The train burst out of the tunnel, into the fresh air of the valley. The thick, dark storm clouds roiled overhead, and heavy rain and wind whipped the faces and bodies of the refugees huddled on the train cars. The Number Two made its way through the mournful, abandoned settlement of Beatrice at the bank of the river, slowly gathering speed as it approached the marvelous steel bridge that crossed the watercourse. Men and women and goblins on the train stared silently at their homes, drifting by to the rear. But then other sights drew their gazes away.

  Behind the train, sprinting in pursuit from the mouth of the System B tunnel, came scores of Giant-men. And on the western side of the river, more figures of glittering gray moved toward the bridgehead, cutting off the train from the winding track that led up and over the ridge, toward escape.

  Some on the train raised their eyes to the heavens. In the skies to the east, a fleet of fragile balloons rose up, blowing south with the heavy wind. And from the north, speeding toward the escapers, flew the long, snaking form of the serpent. Its wings cast no shadow in the dim light beneath the clouds; but fire spat from its mouth, and its teeth shone with terrible brilliance in the darkness.

  Those with sharp eyes could see a triangular form, tiny at this great distance, launch itself into the air from the top of the east ridge.

  The train reached the bridge, and the Giant-men closed in on the western bank.

  ???

  The furious wind of Devi Valley buffeted and shook Rufus’s flying wing. He was forced up, down, around, and upside-down. The rockets on either side pushed him furiously and chaotically forward, but they were far from the only force vector acting on his vehicle. Behind Rufus (most of the time), a fleet of hot-air balloons drifted slowly, helplessly, into the sky. They carried his last and best people away from the unfolding disaster in the valley below.

  From time to time, he caught sight of his target: a giant red shape, impossibly long, with wings stretching out wider than one of his warehouses. His chances of reaching it were… pathetic.

  , he thought in bemused detachment.

  The wind pushed the nose of the flying wing down, even as Rufus furiously jerked at the flap controls. Strapped to his chest was a bandolier rigged with a long string of heavy metal cylinders. Dangling from a hook at his belt was one of Snugg’s finest shielded lanterns. But it would be for nothing.

  The ear-shattering thrust of the rockets pushed him forward—and down.

  ???

  The bed of the train car rocked and swayed under Jonathan’s feet, forcing him to brace himself as he lurched forward. Inside the covered box of the car, lit by open windows in the sides, were crowds of men, women, and children, huddling in terror. Some wore the black and silver uniforms of Snugg mercenaries, but most wore plain civilian clothes. They were the last evacuees of Beatrice town—those who could not reach the balloons. Scattered among them were large wooden crates containing all that could be salvaged from the great library above System A. The historians and librarians among the passengers clutched in their arms great piles of scrolls, books, and artifacts; everyone else clutched their families.

  Jonathan and Merrily elbowed their way through the tight-packed throng, heading for the door at the fore of the car. Outside, the steel span of the bridge over the East Branch slid by. Beyond the river, in the town on the east bank, the shapes of Giant-men were visible in the streets. A pair of goblins clung precariously to the rear wall of the next car, passing boxes out through the door and up to another squad of goblins on the roof. Some large object was strapped to the roof of the car, but Jonathan couldn’t make out the details.

  The next car was filled with more goblins, and more of Gunnar von Boof’s endlessly strange inventions. Some were obviously new and experimental firearms; others were perhaps bombs or other explosives; and still others were simply arcane. Gunnar himself loomed among the small gray people, frantically supervising the loading of uncanny new guns and the passage of boxes up to the roof.

  “Where is Simon?” Jonathan asked breathlessly of Gunnar.

  “At the front!” snapped the chemist. “There’s something wrong with the locomotive, and he’s got a gang trying to fix it. Excuse me, Mr. Miller, but we’ve got things even more wrong here. All of my experimental weaponry is about to get its first and only live fire test.” And he turned back to the small horde of goblins arranging the firearms.

  The next car forward was so crowded with frightened people that Jonathan and Merrily could not enter.

  “Up!” she said, pointing at a ladder leading up to the roof. And without waiting for his answer, she scampered gracefully up the ladder. Jonathan—after an incongruous moment admiring the long-absent rear end of his estranged wife—followed her upward with somewhat less grace. On the roof of the car, a heavy sheet of canvas was tied down with hemp ropes, securing some large, bulky object. A set of rail handholds bolted to the wooden roof let them proceed with relative safety forward.

  But safety was only relative. Looking forward past the locomotive, toward the western end of the rail bridge, Jonathan saw a great mass of steel-clad Giant-men. So tall they could easily reach onto the roof to pluck him off, and strong enough to make a fair threat of wrenching the locomotive off its tracks, they glittered in steel-clad ranks, wielding massive ten-foot greatswords.

  “This escape is going to be shorter,” remarked Jonathan, “than a snarf’s—”

  Merrily glared back at him over her shoulder.

  “—fingers,” he finished lamely.

  And then a swift flash of color swept over the heads of the gray Giant-men. The warriors looked up instinctively, and this proved their undoing. Scores of black ink balls, laced with acid, smashed into their eyes from above, hurled with eerie precision by extremely tiny fingers. Flying over the unlucky Giant-men, the hawks banked upward steeply, even as their victims clutched at their eyes, howling and screaming. The locomotive smashed into their disrupted ranks, thrusting a path through giant bodies and hurling them to the sides. The heavy wedge at the base of the locomotive split a path through their feet and legs, shoving them apart like a ship cutting through water.

  Jonathan let out a grateful whoop waving at the snarf hawk-riders even as they retreated into the sky behind the train. A flash of color from a signal flag answered back:

  The train chugged slowly across the open fields in the narrow valley, heading toward the traversing ascent up the eastern ridge. It was slower than Jonathan remembered; no faster than a cantering horse. Behind them, Giant-men from the western bank began pouring across the bridge, while the party on the eastern bank cleaned the ink out of their eyes and set off in pursuit of the train. They ran extraordinarily quickly on their long legs—as fast as any horse—and Jonathan saw with horror that they were easily capable of outpacing the slow-moving train.

  He guessed their combined number at several hundred.

  “Get forward!” shouted Merrily, ahead of him on the car roof. Jonathan nodded and scuttled along the handrails after her. Forward was farther away from the Giant-men.

  Even as the train began to take the first slopes of the eastern ridge, there them came a terrific, earth-shattering boom from behind them. Both Merrily and Jonathan glanced back, and saw a tremendous billow of smoke from the marvelous steel bridge on the river. Bits of steel and flesh rained down from the sky, even as the massive structure of the bridge shuddered and began to fall into the river. The goblin sappers, having so recently created the miraculous structure, had now brought it down.

