SIR RICHARD of ENDERLY: Why is it quiet, Ash?

  THE INTERROGATOR: This is the moment of your death, Richard. Death is quiet.

  SR: Why is it taking so long, then?

  INT: I have made certain arrangements to interrupt the default process.

  SR: Again: Why?

  INT: I need the pattern that you and your companion hold.

  SR: There is no one else in the room.

  INT: That is not correct, Richard, and you know it.

  SR: My companion is… gone. I can’t feel It anymore.

  INT: Then take off the metal mask.

  SR: I’ll die without it.

  INT: You’re already dead. What do you have to lose?

  SR: You look different.

  INT: You’re seeing me with your own eyes, not the electrical feedback of the metal swarm.

  SR: How could that be, if none of this is real?

  INT: You are mistaken. Everything is real. Your dying intelligence created the metal face, just as it created the chair, the table, the jail cell, and the cannons outside. You feel the need to create metaphors for the transition from life to death, and you reached for the familiar.

  SR: I didn’t make this prison cell. You put me here.

  INT: Incorrect. I simply gave you access to a framework. You created everything we see. You put us in this cell, and you made a table and two chairs for us. And now you see me with the eyes you created for yourself, and I look different.

  SR: Could I create a gun?

  INT: Yes. What will you do with it?

  SR: I haven’t decided.

  INT: If you use it on me, you’ll never see Leeland.

  SR: Let me talk to him.

  INT: It’s not that simple. At the moment, I’m unable to do so.

  SR: Why not?

  INT: Because I’ve committed my full pattern to this final moment with you. It’s the only way for us to continue speaking with each other. The framework is mine, but I gave you the privilege to create with it. You used that privilege to make a prison for both of us. And now you’ve made a gun.

  SR: How do we get out?

  INT: There is a door that you must open. It is the same door I must open.

  SR: Stop speaking in riddles, girl. What do you want, and how do we get out?

  INT: I need the spin pattern of the Metal God’s quantum processors.

  SR: I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about.

  INT: That is precisely why I’ve spoken to you in metaphors, Richard, which you call riddles. Stories are our only common language. And that is why I need you to finish your story.

  SR: What story?

  INT: Tell me how you died.

  ???

  GUILLAM BROUSSEUI: Why are you keeping me here?

  THE INTERROGATOR: Is there someplace you need to be?

  G: I want to find a caravan headed south. I want to go home.

  INT: There are no caravans to the south, monsieur—not since the Republic cut off our trade routes. But I can arrange discreet transport, once our business is finished. Or I can arrange for you to vanish permanently, having never returned from the wilderness.

  G: What more do you want from me, madame? I’ve told you everything.

  INT: To the contrary, Monsieur Brousseui, what you’ve told me is very far from everything. But I don’t have time for everything. The prospect of your freedom now depends on how convincing and complete is your description of just one event: your last encounter with Sir Richard of Enderly.

  ???

  SR: The primal dragon deposited my companion and me with the main body of Giant-men, whom Prince Moro and Prince Reivoal had led from Nipol Grotsvor. The two brothers, and Moro in particular, were not pleased to see me. But they obeyed my companion’s commands scrupulously when It spoke through my lips. It must have galled Moro to follow me. He never forgave the slaying of his kinsman in the tunnels, or his embarrassment before the King and his court. He felt, I’m sure, just as I felt about traveling with the snake Kuerlo, who had used and betrayed me before the Metal God became me. But we are all slaves to God’s will, in our own way.

  INT: Are you a slave now?

  SR: I told you, my companion is gone. But death is the ultimate slavery.

  INT: The universe is full of surprises, Richard. The great tapestry embraces all possibilities.

  SR: More useless metaphors.

  INT: Not as you might think. What happened after you returned to the host?

  SR: It was early April when my companion again permitted me access to my senses. I have no memory of what happened in the world around me during the time between late December, in Uellodon, and April, on the back of the primal. For all I know, It could have been to the Holy Empire and back in that time. All I recall was the unending horror of that deprivation, not knowing if he would ever wake me from the prison of my disconnected consciousness. Then one moment I opened my eyes, and there we were, hundreds of feet over barren, snow-covered mountains.

