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The pronouncements of the captain were drowned by the goading of the crowd, but his actions were clear. It took three men to hold Kaul's father's left arm on the block. One soldier brought out a broad-bladed axe and his father's struggles renewed. The axe-man bent over him, giving instructions, but his eyes rolled and he screamed. The axe-man seemed to shrug; then, raising his weapon, he brought it down, once, with a sickening crunch.

I held out my hand with the marble in it, and the drowned girl reached out her long fingers and lifted it gently out of my palm, not even touching me with one of her fingernails. She rolled it in her hand for a moment, looking into the misty shadows in the glass, and then swallowed it, grinning almost like she was still human.

I was sagging, listing in pain, by the time I could see Rattle and the crew. They were waiting on the Eight-B platform, near the engine console. The Eight-B line had a rust-and-people smell that mingled into a peculiar musk. I imagined the stench of Hail's blood and body beneath the usual platform scents. From Rattle's face, I knew she didn't have to.

I tear the robe open. Father's belly's a ruin--but he has been, as he is in all things, strangely exacting. I press in with my fingers, feeling the wound's edges; mercifully, they don't go up underneath the ribs. No, he's slashed his intestines with expert precision--a deadly but slow wound. Plenty of time before swollen guts and poisoned blood will take his life.

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A flare of illumination washed the chamber in flickering shadow and gleam. I'd gone through another door, into a different room, longer and wider than the one I knew. Runes were scratched on every visible inch of walls, ceiling and floor. Repeated phrases: Death feeds life. Life breeds death. Death breathes. Tall and heavy armoires slithering with gold filigree lined both sides of this horrid space, most with their doors open, spilling out once-beautiful gowns now molded and rotting, reminding me of molted skins.

I was sagging, listing in pain, by the time I could see Rattle and the crew. They were waiting on the Eight-B platform, near the engine console. The Eight-B line had a rust-and-people smell that mingled into a peculiar musk. I imagined the stench of Hail's blood and body beneath the usual platform scents. From Rattle's face, I knew she didn't have to.

They clashed in Bear Forest, and the trees sighed around them. Unarmed, dressed only in shadow, they explored each other with sore fingers and hungry eyes. The enchantments of battle cast aside, they were two men of flesh and bone--no taller than any others and no stronger.

The song became a chant, slow and rhythmic as a sleeping heart. The dance wove together three women, then four, then one alone with steel in her hand. Zel dreamed on her feet, free of pain, comfortable with the prospect of death. Two of the sisters went away into the darkness beyond the ring of fire. When they returned, they bore a white ghost between them. A white-feathered ghost with yellow eyes that burned brighter than the flames.

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They clashed in Bear Forest, and the trees sighed around them. Unarmed, dressed only in shadow, they explored each other with sore fingers and hungry eyes. The enchantments of battle cast aside, they were two men of flesh and bone--no taller than any others and no stronger.

The science of anathema arrayed itself in my thoughts unbidden. I counted the marks--five in each swipe. They reached as high as a man, avoiding the iron fittings on the window frames. Whatever it was, it was as big as me. Something that size wasn't a fair match for ignorant villagers with nothing but a book written by an ex-priest.

The title of the book was Principles of Light-Bearing, and Sharide was engrossed in it by the second page. She had dreamed of being a weaver, and a fisher, and a soldier, and many different wives, but the life of a seeker of knowledge had never come to her yet. When next she slept, she decided, she would try to find a life wherein she had read this book, and other books, and understood them.

Her age was impossible to say, for her face was crusted with muck and roots. Her teeth were like kernels of mottled corn. She was naked, her skin textured like stone, gray and gravelly. Wet, bulbous mushrooms grew in the moss around her womanly crevice. Her reek nearly brought me to my knees.

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Vayag entered Subway Station 14, trying to ignore the book's continued whispering. The station was cleaner than it ever had been during her childhood. Say what you would about the Meroi, but they were excellent administrators. There were no beggars--but neither were there sellers of fruit, players of drums and tellers of fortunes with cards of azalea and crane. Vayag and her sister had come to stations just like this one, buying sour-sweet candies on the way home from school. Now when she looked at the station, all she saw were doors opening and closing, opening and closing, in mechanical defeat.

