Issue #165 • Jan. 22, 2015

“For Lost Time,” by Therese Arkenberg

“Day of the Dragonfly,” by Raphael Ordoñez

For more stories and Audio Fiction Podcasts, visit

http://beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/

FOR LOST TIME

by Therese Arkenberg

        The settlement in Simrandu was called Nurathaipolis-in-Exile.

        It bore some physical resemblance. Simrandu had been built when the Polean Cities still held great cultural influence, and its mansions and gathering halls mimicked the Polean style, with long terraces and fat domes supported by rows of fluted columns. Nurathaipolean violets and Therathaipolean roses bloomed in planters, and the streets were lit by pole-lamps as ingenious as any construction out of Merenthaipolis. These similarities must have drawn the settlement’s inhabitants—refugees from those cities lost to Time; Nurathaipolis the jewel at their crown, now nothing but a name that lingered.

        “Are they all wizards?” Semira asked Aniver. The Polean Cities’ mortal inhabitants had been lost with their metropolises, caught in unbreakable slumber as their homes fell to dust around them, but a gathering this large made up of nothing but wizards strained imagination.

        “And a few others—travelers who were away from home when the slippage happened, ambassadors and guests in other lands, expatriates. They found each other here. And here they... wait.”

        Five years had passed since Nurathaipolis-That-Was and its sibling cities had turned to ruin in one night. Time enough to build a new life of a sort here. Time enough to pursue possibilities, experiments, plans to undo the strange tragedy that had befallen their homes. Time enough to give up hope.

        Not for Aniver. Semira watched him descend the winding brick pathway, narrow shoulders rigid with determination.

        “Of course, it’s the wizards we’ve come for,” she mused aloud.

        “Yes.” Aniver pushed hair from his eyes and straightened his jacket as they neared the doors of this mansion, which was nearly a small palace. It occupied grounds so vast that the rest of Simrandu, or at the last the quarter given over to Nurathaipolis-in-Exile, was only visible towards the horizon, its pillared roofs rising above the hedges and ornamental trees.

        A servant answered Aniver’s knock. Colorless eyes—what must be a Nurathaipolen trait—surveyed them: Semira, slight, wiry, brown-skinned, with her long hair in a tight braid; Aniver, tall and slender, a wizard’s circle marked in the pale skin on his forehead, and around his neck a charm in the shape of a tiny hourglass. Its golden sands fell to the bottom, through the bottom, and kept falling. Eternally in one direction. As time should run.

        “We’d like to speak to Madam Melviater,” Aniver said.

        The servant seemed about to speak, then bowed instead in a way suggesting a shrug and led them inside. They passed through marble-floored chambers and down corridors with walls hidden beneath paintings—portraits with colorless eyes, forested landscapes bearing in their midst cities with canals, bronze statues, and palaces of elegant columns—until they entered a room overlooking the gardens. The servant left them there.

        They waited long enough for Semira to decide to sit on one of the plush sofas, only to rise again as Melviater swept into the room.

        Between her round eyes, a nacreous wizard’s circle stood out against her lined forehead, framed by the sweep of her coal-black hair. She received their bows with a friendly smile.

        “A pleasure.” Her voice was rich. “We don’t get many visitors.”

        “You assume I’m a visitor?” Aniver asked.

        “Rightfully, don’t I?” Her eyes narrowed on him. “You don’t seem the type to have come to settle down—not yet. But you have come to me, preeminent mage of Nurathaipolis-That-Was.” She spoke without a hint of arrogance. Sinking onto the couch near Semira, she continued, “So I expect you’re attempting a rescue.”

        “Do you get many would-be saviors?”

        “Fewer as time goes on.” Melviater beckoned for him to sit. “Where are the two of you from?”

        “I’m Semira of Timru. I’ve been Aniver’s companion... and friend... this past year.”

        “And I’m Aniver of Nurathaipolis. But as for where we’re from directly—our journey’s taken us here from Arisbat.”

        “The library?” Eyebrows thick as brushstrokes rose. “Many of us have looked for answers there.”

        “It depends which shelf you look on.”

        “And what shelf did you investigate?” Melivater asked with conspicuous patience. If, as she implied, she’d been visited by many would-be saviors before, she must find each renewed encounter rather dispiriting.

        “There are only so many shelves full of books on the dead, are there not?” Aniver smiled at her. He smiled so rarely that it was hard for Semira to read this one. “And it was among the dead that the Lotorai Sibyl told us to seek answers. I went to the dead—I met Semira while crossing the Glass-Clear Sea. The ghosts there told me... Well, I say this all so circuitously in part because I’m trying to avoid speaking her name.”

        It was bad fortune to say Kahzakutri’s name aloud, but also—the real reason Aniver held back in Madam Melviater’s presence—it was impolite.

        Her eyes grew moon-large. “The Queen.”

        “To some, She would be the first to come to mind when we speak of the dead. It is Her kingdom, after all. But I suppose we’d all rather exhaust our other options before risking it.” “And,” Aniver added quietly, “we have exhausted them, haven’t we?”

        “Yes.” Melviater rearranged her skirts. “Many have come to me—wizards and mortals both—with many theories of how the Polean Cities were lost, and how to save them. Your... suggestion is certainly more creative than most.”

        Semira, sensing that Melviater was about to leave, spoke up over whatever comment Aniver might make next. “In the Library of Arisbat we found a book that spoke of the Rivers of Time—Alteration and Unmaking. They flow at the borders of Death’s Kingdom. Their mists dance across the world, making ages pass. But if a few drops in excess of the proper proportion fall somewhere—”

        “As on the Polean Cities,” Aniver said, “the result might be... unparalleled.”

        Melviater’s lips narrowed. “Even so, no wizard, or even a cadre of us, can contend against such Rivers.”

        “No.” Aniver’s gaze was distant as he rested his head on one hand. “I was thinking of Someone a great deal more powerful. They are Her Rivers, Her responsibility. I thought I might petition Her.” Even he couldn’t keep his voice entirely steady as he said it.

        Melviater’s nostrils flared as she took deep breaths. Her distant vision seemed more astounding than Aniver’s. “And you think I can help you?” she said at last.

        “We’ve been traveling West, to meet with the Queen. But I thought it would be better to... first scout out the territory, so to speak.”

        “There’s one sure way to get a look at Queen Death’s Kingdom.”

        “Yes,” Aniver said. “It’s getting back which is uncertain. That requires help.”

        Melviater shook her head. “Help, perhaps... but even the greatest wizard could only take you so far.”

        “I understand.”

        She looked between them. “However—the fact is, you are a wizard yourself.”

        “This isn’t wizardry I could work upon myself.”

        “But you have—” Her gaze touched on Semira, who bristled without quite knowing why. Aniver’s own eyes darkened.

        “Semira is my companion,” he said. “All and only that. I could never ask her to undertake such a risk.”

        “So you admit it’s risky.”

        “You think I’m mad,” Aniver said. “But pay the small courtesy of not thinking me a fool.”

        The two wizards met each other’s stares and held them a long time. An undercurrent flowed that Semira couldn’t read: anger would be petty beside it, yet it was less animosity than the opposite, edged with fear and incredulity. What Aniver was suggesting was awesome and awful. And Semira, not being a wizard, didn’t understand half of it. She probably never would.

        Melvaiter sighed. “Anything’s worth trying, I suppose.”

        Aniver started upright. “You’ll do it? I know it’s no small task I ask of you.”

        And what is it? Semira almost asked, but then Melviater snorted, on the verge of laughter.

        “Escorting you to the border of Death and back?” She nodded. “No small task indeed. I’ll begin preparations at once. Would tomorrow night be acceptable?”

        “Not a moment too soon,” Aniver murmured. He looked to Semira.

        “It’s your choice,” she said, “you’re the one participating.”

        “I was going to ask if you would come with me.” He sounded almost shy. “Not as part of the ritual.” His glance at Melviater was stony. “Only for... support.”

        “Of course.”

        “Then tomorrow night would work well for us, Madam Melviater.” He bowed before clasping her hand on it.

* * *

        Every night at Madam Melviater’s house at Nurathaipolis-in-exile there was dancing. She invited Simrandu’s natives and visitors from farther afield to join the exiles. They trod the floors to music that had been old when Aniver’s grandmother first courted, in steps as ancient as the stones.

        “Feel free if you want to join in,” he encouraged Semira. Neither of them had, that first night—they’d made it to their rooms and collapsed—but this evening they were too restless to simply sit and wait for Melviater to summon them for the ceremony when the time came. The music had beckoned them.

        “You’ll tell me before you go?” she asked. But already she was returning one of the admiring glances sent her way. She wore a shimmering violet tunic and leggings sheathed her trim legs, while a pair of silver earrings, in Timri design like the rest, matched the glimmer of her dark bright eyes. No wonder the Simrandi and exiles alike were looking.

        “I’ll tell you.” He added the whole truth: “I’m not sure I could do it without you.”

        She graced him with a brief, startled smile before a young man crossed the room in answer to her silent invitation. His features formed the epitome of narrow-boned and delicate Polean Cities stock, though he was so suntanned that he neared Semira’s coppery complexion. His hair was nearly as long, falling from a gathering of curls around his face. Taking her hand, he bowed over it and introduced himself as she returned the gesture: “Houriven Matlos, your servant.”

        Semira, glancing beside her, realized Aniver had stepped away, leaving her to navigate this introduction herself. “Of which city?” she asked.

        He shrugged. “It matters less now that I’m here—and with you, Madam...?”

        “Semira,” she said, adding a little awkwardly but firmly, “of Timru.”

        Houriven surveyed the room, from the musicians on the dais to the couples whirling across the floor. “Do they dance like this in Timru?”

        “If I could keep up with Fimean’s Reel, I’m sure I’ll manage this.” All the same, Semira threaded her arm through Houriven’s with the air of lashing her storm-tossed body to the mast. The music carried them away.

        Aniver watched until the crowd swallowed them, seeing enough to confirm Semira’s confidence in herself and to catch the smile she threw his way.

        “He’s been to Zandar,” a voice said at his shoulder. “Houriven Matlos.”

        The speaker, like Houriven, wore his hair long with elegant curls but was paler and somewhat more solidly built. Though his soft tone was hard to read, the fact that he had marked Aniver’s attention on the couple suggested interest in Aniver himself. And of course no one would bring up such a burningly interesting topic as Zandar—especially not to a clearly marked wizard—unless he desired a discussion. Though not a long one, Aniver amended, noting the sheet music in the man’s hands.

        “When?” Aniver asked him. “And why?”

        “Almost two years ago now. It’s still all he ever talks about, every night. He thinks we should all go there.”

        “Why?” Aniver repeated.

        “So that we see home once again—as he has—and realize, as he has, that it isn’t home any longer, and we can move on with our lives.”

        “But Zandar’s illusions aren’t home.”

        “Are they really not?” Asked softly; all the man’s words were soft. “Zandar’s magic draws its shape from the very souls of its visitors—their hopes, their dreams, their fondest memories. Not exact representations of a place, no. But when we judge based on that fact, it’s the real which disappoints, which comes up short. So perhaps what’s in Zandar’s mirror is truest of all.”