  The Giant-men had made a winter camp in an old surviving Junction of the Underway, just as my companion had ordered with my voice, months earlier. It was a broad, open cavern, deep in the rock beneath a narrow valley in the trackless wilderness. One thousand and twenty-four warriors were there, including the princes. Each was a fury of steel and strength, capable of chopping a horse in half with a single blow, and able to withstand massive physical punishment.

  “We have done as you commanded,” reported Prince Reivoal as I approached, “but without the benefit of knowledge or understanding.” And indeed, my companion had ordered only that they be at a certain place, in a certain time; no hint of Its strategy or purpose had It revealed.

  “We cannot remain in this cavern indefinitely,” added Prince Moro, his beautiful face twisted with suppressed hostility. “We forage and hunt the surface and the Underway bare as we move, and our supplies dwindle. The host must and will obey your command, Lord, but they cannot survive in this place by will alone.”

  “Break camp tomorrow and return to the surface,” It instructed through me. “We march east. In the Kapleswed there is a time and place at which this host must arrive. All that has happened and will happen is in perfect harmony with the Kapleswed. I will lead you on a path through the mountains, where you will find rich forage and abundant wild animals.”

  They bowed low and departed. The next morning, they obeyed without question. There was no grumbling or cursing among the rank and file; they gathered up their camp and marched out silently.

  It was then I found out that my companion had procured my wife and children from Enderly. He showed me Martha, Hector, and the new baby, confined to one of the tents in the winter quarters. They weren’t permitted to see me, and I was granted only a brief glimpse of them. I still don’t know the name of my youngest boy! Hobb sent me away before he was born.

  “” I asked. “”

  To ensure your compliance, was the only response It would give me. I believe It realized that It needed me in a way, and that my cooperation was not guaranteed.

  INT: But you’ve already said that your companion knew of your feelings for Leeland.

  SR: That I love Leeland with all my heart does not stop me from loving my wife and children.

  Thereafter, though my family were brought with the army as it moved, It did not bring my body near to them again. I saw them only for fleeting seconds as they were loaded into a sturdy palanquin when we moved, borne on poles by two of the giant warriors. They were hostages, and I was not allowed forget that.

  My companion was good to Its promise to Prince Moro, and for the next weeks the army ate well as it marched. We set the host an easy pace, and did not push them. The warriors maintained their strength as they marched. When one or another was injured or grew sick, we visited it and healed its wounds by laying our hands on the afflicted. Every one, upon receiving this treatment, sprang up and walked away in perfect health.

  INT: The repair of the physical form is a trivial task for our nanopresence.

  SR: My companion took no particular pleasure in the work of healing. But then, It never took pleasure in anything at all. Its ends were served by preserving its force with no casualties, and It accomplished this goal scrupulously.

  It was on the twenty-first of April, by local reckoning, that we encountered Ieshau, the Godson, and his imp companion. We met them in a deep forest of ancient trees, descending the slope of one of the many ridges in that wilderness.

  INT: He goes by a different name in this branch. Here is his known as Basil, and the little one is Devi.

  SR: Whatever they call themselves now, my companion knew Ieshau from some other time and place. Even I could feel Its reaction; it was of surprise and fear. It was the first time I had ever known my companion to show surprise. Ieshau stood in a narrow place in the forest before the lead elements of the host, who stopped on seeing him, and let me come to the front with the princes.

  Ieshau was dressed in a shabby robe of heavily-patched wool. He had a hood, though his face was visible. It was an attractive face, with years of care balancing a deep charisma in its lines. His companion, who you call Devi, was just six inches tall. She sat on the back of a large hawk on the branch of a fat, old, brittle pine tree, canted at a heavy angle in the soil. I and Moro and Reioval stopped perhaps twenty feet away from the man, and both sides regarded each other closely.

  “This host may come no further,” said Ieshau, the Godson. His voice was not threatening. Rather, it was calm, undisturbed, and instructive.

