Chapter 4: The Price of a Name

Chapter 4: The Price of a Name

The entrance to the Undermarket wasn't a door, but a wound in the city's belly. It was a gaping sewer grate in a forgotten corner of the industrial district, rusted shut for decades to the world above. A simple iron key, provided on Kaelen's parchment, opened it with a groan of protest. The air that billowed out was a foul cocktail of damp earth, metallic tang, and the unidentifiable scent of things that had never seen the sun.

I descended a slimy iron ladder into the gloom, leaving Slakterquay’s perpetual drizzle behind for a perpetual, dripping dampness. The twisting, chaotic tunnels of the goblin market opened before me, a disorienting hive carved from raw earth and reinforced with stolen pipes and scavenged girders. The only light came from flickering gas lamps and the sickly green or purple glow of caged magical creatures, casting long, dancing shadows that made the cramped space feel alive and hungry.

This was a world away from sterile penthouses and ethereal nightclubs. It was raw, loud, and utterly without rules. Goblins with teeth like rusted nails haggled in a language that sounded like rocks in a grinder. Trolls in makeshift security vests eyed me with undisguised suspicion. The air was thick with the smells of strange, sizzling meats and alchemical reagents that burned the back of the throat. My trench coat and world-weary cynicism, usually my best armour, felt woefully inadequate here. This wasn’t my turf. I was an intruder, a soft-skinned morsel in a den of predators. The black, web-like mark on my hand gave a cold, sympathetic throb, a constant reminder of the dangerous bargain that had forced me down here.

Kaelen’s parchment gave me a name—Griznack—and a crude map that was more a suggestion than a guide. I moved through the throng, keeping my head down and my hand on the reassuring weight of the small, snub-nosed revolver tucked in my coat. My desire was simple: find the stall, get the box, and get the hell out. The obstacle was the entire Undermarket.

After twenty minutes of dead ends and hostile glares, I found it. Griznack’s stall wasn't so much a shop as a dragon’s nest of pilfered goods. Piles of tarnished silver, mismatched jewelry, and ticking clockwork devices were heaped on rickety tables. The goblin himself was a nasty piece of work, with oily green skin, a trio of beady black eyes that moved independently of each other, and a sneer that seemed permanently affixed to his face.

And there, sitting on a grimy velvet cushion inside a glass case, was a small, silver music box. It was intricately carved with images of swirling vines and crescent moons, clearly Fae in origin, looking as out of place here as a diamond in a landfill. The case wasn't just glass; I could feel the faint, buzzing hum of a magical ward. A direct smash-and-grab was out of the question.

I needed a plan. Griznack’s three eyes missed nothing, and I couldn’t afford a fight that would bring the whole market down on my head. I needed a blind spot, a moment of opportunity. I needed to use my own brand of magic.

I pretended to browse a nearby stall selling rusted—and likely cursed—cutlery. My gaze swept over Griznack’s junk pile until I saw it: a heavy, iron wrench, dark with grease, lying near the back of his table. He’d handled it recently; its psychic residue would be fresh.

Casually, I drifted closer, my fingers brushing against the cold, pitted metal of the wrench as I passed.

I closed my eyes for a fraction of a second.

The world exploded in a jumble of goblin-sense. The overwhelming greed for shiny things. The irritation at a customer trying to haggle. The satisfying crunch of a roasted cave-grub. Then, a pattern. A larger, hulking goblin with a cart full of scrap metal would rumble past every half hour. The noise was immense, a cacophony of screeching wheels and clanging steel. And every time, Griznack’s full attention—all three eyes—would swivel to the cart, calculating its value, his greed overriding his caution for a precious five seconds. The vision also showed me the ward on the glass case. It was keyed to a pressure plate underneath. Lift the box, and a shrieking alarm would sound. But the noise from the scrap cart… it was loud enough to cover a quick, decisive action.

I opened my eyes, my heart rate steadying. I had my window. The turning point was coming, literally, on a screeching cart.

I found a dark alcove across from the stall and waited. The minutes crawled by, each one a small eternity in the stinking, oppressive atmosphere. Then, I heard it. The tell-tale screech of metal on stone, growing louder. The hulking goblin and his cart of wonders rounded the corner.

As predicted, Griznack’s three eyes locked onto the pile of junk, his mouth parting in a covetous grimace. It was now or never.

I moved. I was a shadow detaching from the wall, three quick strides to the stall. My fingers found the tiny, almost invisible latch on the glass case. I didn't lift the box. Instead, I slid a thin, folded piece of my own business card—sacrificed for the cause—underneath it, keeping the pressure plate depressed. The cart was almost level with us now, the noise a deafening roar.

With a surgeon’s care, I lifted the music box free. The silver was cold as ice against my skin. I tucked it safely into my inner coat pocket. My hand was just pulling away when one of Griznack’s roving eyes, torn from its greedy trance by a flicker of movement, snapped back towards me.

We locked gazes for a single, frozen second. His pupils dilated, and his mouth opened, not in a sneer, but in a screech of pure, unadulterated rage.

“THIEF!”

The spell was broken. I didn't wait to explain. I shoved a table laden with precariously stacked gears and springs towards him and ran. The crash behind me was immensely satisfying, followed by a stream of guttural goblin curses. The entire market seemed to stir, heads turning, angry shouts rising. I was the fox in the henhouse, and the hunt was on.

I plunged into the labyrinthine tunnels, running blind. My only guide was instinct. I vaulted over crates, slid through oozing muck, and knocked over more than one unsuspecting goblin shopper. A thrown knife clattered against the stone wall beside my head. I didn't look back.

Finally, I saw it—a sliver of weak, grey light. The ladder. I scrambled up the rungs, my lungs burning, and burst out of the grate into the familiar, cleansing rain of Slakterquay. I was scratched, bruised, and smelled like a sewer, but the silver music box was a cold, solid weight in my pocket. I had the price.

An hour later, cleaned up and nursing a fresh whiskey in a clean glass, I stood before Kaelen at the bar of The Gilded Thorn. He looked as immaculate and unruffled as ever. I placed the music box on the glowing wood between us.

He picked it up, his long, elegant fingers tracing the silver carvings. He twisted a small key, and a single, hauntingly beautiful melody filled the air for a moment before he silenced it. A genuine, if fleeting, smile touched his lips.

“Impressive,” he said, his amethyst eyes appraising me with new respect. “Griznack is not known for his generosity. You have fulfilled your end of our bargain.”

“Now it’s your turn,” I said, the exhaustion and adrenaline making my voice raw. “The man in Finch’s skin. What is he?”

Kaelen leaned forward, the amusement returning to his face, but now it was colored with the satisfaction of a master revealing a complex secret. “Alistair Finch was a man who craved success more than he valued his own existence. He sought out a… specialized group. Practitioners of a truly forbidden art called soul-splicing.”

He let the words hang in the air. “It is a transactional magic of the highest order. The supplicant willingly offers up their soul—the entire, messy, emotional thing—to be consumed by a power far older and hungrier than we are. In return, that power grants their greatest desire. It takes the shadow of their ambition and gives it flesh, creating a perfect, hollow duplicate. An upgrade, you might say. All of the drive, none of the pesky conscience.”

A chill that had nothing to do with my marked hand crept over me. “A duplicate? A doppelgänger?”

“A crude term,” Kaelen sniffed. “They have a more poetic name for what Alistair Finch has become. They call it a Whispering Shadow.”

Whispering Shadow. The name settled into my mind, a perfect, terrifying fit for the soulless thing I was hunting. I finally had a name for my monster. Now, I just had to confront it.