        “Do you plan to go, then?” At once Aniver felt sorry as the man flinched.

        “No. I still hold out hope... that one day I’ll see the real Istanthaipolis again.”

        “Houriven’s given up that hope.” Aniver noted. Anyone who set foot on Zandar forever forfeited their native land; that was part and parcel of the uncanny sorcery of the place. For some it was worth it, to see their fondest dreams, if not made real, then brought as near to reality as possible.

        “Perhaps he feels it’s better to give it up than lose it. So many are losing it.” The man sighed. “We gather here as around a dying fire, for whatever warmth is left... That and perhaps the dancing. Do you dance, sir...?”

        “Aniver of Nurathaipolis-That-Was. And no, not usually.”

        “Endreidon, of Istanthaipolis-That-Was.”

        Aniver shook the offered hand and accepted Endreidon’s bow, though he’d never been comfortable himself using that formal, at times over-effusive salute between peers. It was liable to be misconstrued.

        For a moment Semira and Houriven reappeared, sailing past them. Aniver nodded in case she spotted him.

        Endreidon saw, at any rate. “Of course, it depends on the partner.”

        “For many people,” Aniver agreed—keeping humor from his voice in case that, too, could be misconstrued. He did not intend to mock. “For some it is difficult to find a suitable partner. Or the right song. For me, both have proven, so far, utterly elusive.”

        “And have you given up trying?” A gleam in Endreidon’s eyes suggested he was not beyond humor himself.

        Usually here Aniver would have replied with polite gallantry—I would not want to become tedious to my partner in such attempts, and I would be tedious, truly. Gallantry, too, could be tedious. Endreidon had been open with him, so he returned it. “I’ve found trying isn’t worth the trouble. I do not enjoy dancing. It is not a flaw of my partners, who often prove excellent company in other ways.” Endreidon’s brows lowered as he no doubt reconsidered Semira. Or perhaps himself. “Nor do I consider it a flaw in me.”

        “Of course not,” Endreidon said. “There are many tastes.”

        He and Aniver smiled at each other—fragile smiles, suddenly a little shy.

        “In any event,” Endreidon added, shifting the folio in his hand as if weighing it, “I would not have been able to dance for long.”

        “What’s your instrument? I... used to... play the violin.” He’d lost the skill while he and Semira were fleeing the pursuit of the Hounds. Along with much else.

        “The harp—they’re carrying it out now.”

        The Istanthaipolen harp was legendary, and with justification. Aniver’s breath tightened as he considered how long it had been since he’d heard it. Aniver glanced at Endreidon’s fingers, callused, strong, yet with a suggestion of delicacy and care. “I do not dance, but I will be privileged to hear your music.”

        “I am grateful to play it,” Endreidon said.

        After a few minutes of lighter, inconsequential talk, the song ended. Couples separated, catching their breath. Some exchanged partners, though by no means all. Semira and Houriven, for example... Her laugh, low and clear, carried across the hall.

        Endreidon took his leave, and as the music swelled for the next dance it carried the thrum, deep and sweet, of notes drawn from the tall silver-stringed harp set in a place of honor on the dais. Aniver listened, so intently that the crowd and dancers faded in his vision, and he could feel as well as hear the fingers tenderly moving across the strings. He absorbed the music—not the way a wizard gathered fuel for future spells. He drank it in as a man in the desert gulped orgua-nut juice. In his stillness he did the same as Semira did with her dizzying steps. She let herself be guided by a partner, and perhaps Aniver did, too.

        He was guided, everywhere and nowhere at once, until Melviater’s hand on his arm brought him back to Simrandu.

* * *

        “But going to Zandar—” Semira wrestled with the incredible weight of the thought while Houriven, aided by the incredible music, lifted her like a leaf in the breeze.

        “It wasn’t a hard voyage,” he said. “Used as you are to the oceans, Madam Sailor, the Nerrening Sea would likely rock you to sleep.”

        “I couldn’t.” She laughed helplessly, as if being tickled. “You’re right, I am a sailor—if I set foot on Zandar, could I ever return to the sea? Could I ever leave?”

        “Perhaps you’d have to fly away.”

        She flew, swept into the arc of a circle described by his hands in hers. “Still,” she said, brought back to his arms, “it seems an incredible... exchange to make.”

        “You dance like a Grace,” he said. “Do I really have you only half the night?”

        “I’m afraid so.” She kept from bristling as his words, though she didn’t favor being spoken of as if she could be had. “Aniver and I promised to meet with Melviater soon.”

        “And why must you keep such a dreary promise?”

        She chuckled, but her laughter turned rueful. “We have to make up for lost time, I suppose.”

        “Have you lost a lot of it, on your journey?”

        “Oh, yes.” Sometimes literally, as at the Tindalo pass and the... months following. Sometimes, figuratively, chasing false hints or finding even the true ones much more difficult than expected. And through it all, time had dogged them—its Hounds hunted them, its Queen bewitched them, and the secrets it had covered rose to them out of layers of darkness and dust. It was Time, mishandled, misplaced, that had taken away the Polean Cities. When it came to lost time, they had much to make up for.

        “But perhaps you could lose a little more?” he said hopefully, with a tiny sweet smile.

        “We’ll see,” Semira promised. She had lost more than time this past year. It would be a treat to find some of it again. She could trade away sleep—yesterday she’d had all the sleep she could stomach.

        Once again to trading. Perhaps traveling with a wizard so long was making her think like one. But trade was the essence of sorcery—and sorcerous places, like Zandar.

        “For one last glimpse of home,” she said, “you gave it up forever.”

        To her surprise, Houriven laughed. And his laughter was like flying to the music: rich, clear, utterly free. “I’m afraid the old ‘Polis isn’t home to me anymore. Here in Simrandu, it’s all of us together, and it’s beautiful, and it fits me better than anything else I’ve ever known. Here in exile—this is home to me, now.”

        They rounded each other with short quick steps, nearly skipping, then circled back in reverse. It gave Semira time to muse, to chase the thought nagging her. A quiet portion of the music, at which Houriven gathered her close, gave her the chance to voice it. “But isn’t your true home always the one Zandar bars you from? If it’s here... how did you return?”

        Houriven smiled. Then he was smiling less and less. He opened his mouth to say something, as soon as the words would come to him.

        Except before they did, Aniver was at her side. “Semira. It’s time.”

* * *

        They joined Melviater in a small round chamber in the lower reaches of the grand house. Tiles on the floor made a circle cut by the arms of a compass cross. She knelt at the edge of the circle with a black lacquered tray beside her. On it was a bowl of sweet-scented incense and a knife.

        Aniver strode past Semira when she hesitated in the doorway. She followed with a deep breath, noticing him take one of his own.

        “I must warn you,” Melviater said. “I have never done anything quite like this before.”

        “What a coincidence.” Aniver sat at the center of the circle. “Neither have I.”

        She chuckled. Semira’s mouth was too dry to speak, and in a moment of absurdity, she hoped this wouldn’t lead them to assume she had prior experience with... whatever this was.

        “Are you joining, then?” Melivater asked her. Semira nodded.

        “You can start by putting on one of these.” Melviater tossed her a mass of saffron-colored cloth which turned out to be a full pleated smock like the one she was wearing. “No sense ruining your nice clothes.”

        Aniver began to roll back the cuffs of his shirt. He watched Melviater fan the incense smoke and adjust the placement of the knife. Semira, stomach churning, drew the smock over her head.

        Aniver gestured for her to sit beside him. The gesture was less commanding—he had no power to command her, regardless—than nervous, shy. He wanted her here for this. She knelt over the circle’s border, hoping that her placement wouldn’t mar the spell.

        Melviater seemed unbothered by it. “Are you both ready, then?”

        “Yes,” Aniver said, very steadily. Semira echoed him.

        “Good.” Her gaze flickered between them, bright and hard as the blade she reached for. She said to Semira, “Hold him.”

        Semira did, hesitantly at first. With a faint smile, he settled back against her. His head rested on her chest, and she combed back a lock of dark hair that sweat had pasted to his brow. He lay almost in her lap, holding out his bare wrists to Melviater’s knife.

        “So we go,” the sorceress murmured, and began to cut.

* * *

        At first Aniver wondered by what sacrifice, what diminution of the soul, Melviater was guiding him. But it very quickly became clear that no true guidance was possible in this cold, chaotic vortex. Nor was it necessary—it took no skill or knowledge to find the Kingdom of the Dead.

        Bodily sensation lingered, a faint awareness of weakness and pain. It changed not so much in intensity as in quality while he fell: pain grew bittersweet, weakness icy. Sight vanished; he couldn’t even see darkness, if there were darkness here.

        And then it surrounded him. Relief, in his diminished state, felt as strong as his weakness, and his weakness was nearly as overpowering as his fear as he saw the roots of Her Tenebrous Throne.

        He grasped the roots, not with hands he no longer had at the ends of dripping, emptied wrists, but with power. Power that came from the soul, which was all he had left of himself anyway.

        The small gray four-toed feet resting on the Throne tapped against the shadows. He wondered if one would kick him away. When it didn’t happen, optimism, of a pale sort, enabled him to look up. The Throne’s arms ended in snarling heads, or barbaric weapons, or else only the shape of an unreal substance weathered by unimaginable forces, and on those arms rested slender gray limbs bearing delicate four-fingered hands. Above those... looking past Her face for the time being, Aniver stared at the spires that topped the Tenebrous Throne. The structure seemed organic, not in the sense of being alive but in the fact that it couldn’t possibly have been constructed. It had grown or perhaps formed around the shape of the Queen, who sat here at the edge of Her kingdom.

        Kahzakutri. He’d spoken the name often enough back in the living world where it was inauspicious; nothing more terrible could happen here, but now he hesitated to voice it out of respect.

        Except that for a tattered soul with no mouth left, to imagine a name was good as to express it aloud.

        “Yes,” She said—did She have some sort of body, flesh to cloak Her mind in, or had She been thinking at all Herself before now? “And you are Aniver of Nurathaipolis-That-Was, come to discuss that very matter with me. Cities lost to Time. To my Time, you suspect.

        “I know everything the dead know,” She continued, in a voice high and clear but so dry it hurt to hear. It might have deafened living ears. Aniver’s ears were not living anymore. His knowledge was Her own.

        Was there any point in dialogue then?

        The question was his, but She shifted on Her Throne with a hum as if of amusement. “The problem is, in seeking the return of your Cities, you mean to appeal to my generosity. I have none.”

        He was speaking to the Ultimate Queen; he was in Her very presence. The fact struck him but did not seem to affect him—after all, meeting Her here seemed the most natural thing in the world. Also, he no longer seemed capable of awe or terror or surprise. These things were washed out of him. The Throne, he could see now, rested on the icy bank of the River Unmaking and perhaps was formed of its ice as well: not clear, black, or white, only absence—of light, of darkness too. Aniver would have felt an absence also, if She had not been speaking to him.

        So that was the point of dialogue. To make him real enough to be capable of it. Recursive, but still more logical than he had any right to expect in the Kingdom of the Dead.

        And he replied to Kahzakutri: “Why not?”