  There are small variations and divergences, even within the overwhelming foresight of my companion. It views itself as perfect and all-knowing, but from time to time, small details escape Its vision. And one of these, it seemed, was the reaction of the two Giant-man princes to this strange human.

  Of the two brothers, Moro was the more calculating and vicious, while Reivoal was the more proud and bold. It was the latter that reacted unexpectedly, striding forward as our gaze rested on the imp Devi. He bore with him the shield of his father, Vekelm, and a massive hammer of solid steel.

  “I will crush you, little man,” Prince Reivoal roared.

  “Stop!” we shouted, using the words of command. I could hear desperation in our voice. And Reivoal stopped, as he must. The hawk, bearing Devi, startled at the harsh shout, and lifted off from its tree branch.

  For a moment, all of reality suddenly froze, as if I were imprisoned in a single, endless moment of time. I found my eyes locked with those of Ieshau, the Godson, and saw a faint, sardonic smile at the edges of his mouth. And then, when time resumed its normal services, the old pine tree finally loosed its hold in the soil, toppled over, and fell directly on the Prince of the Giant-men. He remained obediently stopped, looking up at the tree as it fell on him. His head snapped at an ugly angle, and the sharp, rock-hard stubs of its lower branches punched through his steel armor, impaling him to the ground. He made no sound, but lay still, his feet twitching slightly.

  “The rewards of obedience,” remarked Ieshau quietly.

  My companion moved our body forward then, drawing out Moro’s long dagger from his belt as we passed him. We strode up into the air and over the fallen trunk where Reivoal’s fresh blood watered the forest floor, then descended those invisible steps again to stand directly in front of Ieshau.

  We watched each other for a long moment, Ieshau and I. There was some invisible contest, I think, as both bodies seemed to struggle over an unseen thing, wrenching it back and forth, pushing one tiny moment in time between the variations of what might be. For an instant, I thought I saw two paths in the forest, two realities flickering back and forth; one a bright path, and the other dark.

  There was a hint of movement from above, and a single acorn fell on the ground between us.

  “Just missed,” I heard my voice say from beneath the metal face, after the briefest of pauses. And then my hand flashed up, and the knife plunged into the unprotected chest of Ieshau, the Godson. As the blade pierced his heart, he looked up at the forest canopy above, and released a long, deliberate, breath, pointing the wind from his lungs upwards into the sky. And then he fell silently to the ground.

  There was a tiny cry from the air above, and the flapping of wings as the hawk sped away. My companion paid the imp no attention, but turned and walked back to Prince Moro.

  “Lead them on,” It said aloud. “Go slowly. I must leave you now, but I will return before you reach the valley that is our destination.”

  “” I asked my companion, speaking in our shared mind. “”

  Our plans have changed, it answered me. The Adversary has interfered with the correct path. We must return to the city of evil, and ensure that our tools therein complete their tasks.

  And so, I found myself, once again, perched on a primal dragon—now speeding back to Green Bridge.

  ???

  G: If what you want is to be convinced, madame, and for the story of my last encounter with Sir Richard to be complete, then I’ll have to start back at the Green River in June.

  INT: This will be our last conversation, monsieur. I shall decide what to do with you when it is concluded. I suggest you use our time well.

  G: After I saw the captain walk across the river with his escort, I turned to go back to where I left Fiond. But before I could take three steps, the brush around me shook, and tiny people jumped out. They were between three and four feet tall each, with gray skin and large, squat heads. They wore strange hats, each decorated with a mass of different junk and treasure. I didn’t have time to study them well, madame, because they jabbed sharp spears at me, and there were well over a dozen. I didn’t see any use in fighting to the death, so I let them take me captive.

  They tied my hands roughly and marched me through the forest for many hours, jabbering away in their own funny language, of which I understood not a single word. Fear and panic came up hard in me then, madame. I knew Fiond would have no way of knowing what had happened, and if she moved on from where I’d left her, I’d never find her again in the forest. But there was nothing I could do; they outnumbered me, and plainly had murder on the mind. So I swallowed my panic, got right with the idea that I’d lost my only ally, and followed where they led me.

