For a moment everyone on the bridge stood in a silent frozen tableau, the only sound the distant bustle of people on the promenade and the clicking of Merez’s cane as he walked away. After a disturbingly short period of time the clicking faded, and they were alone on the bridge with the three armed men.

  “I’m sure we can come to a deal here,” Al Hamra suggested to them. “There’s no need to kill us to take back the old man’s money.” He reached out to Siladan, who handed him the tag, and showed it to the men. Beside him Adam was shuffling his feet, getting ready to charge the gang, even though he was unarmed. The thug furthest to the right of the group had his pistol pointed directly at Adam, and it seemed unlikely he would manage more than two steps. The man had dark, blotchy skin, a stringy, manky moustache and cold, dead eyes, a small curl on the thin lips under the moustache indicating his anticipation of the task he had been given.

  “Can’t do that,” the man in the middle replied, flicking his gun in Al Hamra’s direction for emphasis. “In our line of business you can’t be making side deals against your employer’s instructions.” He turned his head from side to side to indicate his two colleagues, long dark hair swaying in a ponytail as he did so. “A reputation is all a professional’s got, really. Speaking of, this’ll be much less painful for everyone if you go about this professionally. All of you get on your knees and we’ll do you quick and painless.”

  From somewhere to the rear of the group Al Hamra heard Saqr squeak in terror as the men raised their weapons. “Drop them!” He ordered, raising his voice to almost a yell.

  Everyone felt the ripple of power at the same time. None of them had experienced a Mystic’s powers before, but they all knew immediately what Al Hamra was doing. The brief sense of a shadow falling over the area around them, the sudden flush of primal fear and awe, the imagined faint whispering and hissing of something clawing to get through the walls that separate the Portal dimensions from their own. It was only a moment but they would all remember it forever, the brief terror and the unsettling feeling of universes seeping into one another as Al Hamra’s strange power reached out across the space between them and forced the three guards to obey his will. Lavim Tamm screamed and fell to his knees, burying his face in his hands, Dr. Delecta breathed a low, awe-struck, “Ki-mada?” as the power rippled outward, and the guards gasped in horror as they involuntarily tossed their guns away.

  Adam was on them in a second, followed by Siladan and Al Hamra. Adam was fast and vicious, and Siladan surprisingly effective with his fists, so that by the time Dr. Delecta was able to pick up one of the discarded pistols two of the men were unconscious and Adam had the third against the railing of the bridge with a knife to his throat.

  “Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you now!” The big soldier demanded, a thin bead of blood already forming where the razor-sharp edge of the blade touched the man’s throat.

  “Because we have insurance with the Syndicate!” The man hissed in reply, “And they’ll make you regret it.”

  Al Hamra leaned in and touched Adam’s arm, indicating he could relax a little. He did, though not without shooting a venomous glance at his deceptive captain. Behind them Delecta pointed the thermal pistol at the two unconscious guards, using her feet to slide the other weapons carefully back towards Saqr and Siladan. Tamm had curled into a fetal ball at the far side of the bridge, whispering prayers to his Icon from behind his hands.

  “Tell us why he hired you,” Al Hamra ordered the guard, his voice level and now free of the sinister power it had unleashed before.

  “He wanted us to kill you,” the man told him. “He paid well but we wouldn’t have taken the job if we knew there was a Mystic involved.”

  “…neh?” Adam agreed, throwing another spiteful look at Al Hamra.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  “By all the Icons, why?” Al Hamra demanded. “It was a simple exchange.”

  “He didn’t give us reasons,” the man replied. “It’s business.”

  “He thinks the statue’s stolen,” Delecta pointed out from her guard position. “He thinks if we’re all dead no one will know where it came from.”

  “Sounds right,” Siladan agreed. “I guess it’s worth a lot more than we thought. He doesn’t know how Lavim found it. Probably thinks the owners are looking for it, wants to make sure they don’t know who has it.”

  “Why not just look for it himself?” Al Hamra asked them, almost rhetorically. The man under Adam’s knife gave a tiny shrug but offered no clarifying details.

