Each of our souls is a deep, dark pit. And whatever may be

dormant at the bottom, the call of the Abyss will awaken it.

Nimiol Close-to-the-Source

If you head south out of Rual, climb the Aenejan Mountains of Naeria, and then, pining away under the scorching sun, cross the sands of Preen, you will find yourself on a dead, grey plain. It is called the Desert of Bared Fangs, for it is all studded with rocks – thin, sharp and curved, like dragons' teeth. Rarely do the heavy black clouds above it part, and when they do, it is only to shed deathly moonlight or the sun's blood-red rays upon the cracked earth, rendering the picture even more bleak.

In the middle of the desert gapes a colossal crater. Surrounded by the rocky fangs, you might mistake it for wide-open jaws of some gigantic beast, ready to devour the sky with all its gloominess. Its jagged slopes are entirely lined by ancient skulls, each socket deep enough to fit two or even three Alae stacked one on top of the other.

The edges of the crater seem alive: myriad beings cover the rocks with a moving layer of their own dark bodies, like bees over a ripe honeycomb – sinewy, agile, winged creatures. Their voices fill the air with a loud hum. They're always waiting for prey, always fighting for it. Upon spotting a traveler who has dared to approach the crater, with a greedy squawk they dart from the rocks and rush towards the would-be prey, eyes flashing, claws tearing at the membranes of their competitors...

The larger ones deliver passengers and cargo to the nearest settlements; others help all those who wish to descend to the skulls, to the city that lies beyond the inviting glow of the eye sockets. They wish to descend into Laennes – the Abyss, the City of Skulls – a giant stone anthill, decorated with a dull mosaic of bones and fragments of weapons, lined with a barbed network of underground dandelions, filled with the drunken honey of their golden light.

The light's rays penetrate from the crown of your head to the tips of your toes – dizzying, invigorating. Your body loosens, like a shriveled, dried up sponge dipped in a fragrant bath. Your muscles ache sweetly. Desires overpower you. You want everything and all at once: to try fried caterpillars, dance on the table, pick a fight, sketch an outlandish lizard in your notebook, learn what it's like to spend the night with a multiarmed courtesan. The brilliance of the "Abyss suns," mingled with the crimson light of its famous fiery lakes, flows into your soul, washing away the foundation of morality, melting the icy fetters of caution. And you're ready to cast prudence to the winds, to go on a spree, to fall into the hot embraces of this predatory city, where adventure and mystery lurk in every crevice, under every rusty pot like cockroaches – poisonous killer cockroaches. Oh yes! It seems that the very air here trembles in anticipation of something unknown, exciting, sweet and terrible.

Of something sweetly terrible...

Laennes, like sundew, lures guests with its perverse, exhilarating aroma and the promise of unprecedented miracles, then devours them mercilessly. Nobody bothers to count the casualties, nobody goes searching for the missing. In a matter of days they are said to "have sunk into the Abyss." The insatiable Abyss. Its boundless bowels can soak up thousands of times more blood than the cracks at the bottom of its caves already have...

But there are also those subjects which Laennes isn't able to digest. Swimming in her caustic juice is for them a holy dip – rejuvenating, inspiring, healing their spiritual wounds. They dive right in, leaving a trail of bubbles, splashing each other with acid and mocking those whose pitiful remains in tattered rags slowly sink to the bottom. Around here they call these Abyss-resistant fellows "hardened skulls."

They are not just masters of survival. They are fanatics of the Abyss, savoring its exquisite, select horrors as one would a rare delicacy. No stepping outside without a weapon? Wonderful! The earth just longs to crack under your feet? Great! The city is run by a couple of maniacs, one of whom loves immersing dissidents in lava lakes, and the other sewing them to walls like a patchwork quilt? Awesome! As a result, even a confectionery's window display in the Abyss looks like a shop of horrors, with counters lined with marshmallow candy in the form of bones, teeth and torn-out tongues, necks of candied doves crowning candied skulls, and harmless cakes with cream staring you down with cherry-red eyes, curved layers forming a leering, flesh-eating grin, as if to say, "We'll just see who'll be dining on whom..."

