Syn turned off the main market street into a narrow alley where they traded not in goods, but in services. Here, no hawkers shouted; here, they whispered. Smugglers, informants, hired thugs. Everything the Empire forbade but couldn't eradicate. The slums were too vast, too chaotic. The iron-fisted Administration controlled the flow of resources, but not souls.
He stopped at a lopsided door above which hung a sign with a faded image of a knife. The tavern "Last Chance." A grandiose name for a dive serving murky swill and asking few questions. Syn pushed the door and entered.
Inside, it was dark and stuffy. A few tables at which sat men with faces etched by the Wastelands and life. They didn't even glance up. Strangers weren't noticed here. It was a rule of survival.
Syn walked to the counter. Behind it stood Griv, the tavern owner. A massive man with a scar running across his entire face, from forehead to chin. They said he had been a soldier in the Army of Stability before deserting. Now he was the king of this small empire of shadows.
«Boy,» Griv grunted, wiping a mug with a dirty rag. «You're too young to drink.»
«I'm not here for a drink,» Syn replied quietly. «I'm looking for Rash.»
Griv squinted.
«Rash doesn't see just anyone.»
«Tell him it's Lian's brother.»
His sister's name worked like a key. Griv set the rag aside and nodded towards the back door.
«Wait.»
Syn moved to a corner and leaned his back against the wall. He knew how to wait. In the slums, patience was a currency no less valuable than coppers. Life went on around him. At one table, two men discussed smuggling tools from the factory. At another, a woman in a tattered cloak was counting coins. Everyone was busy with their own. No one paid him any attention.
"Good."
About ten minutes passed before the back door opened a crack. A skinny figure poked out. Rash. A man of indeterminate age, with sunken cheeks and nervous, quick eyes. He was one of those called "rats." An informant, a fence, a middleman. He knew everything that happened in Lower Stone and sold that knowledge to whoever paid.
Rash nodded to Syn and disappeared back behind the door. Syn followed him.
Behind the door was a small room cluttered with crates and sacks. It smelled of mold and tobacco. Rash sank onto a wobbly chair and pulled out a pipe.
«Lian's brother,» he drawled, stuffing the pipe with something dry and brown. «Haven't seen you in a while. What do you need?»
Syn didn't sit down. He stood with his arms crossed over his chest.
«Rumors. About the Wastelands. About Outbursts.»
Rash lit his pipe and took a drag. Smoke curled towards the ceiling.
«Outbursts happen every day. What specifically?»
«Strong ones. Those on the outskirts of the Core. Where new Brands might appear.»
Rash exhaled smoke through his nose and narrowed his eyes.
«You want to become a resonator or something?»
«What if I do?»
«Then you're a fool.» Rash grinned without joy. «The Brand of the Abyss is no gift, boy. It's a curse. Most of the marked go mad or die within the first month. And those who survive become property of the Order. You think your sister left of her own free will? They took her. Like cattle to the slaughter.»
Syn clenched his fists. His voice remained even.
«I need information. Not your opinion.»
Rash leaned back in his chair, which creaked plaintively.
«Alright, alright. Touchy, you are.» He thought for a moment, tapping his pipe on his knee. «I've heard something. On the western outskirts, near the old warehouses, there was an Outburst three days ago. Small, but enough for the Army to cordon off the area. They say a few lads got caught in the wave. They were taken. One of them was the son of the blacksmith Torn. Torn's drinking and yelling now that they took his only heir.»
«Where exactly?»
«Sector nine. Near the wall. Where the sawmills used to be, before the Rift.» Rash took another drag. «But you can't get there now. Patrols every hour.»
Syn nodded and pulled two copper coins from his pocket. Placed them on a crate next to Rash.
«If you hear anything else, let me know.»
Rash took the coins and pocketed them.
«You really want to get the Brand, huh?»
Syn didn't answer. He turned and walked to the door.
«Hey, boy,» Rash called after him. Syn turned around. Rash looked at him with a strange expression. Almost pity. «Your sister was a good person. One of the few in this hole. If you really want to find her… then you need real power. Not petty thief tricks. So yeah. Maybe the Brand is your only chance. But know this: the price will be high.»
Syn left without replying.
He spent the rest of the day in his shelter. Read the newspaper scrap he'd bought from Karl. The article was boring, about new ore extraction quotas in the northern quarries. Nothing useful. He set the sheet aside and lay on the pallet, staring at the ceiling.
"The Brand of the Abyss."
He knew about it everything that could be learned from stories. Lian had explained the mechanics to him back when he was a boy. Outbursts. Waves of chaotic energy erupting from the Wastelands. When they enveloped a person, especially a teenager whose soul was not yet firm, they left a mark. The Brand. The Seal of the Abyss. A conduit to power.
