Ber out for the Mage’s Guild as soon as he woke up the m. He’d been scheduled to work in the evening and he was determio make the most of the time he had. Things were going to be very busy for a while, but that was going to be true for everyohe city was in shambles.

  Right now, though, he o get to the guild library. He knew he wasn’t very likely to find useful information on demonology there, but it was somewhere to start. It was time that he learned how to summon demons – specifically Jori. He wasn’t sure why he o knht now – if he brought her back, the Solicitors would just find a her again. That, and they’d probably kill him as a rogue summoner.

  Still, he wahe means to do so. He didn’t have to summon her here after all. He could still bee an adventurer, maybe. He was sidered a warlock by the Adventurers’ Guild and most of the institutions who bothered to track such things, but attitudes were ging here in Halfbridge, mostly because of the work done by Jori and the Solicitors, ironically. He also had friends, assuming they’d made it through the battle. If he went that route, he wouldn’t have to spend more time here iy than it took to pick up quests and turn them in.

  Or, if the fighting got to be too much, they could move cities and he could just do something else. He was a guild member now, and he wasn’t that famous. Not yet, anyway. He’d set a signifit portion of the Duergar army on fire with a single spell st night – that was going to make an impression. But hoeople actually knew he’d dohat? They wouldn’t know his name, right? They could move to Teres and start over.

  But those were all problems for ter. For now, he just o get to the guild and see what information he could find. Oep at a time.

  He stepped out into what had been the Crafters’ District, stu the scale of the destru. The small pza that he should have emerged into was nowhere in evidence, lost in the heaps of rubble that once been homes and businesses. He hoped whoever lived here had been evacuated down into the Uy – there was no way anyone c in one of these buildings would have survived.

  Looking around at the destru he realized that their battle down below had been far more limited in scale than the one above. Once he thought about it, the reason for that was obvious. Large scale force or fire spells were dangerous in enclosed spaces, and just as likely to kill your own troops as the enemy if they weren’t perfectly shielded. He always had to be careful how much fire he threw around in a tuo avoid cooking himself and his allies – something he’d received an object lesson in st night. Force spells were even worse – cussive force bottled up in a tight space could liquefy ans in a heartbeat.

  That hadn’t been a problem here for either side, and the city had paid the price. The duergar had no reason to hold back, and adventurers were famous for colteral damage to the point where most cities made quest givers responsible for any damages that adventurers caused within city limits. In a situation like this, though, that wouldn’t apply. At least Bernt doubted it would matter – the city was, in effect, issuing their quest, after all.

  Carefully Bernt picked his way through the rubble along what he thought robably the street toward the Lower District. He saw a few soldiers and the occasional civilian digging in the wreckage, but for now the area was retively empty. They’d already e through to clear out the bodies, but he could still smell them. There would be more uhe rubble, he was sure.

  It only took a few mio escape the zone of total destru around the gate, but the bed buildings that soon rose around him weren’t going to be habitable again without the aid of a geomao repair the cracked walls, not to mention all of the expensive ventional repairs required. Somehow, Bernt doubted that anyone would be moving ba any time soon.

  Fire had gutted the homes along the wallside street, and when he passed through the gate into the Lower District, it didn’t get aer. This was the poorest part of the city, retively he docks, and they had gotten the worst of it. Even though most of the houses here still stood, they were far from the sedary stairwell that the Underkeepers had used to evacuate the residents of the Crafters’ District. How many had made it out?

  As he tinued on, moviward toward the better-off neighborhoods and the Mages’ Guild, he began to feel nervous. How much of the city had burned? A mier, he heard the sound of hammering, and then saw a work crew loading rubble inte, ox-drawn cart. There was noise here – shouting, cursing and the ctter of rocks and lumber being moved. The number of people increased slowly with every building he passed, until it felt like he was looking at a kicked anthill. Workers and local residents dug through burnt out homes, salvaging what was left and clearing damaged beams and bri anticipation of repairs.

  Uhe residents of the earlier neighborhood, the people here had likely had enough warning to get clear. Still, it would take months to recover, and winter was ing o suspected that the Uy was about to grow siderably.

  “Bernt!” someone called his name, and he looked up and around. It was crowded, so it took him a moment to see the man waving at him from across the street. Bernt waved back, doing his best to offer a smile.

  “Cal! Gd to see you made it! Where’s your cart?” Seeing the ma stomach suddenly growled and he remembered that he hadn’t had mu the way of di night. He o find some breakfast

  Cal grimaced. “It’s gone. My street er went up in smoke, and I couldn’t haul it by myself. I ended up running down to the river when it got too hot for me – a lot of people did.”

  Bernt winced in sympathy. Cal’s cart was an institution in the Lower District. His father had bought it decades ago and passed it down to him wheired. “Are you going to be alright?”

  “Oh, sure. I’ve still got my cabbages, and the sun will grow dark before this city runs out of uified meats.” He grinned. “Besides, business has been good for me, and at least my house didn’t burn down. I think I handle buying a new cart.”