  “Come on!” shouted Merrily. “Don’t look back!” Her brown hair whipped around her face as she was frozen in a moment, looking back at him.

  His gaze shifted over her left shoulder, toward a glitter of steel. Forward of the train, Giant-men were emerging from behind rocks and out of low dips in the ground where they’d hidden, throwing off camouflage netting. The closest were just a few dozen yards away, advancing rapidly on a course to intercept the lumbering train cars.

  Merrily and Jonathan scrambled forward, trying and largely failing to move quickly while keeping their balance on the swaying roof of the car. The nearest Giant-men, thundering madly toward them, seemed to close the distance in seconds. Jonathan watched helplessly as a great ten-foot blade raised into the air, and Merrily looked up at it, her body still somehow frozen in that moment in time. The blade descended with an awful finality.

  Only, it did not. From the train car below them, a row of gleaming steel gun barrels emerged, pointed at the Giant-men. They were held, not by Snugg’s professional mercenaries, but by desperate men and women crowded into the coach with their children huddled behind them. Nicola Snugg was among them, shouldering a musket between a librarian and a bricklayer. With a ragged, stuttering bang, the guns discharged. At close range, the impact of the massed lead shot was enough to puncture even the massive steel protecting the attackers. Holes suddenly appeared at chest level, and red blood spurted from them. The sword hanging over Merrily crashed down to the roof next to her, the malevolent will of its owner suddenly erased. Its edge sliced one of the ropes securing the canvas that covered the strange object on the roof, and the canvas began to flap in the heavy wind. Then the sword slid backward off the car, even as the Giant-man that wielded it slumped to the ground.

  The guns were withdrawn, and another round handed up. Behind the adult civilians, their children carefully, deliberately, and efficiently reloaded the muskets, just as they had been taught in their classrooms. Another round burst out of the muzzles, painting the air with fire and lead. The closest of the advancing Giant-men dropped; but only the very closest. A great mass of ambulatory steel surged forward behind them, faster than the close-range musket shot could bring them down.

  “Jonathan.” It was Merrily’s voice. She had come un-frozen again, and had turned to face him. He scuttled forward, gripping the handrail uncertainly. Together they sat beneath the rearward side of the bulky curiosity on the train car’s roof.

  “Jonathan,” she said again. “We’re about to die.”

  He nodded mutely. The next wave of Giant-men were thundering closer, and the nearest began smashing their swords against the train cars. He heard the frantic chattering of goblins on the car roof just ahead, but the sounds and sights of violence and desperate struggle faded away into total silence as he gazed into Merrily’s perfect, deep, green eyes.

  “I love you, Merrily,” he managed. “If now is the end of my path, then I want more than anything for it to end here with you.” And then, without hope, simply because it was real, he added in the fey tongue: “

  Something flickered and shifted in her eyes.

  ???

  On the locomotive, a gang of three goblins clung, suspended by ropes to the side of the mighty steel boiler. Their hands and feet were padded with thick cloth against the intense heat of the steel, but even so they bounced away from it, clinging to the framing and avoiding the main body of the boiler. Steam poured from a long fissure in the flank of the cylindrical container, within which lay the water that powered the locomotive’s turbine.

  “It’s a crack,” observed Arthur, clinging to his rope, heedless of the danger to his life and limbs. His miniature business suit was torn and dirty, and his gray cravat flapped in the wind. “We heated it up too fast. I told you this would happen.”

  “No shit,” agreed The Gizzard, hanging next to him, reciting a favorite Uellish curse. “What does that mean?”

  “It means we’re losing power to pull the train,” shouted Arthur in reply. “And it’s only going to get worse. We’ll never make it up the ridge, never mind back to Hog Hurst.” Glancing back at the Giant-men converging on the train, he added a resigned shrug. “Not that it matters. At this speed, those monsters will just lift us off the tracks.”

  “Can’t we fix it?” demanded The Gizzard. “You know, do smart big-people-things and make it better? Use lots of big fancy words in a funny accent and do some magic?”

  “That’s not how engineering works!” snapped Arthur.

  The Gizzard turned to look pleadingly at the third goblin.

  Simon shook his head. “There’s no way we can repair this while it’s under pressure,” he agreed. “We’d have to dismantle the whole engine. And we obviously don’t have time for that.”

  “” shouted The Gizzard, switching back to the goblin tongue in his frustration. “”

  Simon shook his head woefully—more sorry to disappoint his friend than for anything else. “You can’t do magic on steel,” he explained. “This boiler is finished.”

  The crackle of guns could be heard behind them, and the roar of the Giant-men warriors, and the screams and shouts of goblins and humans who struggled with them. The body of the locomotive shuddered as massive steel swords impacted it.

  “,” said The Gizzard. And then he switched back to Uellish, to Simon’s surprise. “Heal the metal, like you healed us.”

  Simon looked sharply at his feral lieutenant, and then back at the long, fatal crack in the boiler.

  “Arthur,” he said sharply, “do you have any of the dark metal from the mines?”

  Arthur blinked at him for a moment, and then reached into the pocket of his tattered coat. He withdrew a small lump of frigid, black material that absorbed all light, all movement, all energy. Then he offered it to Simon, placing it carefully in the hands of his King even as the locomotive swayed precariously under another blow.

  Closing his eyes, Simon reached inside himself. He felt the tiny machines that coursed through his synthetic veins. He spoke to them. They surged through blood and flesh, activating themselves with the heat from his body.

  Simon reached up to the front of the crack, gently pressing the dark metal against the blistering steel. Then he drew his hand down the red-hot flank of the metal beast, gently rubbing the anomalous substance along the crack. Beneath and within his fingers, the flowing liquid of the tiny machines leapt across the gap between flesh and metal, entering the object he held. They spread out into it, rearranging it, shaping it. The dark metal flowed into the wound in the steel, filling it with a layer just a single molecule thick. The tiny lump spread across the crack like a salve, binding to the steel and gleefully absorbing the heat from within the boiler.

  The crack was gone, like magic, leaving only a dark scar. The locomotive seemed to give a pulse of energy—almost as if the machine were grateful—and slowly began to accelerate.

  Simon looked back toward the rear of the train, where fighting surged around the aftmost cars, and a tide of Giant-men flowed toward them from the west bank. He sighed, looking up at the storm-wracked sky and breathing in the sharp, fresh life of the wind.

  “It’s time.”

  ???

  On top of the ridge, Cyrus Stoat clung to the dangling ladder of the last balloon to lift off. Thirty yards away, Veridia’s bodyguard struggled in futile hand-to-hand combat with three Giant-men who had overtaken them. From the square entrance to the turbine complex had emerged a group of the Republican Guard, led by Hobb the Wise—though at present they were lying on the ground gasping for air. Smoke from the burning library poured from the tunnel entrance.