I closed my eyes and lay my head on my folded arms. I wanted to say yes to Casimar, and not only because I needed her protection. Every word of her argument was true; if Juggernaut denied itself the safety of belonging to Casimar Altan, if it let itself fall into the hands of Tourkis, the Dragons' power in the Tourkis System would be absolute. Like the fuel-starved orbit of Akshayavat, it would be nearly impossible to escape.

Megan Arkenberg on “Juggernaut,” the machinery of subgenre, and why an oppressed underclass is allowed economic power.

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Vayag entered Subway Station 14, trying to ignore the book's continued whispering. The station was cleaner than it ever had been during her childhood. Vayag and her sister had come to stations just like this one, buying sour-sweet candies on the way home from school. Now when she looked at the station, all she saw were doors opening and closing, opening and closing, in mechanical defeat.

"When you sat down so suddenly, the movement caused an infinitesimal trauma to the flesh in your head. In that chaos, a few of the tiny creatures that compose your brain were killed. Are you sad for them? Or do you only care about them so long as they provide you with movement, emotions, the mirrors that reflect my mind in yours?"

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The Spinies pressed flutes to their chest-maws and trilled a maniacal improvisation, something like Chinese opera filtered through jazz and spliced with a catfight. Not what I'd call music to die for, but my opinion didn't count much. Customs had generously allowed me to keep my pistol, after draining its battery to red. I had maybe three shots. Worse yet, if I killed someone, that was the end of my journey to sanity. I'd be deported or executed.

Esthe had no acid and no knife, but she had a little light from the keycards. She bit her tongue hard and spat blood into her hand. Within it she scried, not for the first time, that Karnon Nameless Dae was not a human man. He was neininki; alien. Like all neininki, a lie would cost him his life. Having promised to kill all who sheltered the prince, he would never spare her life.

Anne Ivy on “Scry,” alienness and hegemony, and how Oedipus’s parents caused their prophesied end.

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The Spinies pressed flutes to their chest-maws and trilled a maniacal improvisation, something like Chinese opera filtered through jazz and spliced with a catfight. Not what I'd call music to die for, but my opinion didn't count much.

Carneby and the young woman attend the Apogee Swim, that moment at the height of The City's bound when the air is becalmed. Lifeguards watch over the citizens who swim into the great void with flippers and paddles made of cardboard and tape. The young woman is ecstatic as she ventures out above the green and blue smear of The Earth. They thrash their cardboard fins, flirting with the airy abyss which is the only respite from the numbing continuity of The City.

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The title of the book was Principles of Light-Bearing, and Sharide was engrossed in it by the second page. It described how light was the underpinning of the world. She had dreamed of being a weaver, and a fisher, and a soldier, and many different wives, but the life of a seeker of knowledge had never come to her yet. When next she slept, she decided, she would try to find a life wherein she had read this book, and other books, and understood them.

Yengec lingered over his spiced yams and rice, reading Hjel's journal. Paramentals, not cauldron-borne like homunculi but spontaneously generated from the city itself. Paramentals--every polisomancer whispered of them. They haunted cities. Not quite ghosts, but spirits just the same.

Yengec lingered over his spiced yams and rice, reading Hjel's journal. Paramentals, not cauldron-borne like homunculi but spontaneously generated from the city itself.

Carneby and the young woman attend the Apogee Swim, that moment at the height of The City's bound when the air is becalmed. Lifeguards watch over the citizens who swim into the great void with flippers and paddles made of cardboard and tape. The young woman is ecstatic as she ventures out above the green and blue smear of The Earth. They thrash their cardboard fins, flirting with the airy abyss which is the only respite from the numbing continuity of The City.

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Aspley turned slowly. He had been washed ashore on the island, and in a daze, a delirium, had stumbled from the beach and into this building. He had no idea where he was or how he had come to be there. No explanations to soothe the rushing of his frantic mind. But then his intellect cut in. Reason, lovely, lovely reason, told him, in all its wisdom, that wherever he was it was preferable to where he had been, preferable, dear god, yes, to the horror of sucking seawater into his lungs.