  “That’s a relief. Good to see you’re doing alright, then.” Bernt smiled again and started to turn to go, but Cal stopped him.

  “Hold on. I heard the Duergar came out of the Uy. How is it down there?”

  Ber out a slow breath, suppressing a roiling mess of emotions and images that he wished he could unsee. A Duergar spellcaster, writhing on the ground in terror and pain as fire ate him up from inside. Bodies, pieces of bodies, in gray uniforms. Burning goblin. And the smell. A wave of nausea snuffed out his appetite and shook his head, refog on the question. “They broke into the tuhe main one from the Uy Gate. We got pushed down, but stopped them, and they came spilling out of the top. As far as I heard, the army cut them off wheried to retreat the way they came, so they burst down into the Uy instead. We survived, most of us. But it was bad.”

  odded, reading the disfort o’s face. He cpped him on the shoulder and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “Take care of yourself, Bernt. See you around.”

  ***

  The Mages’ Guild looked pletely undamaged, despite the state of its surroundings. Bernt khat it robably the most heavily warded structure iire city, but knowing and seeing were different things. The buildings across the street were pletely goone and charred bits of wood y scattered ireet, except he epiter of the bst, where the cobblestohemselves had been sgged and nothing else remained except for a small, perfect circle of undamaged stones right in front of the door.

  What had happened here?

  He stepped inside. Maybe he could ask the receptionist.

  For the first time, Bernt found the reception desk unmanned. He supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised, all things sidered, but he was. The stern, grumpy man and his monkey familiar were a fixture here, a familiar gate guardian to overe.

  Ign the odd sense of disappoi he felt, Bernt made his the stairs, heading for the sed floor, to the back of the massive building where the library was housed.

  Even though he’d been a guild member for a while now, Bernt had never actually visited the Guild Library. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but it hadn’t been a small wooden door with a simple pque that simply read “Library”.

  It had no tch.

  Bernt pushed on the door experimentally, but nothing happened. Was there a spell? He raised his left hand and traced a quick pattern on the door, casting an unlog trip. It, too, did nothing.

  He thought about it for a moment, and then, feeling a little silly, reached out and knocked.

  A few seds passed, then he heard steps approag. The door opened, revealing a skinny, prematurely balding young man in a dusty old robe. Bernt blinked.

  “Haln?”

  Thrown by the ued meeting, Bernt didn’t know what to say. He hadn’t kept in touch with his friends from the academy – not after joining the Underkeepers. He’d always imagihat he would look them up once he roper adventurer and pretend like the intervening years hadn’t happened. In hindsight, the idea was ridiculous. People didn’t just stay where you left them. How could they? He hadn’t remaihe same, either.

  “Bernt? What are you doing here?”

  “I’m just cheg the pce out. I got my guild membership retly.” Bernt said evasively and stepped inside. Shelves upon shelves of books and scrolls filled the enormous room. Off in one er, Bernt could even see a se beled “tablet library” most likely taining pre-Madurian inals recovered from archeological sites.

  He grinned and cpped the bookish man on the shoulder. “I had no idea you were w for the guild! How did you get a job at the library?”

  “What do you mean?” Haln asked, looking genuinely puzzled. “I speak fuages and the divination architecture I’ve started on is literally specialized for librarians – finding lost books, trag down sources for specifids of information. That sort of thing.” He turned aured all around at the stacks. “They weled me with open arms. I’m a junior librarian. Seven years of servid all that. I’ll e out as a magister qualified to work in any guild library in the try. I’m thinking about moving to Teres when I’m done. What happeo you?”

  “Underkeeper.” Bernt said simply, gesturing down at his robes and ign the way Haln’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “I was going to go into adventuring, but we’ll see how it works out. There’s been a lot going on.”

  “I know. There was fighting right outside yesterday. I heard Magister Pollock got involved and wiped out half an army with a single spell! There aren’t any spells like that, mind you. Not fisters – I checked. But that’s the rumor.”

  “Pollock?” Bernt tried to picture it, but he couldn’t. “How? He barely walk!”

  Haln shrugged. “He’s a wizard and a pyromancer. Based on that and the street outside, I’m going to guess he used fire.”

  Bernt ughed. It felt good, but it didn’t st. Too much had happened, and he had things to do.

  “Do you have a se on demonology?” he asked, thinking quickly. “I’m trying to learn more about the Duergar warlocks and some of the things they were doing itle yesterday. If we have to fight them again, I want to be prepared.”

  “Yeah, we do have a se on that kind of stuff – ats of different kinds of summoners, a bestiary of interpnar beings. It’s not much, but I think you’ll find something. I heard a lot of them used possession pacts. Some of our historical texts mention that kind of thing, but it’s illegal here. One of those ended up fighting a demon in the middle of the city a few weeks ago. Did you hear about that?”

  “Yeah,” Bernt said, smile turning brittle. “I did.”