The sentries take up a waiting stance at their appearance, with the guarded ease of blooded soldiers. Short knives and slim, ragged-bladed spears at rest.

Pyna drifts forward and utters a word unheard by Umin, prompting the nearer sentry to produce a knotty key, burnished and weighty.

He unbarrs a low, adjacent door and ushers the pair into a small foyer, which is illuminated by a copper rack where votive-seeming candlesticks crowd in fatty wax-melt, all blotty and fungus-like. 

The air swells with the odour of charred honeycomb.

Herein the rushing tide of voices from out the courtly sea are once again muted. 

Near at hand, upon an unadorned stone plinth reverently rests a single slip of virgin paper. 

And a shallow accompanying, porcelain cinnabar bowl, luxurious with cinnamon heaped into a high cone. 

Hovering over all in a long granite vase, is but one twig of rare, achingly crooked nightwood. 

The brittle lattice-work of its single gossamer bloom glinting like a superbly sculpted corpse-light.

Umin recognizes the offerings, respectively, to the numinous Paper God and Meya’tin, Lord of Forks and Fathoms.

He draws in a slow and deep breath, seeking after some inner equilibrium, and mouths a whispery supplication to the nearby offertory.

Umin then turns to Pyna, who stands inscrutable like an ivory figurine, peering thoughtfully at the oblation.  

“You move so very freely through the houses of kings... ”

The question implied, lips thinned, eyes wry. 

With a slow, reptilian blink, she studies him for a fleeting few heartbeats. 

Her doll’s mouth bending into a mocking little bow. 

Mere

Kings.

A footfall beyond the shrine, a plain-paneled door silently slides wide.

A man in the white gold and streaming charcoal accoutrement of Meshmin emerges with an easy elegance and greets the pair with a sweeping, practiced bow.

Umin is given no time to draw anything more than the shallowest meaning from out the undercurrent of Pyna’s pronouncement, before the greying curly-pated figure eases into a graceful introduction. 

“Pyna, it has been long.”

Majordomo

Pettiwren 

“Indeed.” 

His voice is plangent. 

Rich as black loam, sharp as ploughshare.

Pettiwren examines Umin. 

His sturdy, heavy-boned features cautiously warm.

“His Lordship had expected you a full four bells ago.”

Umin senses no admonition in Pettiwren’s words.

Trouble in

Tunnels.

Hungry things.

“Of course. If you please.”

Pettiwren turns in a tumult of luxurious cloth and moves easily off through the sliding panel, and into the narrow, tepidly lit corridor beyond. The pair follow at foot.

They walk awhile in silence, the tide of courtly voices ebbing and churning from the chambers beyond. Attenuated by the silver-fretted panel-work.

Servants glide busily past, bedecked in slate coloured, streaming livery. 

Brass services swollen with meats, rare fruits, scalloped mushrooms and honey-dark confections.

And hanging from sashes, horns and bottles and carafes, pregnant with heady syrups and spirits.

“We will take the discreet way. 

“Eikoon of the Burning Houses attends court.

“And It would be improper to cross paths, you see. Above all in the commons, before the eyes of so many.”

Oh Eikoon

Had he his 

Heart’s well

Beloved way

There should 

All, be only

Ash and clay.

Umin is startled by the name. 

A name that has proclaimed terror to the Guilds for over two generations. 

The Flametongue, The Pyre.

Scourge of the House of Old Night.

An unpleasant revelation.

“How does such a man find his way here unflayed and uncrucified?”

A little answering laugh from Pettiwren. Neither mocking nor malicious.

“Certainly my friend, he is a creature less than welcome.

“Lord Meshmin however, is not inclined to the assassination of envoys beneath his eaves. That is not done here, in the Court of the Gate.

“And naked, bloody war with the Upper Houses would be the answer. And that is ever more, unwelcome.”