  “If he thought it was stolen he doesn’t want to go around Archaeology Alley asking for it?” Siladan suggested. “Once he has the statue he probably thought the owners would still be looking for Lavim, who was trying to hawk it.”

  “He probably heard about the blood on Tamm’s clothes and thought he’d killed someone for it,” Dr. Delecta surmised. “So he doesn’t care to pay for it, just like he told us. Hires us to find it, then kills us and takes it, so when the Judicators start looking for the thieves, the trail stops with our dead bodies.”

  “Accursed Gandu!” Adam snapped. He shook the thug. “And you were gonna do that, for money? Are you Syndicate?”

  Al Hamra placed his hand on Adam’s arm to calm him. “He already told us he has insurance with them, Adam,” he reminded him. “That means he’s not Syndicate.” He leaned down to the man. “Are you going to leave this be if we let you go?” He asked the man. “You aren’t going to try and finish the job out of stupid professional pride?” He looked around the bridge. “We can’t stand here discussing this at gunpoint for too long can we?”

  The man shook his head. “Na. Far as I’m concerned our deal’s null and void the moment a Mystic’s involved,” he replied. “Whatever trouble you’ve got with that man is between you and him, we don’t want a part of it. You let us go you’ll never see us again.”

  “How are you carrying guns on Coriolis?” Adam demanded, with a much smaller, less aggressive shake.

  “We pay the right people, make sure we don’t hurt anyone important, keep it to the lower decks of the Ring,” the man told him. “We do most of our work in the Cellar and it mostly ain’t deadly.” He looked across to Al Hamra. “Wet work pays better, but it’s risky. No offence, but we thought we were onto an easy mark here.”

  “Well you got that fucking wrong didn’t you?” Adam snarled at him, but released him when Al Hamra gestured to.

  “Okay, man,” Al Hamra told him. “We’re gonna give you back your pistols –“

  “- What?!” Siladan, Adam and Dr. Delecta demanded all at the same time.

  “We can’t be caught with them, and they’re valuable. If we take his stuff he’ll have a reason to chase us. We already have the pistols from –“ He stopped, not wanting to reveal anything to the thug about their other business. “Okay?” Getting nods of agreement from all of them, including Saqr from where she stood back looking confused and scared beside Tamm, he continued. “We’ll give you back your pistols and go on our way, you return to whatever seedy level of the Cellar you crawled out from, nobody gets hurt. Okay?” When the man nodded agreement he leaned in closer and added, “And if you try to cross me, I will raise up my powers and come for you in your dreams, do you understand me?” The man nodded rapidly, blinking in a staccato fashion that looked like he was trying to force back tears of terror.

  “Good!” Al Hamra stepped back, indicating to Adam to let the man go, and the big soldier let him slump against the railing, sliding the blade back into a sheath hidden beneath his kurta. “We’ll dump the guns nearby, you wait here,” he told the man, and gestured to the others. While Saqr urged Tamm to his feet and Dr. Delecta retreated slowly down the bridge, still pointing the pistol, Siladan and Adam picked up the other guns.

  “Where can we find the old man?” Siladan asked the guard as Al Hamra began walking away.

  “Dunno,” the man shrugged, “He hired us at a mercenary bar. Can’t help you. Hey rafik,” he called after Al Hamra, who turned back to look at him. “I appreciate this, it’s a good turn. In future if you and your team need muscle, you look me up. Al Haish and his boys, we’ll give you a discount if you’re straight with us, okay?”

  Al Hamra nodded, and they left Al Haish on the bridge trying to revive his men. They dumped the pistols around the corner where Al Haish would be able to find them and hastened for the nearest tube station, Siladan cursing Merez Alcan to all seven Icons while Saqr tried to urge Lavim onward, and Adam and Dr. Delecta stared at Al Hamra’s back with cold rage.

  It did not take long for them to reach the tube station, and as soon as they were safely on their way back to the ship Dr. Delecta turned on Al Hamra. “You have a lot of explaining to do, captain!” She hissed at them. “You didn’t tell us you’re one of the Accursed!”