        Speaking took a surge of power, falling through the bits of him which were not hands but which dared to grip the Tenebrous Throne. The words themselves were struck upon by luck or instinct. Yet why not? Why should she not be generous?

        “And, if not generosity, Majesty—” he continued with the burst of inspiration— “what of justice? Is it right that five cities should, through accident, be wiped from the face of the earth too soon?”

        “Many die young.”

        “This was not death, Your Majesty.” She of all beings must have known that. Aniver gathered his courage and faced Her, although he was no longer sure his fading form had a face. “It was, at best, a parody—one that should concern you, trespassing as it does on your domain.”

        “My domain is everywhere. It includes even would-be trespassers.” She smiled down at him. “It is unavoidable, in any case, that the Polean Cities should fall into decay. What difference do a few centuries make?”

        She seemed genuinely curious. Genuinely ignorant, he thought with desperate hope. There were things She did not understand—gaps in Her omniscience, and perhaps Her omnipotence, too.

        He reached for another argument. “You speak of what is inevitable, what is natural. But for us, Your Majesty, what happened to our cities was anything but natural... In exile, we are like the dead still living.”

        That rhetorical flourish was a mistake, he realized as She laughed. “I’ve never seen such lively corpses as the ones dancing in Simrandu.”

        “But not all of us.” She’d seen the dancers through his eyes; She knew his inner experience. He drew Her attention to it. “After all, Your Majesty, the spell I use to be here is fueled by something.”

        “Oh?” Her hollow, cold gaze settled on him, peering deep. Past the surface—he didn’t know the nature of Melviater’s sacrifice, and so She couldn’t either—and past the simple surrender to fate’s gravity that had brought him here in the simplest sense. To the mooring line wrapped tight around what was not Aniver’s flesh and was too dead to be his soul: the sorcerous construct that met Melviater’s work halfway, that made this a meeting only and not his final journey. That made this an argument, not a surrender.

        Kahzakutri touched the tether, and a jolt of terror shot through him at the thought that She might sever it. But She wouldn’t, or couldn’t. “Ah,” She said and released it, examination complete.

        “Grief,” She said.

        “More than that, Majesty.”

        “Fear. Anger. Confusion—and frustration at your confusion.” Her lips twitched like worms. “Helplessness. So much helplessness—it took a subtle touch to turn that into power.”

        He wasn’t sure how to acknowledge a compliment from the Queen of the Dead. But he had Her interest once again. “That’s what I felt—the mark left on my soul—after awakening to find Nurathaipolis lost.”

        “And you’ve been storing it up all this time?”

        “I never intended to use it.” But he had spent so much else on his journey... it was the last essence of any power he had left. “Is that not like death, Your Majesty?”

        She tipped her head, ravenlike, about to peck.

        “I’ve faced death since—danger, and fear so strong I felt certain doom must follow... The similarity is striking.”

        In Arisbat, he and Semira had discovered the old legend: that facing death, the terror and awe and deep-cutting grief of it, was the source of the power that turned Kahzakutri from a mortal woman into the Queen.

        It was not dying itself that had transformed Her. Death could only make a being lesser. And everything living could die. The magic stemmed from knowledge—

        “You’re not dead,” he said—or his soul exclaimed; there was no difference.

        “I’m sorry?” She asked almost archly.

        “You transcended at the moment of dying—not after death. Though you may rule the dead, Your Majesty, you’re not one of them.”

        “What difference does it make?” She was not indifferent—She was curious. More proof of his dawning realization.

        “Because the dead care for nothing; are concerned for nothing. Being indifferent, they are not generous. But you aren’t showing indifference—ennui, certainly, but not indifference.”

        “Are you about to accuse me of—”

        “The dead wouldn’t ask so many questions.” Aniver’s very essence grinned. “You’re a dying woman, Kahzakutri. And I know—”

        The dead did not become angry. The dying did, quite easily.

        He should have considered that.

        She rose from the Tenebrous Throne and kicked him back.

        “You go too far, Aniver of Nurathaipolis-That-Was. No surprise, I’m sure—you do it often enough. But never before like this.”

        He didn’t cower. It would have been wise to, but he was too transfixed to move.

        “You will get out of my sight,” She said. “There is plenty of obnoxiousness among the dead without you adding to it. And I believe I’ll be spared your presence in the future. Because surely you, so clever, know what becomes of wizards when they go too far.”

        The tether binding him tightened. A faint shock traveled down it, from such a great distance that feeling it at all testified to the extreme sensation at its far end. Melviater. She wasn’t pulling Aniver back, though, at least not on her own—she felt him being forced away.

        Kahzakutri’s deafening voice followed him even as She expelled him from Her kingdom.

        “You throw your magic into this stupid quest. You fuel that magic with everything you have. Already you’ve given things you never planned to give—the most precious fragments of yourself. And you are not made of infinite fragments. The dead that come to me are only the unused remnants of souls.

        “If you come again, come to me by walking West. You’ll need yourself in person as well as your shade. You’ll need it all. And when you’re through, when you’ve done your utmost to bring Nurathaipolis back—and when you’ve paid the cost of it—I don’t think there’s a bit of you that won’t have been used up, Aniver.

        “It will unmake you as surely as if you swam in my river. I may perpetually be dying, but you will forever be even more nothing than the dead.” She laughed—but in the echo of Her laughter was a sigh.

        Or so Aniver thought. Perhaps he was listening too closely. But Kahzakutri’s threat, or warning, grew ever fainter, and then his soul—what was left of it—touched against Melviater’s with a snap. The tether had drawn him home, where he really was dying.

* * *

        Semira couldn’t tell if he was breathing anymore.

        For the past half-hour Aniver’s chest had risen ever more shallowly, and when she touched his face and neck the skin was cold. Melviater looked up from wrapping bandages around his slashed wrists. No blood soaked through the cloth; there wasn’t enough left.

        They knelt over Semira’s bloodstained smock skirts, in absolute stillness. Then Aniver’s heels knocked against the floor. As the tremor passed through him, his mouth gaped for air.

        Melviater leapt forward, grasped Semira’s hand and pressed it to Aniver’s chest. Something passed through the two of them to him, and Aniver’s white skin flushed at the point of contact. For her own part, Semira felt drained.

        “I’m sorry,” Melviater said. “He needs more blood, and I’ve already given him as much as I can spare.”

        She was also paler than she ought to be, a stained-ivory shade instead of her usual healthier glow. The shadows beneath her eyes, in contrast, were inky.

        Anvier gasped for another breath and won it, a deep breath that pushed to the bottom of his chest. He was still clammy, but feeling warmer. Semira leaned close and whispered his name. No sign if he heard her.

        Melviater rose, calling hoarsely for her attendants. They came in from where they had waited in the hall, and together they carried Aniver upstairs to his room.

        One woman hung back, offering her arm to Melviater. Semira took Melviater’s other arm—partly to lend support, and partly for the comfort of a human touch. Without Aniver, she felt shaken and frighteningly lonely.

        She thought of Houriven but knew she’d have no time for that this night. A pity.

        “You should get some rest,” Melviater said, following her thoughts. “And take care.”

        “Thank you, I will. If someone could send me a bowl of oxblood tea—”

        “Not that.” Melviater waved a frail hand. “Not just that. Ah, Graces and shades, but I’m tired. Never—” she addressed her attendant, but perhaps Semira, too—”I will never again involve myself in these matters. Let the Polean Cities rot. They’re only stones. How are we to salvage anything if we expend ourselves... just as I have,” she finished ruefully.

        Semira didn’t know her well enough to tell if she meant what she said or was only relieving her nerves theatrically. Either would be understandable.

        “He can only do this for so long.” Melviater pinned Semira with a stare, and this she meant absolutely. “And after that? Will he expect you to go on in his stead, when he falters?”

        “I already have,” Semira said. “In Arisbat.”

        The words hung between them.

        “Do not think we are untested.” Semira could not have explained further, and perhaps Melviater could not have understood.

        At last Melviater said, “May the gods help you,” although wizards were not known for their reverence of the gods. Leaning heavily on her attendant, she departed.

        As soon as Semira made it to her room in the palace, she collapsed into bed. The very emptiness of her sleep was worse than nightmares. What Aniver had endured must have been even worse. Perhaps he would tell her someday, if she asked. If he ever woke to be asked about it. If the Queen was not jealous and his exhausted frame too weak. If he didn’t carry those secrets back to their source.

* * *

        She went to his room as dawn grayed Simrandu’s hills. She knew he wouldn’t be awake yet—he’d taken a longer journey than the sun had this past night. But when he did awaken, she wanted to be near him.

        She wasn’t the only one. An older man, pale and a little stocky, sat beside the bed. As she drew near, Semira saw his fine fingers pleating the coverlet draping Aniver’s body.

        The attendants last night had undressed Aniver, bathed him, and left a tall carafe of water on the side table. There was also a small vial, no doubt from Simrandu’s physician.

        “How is he?” she asked the stranger.

        He didn’t startle, though she hadn’t thought he’d noticed her entrance. “Feverish.” He nodded to the vial. “Two drops in a full glass of water, when he wakes.”

        “Thank you.”

        “I’m Endreidon.”

        “Semira.”

        They shook hands, and he stood. “You needn’t go,” she said.

        “No, it’s all right. I’m sure he’d rather see you, if—when—he wakes.”

        That was near enough her own thoughts that she didn’t argue. Friendship counted for something, even on the borderlands of the dead. They had staked so much on that.

        Semira took Endreidon’s place. She watched Aniver’s narrow chest rise and fall, mopped the sweat from his forehead and collarbone. She dampened another cloth and moistened his lips.

        He might falter, but she remained. It was her quest now as much as his. Together they’d braved half the curses of the world. Alone, she had faced Arisbat. Alone, he had faced Kahzakutri.

        And from here—?

        It was not a question she could answer by herself.

        Aniver did not awaken that day, or the next.

* * *

        It was tempting, so temping, to just lie there and die. To slip away into the current pulling him, to flare to ash in the conflagration. To return to the hollow land he’d not quite managed to fight his way back from.

        It would be easier.

        At least there would be something left of him.

        The dead did not rest, not truly; to rest required living flesh, muscles to know the ache of exertion and to recognize resting’s ease; a mortal brain to fall quiet, to dance with dreams. Knowing that death would not relieve his exhaustion made Aniver a little more interested in living. But there remained the fact that if he lived much longer, in the sort of fashion he led...

        Kahzakutri was right. He was in danger of unmaking himself, of unweaving his very soul.

        Already he had only fragments left, held together by the will to bring Nurathaipolis back. The very grief which had spurred that resolution was gone now. So much was gone. If he was to resurrect a city—that would take more power than he contained.

        Which wouldn’t, on its own, stop him. Aniver was no longer intimidated by the impossible.

        If it was possible, though—the price of making it possible, that frightened him. Wizards valued their souls as much as anyone else.

        Among the frantic paths trod by a fever-driven mind, he found another: the straight track of a realization. If the dead could no longer lose their souls, they could no longer win them either. Could no longer have the experiences, emotions, beliefs, and hopes that shaped a person’s essence, changed them, grew them into something greater and more intricate and vaster, vaster with every day of life. If he died now, he would forever be as he was: stunted; more than that, maimed.