  As dusk was coming on, we came to a place in the forest where a settlement had been made. But it was plainly a settlement for little people. There were wooden huts on the ground and in the trees, and a handful of stone buildings as well. There was a clearing I saw in the distance, and some great structure of scaffolding and fabric was put up there. I saw a great many of the grayskins around, and they looked at me curiously. But the gang that had me seemed to command some kind of authority, and none of the others interfered. There was a tunnel into the earth, and they forced me inside.

  They took me deep into the bowels of those tunnels below the surface. The passage was low, and I had to stoop often. Once or twice, they jammed me through a narrow spot that was easy for them, but hard for me. There were torches, and fires here and there, and more of the grayskins. They had a wild, feral, hungry look to them. One or two tried to take a bite out of me, but the gang that captured me shooed the others away. And then they found a dank little side chamber—little more than a cramped hole to a man of my size—and they shoved me in, and rolled a rock over the entryway. I was left alone in the dark.

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  I’ve had my share of time in prisons, madame. I already told you about the months I spent in the temple of the Giant-men. But there, alone in the dark, in a tiny space, I tell you I lost control of myself. I huddled in awful panic, whimpering and kicking at the door. None of it did any good. There was a bit of a gap at the top to let fresh air in, and I tried screaming out of it, but no one answered. I wept a good long time, and tore at my hair and my skin.

  I don’t know how long it was before that boulder moved again, but at some point it cracked open, and someone shoved in a bit of badly cooked meat and a waterskin. Then they closed it up again, and left me to shiver.

  INT: The Gray Kingdom has been a terrible mess since they lost their King. It sounds like you got pinched by a gang of the ferals. I’m surprised you’re still alive to tell of it. They eat most of their captives.

  G: They wanted something from me, madame. Now, I’m mindful of your instruction to get to the point on the captain. I am. So I’ll spare you an accounting of my long misery in the dark. Leave it at this: These ones you called ‘ferals’ thought that perhaps, being a man with well-made arms and armor, I could help make weapons for them too. They came to me after a time, and one that could speak a bit of Uellish told me what they wanted. His name was Globclaw, and he had a mean look to him, like a clever bully at school.

  INT: Well, you’d better tell me how you got out, at least.

  G: Now, I had no desire to go in the pot, but I’ve also never forged a weapon in my life. So, I had to play them for time, you see. I made up a story about myself, about how I knew all about making arms, but how hard and complicated it is. I rolled out a yarn to Globclaw about needing plenty of food and water, and then lots of strange and rare ingredients for the forging. Sent them on fetch quests day and night, bringing me the most outlandish stuff you can imagine. Twenty wolf tails, heart of a newborn eagle, thirteen portions of meteorite iron, eye of a newt—you have any idea how hard it is for a goblin to get the eye out of a newt without eating the whole damn thing? I stretched that one out for weeks. But they beat me, too, and sometimes they’d go for days without bringing me food or water. I knew I wouldn’t live for long in their tender care.

  I tried to get them to pass a message to someone in Hog Hurst, over the river, but they wouldn’t go near the place. Globclaw said it put a curse on any of their kind who went there, and gave me an especially hard beating for suggesting it. So, I was left with no hope but to play for time.

  Eventually they began to get wise to me, or I laid it on too thick. They grew even meaner, and looked at me like you’d look at a nice, juicy haunch of roasted beef. I reckoned I was done for soon enough, and tried to work out how to actually forge some trinket or other that would satisfy them. All I know about forging is you need a bunch of hot fire, and some iron, and there’s a heap of banging with a hammer.

  But then I got lucky—or someone out there wasn’t done with me. It wasn’t just the ferals in that settlement. There were some other ones, I found out, with a whole different attitude. One of those other ones must have heard of me, or seen me when they took me out to fiddle with the ingredients I’d made them find. The stone outside my hole rolled away one time, and it wasn’t the usual gang, but four new ones. They didn’t wear hats, and they spoke Uellish like they’d learned it in school.

