PROLOGUE
Rain fell in great sheets, hitting the pavement hard enough to send up a blattering, dirty mist. A small man stood on the corner, under the only working streetlamp, and studied the street.
Abandoned apartment buildings lined one side, dark and hulking, like dead dinosaurs. The other side was dominated by an equally dismal factory behind a chain-link fence. Warning signs on the fence squeaked and rattled in the wind. One car was parked along the street, looking as if it had been there long enough to become part of the local ecosystem. The small man shuffled his feet, his bald head glistening with rain. He glanced back, toward the busier streets from which he'd just come, and then made a harrumphing noise. He pulled his fist out of his overcoat pocket and held it up to the light. When he opened his hand, there was a small, sodden bit of parchment inside it. He read the words on the parchment for the tenth time. Blue-inked letters spelled the street name and nothing else. The man shook his head, annoyed.
He was about to close the bit of parchment into his fist again when the words bled away in the dripping rain. The little man blinked at the space where they had been. Slowly, new words appeared on the paper, as if inked by an invisible hand: an address.
The little man frowned at the parchment, and then shoved it back into his pocket. Glancing aside, he located a number over the door of the nearest abandoned apartment. He sighed and walked out of the yellow glow of the streetlight, splashing heedlessly in the flooded gutter.
As most people who knew how to look would know, the little man wasn't a man at all. He was a goblin. His name was Forge and he hated venturing into the human world. Not that anyone had ever noticed his unusual size or strange features. He wore boots with four-inch heels and a Visum-ineptio charm that caused people to see him as a kindly old man with a severe stoop. He simply didn't like humans. They were dirty, inefficient, and rowdy. Forge liked his world to be like his workshop: neat, organized, and constantly swept of any useless bits. It wasn't so much that Forge wished humans didn't exist; he was simply glad that they had their own special world to live in, and that he rarely had to go there, rather like a zoo.
He'd almost decided not to come out tonight. Something hadn't felt right about this appointment. Considering Forge's unique skills, it was not unusual that he didn't know the name of a client, but he was accustomed to a certain amount of decorum, not just a note and a number. Forge knew what the number meant however. It was the pay being offered for his services, and it was quite a surprising number indeed. Surprising enough to get Forge out of his workshop, chasing down the mysterious address in this decrepit stretch of human wasteland even in spite of his trepidation. After all, Forge was a goblin.
He stopped walking and stared up at the number of the apartment next to him. He glanced across the street, furrowing his brow. The factory fence had ended half a block earlier. In its place was an empty lot, choked with weeds, blowing trash and broken bottles. An abandoned lorry leaned drunkenly in the corner, settling into the mud and tall grass. A wooden sign in the center of the lot had half fallen over. 'Future Home of Chimera Condominiums and Recreational Complex', it read in faded letters. Forge took his fist out of his pocket again and opened it. The address was gone from the parchment. Two new words spelled themselves out:
Forge dropped his fist to his side. He stared at the vacant lot, chewing his lips. Was he being warned to go back? Part of him hoped so, but he doubted it. Slowly, he turned around on the spot so that he stood in the center of the deserted street, looking up at the dark bulk of the apartment building. A broken window stared down at him like the eye of a skull. The wind gusted, lifting the curtains of the broken window, making them flutter. Forge sighed and looked down at the parchment again:
'Well,' Forge muttered to himself, 'in for a Knut, in for a Galleon.' He began to walk backwards, lifting his boots carefully to avoid tripping over the curb or the piles of rotting trash. He stepped carefully onto the footpath and continued, feeling for the muddy weed bed of the vacant lot. The footpath seemed wider than he'd expected. Each step backwards found solid, smooth stone. Forge glanced down. There were worn, carefully laid flagstones beneath his boots instead of the rough cement slabs of the footpath. He looked up again and drew in a whistling breath. Two monstrous shapes leered down at him. They were gargoyles, each perched atop a stone pillar. Rain splattered and ran down their horrible faces. Between the pillars was a tall wrought-iron gate. As Forge watched, it swung shut with a rattling, resounding crash, closing him inside. He turned on the spot, his heart pounding, and saw that the wrought-iron formed a fence all around the lot. It was six feet tall and spiked with angry points. Nor was the lot any longer filled with trash. It was a lawn, carefully cropped, each blade of grass eerily sharp and exactly the same length as its fellows. The rain beaded on the grass like crystal. Where the abandoned lorry had stood was now a long, black carriage, immaculately shiny and covered with gothic scrollwork. There were no yokes for horses on the carriage. Forge shuddered, and then looked up toward the center of the lot.
In the place of the leaning sign was a house. It was not huge, but it was almost unnaturally tall. Its shuttered windows looked twenty feet high and the mansard roof that topped it almost seemed to rake outward, like a vulture brooding. Pillars framed the front door, which was painted black and had a giant brass door knocker in the center. Forge swallowed, drew himself up, and approached the door.
As he climbed the steps, Forge wasn't surprised to see that the brass door knocker had been crafted to resemble a coiled snake with glittering emerald eyes. Nor was he surprised to see it stir to life at his approach. The head rose from its brass coils and flicked a golden tongue.
'You bear the parchment?' the snake hissed.
'You best believe I do. Open the door before I catch my death in this rain.'
'Sssshow ussss.'
'I didn't come all this way to argue with a bit of enchanted metallurgy. Open the blasted door and tell your master I've arrived.'
The snake's head rose very slightly so that it looked down at Forge's head. The eyes glowed green and the tongue flickered. 'Sssshow ussss the parchment.'
Forge looked up at the snake's head. It weaved slightly, flicking the air with its tongue. Forge had grown up with a metalsmith father and knew how enchanted ornaments were made. Even so, there was something about the weaving brass head and the flickering golden tongue that worried him. He stuffed his hand into the pocket of his coat and retrieved the parchment.
'Here. See?' he said, trying to keep the tremor out of his voice. 'Now open the door.'
The snake stretched out toward the parchment in Forge's hand. It reared, and then spat a bolt of green flame. Forge yanked his hand away, yelping as the flame consumed the parchment in midair. The snake's eyes glowed brighter as it uncoiled even further from the door, leaning out toward Forge's face. Forge wouldn't have thought it was possible, but the sculpture seemed to grin at him.
'Prossssccceeed,' it said. The door unlocked and swung ponderously open.
Forge entered slowly, peering around. He found himself in a long hallway, laid with rich, if rather threadbare, red carpet. There were thick doors on either side, lacquered to a mirror-black shine. All of them were closed except for the one at the very end. Voices came from beyond, echoing so that Forge couldn't quite understand them. He opened his mouth to announce himself when the door suddenly slammed shut behind him. Startled, he glanced back at it, his eyes wide, and then listened again. The voices were still speaking. The masters of the house must have heard the slam of the door; therefore, they must know he'd arrived. Water dripped steadily from the tail of Forge's overcoat as he walked quietly down the hall, toward the open door and the voices.
Beyond the door was another dark room. There was a bench along one side and a long, ornately framed mirror on the other. A second open door showed a corner of a third room. Forge thought it looked like a library. Firelight flickered on the walls and shadows moved. The voices had become more distinct.
'It is very dark,' said a woman's raspy voice. 'We are rather far away, my lord. It is impossible to be certain.'
'Pray do not say that,' a man's voice replied. ''Impossible' is such a very… final word. Perhaps you would care to be a bit more nuanced, madam.'