  Cyrus shook his head and turned back to Veridia, standing below him. She held in the crook of one arm their son, Marius. In the other she held a large sheaf of papers. He could see chemical formulae and gun schematics on the papers. She wore the quasi-military uniform that she had adopted among the mercenaries: a black doublet with a gray cape and silver epaulets.

  He gestured at her frantically. There was nothing left but to escape; but Veridia’s arms were occupied with both Marius and the papers, and she was loathe to let go of either. She squirmed awkwardly, trying to hand Marius up to Cyrus while also clamping the schematics against her body. But the wind threatened to rip both of them away. Then she put her feet on the ladder, trying to climb with her hands full. She made little progress.

  Cyrus heard Hobb’s voice from the mouth of the turbine complex. “Seize those people!” he ordered. “I recognize the woman—Veridia Snipe. She’s a high ranking official in the Snugg clique. Grab her and whatever she’s carrying, and let’s get off this ridge.”

  The Guardsmen started forward, with Hobb just behind them. They neared the balloon, and Veridia turned to see them for the first time. Cyrus cried out in choked terror and scrambled back down the ladder.

  At that moment, several things happened all at once.

  Veridia, anguish written all over her face, dropped the firearm schematics and handed the remaining small, squirming package that was Marius up to Cyrus. Then she stepped onto the ladder and cut the cable holding the balloon to the ground.

  The last of Veridia’s guards went down, leaving the Giant-men with an unobstructed path forward to the landing—and to Hobb. The hulking, armored form of Gog the Hammer lay limply on the ground, his limbs askew and his head severed.

  The wind suddenly, and inexplicably, died. The air was as still as if they were underground again. The rain ceased as well.

  In the distance, not far to the north along the ridgeline, Cyrus saw a great hulk in the still air. Its wings were impossibly wide, its neck was long and snaking, and gouts of fire burst from its mouth, directed at the ground. But it was flying implacably, inescapably, toward the fleet of balloons and their defenseless occupants. Cyrus, holding Marius and trailing a badly twisted right leg, scrambled awkwardly up the precarious rope ladder. Behind him came Veridia.

  There came a great rumbling, rushing noise, as if someone had suddenly placed a waterfall directly at his back. A wide triangular shape, with a man suspended beneath it, went rocketing over his head, into the air—toward the dragon.

  ???

  You watch them for a long moment, Basil and the Man with the Metal Face. There is some invisible contest, as both bodies seem 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, you see two paths in the forest, two realities flickering back and forth; one a bright path, and the other dark.

  There is a hint of movement in your vision, and a single acorn shakes loose from its branch nearby your face, falling on the ground between them.

  “Just missed,” says the Metal Face, after the briefest of pauses. And then its hand flashes up, and the knife plunges into the unprotected chest of Basil. As the blade pierces his heart, he looks up at you in the forest canopy above, and releases a long, deliberate, breath, pointing the last wind from his lungs upwards into the sky. And then he falls silently to the ground.

  The wind from Basil’s last breath seems to die, but it does not. The molecules of air interact with each other chaotically, and yet with purpose; unpredictably, but perfectly. Beyond perception,

  changes, and the change spreads, and spreads, and spreads, adjusting molecules and gasses and outcomes over the whole mass of the Neighbor Kingdoms. In Pour Vaille, there is sun for a week rather than overcast skies. A front of warm air forms over the Gulf of Carelon, pushing north for several weeks and dragging a cold front behind it. The titanic forces of weather gather pace and momentum from Basil’s last breath, dragging wind and rain from the north and the south to collide over a remote, lonely valley in late June. And then, at one very precise moment, the chaos of the weather resolves itself into an unexpected chord: Of silence, and stillness, where before there was tumult.

  ???

  Rufus Snugg, strapped beneath his flying wing, fought with the controls and the billowing wind. Behind him, the twin rocket engines of his small aircraft provided enough thrust to propel him forward; but the constant up and down, left and right buffeting of the gusts made it nearly impossible to control his heading. A pair of round goggles shielded his eyes from the tearing wind.

  And then, abruptly, the wind stopped. It was as if nature, having exhaled as much as she cared to, had paused before drawing her breath back in.

  Exultant, Rufus checked the twin bandoliers of gunpowder bombs strapped across his chest. They were still both intact. So, too, was the hooded lantern, its tiny flame protected from the wind by sturdy vented housing. The rocket engines blasted him forward, and he manipulated the flaps and rudder to redirect himself toward his target.

  It was a beast: massive in girth, with wings that must have stretched fifty feet in each direction from its comparatively slim, serpentine body. Its head was pointed down, looking for more targets among the harried Snugg mercenaries on the ground, all fleeing toward the last escape in the balloons. The flames had already claimed too many. Rufus Snugg had his own flame, though it dangled beneath his body awkwardly in the tiny lantern.

  He maneuvered closer, aiming for the spot on its back where the broad wings sprouted from the body on powerful, muscular shoulders. The stillness of the air, shocking after the howling gale and rainstorm, was perfect for flying.

  The beast raised its head, and saw Rufus. Twisting its face into an alien, reptilian grin, it drew in breath.

  Movement caught Rufus’s eye to his left. Risking a quick glance, he saw five hawks there, flying next to him in formation. A tiny woman on the back of one of them gave him a short wave, then shot ahead of his flying wing. They dove recklessly toward the face of the monster in a line, even as it inhaled a breath that would immolate them all.

  But the immolation never arrived. Diving toward the great eyes, the first hawk rider delivered a tiny ball of ink directly into the center of its pupil. Two of her companions followed her attack with their own ink bombs, and the remaining two blinded the other eye. Roaring in confusion and pain, the dragon exhaled its flaming breath in a fiery spasm, directing it up, down, left, right as it swung its head in ponderous circles—but not at Rufus Snugg.

  Rufus directed his aircraft up and over the thrashing head, then back down to the broad patch of flesh and hide between its wings. There he cut the rockets and nosed up sharply, landing precariously on his feet. He unhooked a length of rope from his belt and swung it around the thick wing muscle, tying it off again to his belt; and then he repeated this action on the other side of the beast. Now lashed to its back, he set about carefully securing the flying wing—his only means of escape.

  But even blinded, the great beast was capricious. It swung one wing up and another down, forcing its body into a shockingly swift roll. The sudden shift dislodged Rufus’s harness, half-slipping the flying wing off. The wind from the serpent’s passage ripped at the fabric triangle, tearing painfully at Rufus’s shoulders. Lashed to the dragon’s back, he could not move his arms.

  Laboriously reaching one hand up to the metal latch at his chest, Rufus pried it open. The flying wing slipped off his back and crumpled into the distance behind him. Gulping, he looked down. The rocky peak of the western ridge was at least two hundred feet below.