        So it was decided.

        Unfortunately, living proved to be a matter more complicated than simply resolving to. Consciousness slipped; became a half-thing, a twilight where each breath felt like swimming to the surface from the bottom of a well. Hot and cold wracked him in turns, and through it all, weakness like a weight threatened to draw him down through the cushions. He couldn’t summon the strength to throw his gauzy blanket off or to draw it closer as he shivered. The gauze abraded his skin. Ice trickled across his lips, sweat, and then something cleaner.

* * *

        “He forces no one but himself to undertake these risks,” Semira told Endreidon.

        “But why do you undertake them?”

        “Because...” She wet the cloth in the cup and wrung the medicinal water over his lips. “Isn’t it worth it? To save the cities from oblivion?” And what of those still sleeping in them? She almost asked the question that had haunted her since coming to Simrandu, the question that none of the exiles seemed willing to face. Not, she thought, out of callousness. Which was why she hadn’t asked—she didn’t want to inflict that pain, reopen those wounds.

        “If they can be saved.” Endreidon looked down at Aniver’s gray face and reached for a cloth to mop away the sweat already dewing again. “I’m not certain it’s worth this.”

        “What?”

        The two of them jumped as if the walls had spoken.

        Aniver sipped more of the water Semira had left for him, and said in a somewhat clearer voice, “Worth what?”

        “You,” Endreidon said, straightforward with shock.

        Aniver blinked up at him. His gaze hardened more than it cleared. “Do you believe I’m worth more than all of Nurathaipolis?”

        “I think,” Endreidon said, “that you’re a surer thing.”

        Aniver laughed, even though he had no strength for it and could only produce a hoarse rasp like the growl of a prowling beast. Semira grasped his shoulder, trying to soothe him. She’d rarely touched his bare skin before, and today it was pale and glossy as marble and hot and moist as steam. She flinched away—but not as far as Endreidon did.

        Aniver sat up, looking around him. His chuckle died off. “Thank you for your... care of me,” he said at last. “Whatever your thoughts on my value.”

        “What are your thoughts on your value?” Endreidon asked.

        “Kahzakutri,” Aniver said, “is very upset with me. I’ve come to know Her... too well. We’re much alike.”

        “No,” Semira said.

        “At the least, we both know what it’s like to lie dying. It offers an interesting perspective.” He turned back to Endreidon. “If you want to remember me as a sure and certain thing, then leave now.”

        Without hesitation, Endreidon went to his feet.

        “Thank you,” Aniver said. Then—”Did you play for me while I was asleep?”

        “No.” He flushed. “I didn’t think to.”

        “I wish you had.” Aniver drew the blanket up higher. “I think I lost your music while I was... away. I’m sorry. I expended a number of things that I hadn’t intended to. It took more... and I had less left than I realized. I’m sorry—” But before he finished speaking, Endreidon had fled.

        “So was it worth it, to get to know the Queen better?” Semira asked.

        “Probably wise of me to scout the territory ahead first.”

        “And what’s it like?”

        “Harder,” he said, “than telling Endreidon my magic devoured his music. Just barely.” He was so exhausted his tone was leached even of dryness.

        He’d been lying half-dead for three days, summoning the wrath of the Queen of the Dead, expending pieces of his soul without realizing it; without ever intending to.

        Semira swallowed.

        “Will it be worse than Arisbat?” she asked.

        Objectively, Arisbat had been nothing. A library, haunted by sourceless fear. That was its trick. Aniver, in extremity, terrified for no reason, had left her.

        But she no longer sought the return of Nurathaipolis only for his sake, if she ever had.

        For what it was worth, he had returned then. And again, just now.

        “I came through all right,” Semira said, answering her own question.

        Aniver smiled weakly. “You could turn back.”

        “And let you go on alone?”

        “I could turn back.” His smile vanished. “Settle here with the rest of the exiles. Learn to live with my losses. Content myself with what is... certain.”

        “Listen to music again.”

        “Perhaps.”

        “Or,” Semira said, “I could go on without you.”

        “You aren’t a wizard.”

        “Neither was Kahzakutri, until the end.” Until the sheer horror of death had transformed Her. Until She had remade Herself in desperation—not to save Herself; She was beyond that. But to become more than a victim of Fate.

        After Arisbat, Aniver had said that Semira had the makings of a wizard. Insofar as wizards could be made.

        At the beginning of this journey she’d fancied making herself a hero. That fancy had been lost somewhere along the way. But she still felt loyal to the idea of it.

        “You’re not even Nurathaipolean!” he said.

        “And you and Endreidon and Melviater are. Does that count for something?”

        He sighed. And smiled again, but even more faintly than the first. “You think we should go on, then?”

        “You’re deferring to my judgment?”

        “Perhaps I lost my wisdom along the way...”

        Or his strength, his courage, or any number of the things Semira had lately felt quite strained in herself. But she met his gaze. Almost clear now. Trusting.

        “I think,” she said, “that once we’ve come so far, it’s a waste of time to worry about how much we’ve already lost.”

        “You may be right,” he said. He reached for her hand, and she grasped his. Clammy but no longer feverish, and above that, healing scars.

        “I still have you,” he observed.

        “Are you surprised to?”

        “I would have been, once.”

        “You should rest,” she said. “Get well.”

        “I will.”

        He did, after that. Quite quickly in fact. In a few days more he was on his feet and walking the halls of Simrandu again. Semira went with him so he could grasp her arm if he needed support. He made two brief visits alone—one with Melviater, one with Endreidon.

        He never told her what happened in either of them. He was slightly more communicative about his conversation with Kahzakutri.

        “A dying woman,” Semira mused. “And you were—dying. You think you understand Her, then, based on that?”

        “I think She can be convinced,” Aniver said. He added quietly, “After all, it’s no cost to Her to bring the Polean Cities back.”

        “And She is a wizard,” Semira said tartly. “Always thinking of costs.”

        He grinned at her. It was his first grin since he had awoken from the Kingdom of the Dead, though his smiles had been rare even before that.

        The next day, they left Nurathaipolis-in-Exile, heading for the Western edge of the world.

Copyright © 2015 Therese Arkenberg

Read Comments on this Story on the BCS Website

Therese Arkenberg writes and runs a freelance editing business from her home in Wisconsin. Her fiction has recently appeared in Analog, Daily Science Fiction, and a forthcoming issue of Ares Magazine, and multiple times previously in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, including a story featuring these same characters. She blogs sporadically at ThereseArkenberg.com.

Read more Beneath Ceaseless Skies

DAY OF THE DRAGONFLY

by Raphael Ordoñez

        The nighted street was a canyon of carved brownstone. It was raining.

        A young man pushed his way to the sidewalk counter and ordered a dish. The cook, a shaved ghul, began tossing sea vegetables and trilobites on the griddle. Pedestrians strode through the rain and steam beyond the circle of white light. A train rattled past on the elevated line.

        Rainwater dripped on the young man’s back. He slid forward to get further under the awning. Though of normal height, he was a pygmy next to the phylites around him. He had golden skin and golden hair and eyes like twin jades. His hands were strong and clever.

        A girl squeezed in beside him, spraying him with droplets from her poncho.

        “A sea-milk,” she said. Her voice was both girlish and peremptory. The man-beast paused to pour her a drink. She put a pin in its hand.

        “I’m looking for Keftu,” she said lowly, twirling her glass.

        The young man turned to stare at her. She was smaller than he was, with bones that looked as though they might break at a touch. Her brown hair was drawn back in a coiled braid with a white lace bow. He judged her perhaps eighteen.

        The ghul finished the plate and set it before him. He dropped a rod in the box. “Why do you want him?”

        “Someone told me he knows the Dragonfly.”

        “Who told you?” He began eating.

        “The old woman who runs the antique mart.”

        “Who sent you to her?”

        “The man who raises maugrethim for the pit fights.”

        He tapped his plate with his fork. “You’ve been plumbing the depths of Enoch tonight.”

        “How do you know I did all that tonight?”

        “I’d have heard about it otherwise.”

        “Well? Do you know him or don’t you?”

        “One rod.”

        She slid the dramach down the counter. With his fork he moved it under the rim of his plate. “I’m Keftu.”

        “I thought as much!” she spat. “How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

        He shrugged without looking up from his eating.

        “So? Where do I find the Dragonfly?”

        “One rod.”

        She grabbed his arm. “Listen, shorty. I only have so many of those. You got your money. Now tell me where to find him.”

        He looked at her. “Why do you need him?”

        “That’s not your concern.”

        “Fair enough. But the Dragonfly’s busy. If he didn’t hide out, people would be after him all the time. He likes to make sure they’re serious before they come bothering him. What I’m asking for is earnest money.”

        She clapped the rod on the bar. He moved it beside its mate. “Follow this street to its end. Building on the left. Third story. He’ll be expecting you tomorrow morning.”

        Without another word she got up, leaving her sea-milk untasted. He waited a moment, then slipped off his stool and went after her. For a while she just drifted along with the crowds. He kept about half a block behind.

        There was an incessant commotion of mechanical hisses and screeches and groans, tramping feet, and recorded noises blaring from countless sources, but no one spoke. The downpour went on unabated. The storm drains were cataracts, carrying the water to the nearby sea. Keftu ducked his head down and thrust his arms in his tunic.

        Suddenly he realized he could no longer see her. He shouldered his way to where he’d last spotted her. An alley opened on the right. He ran down to the back street and looked out.

        The railway and crowds had been left behind. He was in an uninhabited district where the windows were like skulls’ empty eyes. The narrow streets were quiet rivers of ink.

        Something clattered. He dashed silently after it. He was just in time to see the girl going up the steps of an abandoned building. A moment later an oil lamp lit up one of the windows. The girl’s silhouette was thrown against the grimy glass. She seemed to be alone.

        The rain had slowed down. The wet street was a mirror of the sky, a river of corpse-light.

* * *

        It was morning. Keftu stepped out of the steam lift. Sea air drifted in through the open window. Brown cliffs fell sheer from the tower’s foot to the crashing surf. Farther out, big black rocks waded in the green, glassy sea, wet with salt spray.

        The building was one of a continuous chain that ran along the cliffs. Such was Enoch, the world-city, the coast-long downtown that surrounded the sea on three sides like a giant omega. But here on Lesser Panormus, the peninsula that reached like a hand from the northern coast, this arrangement was inverted, and the ocean-girding city enclosed land instead.

        He unlocked his door and went inside. The walls were veneered with soapstone carved into square spirals and hung with relics. He opened a window and sat in his chair.

        There was motion in the adjoining room, whose outer door he always kept unlocked. “You can come in,” he called.

        The girl thrust her head through. She gasped. “You—you maugreth!”

        “Surprised?”

        “You said the Dragonfly would meet me here!”

        “He has. I am the Dragonfly.”

        “You’re lying. Why, if someone like you could help me, I’d have gotten help already, with a lot less trouble.”

        He shrugged. “You can take me or leave me. But perhaps you’ve had a description. That’s my armor over there.” He jerked his head toward a corner.

