survivors gathered like ghosts. Exiles. Apostates. Thieves of forbidden lore.
Ashra pushed the door open.
The smell hit first—dust, sour wine, the faint scent of powdered copper. Candles guttered in iron sconces. And at the far wall, hunched over a scattered game of bone dice, sat the man we had come for.
Master Dren Hollow.
Once a Circle-Master of the Alchemists' Guild. Now little more than a shadow in tattered robes.
His eye—one eye only, pale and blind—turned to us as we approached.
"Well now," he rasped, breath thick with age. "If it isn't the boy with the dead man's journal."
I stiffened. Liran stepped forward, but Ashra laid a quiet hand on his arm.
"We need the Catacombs," she said softly. "We need the old ways."
Dren chuckled. Dry as paper.
"So does the Carrion Order, child. They passed this way last night. Asking the same. But I told them nothing. No gift to old enemies."
His eye glittered.
"But you... you I remember. Your father was a fool, Corwin. Brave. But a fool. He thought the First Alchemist's secret could be mastered. That the Vault could be opened without doom. Is that what you seek now, boy? His ruin?"
I met his gaze.
"I seek to stop the Order before they break the world wide open."
Silence.
Then Dren laughed again.
"Good. You've learned fear. Perhaps not too late."
He pushed the bone dice aside, revealing a scrap of parchment.
"A path through the Catacombs. Old, incomplete. But better than nothing. I'll give you this. And a name."
He leaned close. Breath like old leather.
"Brother Marek. Keeper of the Nine Ashes. The last Grave-Warden of the Vault. If he yet lives, he will know the locks that bind the Gate."
Liran frowned.
"Marek's a myth. A story to scare apprentices."
Dren smiled thinly.
"Perhaps. But if the Gate stirs—as your father's warning says—Marek will come. The old wards will not hold without him."
I took the map.
"And his price?"
Dren's smile vanished.
"His price is truth. No lies in the dark, boy. Not before the Vault."
He stood, robe dragging, and turned away.
"Find him. Or all you love will drown in ash and rust."
The candles flickered. A cold breath stirred the dust.
We left the Broken Seal in silence.
Outside, in the alley's gloom, Ashra whispered, "I know where Marek was seen last. The Graven Steps. North of the river."
Liran shuddered.
"That place is cursed. Empty since the Purge. No soul walks there."
I glanced at the old map.
"Then that's where we go."
Behind us, faint and far, the bells of the city chimed once.
A warning.
The Chain turns.
The Gate stirs.
And the last of the old guard may yet be waiting.