Every hardened skull's worst nightmare is the Abyss, where rule of law, order and uniformity have been restored, like in some lousy surface city. Laennes' old-timers go to great lengths to emphasize that they are nothing like the fattened, pampered and narrow-minded "top-dwellers" – those "naive hunks of meat" who don't even know the color their own guts, so blissfully certain that their backwater godling is the creator of the entire Infinite.

Feeling like king of the mountain is immeasurably pleasant, although... it can get old. Life is never boring in Laennes. The city is like a multi-headed dragon thespian, constantly changing its mask. It seethes, bubbles, shimmers like a potion in an alchemist's vessel, into which a crackpot mage indiscriminately pours, injects, squeezes the dangerous contents of his jars and vials. Through thousands of jellyfish-shaped portals, traders, adventurers, philosophers, artists, hired killers and killers by vocation, half-mad scientists and crazy preachers flock to the Abyss. All those whose ideas, dreams and addictions had no place on the surface. Those who long for new and overwhelming sensations, who dream of adding spice to their life... even if their own blood becomes the spice's main ingredient.

Oddly enough, there are also relatively safe corners in the Abyss: artificially enhanced corridors turned streets, lava lakes framed by secure gates, and bridges cross steaming fissures. You might even find a certain amount of livestock, which in other areas the urban poor had caught and ate long ago.

Scampering across the street on two legs you'd find a kimm – dweller of damp and dark places, bane of junkyards and destroyer of garbage bins. Its sickly white skin, outlined in orange stripes, hung in folds under its chin; whiskers on a long thin snout twitched endlessly in tact with cautiously sniffing nose, its narrow eyes scouring the view to both sides...

The kimm had only a couple of hops left to sneak past a rounded cobblestone, stained with greenish spots of mold, and whisk into the basement when his nostrils caught a suspicious smell – danger! The danger turned out to be faster. The rough surface of the "stone" stirred and wrinkled, and it jumped on the squealing kimm. Short bristly teeth chomped down on the trembling body, drowning out a scream.

The schamp – a toad-like wretch with a short tail – enveloped its still-living victim in mere moments. Its spotted belly swelled to twice the size, as its legs stuck out to the sides comically.

There was the sound of wheels on rough bridge stones not far away. The schamp managed raised its head with difficulty – a bulky cart was approaching, drawn by a pair of two-headed lizards. The beasts roared with displeasure when the coachman yanked the thick reins. Hopping down from the cart, he straightened his pied rags and headed towards the door of a nearby house with a spring in his step. The schamp belched and, dragging his belly, crawled to the cart. He dragged it past the "horses" as they shuffled in place, keeping away from their powerful legs, continued past the carriage's wheels, discs decorated by glass, and got directly under the planked bottom of the cart. Rolling over onto its back, the schamp pushed off with the back of its feet and stuck to the cart's underside.

It would hang there like that, perfectly still, for several happy hours, digesting. If none of the city dwellers notice him, that is. After all, they might fancy a fresh schamp-filet, stuffed with juicy, tender, slightly overcooked kimm – yummy yummy!

A barely distinguishable shadow darted from the awning that covered the cart. It danced across the roof, hidden from the eyes of passersby by the wrought parapet lined with scarlet spikes from the hide of a stahkh – a rich household's bizarre ornament. It spanned the horse in one stride, landing on the lawn of a three-story house and, shrinking from the lamplight, slid down the stairs. Hustling to a large stack of boxes, barrels and other odds and ends dumped in the corner of the yard, the grey ghost lingered in wait, obscured by a shadow denser than that of its flesh.

The minutes dragged on, and then, on top of the building across from the wall where the ambush was set, the rounded silhouette of a large cat appeared. The shortish tail writhed thoughtfully – its owner was inspecting the area. Bright green eyes studied the courtyard; they slid over the spot where the shadow lurked, but clearly did not notice it. The grey ghost snickered smugly into its whiskers.