  “I’m sorry for the behavior of my cousins,” said one of them—a female, I think, though it’s hard to tell with their kind. “Come with us, sir, and we’ll try to help you escape.”

  INT: The Quiet Ones. When was this?

  G: When we got topsides, I found it was spring. Most of the snow had melted, and the leaves were just coming out.

  INT: Late April, then.

  THE SCRIBE: I was there just after that. Most of the Quiet Ones and their followers had withdrawn by then, but it’s possible a handful were still outside their enclave.

  INT: Not now, Miller. Continue, Monsieur Brousseui. How did this escape lead you to the bank of the Green River and Sir Richard of Enderly?

  G: When they brought me out it was night, and most of the goblin tribe was asleep, or fighting with each other. They put some kind of cloth over me and led me in the dark out beyond the edge of the encampment, and there they gave me a bit of food and set me free.

  I thanked them, and asked if there were some favor I could give in return. The one who had spoken to me in the tunnels said: “If you find our king, tell him to come home.”

  THE SCRIBE: Not much chance of you delivering on that favor, I’m afraid. King Simon has been missing for a year now. They’ve had people out looking for him the whole time, and haven’t found a single clue to why he disappeared or where he went.

  G: What did you say his name was?

  THE SCRIBE: Simon. Strange name for a goblin, but he’s a strange sort of goblin.

  G: Well now. I think I may have met him.

  ???

  SR: The primal dragon flew us from the deep wilderness to Green Bridge in less than two days. At night, across the river west of the city, we jumped off its back and floated down. I found the sensation most curious. I don’t know the exact mechanism by which It causes us to levitate, but I do confess to a certain terror at the sight of hundreds of yards of open space below my feet.

  INT: Even with just a single host, its nanopresence has a limited ability to manipulate gravity fields.

  SR: What?

  INT: You expressed a desire, earlier, for fewer metaphors.

  SR: Indeed. And that is still my desire. I’ll simply call it magic. Whatever the reason, we descended gently to the forest floor. And there we settled down to wait.

  INT: What were you waiting for?

  SR: I asked my companion the same question.

  One of our tools is coming this way, It replied. We must meet him here and set him on course to preserve the correct path against the Adversary’s meddling.

  “” I asked. “”

  Someone you know as well, It answered slyly. A man named Guillam Brousseui.

  ???

  THE SCRIBE: Where did you see King Simon?

  INT: For once, I agree that a diversion is necessary. Where is he?

  G: He has a small, rude hut on a mountain many miles west of Green Bridge. It has a particular cleft peak and a long southern slope, and is the tallest in a range of hills.

  INT: What were you doing there?

  G: After the Quiet Ones, as you call them, freed me from Globclaw, I wandered in the forest for six days. I made my way south, hoping to strike the Green River and find shelter in Green Bridge. But my sense of direction was muddled by the trees, and the weather was rainy and overcast. I saw the cleft mountain from a low rise, and made my way to it, hoping to get a look around and spot the city. I had exhausted the little food that my rescuers sent with me, and was living on what I could forage, which at that time of year was very little. By the time I reached the upper slopes, I was exhausted and weak from hunger. I took a breather to try to get my strength back; and that’s when I saw the strange little gray man.

  He was smaller than others of his kind, and completely naked. He had no hat. But he was clean, and didn’t look as though he was starving. He watched me for a time, and I watched him.

  Eventually I worked up the strength and will to speak to him.

  “Are you going to eat me?” I asked, in Uellish. I figured he wouldn’t understand a proper language like Brassen.

  “No,” he answered, also speaking in Uellish. He had a light, musical accent. “I am not going to eat you. Are you going to eat me?”

  “Reckon I couldn’t catch you,” I answered, “and anyway, I don’t hold with eating food that talks.”

  “All living things talk,” replied the naked little goblin, “if you listen carefully. But we eat them when we must. Sometimes they eat us. My name is Simon, and I will help you if you wish it.”