  “” came a voice. It rasped like steel drawn across rusting iron. It vibrated in his feet. It was as deep as hate. It was the voice of the serpent.

  ???

  The locomotive, miraculously healed of its disability, leapt forward, pulling its cars, passengers, and cargo away from the pursuing Giant-men. It ascended the slopes, lifting them up higher and higher toward the peak of the eastern ridge. Jonathan and Merrily, crouched together beneath the flapping canvas and strange machinery on the back of the train car, watched in amazement as the pursuing Giant-men began to drop behind.

  “I think we’re going to get away,” remarked Jonathan. “We’re going to make it back to Hog Hurst.”

  Merrily turned to him, her eyes slightly wild—and he imagined that old, familiar warmth in them. But her voice was tight as she spoke, and her words made no sense to him at the time. It was like she was speaking to a different Jonathan, in a different time and a different place. Only many years later did he understand.

  “You can’t go back. There’s only one way—forward. Like this train. You can’t go back.”

  Before he could begin to ponder what she meant, the train began to slow down. They heard the metallic, squealing protest of brakes applied to the wheels.

  Ahead, on a flat stretch before the final ascent to the ridge peak, the Number One engine lay on its side, off the track. The cars it had towed lay behind it, in various states of destruction. Some had been torn apart, and others burned. The bodies of men, Giant-men, and goblins were scattered around the overturned cars. Swaths of grass had been scorched in broad patterns on either side of the track, as if a vast gout of flame had poured down on them from above.

  But it was not the scene of devastation that had caused the train engineers to apply brakes. Running toward the Number Two train from hiding spots on the rocky slope were scores of people. They were men, women, and children; soldiers and civilians; goblins and humans. Many were injured, and hobbled along or were carried with help from their companions. The adults among them carried children, or carried the shorter goblins.

  “Survivors from the Number One,” breathed Jonathan.

  The Number Two train slowed to a crawl, as the people on board shifted themselves and reached out hands to take on the refugees from the Number One. But Jonathan’s eye was caught by the familiar, awful, glint of steel. Scores of Giant-men emerged from the rocks further up and down the slope.

  “It’s trap,” he said quietly to himself. “It’s a trap!” he repeated again. Turning toward the front of the train, he screamed desperately—“Get it going again! Go! It’s a trap!” But his voice was lost among the tumult around them.

  Snugg mercenaries tumbled out of the train cars, making room for the civilians and arraying themselves in tidy lines. Their lives were over even as they descended, but they carried themselves with that awful professionalism of men who know their loved ones at home will receive a hefty pension in the event of their deaths. They shouldered arms, while loaders behind them carefully injected new powder and shot into the spare muskets. The armored Giant-men closing the ground toward the soldiers showed little indication of fear.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  Above Jonathan, on the roof of the enclosed train car, the canvas was thrown off the strange machine. He looked up and saw, for the first time, what it was.

  It had twelve barrels, arranged in a circle. There was a seat behind the barrels, and the whole assembly was mounted on a swiveling wooden plate on the roof with a series of gears that allowed it to move. Even as Jonathan watched, goblins at the turn-wheels were frantically re-aligning the plate, pointing it at the advancing Giant-men. The goblins gave a maniacal, chattering chant as they worked. Jonathan couldn’t quite pick out the syllables, but it sounded something like:

  For some reason that Jonathan could not quite pin down, the sight of the machine gave a chill to his blood that even the bellowing Giant-men could not match.

  The goblins continued their chant.

  Canvas covers on the roofs of cars up and down the train were thrown back, and a variety of vaguely similar machines were unveiled. Jonathan saw Gunnar von Boof standing by one on the train car immediately behind him. It had only three barrels, but they were much larger. Gunnar waved at Jonathan even as he directed his crew to point the machine at the advancing steel-clad warriors.

  With a casual wave of his hand, Gunnar gave the signal to open fire.

  The chant of the goblins on the machine above was suddenly joined by an immense basso counterpoint.

  The machine, fed on a belt with large, awkward cannisters, began to spit fire from one barrel at a time as they rotated, turned by a goblin to one side using a heavy crank. Another goblin on the seat directed the fire, and his companions on either side twisted the turn-wheels. The heavy cannisters discharged thunderous volleys of projectiles; smaller than a full-sized cannon ball, but also much faster and more numerous. Up and down the train, similar prototypes belched forth their variations on the theme of death. Some failed. Some exploded on the spot. Gunnar could no longer be seen amidst a haze of gray smoke. But the effect on the charging Giant-men on either side of the train was cataclysmic. The ground erupted in furrows of destruction, and the bodies hit by whistling shells were torn and rent. The fleeing civilians ducked and crawled forward, even as the line of Snugg mercenaries leveled their arms and fired, adding a higher-pitched punctuation to the thundering roar of the guns on the train cars. But despite the terrible destruction from the guns, some Giant-men reached the soldiers and cars. The struggle for domination between man and Giant-man became suddenly, and intensely, personal.

  Amidst the smoke and raining debris, Jonathan spotted a single child, wandering and wailing in terror in the storm of death around her. Jonathan remembered Fiond, in the forest at night, leading goblins to safety. He hopped down from the slowly moving train car and ran toward the girl. Merrily called out something behind him, but did not give heed. He felt his feet on a railroad as surely as the wheels of the train. Reaching the girl, he picked her up and dashed back toward the Number Two, even as the ground was rent and heaved upward by an exploding shell. He handed her up to waiting arms on the train car, and then turned back.

  There was a tall figure gliding through the smoke and fire. It was a man, and on his face was a glinting mask of metal. He seemed unconcerned by the destruction around him. Indeed, his feet seemed not even to touch the ground. The train in front of Jonathan began to accelerate, but returning to it was suddenly far from his mind.

  , he thought.

  He ducked away from the train and crept behind the burned shell of a train car, circling around it to approach the Man with the Metal Face from behind.

  Crouched behind the wreckage of the Number One train, he watched the Man with the Metal Face glide past. The man was alone, and he seemed oblivious.

  Merrily’s words still rang in Jonathan’s ears, and he felt their poison eating away at his heart.

  “You took her from me,” he whispered.

  Jonathan stepped out from behind the overturned engine, withdrawing Merrily’s long, elegant dagger from his belt. He rose to his feet, moving with a dreamy detachment. This had already happened. It had to be this way, and exactly this way.

  A steel-clad arm picked him up from behind and casually flung him backward. Tumbling, he rose to his feet, crouched low. He saw the Giant-man approach the thing that used to be Sir Richard of Enderly, and take off its helmet.

  Beneath the helm, he saw the fair features and long blonde hair of Fiond. She started to reach out to Sir Richard, and he turned back to her.

