Sometimes even Veshtu came and visited them after they moved to the light, usually in the middle of the constant re-negotiations that went on over the price of the Dawood’s old outflow and accompanied by a half a dozen guards with arms and armor imported from the heavens with a half a dozen icons pressed into them.

“You’re growing like a mushroom.” Veshtu told Eido when Darro’s son charged up to them and jumped into the visitor’s arms. Veshtu flicked the boy’s nose and was almost brained by the boy’s wooden sword in turn as he giggled and squirmed in his arms. “He’s deadly with that thing.” He commented as he dumped Eido onto the floor to run back to his father’s arms.

Darro scooped up his son and held him close as the wriggling boy tried to flick his nose in imitation of their guest. Darro pushed the offending hand away as he replied that it never left his son’s side. “He even sleeps with it.”

“Chai says,” the boy began breathlessly, “Chai says, Chai says,” he fought for the next part of a sentence longer than most of his childish talk at that age, and the rest came out in a rush. “Chai says that I can practice and be just like my Da.”

Darro ruffled Eido’s hair as he repeated the broken sentence until the boy had satisfied himself with it and stuck his thumb in his mouth to lean into Darro’s shoulder.

“I’m sure.” Veshtu replied with a smile as he turned to Darro, “And, will he be?” He asked more seriously. “Like his father?”

Darro looked at the boy. “Do you practice?” He asked.

Eido thought about it for a moment, then pulled his thumb out of his mouth to shout “yeah!” Before shoving it back in and staring at the guest.

“There you have it.” Darro replied.

“With you’re help, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was an adept before his majority.” Veshtu replied. “Wouldn’t that be a thing.”

He flicked Eido’s nose again before going. “Keep up the practice.” He told him, “and you,” he turned to Darro. “Athesh says they’ve doubled their holdings since you joined them. Even after what you did to the Dawoods, it’s incredible to see what you’re capable of with a larger organization at your back.”

Darro grunted. “I only do what I’m asked.”

“Yes.” Veshtu looked up at the midnight plains sliding over the core, then back to Darro. “They’re getting pushy.” He said more seriously. “Over the last year they’ve been pushing against the original deal we made for our outflow, and today, Athesh seemed to think that we couldn’t find another buyer for it, even if we wanted to.”

“Do you want to?” Darro asked.

Veshtu pursed his lips. “Yes, well, maybe. I’ve been contemplated turning it off during one of the barge landings. Call it a maintenance cycle and see if that scares them into realizing we don’t need them, but the fact is that we do need them, or at least their income. We can’t just change buyers for a couple of days, and a couple of days of outflow is the equivalent of a few months of pay for the guns we’ve got manning all our gates.”

“Is there anything that I can do?” Darro asked.

“You could try to convince them to keep to the original agreement.” Veshtu said. “Remind him where your real loyalties lie.” He gave Darro a searching look. “You haven’t forgotten where those are, I hope.”

Darro shifted his son to his other arm. “How could I?” He asked.

“Yes.” Veshtu looked at the boy then nodded and gave Darro a long searching glance. “If it comes to fighting, we’ll be depending upon it.”

Athesh’s summons came by familiar only a few hours later.

“We may need you to deal with your old friends down in the pipes.” He told Darro as they met at the top of the tower. The Athesh of these memories was a younger one than the one Marroo knew from the tower, but he was still big. A tower in his own right, silhouetted against the familiars he’d opened to work while they stood at above the city. His eyes glittered with the lights from the neighboring towers as he looked at Darro.

“You already have a deal with them.” Darro replied.

“One that they’ve been violating.” Athesh snapped.

The motor of the aircab Darro arrived in groaned behind them as Darro’s familiar left it and it rose back into the air to circle as it had before the sprite possessed it. The familiar zipped back into Darro’s clip and disappeared as it stored itself inside. Neither spoke as the aircab left and traffic streamed through the streets beneath them as a many layered river of lights.