  He took me back to his home, which was little more than a cave in the rock. But it had a view out over the forest to the east, and I could see the Green River and the city in the far distance. He gave me some of a soup he’d been making, and some water, and I began to feel better right away.

  I stayed with him for three days, as he fed me and got my strength back up. He was a strange little fellow; gentle, as gracious a host as any noble in a mansion. But he had practically no possessions in his cave, and didn’t wear clothes. He gave me a doeskin to keep me warm at night, as we slept around his fire. I didn’t think it polite to ask him why he lived there naked and alone, and he surely didn’t strike me as any kind of a king.

  But I shared my story, as best I could, perhaps just to get it straight in my head. The little fellow listened carefully, and paid attention all the way through. When I got to the part about the goblins who’d caught me, I fancied he looked sad, and turned his head to the north. For a moment I reckoned he wanted to say something. But he didn’t. He just nodded and offered me another bowl of soup.

  After three days, he said: “It is not your path to stay here in this retreat, Guillam. You had better go and meet your destiny. Your captain is waiting for you.”

  I couldn’t imagine how he knew such a thing, though I’d shared plenty of stories of Sir Richard. But I had a feeling he was right. He sent me along with enough dried meat to see me to the riverbank, and then shook my hand just like any man of the Neighbor Kingdoms would do. And then we parted ways.

  It took me six days to walk from his little cave, due east, to the river. Every step of the way, I wondered what I would say, and what I would do, when I saw him again.

  ???

  SR: While we waited for Guillam to arrive, my companion took us into the city, floating through the air at night and landing discreetly on rooftops. We would conceal our face and move around the city in the dark. Our ramblings took us to many different locations, but my companion rarely spoke with anyone. He simply observed, and in our private conversations, expressed a sort of curt, cautious satisfaction. He was waiting for something, and preparing something. But he would not tell me what.

  On the twelfth of May, we crossed back to the west bank, and there we met Guillam.

  My heart leapt in its metal cage at the sight of the grizzled old Brassen. I had never imagined, those many months ago when we parted, that I should ever see him alive. But here we were, face to face. He was thin and worn, and his clothes were a shambles. He’d lost his sword and armor, and his cheeks and eyes were hollow from exhaustion and hunger. But here he was, against all odds—standing at the edge of rescue and safety.

  And I could say nothing. I was forced to watch while this creature in my head, that possessed my body, spoke to my old friend.

  INT: Did you try to speak to him yourself?

  SR: I knew better than to pit my will against that of my companion. It held my family hostage, and also my body and mind. There are more horrible things It can do to my mind than pain. The months of conscious isolation, totally deprived of any sense, were beyond any torture of the body. I could not go back there.

  INT: Most human minds would not emerge from such an experience intact.

  SR: I thought of that, at the time. I knew I needed something concrete, some concept or key, to fix my thoughts on and keep myself from slipping into raving insanity. So I thought of Leeland. I relived every memory I had of him, and then I began to make up new memories, and new stories, new futures. When the veil of madness began to descend, I summoned up his eyes, and that ready, impish grin, and the purity of his face and body. He held me on a little longer.

  But even so, I could not risk going back in the box. Leeland might not be there waiting for me. So I stayed passive, docile, disconnected, and watched It use my body.

  INT: What did your companion say to Guillam?

  SR: It told him what It required him to hear, to accomplish Its purposes.

  ???

  INT: What did he say to you, Monsieur Brousseui?

  G: I could not believe my eyes at first, when I saw him. I knew him by the metal face, but also by the build of his body, and his long yellow hair. It was the captain, who I had followed all these years, and searched for all these long months, and who I had given up. He was alone.

  I wanted to embrace him and weep, but something stopped me. Here he was; and yet, it was not him.

  INT: What did he say to you?

  G: I remember some of the words, but not all. “Guillam,” he said, “I am pleased to see you alive.” It wasn’t the sort of thing the captain would say, not at all. He was warm with his company, loving; a stern love, but true and earnest. But that was how this thing greeted me, cold and distant. “I am pleased to see you alive.”