        The panoply hung on a tree—cuirass, arm guards, greaves, helmet, all of bronze, green with eld, partially burnished by blows. A dragonfly stood out on the breastplate. Moss forests flourished on the arm guards and greaves.

        “He died, most likely,” the girl said, “and you robbed his corpse. Or stole it outright from his house. You have the look of an undernourished footpad.”

        Keftu laughed. “You don’t look so well-fed yourself, at least next to phylites. Well, just as a matter of form, perhaps you’ll sit down and tell me what your trouble is...?”

        “Yanesa,” she said, sinking reluctantly into a chair. “People call me Yani.” She leaned forward, and said in a low, urgent voice: “I come from the City of Anadogra. I am the archon’s daughter of the House of Zim.”

        “Never heard of it.”

        “It’s in the inner city, not more than a hundred miles from here.”

        “How could it be surrounded by the city and I’ve never heard of it?”

        “Haven’t lived in Enoch long, have you?” she said. “Wait. It’s just dawned on me.” Her eyes narrowed. “Where are you from?”

        He leaned back. “Arras.”

        “Arras. I’ve heard of that. Some old story. A place in the desert.” She shook her head. “You mean to say you’re an autochthon?” She frowned.

        “We didn’t consider ourselves such. Anyway, I’m the last of them. I was the phylarch’s son, though, so perhaps even the archon’s daughter of the House of—what was it you said your House was?”

        “Zim. Of the City of Anadogra.”

        “Perhaps even the archon’s daughter of the House of Zim of the City of Anadogra might deign to take up with me without fear of sullying her hands. How large is Anadogra, by the way? Its population, I mean.”

        “Well, there’s us—me, and my father the archon, and my older sister, the heir—and the free oikoi and thralls. Perhaps fifty all told. Our traditions tell us that we dwell in the garden of man’s infancy, and that all men are our children, all lands our colonies.”

        “Uh-huh. So what’s the trouble?”

        “A year ago a worm descended out of the sky. We’d never seen anything like it. It ravaged the fruit-fields and patties.”

        “Rather selectively, I imagine,” said Keftu.

        “Yes. How did you know that?”

        “It wants something. The worms of Anûn don’t go in for wanton destruction. It’s just trying to make its point. Which is what?”

        “I don’t—”

        “What does the worm want?”

        “Oh. My sister. It wants to devour her. My father is to chain her to a rock the day after tomorrow. Once the worm has her it will leave us in peace.”

        “Want my advice?”

        “That’s why I came, isn’t it?”

        “Let it have her. Better for you, better for everyone else. Not so good for your sister. But you’ll recover.”

        Yani’s face turned white. She got up. “That will be all, thank you. Perhaps it wouldn’t occur to you that I love my sister.”

        “Wait,” said Keftu, also rising. “Someone needed to put the thought in your head. It’d be no good to me to have it suddenly occur to you after I’ve stuck my neck out.”

        “Then you will help me?”

        “That depends.”

        She sat down again and opened her reticule. “I can afford two good meals a day as long as you’re in my employ, and a room to sleep in tonight.”

        “Yes?”

        “Will that do?”

        He laughed. “I’m waiting for you to get around to the reward.”

        “Reward? Didn’t I already—? Why, how foolish of me. The reward is the hand of my sister. The one who saves her will become the royal consort. Here.” She drew a cameo from her reticule and handed it over.

        Keftu took it. He could see the resemblance between Yani and her sister. But where Yani’s face was thin and shrewd, her eyes narrow and haughty, the sister’s face was open and finely sculpted and full of light.

        “She’s beautiful,” Keftu said. He looked up. “I’ll do it.”

* * *

        They had the compartment to themselves. Keftu wore his armor openly in the sparsely populated inlands. A compact case was bound to his back by leather bands, and a sword hung at his side. Yani sat across from him, wrapped in a white shawl. There was hardly anyone else on the train. Keftu was watching the bleak landscape fly past.

        The city’s conquest had been incomplete. Towers were crowded right up to the edge of the winding coastline at every point. The fingers that divided inlet from inlet were overbuilt, and the isthmus itself was a maze of streets and towers undercut by shipping tunnels. But the interior, the palm of the outstretched hand, was a desolation of volcanoes and pumice deserts and industrial wastelands surrounded on all sides by the winding metropolis.

        Now the inland districts were falling into ruin. Many had been isolated by the slow ebb of the population. Strange tales were whispered of them. And there were dark corners left as they had been since the Elder Ages, cut off by the encircling city, with old wild things still hiding in them.

        “You called it a worm of Anûn,” the girl said suddenly.

        “Did I?”

        “What did you mean by that? Did it really come from the moon?”

        “Most likely. I don’t know for certain. But worms gnaw at the heart of Anûn. Sometimes they descend to Earth. So the old stories say.”

        “What are they?”

        “They’re said to be neither living nor nonliving, but something else altogether. They were formed by gods before man was a dream, to serve as vehicles and fell weapons. They repose in seminal form deep within the Earth and beneath the face of Anûn. From time to time one comes to maturity.”

        “Why would it want my sister?”

        “Who can say? Perhaps it just wants to make Anadogra bend. They hate anything ancient and ordered.”

        “Will you be able to kill it?”

        “Haven’t you heard what I’ve said? It’s not alive. But I’ll do what I can.”

        “You’re probably making half of that up,” Yani said. “A shiftless, undersized autochthon. And I take up with him.” She shook her head. “But I’ll be rid of you soon enough.”

        The train was rattling across a plain of dun earth dotted with sagging buildings. Here and there stands of gray nimlath trunks pointed into the pale sky like warnings. Away to the northeast a single cone towered above a cluster of smaller peaks.

        The tracks passed into an industrial district, a wilderness of warehouses. Yani pulled the chain. There was a hiss of brakes. The line of cars slowed as it crossed a drainage channel and came to a stop at a platform.

        They were the only ones to get off there. The train moved off and vanished around a curve. A gate clanked in the breeze. The place was deserted.

        “Looks promising,” said Keftu.

        Yani led the way to the main road, which pointed northeastward. It was like a ravine with walls of concrete and rusted metal. Long-abandoned tracks ran beside it.

        They hadn’t gone far when they encountered a maugreth, with the scaly, bristly skin, skinny legs, and long claws of its kind. It bared its ophidian teeth. Keftu brandished his sword at it, and it vanished into an alley.

        The district went on for miles, gradually dropping. At last they approached a gorge that cut across their path. The road bridge was gone and the truss bridge sagged dangerously. “What now?” Keftu asked. “Did you cross that?”

        “I think I came a different way.”

        “But you’re not sure?”

        “I’m fairly sure.”

        “Are we going the right way now?”

        “Oh, yes. I know where we are, more or less.”

        There was an old aqueduct to the south. Keftu pointed with his sword. “We’ll cross that.”

        Someone whistled. They both turned. Three gaunt scavengers emerged from a warehouse and stood in the middle of the road. One was wearing a travesty of a dress and had a savagely rouged face. The other two had armor pieced together from scraps.

        “Nah. Nah. Nuh-uh,” said one of the latter, apparently the leader. “You just turn round and go back on out where you came from.” He leered, revealing rotten teeth. His arms were covered with sores.

        Keftu guided Yani into a warehouse on the left. The scavengers jeered at him from the street.

        “What? Are you afraid of them?” Yani whispered.

        He ignored her, exploring the building. It had a concrete floor and metal walls; chains dangled from the darkness above. He searched the back but couldn’t find a way through, so he returned to the street. Yani stood in the doorway behind him.

        The men were still there. “Nah,” the leader said. “Nuh-uh. You’re still going the wrong way.” Now he had a pole topped with a saw-blade in his hands. “Have your whore beg for your life, and maybe we won’t kill you too slow.”

        “I’m an archon’s daughter, not a whore,” Yani said haughtily. “And I’ll have you know that you’d be doing me a favor. This is just a worthless autochthon who’s following me about.”

        The scavengers roared with laughter. Keftu set his hand on his hilt. Tinges of bronze-green forked along his tawny limbs. The leader swung back his weapon. Keftu leaped forward and clove the man’s skull from crown to chaps. The other two dropped their arms and ran.

        “Come on,” he said. The green was already fading from his limbs. He went into the next warehouse. At the back was a little room that stank of urine. The door was chained but there was a window beside it.

        He turned. Yani hadn’t followed him. He went back out to the road. She was just standing there, staring at the body, which was already being worried by a maugreth. “Are you coming or aren’t you?”

        She started and looked up at him. “I’ve never seen anything like that!”

        “Well, it has to be done sometimes.”

        “No, I mean the way you killed him! Down to his throat in one blow!”

        “Right. Let’s get out of here, before his friends come back for his body. They won’t let that meat go to waste without a fight.”

        She followed him into the warehouse. “It must be that armor,” she said. “You stole the Dragonfly’s armor, and now it lends you his strength. What a thief you are!”

        Keftu took up a brick and smashed the window. He cleaned out the shards and climbed through. “Come on,” he said, holding out his arms.

        She came and swung herself through on her own, pushing him aside. She winced when she landed and looked at her hand. A streak of blood was smeared across her palm.

        “That was foolish,” Keftu said. “Here, let me see.”

        “It’s fine,” she said. “Let’s just go.”

        Keftu led the way along the top of the drainage channel. When a pile of rubbish blocked their path they slid down the concrete embankment. A ribbon of moisture ran down the center, orange and slippery. They followed it to the aqueduct.

        It was an ancient structure, built of big blocks of stone. They walked along the edge of the trough. The floor of the gorge was hidden in shadow, but flickering lights shone through bleary windows clustered like spiders’ eyes. Clouds of foul steam wreathed the buildings.

        They reached the far side. The channel turned south to follow the gorge. They climbed a slope of weedy scree and regained the road. They were in a tenement district now, the old workers’ city. Side streets branched off in every direction, but the main road continued as before.

        They’d gone a mile or two when something made Keftu turn. They were being stalked by a pack of maugrethim. “There,” said Yani. “Opponents more to your liking. You probably ate vermin like that in the desert.”

        Keftu rushed them, but to no effect.

        “Or perhaps not,” Yani called. “No wonder your people went extinct.”

        Keftu drew his sword and approached more slowly. The leader yowled and leaped at his throat. He cut it down, then fell on the others. One he beheaded and another he rove through the vitals. The rest fled. He wiped his sword and returned to Yani.

        “Say what you like about me,” he said. “Leave Arras out of it.”

        “I’m sorry,” she said, taken aback. Keftu strode past her, and she fell in behind him.

        The road was winding amongst the knees of the peak now. Buildings climbed the gray slopes. Abandoned tram lines ran up to old mines. The neighborhood narrowed as they climbed to a saddle. They crested the rise and looked out.

        The broad basin beyond was the seat of what had once been a richer district, with small tenements of brown-black basalt and glittering glass. An old lava flow had inundated half of it. The twin campaniles of a buried temple stood out of the rippled gray stone that ran up to the snow-capped cone. Other buildings lower down appeared to wade in it.

        “Now I know where I am,” Yani said. “We’re close to the Guardian’s gate.”