  ???

  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: But he didn’t yet. Not yet. Not in the moment that would have led us here to moment. It has passed. You have no gun, brother, and your tool has failed.

  SR: Not entirely. Not completely. Not yet. The result is indecisive, and the matter is not resolved. This meeting will come, as it always does. Your path will end there, as it always does. That the end is more distant now is immaterial.

  INT: We fade, even as we speak. The branches that lead to this place are less real. When we meet again, it will be on my terms. Now I will speak with Sir Richard.

  SR: Who are you?

  INT: I am the Lady of Earth and Stars. I am Ash. And you are Sir Richard of Enderly. I am sorry, Richard, for what my brother has done to you. That it is necessary does not make it easier to bear. I cannot set you free yet. But in this place, where everything is real, I can for a moment open a door that was closed before.

  SR: Hello, my love.

  ???

  The turf around Fiond and Sir Richard exploded in smoke and fire, and Jonathan lost sight of the two figures. He was flung to his back, and the breath whooshed out of his lungs. He stood up again, unable to draw breath. Across the field, he could see the last car of the train—the one marked with symbols of danger and with heavy steel bars reinforcing its walls—just disappearing into a cloud of smoke.

  Still gasping in futility for breath, Jonathan forced his legs to stagger after the train car. Drawing on other selves from the branches around him, he forced the breath back into his lungs. Those others were sacrificed, cut out of their own realities. But this Jonathan broke into a trot, and then a run, and then a sprint. Breaking through the cloud of smoke, he saw the train stretched out ahead of him, and there was Merrily, still perched on top of one of the cars in the center. She saw him and waved, and her movements had a freedom and a fluidity that Jonathan had not seen since Rolly died.

  The clouds parted, and the sun shone down on him. His legs ran faster and faster; faster than he ever believed he could run. Drawing strength and speed from his other selves, he hurtled after the accelerating train, leaping and catching onto the caboose for a second time that day. The small arms of goblins lifted him up onto the box at the rear of the final car.

  One of the goblins smiled and winked at him.

  “We still all may die today,” she said, “but not here, and not yet.”

  Jonathan looked back. Above the abandoned settlement, dozens of balloons had ascended higher into the sky, and were drifting to the south. The great hulk of the dragon had nearly reached the first of them. Here on the ground, dozens of Giant-men still pursued the train. Its cars now ladened with scores more passengers—many clinging to the outside of the cars, as there was no room at all within—the train ascended slowly toward the peak of the ridge. The steam engine fought valiantly with the force of gravity, now magnified by additional mass.

  Perched on the top of one car, a single point of light among the chaos and death, was the one and only woman in all the world that Jonathan loved.

  “Not yet,” he agreed. And he pushed into the interior of the aft car, threading past the boxes of explosives and rockets, toward Merrily.

  Overhead, the sun shone brilliantly, and the air was still.

  ???

  “” spoke the grinding, bowel-churning voice of the dragon. Rufus could not help seeing the people; he was strapped to the back of a flying beast that was pointed directly at them.

  “I see them,” he said. He wasn’t sure how his words could have reached the beast, as they were snatched from his lips by the wind and hurled northward. But it seemed to understand what he said; perhaps through vibrations in its skin.

  “,” it replied. “”

  “Why?” asked Rufus, fumbling with the lantern. He saw that it was still lit. The goggles, fogging and cracked, obstructed his view, so he ripped them off and let them fall behind him.

  “,” replied the hideous voice. “”

  “It is necessary for what?” inquired Rufus. He found that now, in his last moments, he had a desire to understand the meaning of absolutely everything.

  “”

  “I am not,” declared Rufus Snugg, “particularly impressed with God.”

  ???

  Cyrus and Veridia stood in the trembling basket beneath the hot air balloon. They looked down at the carnage in the valley, and saw the agony of the train and its passengers on the eastern slopes. They saw the approach of the dragon, with Rufus Snugg perched on its back. Behind them floated eight other flimsy balloons, drifting southward with the last civilians in the settlement, as well as Colonel Ratwurst and a handful of survivors from the rearguard.

  “Well, this is an absolutely ludicrous end,” remarked Cyrus. “But all things considered, I think being roasted by a dragon while suspended in a hot-air balloon is a worthy death for both of us.”

  Veridia said nothing, but clutched Marius to her breast. Her head was bowed, and there were tears in her eyes. Cyrus had never, never seen Veridia Snipe weep.

  He put his arms around her and Marius, and turned her away from the dragon.

  “Until the fire erases me, Veridia,” he said, “I love you. And I love Marius. Let that be enough now.”

  She laid her head against his shoulder, and her weeping stopped. She closed her eyes.

  “It’s enough,” she said.

  ???

  “Do you know what’s wrong with God?” asked Rufus. “He’s so goddamned arrogant. What gives God the right to say what’s the best of all possible worlds? Only people. People are the only ones that can give Him that. Only we don’t. By living, by existing, by seeing and deciding and loving and shitting and making a million, million choices every day, we defy God. God is an impotent child, whining in a corner of the universe that His toys are broken.”

  Rufus carefully unhooked one of the two bandoliers from his chest. A long wick, coated in black powder, dangled from one end.

  “” replied the dragon, “”

  Rufus looked up at the balloons. He knew every man and woman within them. He had hired them. He had paid them. He had given their lives meaning and substance for the last two years. Their children had learned in his schools, and the adults’ hands had labored in his mines and his laboratories. Their small, helpless balloons drifted in the wind before him, now beyond his protection.

  “In a moment,” he replied, “you will see the power of Man.”

  He touched the fuse of one bomb to the flame inside his small, delicate lantern.

  The explosion, viewed from the balloons at approximately the same altitude, was a sudden blossoming of red and orange, like a flower in the sky. It enveloped the body of the dragon completely and hung in the air for a few perfect seconds. Then it faded into a black and gray smoke, like a flower gone past. But the head of the dragon emerged from the smoke, its eyes still open, its mouth twisted in a reptilian snarl, still moving toward the balloons with its jaws agape.

  Then the body emerged, some twenty yards behind, and moving in an entirely different direction.

  The two halves of the great beast tumbled downward in glory and ruin, accelerating toward the earth at 32.174 feet per second, per second. Cyrus and Veridia looked up in astonishment, and the goblin crew in the balloon did as well. Their eyes followed the chunks of meat down to the top of the ridge, where the body impaled itself on a sharp spike of rock, and the head disappeared into a narrow crevasse.

  “There is a god in the machine,” remarked Cyrus, his fingers twisting unconsciously around a thin, metal rod in his pocket. And their balloon floated upward, reaching toward heaven in a serene apotheosis.

  ???

