After lunch, the others accompanied me back to the Styx, keeping watch as I continued painting the boat. I welcomed their presence as a way to steer my mind away from morbid brooding; the face of that man on the bow looked less like my father while Miriam was telling about a drunk who walked into a tavern of centaurs and called it a «hay bar».

So the afternoon passed with inconsequential conversation. By the time Garou returned to view the work, my stomach was growling for supper… which just goes to show what addle-coves stomachs can be, since I was not looking forward to forcing down more bulrushes and beetles. The boatman looked over my shoulder for a few moments, gave a soft sigh, and said, «I suppose it will do.»

«It's an exact copy,» Yasmin offered on my behalf.

«Close enough,» Garou replied. I recognized the voice of a customer who doesn't want to sound too enthusiastic for fear the price goes up. «Have you decided where you want to go when the job is done?»

«Do any of us know anything about the gate-towns?» I asked the others.

«I know people in Plague-Mort,» Miriam answered. «I've been there a couple of times.»

«What's a Plague-Mort?» Hezekiah asked.

«Gate-town on the edge of the Abyss,» Yasmin replied. «From what I've heard, it's a depraved and violent place to spend your time.»

«No worse than a lot of neighborhoods in Sigil,» Miriam protested. «And it has some first-rate taverns.»

«Dens of iniquity?» Hezekiah asked hopefully.

«Dens, yes,» Miriam said, «but I wouldn't use big words like iniquity there, unless you want your teeth shoved down your bone-box. A bunch of us from the Glass Spider had some fine nights in Plague-Mort.»

«From the Glass Spider?» I choked.

«Sure,» she replied. «One of the Spider's portals led straight to a Plague-Mort butcher shop.»

«It seems to me,» Yasmin said, «if there's a direct portal from the Spider to Plague-Mort, we should head someplace else. We don't want to make it easy for Rivi to find us.»

«Rivi's looking for us here,» Hezekiah piped up, coming to Miriam's defense. «This Plague place is several planes away, right? She won't suspect we've gone there.»

«True,» Yasmin admitted.

«And I know the lay of the town,» Miriam said. «I also met someone there, claimed she knew a portal from Plague-Mort to Sigil.»

«Was this someone you could trust?» I asked.

«Depends what you mean by trust,» Miriam replied. «Her name was November. Would I let her hold my jink-bag for a few days? No. But if I gave her a handful of gold, would she stay bought an hour or two? I think so. She showed me a license from the Arch-Lector authorizing her to 'arrange divers services' for visitors to town… which probably means she knows who to bribe to get things done. I know how bloods like November work – they peel your pennies every chance they get, but they won't try to do you a slice-job.»

I had to admit I'd met the same sort of person, in Sigil and most other places I'd visited in the universe. If you wanted a room or a meal or some lamp oil, she'd escort you to an establishment that overcharged and slipped her a kickback under the table; but in exchange for wringing your purse dry, she'd honestly take good care of you. Then again, I'd met some not-so-honorable «city guides» too – the kind who smiled with helpfulness till nightfall, then led you straight into ambush. Usually, there was no way to distinguish the two types.

«We should go to the Plague place,» Hezekiah said with surprising firmness. «Anywhere else would be worse, right?»

Yasmin looked at me. I shrugged. «From everything I've heard, all the Lower Plane gate-towns are bad. If Miriam knows Plague-Mort and can find us a quick way back home… Garou, I assume you can ferry us to Plague-Mort?»

«The Styx does not touch on the Outlands anywhere near Plague-Mort,» the marraenoloth replied, «but I can take you to a portal which jumps to the town.»

«And you can supply us with a key to that portal?» Yasmin asked.

Garou smiled. I've never liked the sight of a smile on a fleshless face – it's all in the mouth, without touching the eyes. «As it happens,» the boatman said, «the key to that particular portal is an open bleeding wound. I would be happy to supply you with an appropriate gash; but I suspect you'll be spoilsports about that.»

A bleeding wound: just what you'd expect to open a portal in the Lower Planes. I shuddered and kept on painting.

The light never changed, the clouds never varied… but night fell.

Wheezle and Brother Kiripao emerged from the hut where they had been «negotiating». They looked exhausted, and were deliberately vague about what had happened in the most recent discussions. «We learned how the umbrals think,» Kiripao said. «I have never… pondered such subjects before.» He refused to say anything else.

Wheezle looked worse and said nothing for the first few minutes in our company. After a while, he chose a moment when the others were engaged with trifling conversation and dragged himself close to me. His still-useless legs trailed along behind him through the mud.

«Honored Cavendish…» he murmured.

«Yes?»

«The umbrals have undeniable powers of persuasion.» He mopped his brow with the hem of his sleeve. «I told you they want us all to become 'of one mind'. Do you know what that means?»

«Tell me.»

«We talk of ourselves… they talk, Kiripao and I talk. All together in a single hut. It becomes hard to breathe; their bodies take on a peculiar smell; the room darkens almost to blackness…»

«In other words,» I said, «there's magic at work.»

«Perhaps.» The thought seemed new to him. «Perhaps magic. Perhaps the power of their thoughts. But there were times… times I felt I was losing myself. Becoming one of them.»

«Maybe that's why they spend so much time over negotiations like this,» I suggested. «After all, how long does it take to agree on a simple selling price? But if this bargaining process is actually some kind of assimilation that takes three days to complete…»

«It could be,» Wheezle nodded. «I do not think I can withstand another day in that hut. By the end, I would be an umbral… mentally, if not physically.»

«Not to worry,» I assured him. «We're getting out tonight: Garou will help us escape to Plague-Mort. Of course, Plague-Mort has risks of its own —»

«Please,» the gnome interrupted, holding up his hand. «I do not wish to hear about risks, honored Cavendish. If you believe this is our wisest course of action, so be it. As long as we leave tonight.»

I patted him on the shoulder. «We're just waiting for the umbrals to go to sleep.»

But the umbrals showed no sign of sleeping. There were always a few of them sliding silently through the streets, though they had long ago abandoned their daytime activities of sculpting and harvesting beetles from the marsh. Even when I couldn't see the fiends amidst the shadows under the trees, I could still feel their hollow eyes gazing at us from the pockets of darkness.

At last Miriam whispered the words that must have been on everyone's mind. «Something's up tonight. Maybe they suspect we're trying to give them the laugh.»

«Impossible,» Kiripao answered immediately. «They cannot know our thoughts.»

I looked at him and wondered why he used that turn of phrase. Know our thoughts. Kiripao and Wheezle had been cloistered with the fiends most of the day, with the purpose of becoming one mind. Perhaps our monastic companion was steadfastly trying to deny something he secretly feared was true: that as umbral thoughts invaded his brain, some of his own thoughts bled into the fiends. They might have caught enough psychic vibrations to know we were jumping their cage tonight… which was why they now kept a peery eye on us.

Hezekiah turned to Garou, who was sitting watching me paint. I had already explained I would not finish the job until we'd reached some sort of safety; the marraenoloth was not pleased, but he wasn't surprised either. «So little trust in the world,» he had sighed. Now he looked at Hezekiah and said, «What do you want?»