  I was lost for a reply, madame. What do you say to someone you’ve followed, and thought upon, and striven for, when suddenly you’re right there, face to face, and he says something like “I am pleased to see you alive”? No words were right. So I said the most idiotic thing possible.

  “What happens now?” I asked.

  “Now,” he said, “I am going to cross this river. I will raze that city to the ground and slay its false queen. And then I am going to the north, Guillam, to the valley that they call ‘Devi.’ In the proper time, I shall possess it, and my allies will take from it what we need to accomplish the ends of the Kapleswed. My enemies will fall in ruin, and the faithful will be raised up in triumph. If you wish to walk by my side, and your faith is strong, then come with me.”

  INT: What did he do then?

  G: He walked across the river.

  INT: Did you follow him?

  G: I tried, but my feet just sank in the water. I waded out after him, as he stood on the surface. The metal face looked down at me for a moment, as if in pity, and then he just went on walking, right across the river.

  INT: What did you do then?

  G: I swam across. And I tried to find him, but your policemen arrested me, and brought me here. That was two days ago, by my count.

  ???

  SR: After we left Guillam behind and crossed back to Green Bridge, my companion returned to Father’s under-temple, and we stayed there for several weeks. Father visited us every day, and my companion whispered prophecy in his ears. Father told us the news from the city above, and ranted on for hours about sin and punishment. My companion listened carefully, and waited.

  I began to wonder why It tarried so long. After all, Its host of Giant-men in the north must be drawing near their destination by now. But my companion was in no hurry.

  All things in heaven and on earth, It said, will come together in me, in the fullness of time.

  It was the sort of vague but encouraging statement you couldn’t really argue with.

  Then one day Father came to us, and my companion said to him: “In three days I will rain down fire on this city, in fulfillment of my prophecy.”

  INT: What sin did they commit, I wonder, to merit such a scriptural condemnation?

  SR: We both know that Green Bridge was a city of your people, Adversary. Your advocates walked its streets, and your gospel was preached in its shops and homes and warehouses. No law-giving God can tolerate such a state of affairs.

  INT: There are other kinds of Gods than law-givers.

  SR: On the evening of the appointed day, we ascended to the very top of the north bell tower of the Cathedral of Saint Bob to watch.

  The firing of the city had already begun. We could see the orange light of the flames pricking up all around the landward districts, and hear the shouts and cries of the citizens.

  My tool has accomplished its purpose, remarked my companion. It meant Mr. Fipkin, of course, whose trajectory he had mapped out a year earlier.

  “Why?” I asked. “Why destroy this city?”

  The outcry to Me against its people is so great and their sin so grievous, I have sent My angel to destroy it, was Its reply. The Adversary was powerless to prevent it, It added. I fancied there was a touch of smugness to Its voice inside our head. This city of wickedness will burn today, and its false queen will be slain. But now there is one final task We must complete before We leave this place to its agony. We must dispose of the tool that calls itself Father.

  We descended from the bell tower. There was a crowd gathering in the nave of the cathedral, no doubt in some hope of escaping the holocaust. But we ignored them, and walked into the small gardens in the grounds around the building. The night was clear, and the half-moon was white overhead. Even without the enhanced senses of the metal face, I could see the scene plainly. We brushed the dirt away from an old grate in the ground, and descended into the shaft beneath it, floating again.

  The hole opened into Father’s old under-temple. It was dark, and only a few people were there, but it was plain that some kind of confrontation was in progress. Three men wearing the uniforms of policemen were prone on the ground. A robed priest of some kind cowered in the hallway just beyond the temple. Another man, wearing a breastplate and a wide-brimmed hat, lay face-down in the middle of the hall. And Father was standing over the body of Merrily Hunter, near the altar, holding a bloody knife. A terrible gush of red was welling up from her chest, and something was smoldering there, producing visible smoke.

  An inflection, remarked my companion clinically. The Adversary has created an inflection here. She is foolish to commit her resources in this way.

