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lived on the Avenue of Broken Pottery. And the Anadrashi temple in the Square of Nights, O’men As, was generally considered to be Golna’s most austere.
    For close to a decade, however, the community had been known for one thing above all else: the constructed man known as Berun. He had fought in and won many of the fighting tournaments the city had held in the previous eight years. Though strong men had on occasion incapacitated him with the blow of a heavy weapon, only mages and those highly skilled fighters possessing elder-cloth suits stood a likely chance against him.
    He lived on the roof of a Black Suit abbey, home of the Seventeenth Order, though he himself abstained from sectarian violence. Every day from sunrise to mid-afternoon he rested, absorbing the sun’s rays for nourishment. In order to get the most sunlight, he allowed his manlike body to relax completely, spreading into a large circular carpet of dull bronze spheres of varying sizes.
    The two glowing blue coals of his eyes perched on the roof ’s edge, connected to the main mass of his body by a thin tendril of spheres no larger than green peas. He took pleasure in watching the early morning routines—the corral of cows and sheep, the haggling over wares in the ruins of the Shoen Adrashi temple, and the extinguishing of the red magefire lamps lining the Avenue of Broken Pottery.
    The ordinary activities of men fascinated him, though it was a rare occasion when he engaged them on a social level. Too often, such streetside conversations turned into discussions of religion or money, and Berun had little use for either. This afternoon, like most afternoons, would find him in the abbey courtyard, observing the brothers and sisters at practice. Perhaps the abbey master would ask him to help with the training. It amused him to slowly choreograph an attack for the novices, and let them pummel him with their staffs.
    Only large gatherings and other interesting events drew him out of the building. Fights and festivals were his favorites, but he also enjoyed taking part in the charitable works the Seventeenth organized on occasion. There were always buildings to be rebuilt, families to be comforted. The west end of Butchertown bordered Querus, a small Tomen neighborhood. Though both communities professed forms of Anadrashism, neither could agree on the particulars. Bombings, alchemical and chemical, were not uncommon.
    Humans were odd, in Berun’s estimation. Odd in their preoccupations. Surrounded by others of their kind, knowing their concerns were mirrored a hundred thousand times over the course of generations, they still did harm to their neighbors.
    As the sole member of his species, Berun considered this odd, indeed.
    ‡
    In the Month of Bakers he had turned twelve years old. He did not tell anyone, for the age meant nothing. In truth, he was little different from the being he had been upon waking for the first time. Experience left its mark, but his fundamental nature could not be altered.
    He had not been created in Golna. The dialect in which he spoke, full of rolled R’s and elongated vowels, was not common in the city. Its speakers, the people of Nos Ulom, had long been banned from Dareth Hlum. The nations were old enemies. Whereas Dareth Hlum took great pride in its religious neutrality, allowing any sect to proselytize and even battle in the street if properly registered, Nos Ulom took equal pride in its conservative Adrashism, the expression of which the government closely monitored.
    Dareth Hlum considered Nos Ulom a nation of dangerous extremists.
    Oddly, if this had not been the case, Berun would never have been allowed into Dareth Hlum.
    Before achieving fame for fighting in the city, he had achieved notoriety in Nos Ulom for assassinating Patr Macassel, High Pontiff of Dolin. The man, arguably the most powerful religious figure on the continent, was killed in his sleep, skull crushed beyond recognition by hands twice as large as a normal