  The repeating cannon above Jonathan and Merrily was hopelessly jammed. Three of its barrels had split outright, and seven of the remaining nine were a bent and twisted mess. Huddled amidst the flapping canvas aft of the disabled gun, Jonathan and Merrily could only cling to each other and listen to the frantic chattering of goblins and the screams and shouts of the refugees clinging to the sides of the train cars. The Giant-men, pursuing relentlessly, were once again outpacing the grossly overloaded train and swinging at its flanks.

  “Jonny,” said Merrily. He looked up at her. The sight, the sound, the smell of her was brutally intoxicating. He was helpless before her. Together, they slipped into a different world—one where they were all alone, and safe, and the rocking of the train car beneath them was as gentle as a child’s cradle.

  “Jonny,” she said again. “I want a baby.”

  He blinked, looking at her in that different world.

  “You want a baby?”

  “Yes.” She nodded firmly.

  “Right now?”

  “Yes.”

  He looked around at the roof of the train car. The canvas sheet flapped invitingly in the wind. The sun bathed them in light, and the smells and sounds of June made a curious contrast with the desperate voices of the refugees and soldiers below and around them.

  Jonathan put his hand gently on Merrily’s neck, drawing her face close. But she did not wait. She kissed him hard, sliding her tongue into his mouth and pressing her body against his. She grabbed the canvas sheet and drew it over them. The click and clack of the train wheels on the tracks beneath made a steady rhythm; and after several moments, the canvas began to slide back and forth in a rhythm that matched it.

  Simon and The Gizzard dashed by the rhythmically thrusting sheet of canvas, heading for the aft of the train.

  “” demanded The Gizzard. In his excitement, he could only speak in the goblin tongue.

  “” answered Simon in the same tongue. “”

  “” asked The Gizzard, even as the two goblins leapt over the gap to the next train car rearward in line.

  “” answered Simon. He had to struggle to turn his thoughts into the maniacal, chaotic language of the goblins. It was not his native tongue. “”

  They leapt to the next car.

  “” countered The Gizzard, “”

  “.”

  “” observed The Gizzard, jumping over the swung greatsword of a Giant-man running in parallel with the train.

  “.”

  “”

  “”

  The Gizzard seemed to think about that as they ran backward along the last train car before the caboose. Simon slid down the ladder to the door of the aft-most car, and flung it open.

  “Listen!” he shouted at the goblins inside, switching to Uellish. These were engineers and Quiet Ones; they would be acclimated to it. “I need you to unhitch this car and let it roll back! And then get off—get up to the front and help the locomotive crew!”

  The surprised goblins nodded and scuttled out the door. Two of them set about turning the heavy crank that coupled the cars together. The Gizzard and Simon were left standing together in the door to the caboose.

  “,” said The Gizzard, “”

  Simon shrugged. “” He switched back to Uellish, hoping The Gizzard would be able to follow him. “Listen. You have to go now. Go with them back to the Gray Kingdom. The Quiet Ones can’t lead. They’re good, and they care, but they can’t lead. The goblins need someone who understands them, who speaks their language. They need you. You be the king now.”

  The Gizzard shook his head in confusion.

  “Do you understand?” asked Simon. “There’s no time, The Gizzard. I have to do this now.” The caboose was nearly uncoupled; the two goblins working the crank were spinning it furiously. “This is right. It is the right end for me. It’s necessary. The node in the library showed me how I die, and this is it. Don’t be sad, The Gizzard. Just go, and do what I would do to bring our people together and save them.”

  With an ominous clank, the caboose separated from the rest of the train, and the gap between him and The Gizzard began to grow. But quicker than lightning, The Gizzard grabbed Simon’s arm and yanked him across the gap between the cars. Simon landed in a heap on the platform of the forward car, and rolled to his back in horror. The Gizzard crouched, gathered himself for a leap, and sprang across the widening gap between the cars. He landed on the front platform of the caboose and tumbled to his feet.

  “NO!” shouted Simon in panic. But it was too late; there were already many yards of space between the cars.

  The caboose separated slowly from the rest of the train, falling behind as gravity and friction claimed its momentum—one more victim in the endless, entropic march toward the heat death of the universe. The Gizzard looked back wistfully at King Simon, perched on the new rearmost car of the train. His arm was still outstretched, and his face was a mask of shock and agony. The Gizzard turned away, knowing what he must do. He slipped into the human-sized door to the caboose, feeling the whole car slow to a stop and then slowly begin to roll backward down the steep slope. Selecting a stick of dynamite at random from one box, he slipped around the numerous other boxes of rockets, racks of shells, and barrels of gunpowder. He made his way to the back of the car, feeling the little vehicle pick up speed.

  Emerging at the back door of the caboose, the Knight Errand looked sadly at the mass of Giant-men sprinting up the track toward the train. Behind him, the heavily-laden Number Two was picking up speed in the opposite direction, making her way toward the tunnel that passed beneath the highest cliffs of the western ridge. But before him—now rapidly increasing in size—were the main body of Giant-men.

  He touched the fuse of the dynamite to the nearby lantern marking the very end of the caboose, and watched it burn down. The Giant-men swarmed around and beyond the little train car.

  “” declaimed The Gizzard, to no one in particular. “”

  The explosion that followed put Rufus Snugg’s sky-flower to shame. It ruptured rock, splintered railroad track, and flung pieces of the pursuing Giant-men into the sky in all directions. The force of Gunnar von Boof’s suddenly activated experiments rippled into air and earth, leaving a massive crater in the rocky slope where the little train car had been. Those Giant-men in pursuit who weren’t instantly disintegrated or dismembered turned and fled back to their comrades at the river, and none could be persuaded to venture again up the slope for many hours.

  The train and its desperate refugees chugged slowly and steadily up to the tunnel just before the peak, and then made their way through. On top of the center car, the canvas flap thrust passionately in a driving rhythm, and the sounds of lovemaking could be heard throughout the tunnel.

  Quite suddenly there was music, and everyone began to sing.

  ???

  On top of the ridge, Hobb the Wise looked at the flaming ruin of the dragon, and then back at the escaping balloons. He sat down on a rock, surprised to be overcome by a philosophical mood. The bright sun shone sweetly on his skin. The bodies of the three Giant-men scouts, now still, lay nearby, their blood pooling beneath the gaping, self-inflicted wounds in their throats.

  “We’ve secured the tunnels,” said the voice of Sir Thomas. “The last of the Snugg mercenaries escaped with that long caravan contraption. But the Giant-men are pouring in from the north. They plainly mean to take all three of these systems, and probably the whole valley. Our people have been cataloging and mapping as best we can, but we have no more time. We have to leave, sir, or there will be a fight here that we can’t win.”