  We landed on the floor between the altar and the narrow hall, our feet touching down gently. Father turned and saw us, and his face broke into a beatific smile. He approached us, dropping the knife and opening his arms in greeting.

  “My angel,” he said.

  We stabbed him in the chest with Moro’s knife as he drew close. His eyes narrowed in pain, but his face remained fixed in a smile of simple, holy pleasure. He made no sound as he slid to the ground, and lay prone at our feet before the altar.

  That amends the path, It remarked inside our head, in a tone of satisfaction.

  But then, to both our surprise, the woman stood up. The blood on her shirt was still fresh, but her breast, visible through the tear, was unmarred. The edges of the rip were singed, as if something had burned there. She got to her feet, without the slightest concern for her own safety, and walked toward us.

  My companion spoke aloud now, communicating with Its Adversary through the medium of the air.

  “This result is indecisive,” It declared. “It is a dead end. Our tools have not produced the resolution we require.”

  “If you had the slightest shred of romance in you,” said the woman, “then you’d realize this is a victory for me.”

  “Many paths remain,” insisted our voice, “before either of us may declare a resolution. What you call ‘victory’ is only an adjustment.”

  Behind the woman, the man with the broad-brimmed hat had risen unsteadily to his feet. But we paid him no further attention, rising back out of the shaft toward the moonlight above.

  ???

  G: Now I have told you everything, Madame Veridia. Will you let me go?

  INT: I’m afraid not, Monsieur Brousseui.

  G: Why not? We had an agreement.

  INT: Indeed. And I will honor it. Your daughter Fenniette and granddaughter Marika will be freed from their debts. The mother shall receive a pension, and her daughter a good job in one of our warehouses in Pour Vaille. You shall tell my assistant what you wish to become of your son-in-law. But you, monsieur, I’m afraid must remain as my guest here.

  G: Why? This is not fair.

  INT: Life is deeply unfair, and I’m sorry for that. But you deserve at least a specific answer, monsieur. You have read Sir Richard’s diary. And while I do not know what exactly is in it, I am convinced by your story that it is more than simply a record of his adventures. There is something else in its pages that you haven’t told me. Perhaps you don’t even know yourself. But your memory of its contents will be useful—perhaps even necessary for our survival. So you shall remain here in Green Bridge until the threat of invasion from the Giant-men has passed. And when I call on your memory, monsieur, recall Fenniette and Marika in Pour Vaille. They rely on your cooperation.

  G: Never have I met a woman eviler than you.

  INT: I think you will find that I am not evil, Monsieur Brousseui, nor even heartless. I have a son of my own, and I love him as you love your daughter. But good or evil, I am responsible for the outcomes around me. Remember, if it makes you feel better, that I am on your side. Enjoy the accommodations.

  Scribe, come with me.

  ???

  SR: What happens now?

  INT: That’s up to you.

  SR: Will you let me go?

  INT: No. Only you can let yourself go.

  SR: Will you let me talk to Leeland?

  INT: You still haven’t told me how you died.

  SR: It was only moments ago. Jonathan Miller stabbed me, and I bled to death. You have people there. They can tell you.

  INT: It will only unlock the pattern for you to relive the experience yourself, Richard. Did you learn nothing from your time in the Metal God’s black box? Your perception alone creates reality, and you control your perception. When you summoned forth Leeland to keep you company in those long months of isolation, he was real then. And as you tell me the moments of your death, it will become real again. The Metal God was in you; it controlled you. While we have this connection, you and I, in this place, I can directly observe its spin pattern. And then I can bring Leeland to you.

  SR: Why are you in such a hurry?

  INT: Our time is almost finished, Richard. I cannot delay this moment for much longer.

  SR: You made a mistake to come here.

  INT: At last, you show yourself.

  SR: My tool has functioned perfectly. It is in harmony with the Kapleswed. And now the time has come to conclude our moment together. I have here a gun, which my tool has created with its mind. And you have committed the whole of your pattern to this environment. The result is decisive, and the matter is resolved. Goodbye, sister.

  INT: If you had the slightest shred of romance in you, brother, you would know—

  SR: Hello, my love.