Meanwhile, the cat gently hopped off the roof and began his descent on the stairs. The shadow watched closely as the fluffy paws with sloppy tufts of hair sticking out between the toes stepped slowly, from one stair to the next. At last, the chubby cat reached the bottom, halting hesitatingly on a filthy mat. Plunging his nose in the air and obviously not smelling anything threatening, the cat set about cleaning his face lazily – he brushed a paw across a lascivious face just a couple of times, sneezed, yawned and went waddling straight toward the pile of garbage. Letting him get a little closer, the grey ghost growled softly and lunged at the fatso.

Getting down on the ground next to the petrified cat, the shadow took on the features of a shapely female cat dressed in short smooth fur of an even ashy color. Her green eyes were narrowed with displeasure.

"Am I to wait for you long?" the shadow-cat's cold voice sounded in the cat's head.

"Oh, shaami Nela," purred the owner of the puffing striped sides, trying to sniff the female cat's nose and neck in a familiar fashion. She stepped back and he went on, "I've completely lost my urrrban manners, chasing rrraats... My mistress, you know, she doesn't feed me for nothing. Put a rat a day on her porch daily to add to her stock, then go ahead and help yourself to all you can eat."

"You'll soon won't have any room left, Nomarr," replied the other cat sadly.

Passing him, she brushed the tip of her tail against his whiskers, and the cat wailed like an out-of-tune harp. He gathered his strength, preparing to jump aside, quite offended, but then decided he couldn't be bothered, and kept on standing there.

"You know, I've been told you're here to hunt not rats, but... larger game," Nela droned slyly.

"Oh yeah!" the cat agreed and closed his eyes blissfully. "I've found our heroic friend."

Nela couldn't hold back a joyful meow. Her tail jerked excitedly. The shadow-cat anticipated a good hunt.

"Then you should take me to his... lair," she said, not uttering a word out loud, "and you can set off with a dispatch about your discovery to the Elders."

"I'm free, then?" the cat practically leapt with joy; his furry tail shooting up, his ears erect.

"Ye-e-es," Nela drew out the word, "but only if your friend... is our friend."

"It's Enbri," Nomarr shook his head sharply, and the long hair on his belly brushed the dusty ground like a broom. "And his girlfriend is with him, as was expected."

"Let's go then. Show me where he lives and – "

Nela didn't get a chance to finish her sentence. From an unlit third-floor window above, another crate went flying out to the garbage pile, where Nela and Nomarr were hiding. It landed a ways away from the heap, shattering into pieces on impact. The cats barely had time to jump out of the way of the shower of sharp debris.

"Bipedals..." the cat wrinkled his nose and trotted off.

Nela cast a quick final glance at the yard and rushed after him.

Turning the corner, Nomarr stopped by a door with the paint chipping off – apparently, it led to the house of the villainous flinger of crates and boxes. He raised his tail and wholeheartedly deposited his odorous mark on the offender's door. Once done with this gesture of noble revenge, Nomarr admired the work of his hmm... "hands," grunted in satisfaction, leaped onto the windowsill and from there to the roof. Nela billowed behind him.

The variegated alleys of the Abyss stretched beneath the cats' paws. Nomarr stopped periodically, sniffing at suspicious smells and tuning in to the voice of Laennes. The shadow-cat followed him, hardly touching the roofs with her aristocratic paws. A stark contrast baffled her: some streets buzzed with people, while others, seemingly identical blocks were deserted. As empty as Nomarr's stomach if he fails to bring a rat, she chuckled. I wonder what's there... Then again, she wasn't sure she wanted to know the answer to that question.

"Nela, may I please know why these Elders have sent you and me to shadow this screwy half-elf anyway?" Nomarr broke the silence.

"My guess is some bigwigs from Anlimor wanted to keep abreast of his upcoming plans, so they offered the Elders a nice contract," Nela shot back on the ego. "I don't know for sure. And I don't want to."

"Maybe, they want to thank him for his latest feat?"

"Maybe. I wouldn't mind that!"

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Illustration by Irina "HeliacWolf" Kovalova (http://heliacwolf.deviantart.com/).