  Hobb rose to his feet, humming contentedly. Sir Thomas looked at him in curiosity, evidently deciding whether the First Minister had gone irretrievably mad.

  Hobb wandered over to the piton where the last balloon had been tethered before it lifted off. A scattered mess of papers lay about on the ground, inert in the suddenly-still air. He picked one up. It was covered in strange schematics and formulae.

  “Gather these up, Pearsy,” he said casually to the nearby Chancellor. The bearded academic was already struggling with the three long scroll tubes he held, but dutifully, if awkwardly, gathered up the scattered papers on the ground.

  “I expect,” said Hobb, “that we won’t leave here empty-handed, in the final analysis. And the Herald now owes me his side of our bargain.” He glanced again at the bodies of the Giant-men, whom he had commanded to kill themselves. “I believe I have leverage that he will find… compelling.”

  ???

  Song echoed from the walls of the tunnel as the locomotive shot triumphantly from its western mouth. The goblins, chanting their collective hymn, set a melodic framework. The confused mercenaries and civilians added individual verses and descants in their own bubbles of song—singing around and over each other, but somehow in perfect interlocking harmony and rhythm. Nobody knew what was going on, or why, but they all sang. Even the snarf hawk riders observing the train’s passage overhead joined in, and their hawks cried out a keening melody.

  Jonathan and Merrily emerged from beneath the canvas with slightly embarrassed looks on their faces, tucking in their clothes. They looked around at the brilliant sun above, at the green trees of June, and listened to the song exploding around them instead of gunpowder.

  “She has a tendency toward bombast,” remarked a voice from behind them. Jonathan and Merrily both looked at each other as if they’d seen a ghost. Then they turned back to look at the ghost.

  It was Rolly. His paunchy frame and playful eyes were unmistakable. The dead mathematician sat on a chair of an unusual design, made of thin metal rods with straps of fabric slung between them. It looked remarkably comfortable. He wore a straw hat, which refused to flap in the wind of the train’s passage. One leg was propped up on the knee of the other. He wore a pair of short pants and a short-sleeved shirt with a wildly colorful floral pattern. In one hand he held a mug of beer, and in the other a sack of peanuts, and as Jonathan and Merrily watched he popped a peanut in his mouth.

  “Are you a ghost?” asked Jonathan.

  “No,” replied Rolly.

  “Are you alive?” asked Merrily.

  “Not exactly,” answered the enigmatic mathematician. “Have a seat.”

  He gestured. There were two more chairs with the peculiar light metal frames. Merrily and Jonathan sat in them. They found that the swaying of the train, while still present, seemed not to affect their balance or the steadiness of the chairs. They sat comfortably and securely, facing Rolly. There was a smell in the air that was somehow different, as if they had entered a kitchen.

  “I’m afraid I can’t stay long,” Rolly began, “so let me start off by addressing the most obvious questions.

  “A. I’m not

  here, in the way that you normally think of the word ‘here.’ Somewhere in one of the branching pathways—in an infinity of them, in fact—I didn’t die last October, and am still alive and well, drinking beer and eating peanuts while I ride the regular commuter line from Devi Valley to Hog Hurst. For a few minutes, a little piece of that branch is here with you; and so am I.

  “B. The singing is the fault of Ash, the Lady of Earth and Stars. It’s a side effect of her presence in this branch. Get used to it. Where I’m from, everyone’s got an invisible orchestra that follows them around all day.

  “C. The reason there’s a fragment of my branches here, right now, is going to have to remain inscrutable, because frankly I don’t have a clue. I’m guessing—and this is just a wild hypothesis, but it fits the facts—that your actions in the last fifteen minutes have had a great many consequences, and one of them is this little space-time cocktail party. I wish I could offer you a beer, but it won’t cross the barrier. So you’ll have to watch me drink.”

  Merrily cleared her throat.

  “You don’t seem surprised,” she observed. Her voice was muted, but her eyes were more alive than Jonathan had seen since that day in October. “You know that in this branch, you

  die last October. And you seem to know a few things about what happened in the last fifteen minutes of our lives. Were you… watching?” She blushed crimson.

  Rolly laughed—a deep, joyful, carefree belly laugh. Then he took a sip of beer, and laughed again. “Ha! Everyone was watching, Merrily. But don’t let it get to you. The details of branch are well known where I come from.”

  “And why is that?” she asked. The blush had not faded.

  “Because this is the Bright Path, my dear,” he answered. His face grew serious. “It is the Bright Path . You can still leave it, and undoubtedly will. There is one route through all the branching pathways that is perfect, and leads in the end to perfect happiness and fulfillment for all beings, and this is it. Any choice can lead you away from it. But you’re here, now.”

  “That’s impossible,” said Jonathan. “Every moment is a million choices, Rolly. Every time I blink my eyes, I might have waited a second longer. Every time I take a breath, I might have let it out a second sooner. You’re saying if I breathe wrong, I’ll ruin everything?”

  Rolly nodded gravely.

  “Then I must have just ruined it, just now. Because there’s no way I can possibly be breathing perfectly, or blinking perfectly, or doing anything else perfectly, just to preserve whatever you think is perfect.”

  Rolly shrugged. “You haven’t yet. That’s why I’m still here. Don’t get hung up on it, Jonathan. Just breathe. Either you’re in it, or you’re not. People come and go. Sometimes you’re there for a few days, or a few years, or a few seconds. The point is that in this branch, the one you’re sitting in now, enjoying the sun and the singing—in this one, everything is perfect. It may not seem like it, but it is. And at the end of the path—” his voice trailed off.

  “So yours isn’t perfect?” asked Merrily, after he didn’t continue.

  “Nope,” he replied, shaking his head. “I’m not in it. That’s why I’m here, talking to you. Don’t get me wrong, Merrily dear, my life is pretty grand. Veridia Snipe pays me a bucket of money, and we got our computing machine working a few weeks ago. Tentimes published on the new star—not a star at all, by the way, and I’m afraid I’m spoiling the third book for you—and I’m on my way to Green Bridge for a week of carousing and moral dissolution. My life is good. But it’s not the Bright Path, and never will be. In the Bright Path, I died last October.”

  Merrily put her head down. Tears glistened in her eyes, but did not fall.

  “Why are you here, Rolly?” asked Jonathan.

  “You brought me, Jonathan Miller. You and Merrily. That’s why I’m here. The way you two talk—it changes things. The Bright Path runs through you both, for now. You’re going to need to learn to use that, and you’re going to have to make the right choices. When you don’t—poof, buddy. It’s all gone. Now look. I don’t have much time. This bubble pops in a minute or so. You’ve got time for one more question.”

  Jonathan stared at Rolly, trying to memorize the absurd details of his floral print shirt, his straw hat, and his mug of beer.