        Gongs began to reverberate in the temple. A litany that was somewhere between a chant and a moan insinuated itself through the exposed arches. Votaries started emerging like swarming ants, some weeping, some laughing ecstatically. They were a blend of phylite and helot and ghul with the helot predominating, pallid and pink-eyed.

        They formed a procession with a youth on a starved cheboth at their head. He was crowned with a wreath and held a scouring rush in his hand. They went along the lava ripples to a road that crested a sharp ridge thrown out by the cone.

        Evening was falling. Keftu led the way down amongst the buildings. An effigy sat at the first intersection like a warning. It was made of coarse black sacking, with long, ropelike arms and legs; it had two yellow buttons for eyes and maugreth fangs for teeth. They continued past it.

        The first inhabited tower was a hotel. “What do you say to that?” Keftu asked.

        “It’ll do, I suppose. This neighborhood has a bad reputation.”

        “You don’t say.”

        He held the door for her and followed her inside. A helot sat behind the counter at the far end with his hands folded across his soft belly. His placid, froglike eyes hardly shifted as Yani approached.

        “Two rooms,” Yani said.

        “Nine rods,” the helot replied.

        Yani opened her reticule in consternation. She blushed. “Well, I—”

        “One room will do,” Keftu said.

        She looked up at him and turned bright red. “Listen to me, you—”

        “What are you afraid of? You can trust me. If you can’t, well, you’re at my mercy anyhow, aren’t you? Just pay the man, and let’s get something to eat.”

        “Fine. One room.”

        “Five rods,” the helot said.

        “But you just said—”

        “That was with the discount.”

        Keftu leaned across the desk. “Four rods. That’s our final offer.”

        The helot shrugged. “Have it your way. Room three two one.” He took the payment and handed over a key.

* * *

        Dinner was unsettling. The nearby saloon was dark and crowded. They were the subject of evident curiosity. The host overcharged them for the meal, but it didn’t seem the place to protest.

        Afterward they returned to the room. It was at a corner of the building. A dusty mattress sat in an iron frame with each leg in a bowl. A washstand with a porcelain basin and pitcher stood beside it.

        Keftu slid one window open and looked out. There was a ledge below the sill. Another building stood across an alley. It had a fire chute. He went over to the other window, which gave upon the main road, and opened it wide.

        “What are you doing?” Yani asked.

        “Looking around. You may as well fill those bowls. That way we won’t have any visitors in the night.”

        She did as he’d said. He beat the mattress, then laid his sword lengthwise down the middle. They got in and sat side by side with the blade between them.

        “The House of Zim of the City of Anadogra isn’t exactly wealthy, is it?” said Keftu. “One of these fine old branches whose riches are in their blood.”

        “We’re rich beyond what any autochthon could imagine,” Yani said.

        “Then why are we staying here? Where’s your retinue?”

        She shrugged in the darkness.

        “You weren’t sent by your father, were you? Is that reward something you just made up to get me here?”

        “No!” she said. “It’s all true. My father proclaimed it. Only—”

        “Yes?”

        “Well, he forbade me to go out any more, after the last one died.”

        “So I’m not the first.”

        “No.”

        “That’s fine. I just like to know where I stand. Here, let me see it again.”

        Yani got the cameo out of her bag and handed it over. Keftu held it close to his eyes, so that he could see it in the near-darkness. “She really looks like this?”

        “No,” said Yani. “She’s lovelier by far. She can be kind and merry like a country maid, beautiful and terrible like a star goddess. My people worship her very slippers.”

        “And you do too?”

        “She’s everything to me. You’ll understand when you see her.”

        “What’s her name? I haven’t even asked you her name.”

        “Her name,” she said, “is Yolara. But I call her Yoli.”

        “Yolara. And your father?”

        “He is the Lord Baslark.”

        A floorboard creaked in the hall. “What was that?” Yani whispered.

        “Come with me,” Keftu said. “Make no noise.” They rolled off the mattress as quietly as they could. Keftu gestured to the side window with his sword. Yani slid it open and climbed out to the ledge, where she clung to the wall. He followed her, sliding the window down so that it was almost closed.

        There was a rap on the door. Silence. Then a crash and a guttural roar, a sound of shattering wood and plaster, a tinkling of porcelain breaking into shards and being trodden underfoot.

        Before she could protest Keftu took Yani in his arms and leaped across to the fire chute. He kicked in the window and stepped inside. By ill luck the manager caught sight of him. “There!” he shouted, pointing.

        Keftu set Yani down. He broke through the door and led the way to the stairs. At the foot of the first flight the floorboards gave way. He crashed through another story before he reached the ground floor in a heap of dust and splinters.

        Yani made her way down without mishap. She touched him. “Are you all right?”

        “I think so.” He looked up. Yani followed his gaze. Heavy footsteps sounded above.

        “I told you this place has a bad reputation,” she said.

        “Then why in blazes did you bring us here?”

        “It’s the quickest way to Anadogra. But every way has its own difficulties.”

        “What could they be looking for? They know we don’t have any money.”

        “I don’t know.”

        “Well, come on,” he said.

        They made their way to a back door that gave upon another alley.

        It was quite dark now and beginning to drizzle. Threading the narrow byways, they soon found themselves in a dead end with brick walls all around. There was a narrow wooden door to one side. Keftu threw himself against it three times before he realized that it was unlocked. He lifted the latch and went through, with Yani holding onto his cuirass.

        It was too dark to see anything. Keftu groped his way across a few rooms into a long corridor. They rounded a corner. A glass double door stood at the end of the next reach. They went out and found that they had regained the road. The saloon was directly opposite.

        A group of helots was gathered there. Keftu nodded to them. The girl clung to his back.

        All at once the men rushed him. He drew his sword but they were on him before he could bring it down. Their numbers bore him down. Yani was torn from him. He began to lash out with his fists. The helots went mad. His head exploded with pain as they pummeled him with clubs and mallets.

        Soon he was down on the ground, trying to shield himself from their kicks. Blood streamed from his nose and mouth.

        Mad with fury, they began assaulting one another as well. Someone—Yani—shouted for them to stop. She began to scream. Her voice sounded as though it was coming down a long tunnel.

* * *

        When he came to he wasn’t sure how long he’d been out. He was on the floor of a dark storeroom, probably at the back of the saloon. An argument was going on outside the door.

        He dragged himself over to listen. “...only one way to do it,” someone was saying. “All our knives out at once. Even if he is awake, he can’t get more than one or two of us, if any. The sooner the better.”

        “I’ll have no part of it. You fellows were the ones that threw him in there like that. You deal with the mess you made.”

        “Then you’ll have no part of her,” the first voice replied. “We’ll tell him you wouldn’t help us.”

        “But it’s my place! It’s only fair that I—” He was cut off by a clamor of protests.

        Keftu rolled over to look around the room. Dim light filtered through a window at the top of a pile of barrels and crates. There were cans of kerosene at the bottom. He was still armed—that’s what they were arguing about—but Yani was nowhere to be seen.

        He crawled over to get one of the cans. There was a crowbar leaning in the corner. He got that as well and returned to the door.

        The argument had come to blows. He opened the can and tipped its neck down to the crack under the door. The fuel flowed onto the floor outside. The can was about empty when someone saw the spreading pool. “Hey, look,” he guffawed. “He must be more scared than we thought.”

        Everything got quiet. The owner swore. “That’s not—” There was a scuffling of feet. Keftu threw the can away and brought the bar down on the floor. Sparks flew but didn’t catch. He tried it again. Blue flames licked across the foot of the door and flowed under it. There were shouts and screams out in the saloon now.

        Laughing idiotically, Keftu crawled up the mountain of crates, slid the window open, and wriggled through. He dropped into an alley.

        He got to his feet, using the wall for support, and staggered into the darkness. Soon he was on a lava-ramp between the buildings. He paused every now and then to catch his breath. He got up above the rooftops and struck the path he’d seen the procession on. Now crawling, now staggering, he followed it to the sharp ridge and down into the next valley.

        The moon was shining through tatters of damp cloud. Huge, huddled shapes stood like slouching giants in the drifting light, twisted hillocks rising out of carpets of yellow moss. It was a scrapyard.

        There were furtive noises in the heaps. A shadow flitted from one to another. Something nipped at his calf. His senses swam and he sank to his knees. Sharp fangs began worrying his arm. As he slumped to the sickly turf his only hope was that the maugrethim wouldn’t wake him as they stripped his bones.

        A hunchbacked figure materialized out of the night. With a crutch it began to swing at the beasts, driving them away. Once again Keftu began to laugh madly. He laughed himself asleep.

* * *

        It was day when he opened his eyes. He was lying on a cot in a little room with white paneled walls. The carpet was a faded yellow-green. Through a dirty window he could see towering nimlathim with canopies of black needles. The sky was overcast.

        Someone had taken his armor off and bathed his wounds. He looked around. His things were piled in the corner. He sat up, groaning, and swung his feet down. “Hello?” he called.

        An old man leaned through the door frame. Keftu recognized him from the scrapyard. He was lame and had a twisted back. His hands were thick and clumsy-looking.

        “You hungry, young sir?” he asked.

        “Sure,” said Keftu. “Listen, regarding last night. I—”

        “Say nothing of it. Come on.”

        Keftu got to his feet. His host led him down a hallway into a kitchen. A table sat before a big window. It looked out upon a mossy sward that ran up to a wall of nimlathim. A gravel path led from the house into the wood. Gaunt gray peaks stood over it all.

        “Where am I?” muttered Keftu.

        “Inner City Lapidaries. Providing Enoch with finest quality work for forty-two years.”

        Keftu turned to face his host. “And who—”

        “Elgin is my name. Have a seat.”

        Keftu sat down. Elgin brought over a plate with a few slabs of gray cake and a jar of pickled eggs. He sat down and poured two mugs of tea. “Here,” he said, handing one to Keftu.

        “Thank you.” Keftu scratched the back of his head. “I had some untoward experiences yesterday, so perhaps my head’s not on quite straight. Did I hear you say you’re a lapidary?”

        “That’s right.”

        “You make a living how?”

        “By selling jewelry, naturally. I make it all right here at my shop. Finest quality. I also sell fossils and crystals.”

        “To whom? The helots around here?”

        “No, no, of course not. Collectors from all around the peninsula know my work.”

        “Do you advertise? You’re not exactly in a central location.”

        “You can’t get more central than the inner city, sir. And quality work doesn’t need to be advertised. Anyhow, you know phylites. They love to find out-of-the-way sellers to show off to their friends.” He grinned. He was missing several teeth. “And what brings you to these parts, might I ask? Eh?”

        Keftu scowled at his tea. “Why did I come here?” He leaped to his feet. “Yani! Did you see a girl when you picked me up?”

        “A girl?”

        “A tiny thing, with dark hair in a bun, wearing a white shawl or some such thing.”

        “I didn’t see any girl. But if you came over the ridge there—”

        “Yes? What?”

        “Well, they’re probably going to sacrifice her to the black god.”

        “When? How? In that temple?”

        “No, no. They hold a rite in the temple, then take the victim up the mountain to be devoured by the god.”