“I am one of the Hair-Viper Sect.” Darro told him eventually. “I am only on loan here.”

“You’ve been on loan to the family for four years.” Athesh told him. “Maybe it’s time that loan was reconsidered.” He looked at Darro. “There’s no reason the money we pay your sect for your services couldn’t be paid directly to you instead.”

Darro met the dark man’s purple eyes and frowned, but Athesh looked away. “Kill your old sect, and I’ll make it worth it to you.” He said. “Whatever you want. Profits from the outflow, control of the underground, a sect of your own. More time with your family, I don’t care. You’re a power in this family, some would even say the power. I would empty out our coffers to keep you in the family when fighting breaks out.”

Darro crossed his arms and looked out over the city.

“I had an interesting conversation with Veshtu only this evening.” He replied.

“Spinning stories for you no doubt.” Athesh snapped, but turned his bulk to regard Darro. “What did he tell you?”

Darro shifted the sword on his belt to a more comfortable position. “He said you wanted to re-negotiate the outflow deal.”

“Troglodytes.” Athesh barked. The term held all of the contempt one man could have for those not like himself. “Crawling around beneath the streets, pretending that control of the water is the same as control of the city. They need to be reminded who keeps their bellies full, who keeps their children from starving, and the world from falling into chaos above the ground.”

Darro said nothing while Athesh chewed on his anger.

“They’re conspiring with the other families.” Athesh said at last. “Some of the sub-sects as well. I’m not sure how many. Dhruv’s network has records of deals struck between them and the Vanaharas though, the Eastern-Market sect, and the Hammer School Mercenaries, if you’d believe it. A few others. More, I’m sure, we don’t know about.”

Darro didn’t say anything for a moment. He could hear the distant whine of the Midnight Plains approaching from anti-turnward with the center of the night. “What kinds of deals?” He asked.

“What kind of deal can you strike with mercenaries?” Athesh snorted. “Your old friends are getting ready for war, and with the Vanaharas involved, and the way their visits have gone over our re-negotiations over outflow rights on their pipe, there is only one organization I see at the center of all their plots.” He looked at Darro and Darro realized suddenly, why they’d met at the top of the tower, and why he’d felt so many other men only a few floors below despite the late hour of the night.

For a long moment, neither of them said anything as they each measured each other up.

“Am I a part of your family?” Darro asked him finally.

“That is for you to choose.” Athesh replied. He turned back to the city and crossed his hands behind his back. “Deal with your old friends, and I’ll make you the king of our organization, rename it in your honor if you want. Spirits below, I’ll name my first born after you. It doesn’t matter to me, but you can either be a part of the family, or apart from it. There isn’t any choosing, any more than there would be with your own family.”

“The sect is my family as well.” Darro replied. “I swore oaths to them.”

“Oaths that also bound you to our family.” Athesh replied.

“Oaths that keep me from dealing with the sect, as you put it.”

Athesh grunted but didn’t reply, and they stood looking out over the city as the howl of the midnight plains grew more distinct to Darro’s hearing.

“Are the men below us supposed to frighten me?” Darro asked finally.

Athesh grunted again and glanced at Darro before returning his eyes to the view beneath them. “Guards.” He said after a long pause. “For my safety.”

Darro swept his spirit over them, at least two dozen, armed with sunflares and arquebuses, swords and familiars, grenades and armor, one man at their head with a single open meridian cycling his breath in a breathing exercise meant to prepare him for opening the meridian to his limbs while he waited beneath them. “I won’t kill them.” Darro told the man standing next to him, but Athesh didn’t respond. Didn’t even turn his head to look at him.

“This isn’t meant as a threat.” The big executive said at last. “I brought you here to let you know, and, convince you, if I could, to put your sword in our hands.” He turned his head to look at Darro while his body continued to face the open air. “You made some oaths, like you said, but if there is fighting, when, there is fighting, I want you to choose our side, if it can be managed. I didn’t start this war. I don’t want us, our family, my, family, to be the ones that go down for it.”