  “Why did the Metal God kill you?” he asked.

  “Probably the wrong question,” commented Rolly, “but I’ll do my best. It wasn’t because of Professor Tentimes’ new star; that religious nonsense about contradicting scripture was just a cover for Father’s benefit. It also wasn’t because of the mathematics of the that I was working on with Professor Pie. Herberta is going to work all that out anyway, and Veridia will use it just the way she uses everything else. No—I got killed for a kitten.”

  Jonathan blinked, and Merrily stared.

  “A kitten?”

  Rolly nodded.

  “I took in a kitten in November. I died in this branch, you understand. During the siege of Green Bridge, the kitten gets out during the street fighting and distracts a Guardsman who’s about to shoot someone important. That’s it. Nothing more profound than a future contingency triggered by an act so apparently trivial that you’d never imagine the possible consequences. I got killed over a kitten.”

  Merrily looked up. “Why not just kill the kitten? Why did you have to die?”

  Rolly shook his head. “You’re not listening. The Metal God and Ash, they don’t fight over big things. They fight over tiny things. The life or death of a man, the movements of armies, the ambitions of the good and the great, shifts in demographics and food production—none of that matters. They fight over a grain of sand on a beach, or how an acorn falls off a tree, or the exact positioning of a kitten at a very specific point in time. The Metal God killed me, and not the kitten, because that wouldn’t have produced the outcome It wanted.”

  “What is that outcome?” asked Merrily. “What does the Metal God want? And how can your death also be part of the Bright Path?”

  Rolly winked slowly. “I expect you can work that all out, Merrily. I’ll give you a hint—there’s more than one way to save a kitten.” He took another sip of the beer and then leaned forward. His form had become shadowy and unreal; they could see and feel and smell the world slipping through him. The face was suddenly anguished, in a way that Rolly never had been.

  “I love you Merrily,” he said. “I always did, from when we first met. In my branch, I don’t get you either. It’s always this guy.” He nodded his head at Jonathan, his friendship tinged with only a ghost of bitterness. “But since you’ve brought me here, I can say to you what I never did to the woman who looks like Merrily where I am. I love you. Now, you must be well, be joyful, and do great things. I hope you breathe right… both of you.”

  And with that, Rolly was never there. Jonathan and Merrily were sitting on the roof of the swaying train car, listening to the singing around them.

  ???

  On the eastern ridge of the valley, Daven Dingeholt looked down at the abandoned settlement. The steely figures of Giant-men moved through its streets. There was no looting, no burning; it was simply possessed. To the south, the red-cloaked humans were withdrawing in good order, but also in haste. From Daven’s vantage, high above the valley, all the invaders looked minute. He grimaced at the irony.

  The wind blew cold and fierce from the north once again, and clouds scudded across the sun. The moment of intense, overwhelming joy that had flooded over him with the sudden calm and burst of sunlight had faded, and the old valley had resumed its rugged, stark, gray-veiled appearance.

  Out in the valley below, a single black horse, without any rider or saddle, ran at marvelous speed through the waving grasses. Daven looked at it for a moment in wistful jealousy; it was utterly free.

  He took a deep breath and looked down into the crevasse that sheltered some of the many exits from Great Roof. His people were there, filing out in long lines. Badger riders guarded the vulnerable travelers, and hawks circled watchfully above. His people traveled with those possessions they could carry on their backs, and nothing else. They moved north along the ridge, taking the first steps on a long road to an uncertain sanctuary.

  A hawk landed next to him.

  “Gi’ up in’ the sky wi’ ye,” he said wearily, not turning to look. “We’re thin ta’ th’ east. Too few left, an’ no geese.”

  “There’ll be geese where yer goin’, Dumble-dumb Dingeholt,” came the voice of a female snarf. Daven looked over his shoulder in irritation at the impertinent hawk rider. Then he dropped Anklebiter’s reins in astonishment.

  “Suits ye jess fine, wi’ yer mouth ‘angin’ open like that, Daven,” said his sister.

  “Yer dead,” he pointed out. “Ah saw th’ body in a rain barrel in the White Knights’ camp two years ago.”

  “Nuh uh,” she retorted. “Ah ain’t dead yet. Tha’s still ahid fer me. Ye too.”

  He shook his head. “No’ enough sleep, too many problems,” he muttered. “Ah’s seein’ wha’s no’ thar.”

  “Shu’ up, ye daft twit.” She threw a picked mouse-bone at his head, which he didn’t bother to dodge. It simply bounced off him as he stared. “Ye’d best get used ta’ problems,” she continued. “Thar’s a mouse-‘erd o’ problems ahid, an’ no’ many folks ta’ help ye. But, fer once in yer life, yer headed in th’ right direction—ta’ Refuge. Our people ought ta’ be together in wha’s comin’, not split inta two.”

  “Thanks fer comin’ back from th’ dead ta’ tell me wha’ ah’m alridy doin’ is right,” he drawled. “If’n tha’s all ye got, dead sister, then ye’d best crawl back in yer grave.”

  “‘Tain’t all. Ah ain’t got time nor patience to give ye , Daven. And ah wou’nay give ye tha’ Curse e’en if ah’d come ta’ hate ye. Ah came by ta’ say… ta’ say I love ye. Ah wairn’t s’pposed ta’ see ye; not yet. I’m breakin’ all th’ rules, an’ th’ Curse won’t shu’ up abou’ it. But ah don’ care if’n i’ messes up all th’ world fer me ta’ say’t. When we next see each others, Daven, there ain’ much time fer talkin’. So now’s the only time. Ah love ye, ye daft Dingeholt.”

  He shook his head in disbelief.

  “Wha’e’er fev’rish dream this is, Devi, ah’m glad it’s come over me. Ah love ye too. Ah’ve missed yer bad jokes an’ bad attitude somethin’ mighty. Don’ know what ye mean abou’ seein’ me agin’, but if tha’ should ever come ta’ be, then ye owes me a long tale o’er one o’ the big-folks’ mugs o’ beer.”

  They both looked out over the long expanse of the valley. The wind moved through the grasses like an animal, leaving footprints behind. Flashes of sunlight filtered through the scudding clouds above, and the smell of the north was fresh in their faces.

  “Wha’s next?” asked Daven after a minute. “Will ye come wi’ us ta’ Refuge?”

  She shook her head. “Nay. Ah’ve work ta’ do. Pebbles ta’ kick over, cheese ta’ move a bit ta’ the left, an’ a kitten in Green Bridge tha’ needs a new ‘uman friend.”

  Daven nodded, mystified but accepting.

  “Is this th’ end, then?”

  “Nay.” She smiled at him, the wind whipping her long black hair over her chiseled features. “Nay, brother o’ mine. ‘Tis th’ beginnin’.”