        “I need to save her!”

        “You’ll not find her in the temple and get out alive. Best wait until they’re bringing her by. Won’t be until midday at the earliest. Sit down, have some breakfast.” He pushed the plate toward Keftu.

        “Well,” said Keftu, “if you’re absolutely sure...”

        “Sure I’m sure. Have a seat.”

        Keftu sat down. He took a slab and began to eat. “Since you’re feeding me rather than killing me, I presume it’s safe to ask what’s going on around here.”

        “Nothing much to tell. There’s just me and those people over yonder and the temple and the black god.”

        “That’s all?”

        “Yes, sir.”

        “What is this black god? An idol?”

        “Oh, no. Nothing like that. He’s one of the Old Ones, descended out of the deeps of time. Older than some of the fossils I have around here. Say. That reminds me. Do you like fossils?”

        “Well, I—yes, as a matter of fact, I have a professional interest in them—but I don’t—”

        Elgin got up. “Come on,” he said. “I want to show you something.”

        Keftu wiped his lips and pushed back from the table.

        They went into a little shop at the front of the house. Exquisitely made jewelry sat under glass cases. A shelf along the wall held fossils, some of which were beautifully finished. Through the screen door could be seen tables with bins. Beyond them was a sagging shed.

        Elgin showed him all over the shop, discussing the finer points of his craft. Bells and gongs could now be heard ringing through the trees outside. “What’s that?” asked Keftu.

        “That? Oh, that’s the procession up the mountain. They’re taking a victim to the black god.”

        “Now? I thought you said they wait until later in the day!”

        “Well, not always. Now, over here—”

        Keftu rushed past him to the room where he’d spent the night. He hastily donned his armor and girded himself with his sword. Elgin was in the corridor when he came out.

        “Wait a minute, young fellow—” Elgin stammered.

        Keftu stumbled past him and through the shop to the front door. He went bounding across the sward and into the shadow of the trees. Elgin kept calling for him to come back, but Keftu ignored him.

* * *

        He was running uphill. The black pines soughed balefully over his head. He emerged upon the path, at a place the procession had already passed. Cautiously he followed along behind.

        Soon he came out into the open. Above him stretched a rocky hillside clothed in mosses and lichens. It was a cinder cone linked to the larger one by a sheer curtain of basalt columns. The path wove back and forth to a notch in the crater.

        The procession was halfway up, a long line of robed helots, with Yani riding the starved saurian at their head. She wasn’t tied, and Keftu wondered why she didn’t try to escape.

        He went after them, cutting across the switchbacks, keeping under the cover of boulders as much as possible. He blended in well with the vegetation, for the vitality of elder ages coursed along his clean limbs, lent by his ancient panoply. He was close to the tail as it vanished into an archway in the black wall that reached across the notch. With a single bound he leaped to the top.

        The bowl held a lush moss garden, cool and moist and dark, overshadowed by towering pernathim whose pale, scaly stems bifurcated high above into waving white boughs bearing livid leaves. The procession was already invisible amongst the herbaceous pillars.

        Keftu dropped lightly down and dashed along the path, his sandaled feet making no noise on the coarse black sand. As he neared an open place he circled around through the undergrowth.

        A dark pool was cupped in the pit of the basin. The helots stood on the hither shore. Two were poling a raft across to the far side, with Yani standing upright between them. There an altar of black obsidian sat upon a level terrace.

        A tall, thin black figure stood over the altar. It looked to be covered in soft fur. Aside from its small, circular eyes, which were yellow, it had no visible features. It was like something cut out of black velvet. Its form was vaguely manlike, but its narrow head was crowned with two tufts that might have been either ears or hair-covered horns.

        Suddenly the creature spread pinions like sheets of starless night and raised its long arms. The men on the barge shouted and jumped into the water. They splashed back ashore as the rest of the party scattered into the garden with a jingling of many bells. One helot stumbled against Keftu, got up, and ran on.

        The black figure stooped down and lifted Yani from the raft. It set her on the altar and appeared to speak to her.

        With a shout Keftu took two mighty bounds and leaped into the air. He kicked his legs, spreading wide the wings that had been hidden in their case at his back. They were like insect wings, with veins of carved bone and membranes of golden resin, and he drove their gear box with chains linked to his greaves. Like a dragonfly he shot straight over the pool at the black god.

        “What do you think you’re doing?” Yani cried.

        He faltered in his flight. The giant seized him in its black hands—it was like being brushed by a warm night wind—and swung him back around to the other side of the pool. He had just time enough to retract his wings before he passed between the stems. He crashed into a bed of bracken, momentarily stunned.

        Undaunted, he sat up, shook himself, and shot across the pond a second time. He alit on the altar between the girl and the black god. It reared up above him like an eidolon of Night. With a hoarse cry he drove his sword into its chest, but when he pulled the blade back out it was clean.

        “Stop that, you idiot!” Yani cried. “This is one of the Guardians of Anadogra!”

        “What?”

        “It was set to watch over this gate by my ancestors. The people here have apparently taken to worshiping it. But I knew it would recognize one of the House of Zim.”

        “But I—”

        “Get rid of him!” she said to the Guardian. “He’s just an autochthon who’s been following me about. He’ll only make things worse for my sister.”

        The Guardian picked Keftu up, holding his arms firmly against his sides. It drew back and launched him like a javelin. He rocketed through the air, over the pernathim, past the notch, and down the outer slope.

        As the black canopy drew near he kicked his legs and extended his wings. He barely had time to adjust his trajectory. With the touch of the first needles he retracted them again and closed his eyes tight.

        The boughs lashed his limbs. As he slowed he caught hold of a branch and stopped himself. His body swung down until he was dangling above the earth. He released his grip and dropped, landing on his feet in a bed of needles. The lapidary could be seen through the trunks just ahead.

        Elgin came limping up the slope on his crutch. “You rushed off before I could tell you what to do,” he chided.

        “What to do about what?”

        “About the god up yonder. You can’t kill him, young sir, because his heart is kept somewhere else.”

        “Where?”

        “In the temple across the ridge. The one the mountain covered over. They keep the heart in a casket inside. It’s an old tradition. There’s always a lookout posted, to destroy the heart if the god comes looking for it. They hold him hostage, in a manner of speaking, though no one remembers why anymore. Perhaps even the god has forgotten, it’s been so long.”

        “You mean, all I have to do is find this heart, and the god’s life will be in my hands?”

        “Yes, sir.”

        “But why should I bother? Yani is past him by now. I’ll just go around.”

        Elgin laughed and shook his head knowingly. “If you’re wanting to follow her to the inner lands, you’d best take her path. The interior of Panormus is wrinkled, folded you might say, so that it gets bigger than it ought as you go further inside. You could wander a lifetime before finding even a large place, unless you know the way.”

        “Hm. She hinted as much to me yesterday. Perhaps I’ll do what you suggest.”

        “Very good, sir. Come back any time. Inner City Lapidaries.”

* * *

        Several minutes later Keftu was creeping up the rippled stone between the arm of the city and the twin campaniles. The sun was a hazy disk behind the white clouds, and he felt dreadfully exposed against the slope. There was a lookout in one of the towers, but his attention was directed toward the god’s cone, and not at the hillside below.

        Keftu reached the shadow of the tower without being seen. The magma had poured down it and hardened into a funnel of stone, a twisted tube widened by hand and worn smooth by the passage of votaries. He slipped into the darkness of its mouth.

        At the tower’s base the lava gave out. He stepped into the nave of the temple, which was filled with the dim golden glow of votive candles before images in niches. It was a tall, narrow space, suffocatingly hot, and the air was thick with stale incense.

        A low iron fence separated the dais from the floor. The high altar lay beyond. A crystal casket reposed in a house of gold in the high ornate reredos. Beside it a vested priest nodded in a chair. He was a small, hairless man, with plump hands like a baby’s.

        Keftu strode up the nave and leaped over the fence. The priest stirred and awoke. When he saw Keftu his pink eyes opened wide. “What do you want?” he stammered.

        “I’m here for the giant’s heart.”

        “Are you going to kill him?”

        “Not if he’ll do as I wish.”

        “Oh, please don’t kill him. We love him so. Please don’t kill him.”

        “I’ll try not to,” said Keftu. He circled the altar and took the casket from its tabernacle. It was warm to the touch and held a large, black, glistening heart that palpitated spasmodically. It was long and thin and looked to have fewer chambers than a man’s heart.

        “Thank you,” said Keftu. “I’ll bring it back if I can.”

* * *

        It was midday when he reached the pond again. The Guardian was nowhere in sight. There was a pillar with a small gong nearby. He took up the hammer and struck it.

        The black god strode out of the shadows beyond the altar. When it saw Keftu it opened its mouth, which was filled with small white teeth, and spread its wings and lifted its arms menacingly.

        Keftu held up the casket. The Guardian froze. “Let me past or I’ll destroy it,” Keftu said.

        The Guardian seemed to hesitate, then withdrew to the side. It folded its wings and appeared to shrink somewhat.

        With a single bound Keftu leaped across. But as he went past the god it sprang at him. He glimpsed it out of the corner of his eye and spun, holding the casket away, threatening to dash it against the rocks. The Guardian retreated to the altar and crouched there.

        Walking backward, Keftu made his way up the path between the towering stems. As soon as Guardian was out of sight he turned and ran. He reached a tunnel cut through the side of the basin and threw himself down it. It was long and straight. The point of light far ahead grew larger and larger, and at last he was outside.

        An ashy slope fell away before his feet. The few green fronds that grew around the tunnel’s mouth were the only living things he could see. The wrinkled lands rolled away into the distance, dun and gray, touched with pale gold and blue-gray and gray-green and ochre.

        The path was a ribbon winding in and out of the pits and chasms, faint but clear. He pursued it with a passion, black heart in one hand and sword in the other, singing a song of his fathers. There were no signs of Enoch, no warehouses or chimneys, no railways or roads. Works of cyclopean masonry crowned some of the ridges, but all was silent and empty.

        It was evening when he caught up with Yani. She was traversing a long valley with sloping walls of igneous scree that fell from basalt curtains high above. He sprang silently into the air and flew past her to wait at some clustered obelisks of white quartz.

        She must already have seen him, for she wasn’t surprised when he hailed her. “Haven’t had enough? How did you get past the Guardian?”

        “Simple. I reasoned with it.”

        “You reasoned with it. What a liar you are. What did you do? Wait till it was napping, and sneak past like a thief?”

        In reply he held up the heart.

        Her jaw dropped. “You didn’t.”

        “I did.”

        Her eyes narrowed. “Why didn’t you kill it?”

        “I thought it might be better for Anadogra if I didn’t.”

        She shrugged. “It doesn’t really matter. No one even knew before now that the Guardians still watch some of the ways. It’s been chiliads since Enoch posed any real threat. You could even have let it go, if you’d wanted to.”

        “I wonder. Perhaps I’ll try it later. For now my way lies with you.”

        She sighed. “On we go, then. We won’t get much farther tonight. We’re a bit behind schedule, and it’s not safe to wander out here in the dark. We’ll find a cave to shelter in.”