Darro set his hand on the hilt of his sword and studied it without giving Athesh an answer. “If there is fighting.” He finally said. “You’ll be on your own. I can’t choose either side.”

Silver eyes met purple in the darkness as the midnight plains howled far far above them.

“My cousin,” Athesh said after a moment of silence. “Says your wife and children have settled in well at their new home. I hope that will enter into your considerations, when the towers begin to burn.”

Darro touched the clip on his shoulder and told the familiar that popped out to bring his air-cab back. It zipped away, and the two men stood in silence until the cab dropped from the sky, the rumble of its internal gyros half masked by the quiet howling of the night overhead.

It had been a long time since Darro visited the Dregs, the Dregs proper, as he thought of them, the real city, buried beneath the fungal growth of towers, factories, and suburbs that constituted the city of the Dregs above, but that was where he directed the aircab that night instead of returning to his home.

There was a stink to the thumping cavern the Hair-Vipers had stolen from the Dawoods. There was a stink to all of the Dregs proper, but there was a unique smell to every cavern and every pipe, smells that had once helped a young Darro navigate through the big dark. The Dawood’s old cavern had all the usual smells, trash, and smoke, and filthy water, but there was an added stink of ozone in the air, and a chemical taint from the poison marsh just outside the cavern’s gates.

“You will stop.” Darro told Veshtu when he found him still awake in his office.

“Stop what?” Veshtu asked.

“You think that I don’t know?” Darro asked. His breath churned in agitation and Darro held himself rigid against the icon that wanted to manifest itself in the air around him after shoving through the door to his friend’s office. “This cavern is swarming with soldiers.” He could feel them even now, spiritual signatures decked out in weapons, many of which harbored some spiritual touch form icons that were not his own.

Veshtu waved a hand. “A defensive measure. If the Iblanie want to push us out-”

“And the deals you’ve made with the Vanaharas?” Darro asked.

Veshtu frowned. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Darro’s face was stone as he glared down at the man drinking tea behind his desk. “Don’t lie to me.” Darro growled.

Veshtu sipped from his cup then set it on the desk then folded his hands to lean forward as he looked up at Darro. “We don’t have a deal with the Vanaharas.” He said. “Not as such, anyways. There have been talks, negotiations, to see if something could be worked out between us if the Iblanie decided to turn on us, but, like the troops we’ve built up in this tunnel, they are a defensive measure, and nothing solid anyways.” He leaned back and waved a hand. “Nothing but agreements to make agreements, if the Iblanie choose to break our alliance first.”

“Athesh knows about those deals.” Darro snapped. Veshtu frowned and Darro pointed an accusatory finger at him. “He knows about the others too.” He said. “Hammer School? Why would you need mercenaries that have never served beneath the ground?” He pounded the finger into Veshtu’s desk hard enough to crack the paneled surface. “Cut them off.” He said. “Fix this, between you and the Iblanie. Renew that deal, because if,” the finger he pointed at Veshtu shimmered with spiritual power as it sharpened under the influence of his icon, “if, there is fighting between you, I will not be on your side.”

Veshtu’s face was red, but he controlled himself as his own breath, from two open meridians now, touched the sharpening finger. Veshtu sucked in a breath and his questing spirit quailed away from Darro’s. “You would choose them over us?” Veshtu demanded.

Darro straightened and shook the breath from his finger. “I won’t choose either.” He said, and glared at Veshtu. “I swore oaths, to both of you. I won’t let you go at one another’s throats.” He looked around the office, at the wealth and opulence Veshtu had filled it with since taking over after the Dawood’s defeat, and he remembered the poverty they’d grown up in and the tunnels where they’d once sworn their first oath. “You married the Iblanie when you sent me to them.” He said with a last glare for Veshtu. “Fix this, or I’ll kill everyone you’ve struck a deal with behind their back.”

He left, before the red faced Veshtu could reply.