But not everyone who received the Brand became a resonator. Many simply died. Their bodies couldn't withstand it. Others went mad. Still others were taken to the Institutes and turned into obedient soldiers of the Order.
"And I don't want to be a soldier."
He wanted only one thing. To find Lian. And for that, he needed power capable of traversing the Wastelands. The power of a resonator.
But how to get the Brand without becoming a pawn of the Empire?
The question hung in the air without an answer.
Syn closed his eyes and tried to sleep. But sleep wouldn't come. Instead, images surfaced. Lian taking off the locket. Lian walking through the Citadel gates. Lian turning around one last time, a smile on her lips.
«I'll come back, Syn. I promise.»
He opened his eyes abruptly.
"You promised. And I believe you."
Even if the whole world said she was dead.
Night fell quickly. The slums had no electricity. After sunset, the streets plunged into darkness, illuminated only by rare bonfires and torches at guard posts. Syn slipped out of his shelter and headed west, towards sector nine.
He moved along familiar paths, avoiding main streets. The Army of Stability patrols were predictable. They walked on schedule, checking the same points. Syn knew their routes. He had been watching them for months.
Sector nine greeted him with silence. The old, half-ruined buildings of the sawmills jutted from the ground like broken teeth. Most roofs had collapsed. The walls were covered in mold and strange, glowing fungi that only grew where an Outburst had passed.
Syn stopped at the edge of the sector and looked around. No one. The patrol had passed through an hour ago. The next one would be in two hours.
He moved forward, stepping carefully. The ground underfoot was uneven, covered in debris and trash. The air smelled of rot and something metallic, acrid. Syn pulled up his collar, covering his nose.
"There was an Outburst here. Recently."
He saw the traces. The grass, if it could be called that, was blackened and curled. Stones were cracked, as if struck from within. On one wall, he noticed a handprint. Black, charred. As if someone had touched it and burned the flesh down to the bone.
Syn moved closer. Squatted down. Studied the print. The fingers were long, too long for a human. And claws were visible at the tips.
"Not human. A creature."
He straightened up and looked around again. Somewhere here was the epicenter of the Outburst. The place where the wave had been strongest. If he found it…
"What will you do? Stand there and wait to be enveloped?"
The thought was insane. He knew that. Outbursts were unpredictable. They could come in an hour, in a day, in a month. Or they might not come at all.
But he couldn't just sit and wait. Couldn't steal bread and hide in his shed while somewhere out there, in the Wastelands, Lian…
"If she's alive, she's waiting."
He took a step forward, deeper into the sector.
And then the ground trembled.
A slight vibration, as if thunder had struck far away. Syn froze. The vibration intensified. Dust began to rise from under his feet. The air grew heavy, oppressive. Syn felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.
"No. It can't be."
But it was. An Outburst.
The sky above the sector flared. Not lightning. Not light. It was something else. A wave of pure, distorted energy, erupting from an invisible crack in reality. It spread in circles, like ripples on water. And with each circle, the air crackled, broke, refracted.
Syn tried to retreat, but his legs wouldn't obey. The wave enveloped him.
And the world exploded in pain.
It wasn't a physical sensation. It was deeper. As if something had pierced the very core of his being and began to turn him inside out. He fell to his knees, gasping for air. Colored spots swam before his eyes. Sounds disappeared. Only silence remained.
And in that silence, he heard a voice.
«You have come.»
The voice wasn't from outside. It sounded from within. Deep, ancient, devoid of emotion.
Syn tried to answer, but his mouth wouldn't open. His body wouldn't obey.
«You seek the lost one. You seek her.»
An image of Lian flashed before his eyes. She stood in the darkness, reaching out a hand.
«I can help. But you must pay.»
«What… do you want?» Syn didn't know if he spoke the words aloud or only thought them.
«Your consent. You will become a conductor. A Keeper of the Threshold. You will open a path between worlds. And I will give you power.»
Syn gritted his teeth. The pain intensified, as if he were being torn apart.
"A price. There's always a price."
«What price?» he forced out.
«Your soul will not belong to you alone. You will share it. With me. With the shadow.»
The shadow. The voice called itself a shadow.
«And if I refuse?»
«You will die here. Now. And she will remain alone. Forever.»
Syn opened his eyes. Before him, in the veil of distorted air, stood a figure. Tall, weightless, woven from pure darkness. It had no face. Only a silhouette.
And this silhouette was reaching out a hand.
Syn looked at the hand. Then at the darkness around. Then remembered Lian. Her smile. Her voice.
"I promised to find you."
He reached out his hand and touched the shadow.
The world flashed with white light.
And on his neck, where there had once been clear skin, the Brand appeared. Black, cold, woven from tiny skeletons. They stirred, turning their skulls.
And Syn understood.
He was no longer just a slum boy.