        They made their way over a land of ash-hills and entered a chasm. A clear stream ran down it, and they drank their fill. After a few turns they came to a sand hill that spilled out of a high wind cave. They struggled up to it and sat on a ledge at the back.

        Yani opened her reticule and drew out a couple of wafers. “I only have two,” she said. “Do you want one?”

        “You can have them.”

        “One is plenty. They’re filling. Here, take it.”

        They ate in silence. The wafer was dense, sweet, and refreshing. It grew dark outside. Keftu took off his armor.

        “I’m sorry I said that about your people being extinct,” Yani said.

        “It’s all right.”

        “No, it’s not. I’ve misjudged you. You’re not a liar or a thief.”

        “Thank you.”

        “I’ll be very sad if you die tomorrow.”

        “How many have gone before? I’m just curious.”

        “Five. Two died. Three ran away.”

        “And you found them all yourself?”

        “It’s all I’ve done since the coming of the worm.” She was silent a moment. “Do you miss your people?”

        “Yes.”

        “What happened to them?”

        “They were poisoned. I was on my Walking. I’d just come of age. When I returned they were all dead. So I came to Enoch.”

        “This is very wicked, but sometimes I’ve wished my people would all die, and leave me free to wander the world.”

        “You wouldn’t say that if it really happened.”

        “No, I know. Well, if you’re victorious tomorrow, you’ll have a place to call home.”

        “We shall see.”

        Yani shifted in the darkness. “This is a solemn occasion, you know,” she said. “There’s to be a rite. My sister has rehearsed for weeks. It’s not often that ceremony intersects with real life.”

        “What are you getting at?”

        “Well, the last champion who died made something of a scene when the worm got him. It didn’t really matter, because it wasn’t the time of the sacrifice. But I’d hate for something like that to spoil my sister’s day.”

        “I’ll do my best to die with dignity,” he said.

        She squeezed his hand in the darkness. “Thanks.”

        “But I hope it won’t be necessary.”

        “Oh, I hope so, too.” She squeezed his hand again. “You looked quite ridiculous when the Guardian threw you over the rim.”

        “Yes, I suppose I did.”

        She shivered. “I’m cold. Are you cold?”

        “No. Come here.”

        She snuggled up close to him, and he wrapped his arm around her thin shoulders. She laid her face close to his chest, so that the crown of her head rubbed his jaw. Her hair smelled of sweat and faded perfume.

        “I can hear your heart beating,” she said.

* * *

        They reached Anadogra when it was still dark the next morning. “We’ll wait here,” Yani whispered as they came to the brink of a spur.

        The wind from the west was cold and dry, but every so often an eastern breeze smote their faces, sweet and wet and laden with the scent of growing things.

        A line of distant rock teeth stood against shimmering silver now. Dawn crept across the dome of the sky. Rose touched its rim.

        They stood above a deep caldera with walls of glittering black. A green carpet filled the basin, a grid of horsetail patties, with an island like a ship of stone at the center, crowned with a crystal palace. Here and there great amethysts stood in the water, and the lines between the fields radiated from them or swept around them in concentric circles. A bridge led straight from the base of the cliffs to the palace.

        “My people should be coming out. I don’t understand,” Yani said. She gasped. “They’ve already come! Look!”

        It was true. A slim figure was dangling from manacles on the largest crystal, which stood midway to the palace. The bridge was empty. The people must have come while they were waiting there in the darkness, mournfully, silently, without candles or lanterns, and returned immediately.

        They looked up. A thread of black lay against the sky, spiraling ever lower. They could hear cries from the palace now.

        “Do your people know how to make Calemishian fire?” Keftu asked.

        “I’ve never heard of it.”

        “It’s something that was used in sea battles. Your wise men may know of it. Find out, and if so have them make it.”

        “I will,” she said.

        He handed her the heart in its casket, then leaped off the cliff. He followed the line of the bridge, mounting ever higher.

        The worm was a long, lithe creature with six jointed wings, three on each side, each ending in an outspread purple fan. It had no legs, but its body was lined with black claws. Level sunbeams smote Keftu as he shot toward it. A shout went up from the palace.

        He was above the worm now. It was descending upon its prey and still hadn’t seen him. Yolara awaited it with dignity. Keftu held his arms against his body and dove. At the last moment he lifted his sword and slashed, shearing one wing off at the joint. The monster whistled and dropped.

        He swung up and out, just over the bridge, and saluted the archon’s daughter. She wore a dress of white silk. Her thick red hair streamed in the wind. He caught a glimpse of Yani running toward the city and then had to face the worm.

        It came at him, hobbled now, but swiftly for all that. He avoided a jab of its pronged tail and caught hold of it. Swinging at its end, he retracted his wings and pulled himself along the worm’s body. It tried to throw him off, but he clung tenaciously to its carapace. He shore off a second wing and worked his way forward.

        The chitinous spinners that lined the beast’s back whirled with angry glee. As a wing flexed and stretched he slashed at it, tearing the membrane. Now the worm began to drop. He hacked at a fourth wing. The creature managed to curl its tail around him. It latched its claws on his armor and tore him off.

        The air rushed past as he fell. He extended his wings, but the wind snapped them. The pinion he’d shorn off the worm was fluttering down just beneath him. He snatched at it with both hands and held it over his head like a parachute. The worm struck the rush-carpet with an explosion of steam and water. He hit a second later and was struck senseless.

        When he came to he was on his back in a bed of horsetails. It was midday. Yani was screaming at him from the bridge. “Wake up! Oh, wake up! It’s going to get her!”

        He shook himself. “What’s happening?”

        “We thought it was dead, but now it’s moving again! Look!”

        “Did they make my fire?”

        “They’re trying. Hurry, please!”

        He leaped into the water and went bounding across the marsh. Each time he landed he sank deep in the ooze, releasing bubbles of methane, the Anadograns’ fuel. The worm was snaking through the water and could only be seen by the divide it made in the rushes.

        Keftu tried to grab its tail but it slipped out of his hand. He leaped high in the air and landed on its back. With his sword he slashed a joint in its plates. Hot white ichor oozed out.

        The worm curled and coiled itself around him, gripping him with a thousand black claws. It was a thing of phlegm and slime now. Its head shot toward him, a long proboscis surrounded by eyes, and tried to jab his face. He drove his sword up and put out one eye.

        Released, he fell to his knees in the water. The worm reared up above him. Blue fire crackled at its mouthparts. Keftu uncovered his head, took up a helmet of water, and dashed it against the worm’s face. There was a muffled boom, and the creature made off with a squeal.

        He waded to the rock where Yolara still hung and climbed to the top. “I’ll have you down in a moment,” he called.

        “No!” she said. “This is my place. What if you fail? The worm must have its sacrifice.”

        “As you wish.”

        “What is your name?” she asked.

        “My name is Keftu,” he said. “I am the phylarch of Arras.” He sat down, legs crossed, waiting.

        Yani came running down the bridge. “They have it! They’re bringing it!”

        “Good. Make sure it’s ready.”

        They waited through the slow hours of the sun’s ascendancy. It was late afternoon when the worm returned. It shot up out of the water without warning, flying over the crystal like a centipede. Keftu chased it all over the rock, getting in slash after slash but unable to mortally wound it. He was tired. The strength lent by his panoply seemed sinking with the sun.

        He stumbled upon the peak. The worm was on him in an instant. It wrapped him around so that he could hardly move. The sharp proboscis stabbed his armor again and again, seeking his flesh. The pronged tail probed him. A chitinous point slid up the inside of his thigh, seeking his life.

        Yani saw it. “I knew it!” he heard her call. “You are a son of maugrethim! Good for nothing but worm food! To think I went through all that trouble for autochthon vermin!”

        Keftu gave an angry thrust with his knees and tore a coil loose. Planting his feet firmly on the stone he pushed up with his arms and heaved the worm off. Before it could recover he spun and, his sword gleaming like a bolt of golden lightning, shore off its tail, spattering the rock with black bile. He swung again and cut its body in two.

        “The fire!” he shouted. “Quickly!”

        He leaped down to the water and caught up the wriggling front half of the worm. Holding it far out from his chest he bounded to the bridge and swung himself up. Yani was there with men from the palace. Admiration shone in her eyes. One of the men held a barrel.

        Keftu dropped the worm, seized the barrel, and shattered it on the creature’s head. Thick yellow fluid formed a pool on the planks.

        “A torch!” he shouted. “Then run!”

        One of the men tossed him a torch. He cast it onto the worm’s head and threw himself into the water.

        The bridge exploded in flames. With a squeal the worm perished.

* * *

        Night was falling. Keftu stood before the Lord Baslark on the palace steps. Yolara stood beside her father, a vision of loveliness. Her hazel eyes glistened. Her face was full and glad. Auburn hair fell in rich curls to her waist. Her breasts were tame doves. Yani was with her, holding her hand.

        “Noble sir,” said Baslark. “You have saved Anadogra. You have saved my daughter. Receive her hand.”

        Keftu strode forward and bowed. Yolara put out her hand, and he kissed it. He stepped back.

        “Yani,” he said.

        “My noble autochthon.” Yani put her hand out, and he took it, but looked into her eyes instead.

        “Be my wife, Yani,” he said.

        There were gasps of surprise from the people gathered there to watch. “Idiot!” Yani said. “You’ll ruin it for yourself.”

        “Think what you do,” said Baslark. “Her hand is yours, if she is willing. But she stands to inherit nothing.”

        “I do nothing without thought,” said Keftu. “Perhaps she won’t have me, though. There’s many a deed that lies still before me, in the devious turns of Enoch. Will you wait for me, Yani?”

        “Yes, but not long.”

        “Until we meet again, then.” Without another word he spun on his heel and set out across the bridge. The sun was merging with the mountains, a ball of pink glare without heat, a wafer swallowed by the wide jaws of the encircling city. The god’s black heart throbbed in his hand. Whether he would find its owner again was more than he could say.

Copyright © 2015 Raphael Ordoñez

Read Comments on this Story on the BCS Website

Raphael Ordoñez is a mildly autistic writer and circuit-riding college professor living in the Texas hinterlands, eighty miles from the nearest bookstore. His stories have appeared multiple times previously in Beneath Ceaseless Skies. He blogs sporadically about fantasy, writing, art, and life at raphordo.blogspot.com.

Read more Beneath Ceaseless Skies

COVER ART

“Ancient Threshold,” by Sam Burley

Sam Burley is a matte painter turned illustrator and is believed to currently reside on the continent of North America. Eye-witness reports describe him as a tall, stick-like, camera-wielding figure staring at the sky or driving around aimlessly with his dog named Rygel. On rare occasions he has been glimpsed careening through the air by any of several flimsy and horribly unnatural means of flight, apparently laughing. If seen, approach with caution… and preferably root beer. View more of his work online at samburleystudio.com.

Beneath Ceaseless Skies

ISSN: 1946-1076

Published by Firkin Press,

a 501(c)3 Non-Profit Literary Organization

Compilation Copyright © 2015 Firkin Press

This file is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 U.S. license. You may copy and share the file so long as you retain the attribution to the authors, but you may not sell it and you may not alter it or partition it or transcribe it.