I saw my men, who had been the cream of the III Corps, gladly charge well-fed, well-shod Cossacks with nothing but the bayonet and stock of the musket frozen in their hands, barefoot and starving. I admired them for their courage. I envied it. Because I had lost what I most cared for: the calculus of risk, and in its disregard, of bravery. That month of frimaire, I learned that nothing could end my life. I was no longer human.

Something moves at the end of the corridor. I raise the gun and stop when I see the small figure, the same soft wings but smaller; coiled serpent hair tight about the head. Little more than a girl. The creature's offspring. What she was protecting.

My voice sounds thin and choked when I speak. "Let the soldiers choose for themselves," I say. "Let those who wish to flee leave now, in good faith. I will not have them stay to be murdered for a cause they cannot support. But let food and bandages be stockpiled through the day, and close the gates"--I almost say, at nightfall, but it is always night now-- "before midnight. We will hold my father's fortress until the last."

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Something moves at the end of the corridor. I raise the gun and stop when I see the small figure, the same soft wings but smaller; coiled serpent hair tight about the head. Little more than a girl. The creature's offspring. What she was protecting.

He had heard rumors, when he was working for the bears, that their prince had fallen in love with a human girl, and that she had been the one to betray him. The prince, the young man who should have been a bear, was the reason why the castle must never fail, the reason why Jack must never speak.

This task had not been set to us but to him. How long might one live if they denied a god? Susanoo could not drown me in these waters, nor could a blade pierce my heart, but he commanded all of Yomi, and what tortures he might devise there I did not wish to know.

Condescension, from a slave, though Periphas. How appropriate. He got up, following the loggerhead along the circus' aisle as it swam. The carvings on its shell were spidery and thin, interconnected traceries meaningless in any language of logic or linear thought. He doubted that an untrained eye, even in the first row, would know them for what they were: the marks of madness bent to will. The symbols of a sorcerer's attention.

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And to my shock, they did apologize--some of them not bothering to feign sincerity, but it was clear to them that the turn of the tide was against them, and they must pretend I was not a slave but a person for just a bit, just long enough to satisfy the sensibilities of the others. I made note of which these were, to be careful of them from then on.

This task had not been set to us but to him. How long might one live if they denied a god? Susanoo could not drown me in these waters, nor could a blade pierce my heart, but he commanded all of Yomi, and what tortures he might devise there I did not wish to know.

She leaves the concubine boy sprawled against the parapet and turns to the estuary, so that he falls on her right and vanishes from awareness. She knows he is still there, of course; she is not touched. But she cannot make herself know it, cannot make herself grasp that he still exists. Her mind insists that he has been snatched away, drawn off-stage.

The Prodigy scampered forward at once and sat before the pipe organ's keyboards. Kreisler was with him. Together they began to play, calling the automata back to their city. Just as we had planned. And I, I ran after the Clockwork King, driven, as ever, by the thought of Olympia. For I had more that I would know.

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I walked away from the Flare that had once been Scorpion, away from Tal-hedran and toward the deepest parts of the desert. I stumbled in the sand, weeping as much as Frog had when we were children in the manor of stone. I had seen myself, and I was empty, no more than a vessel for my father's belief.

She leaves the concubine boy sprawled against the parapet and turns to the estuary, so that he falls on her right and vanishes from awareness. She knows he is still there, of course; she is not touched. But she cannot make herself know it, cannot make herself grasp that he still exists. Her mind insists that he has been snatched away, drawn off-stage.

The one who brings your food is named Osla. My birds are trained well, and this one will have struck at his eyes. Take this parchment quickly, speak his name, and he will fall like the rain outside your window. You must move quickly, for the first guard will be at the door.

"Shit," I said, and that sat there ugly and twitching between us for a few seconds before his stallion decided he'd had enough and wanted to go check out the mares. The King just had enough time to swoop up into his saddle before the horse made a beeline through the crowd. "Come and see me sometime, Livia!" he called, and then he was gone, swallowed up in the blue.

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Swinging from the roof hung a little cage with Garvinger's window-witch inside. It babbled spells to keep Malern alive and conscious on the table throughout the whole operation. Malern couldn't see its mad, warty little face, but now and again, cool drops of its sweat fell onto her fevered skin.

Mateo dreamed of overwhelming power, and of hell. Men harnessed power by merging themselves with mutilated monsters, prodded alight the power of insensate gods through fires poked into other planes. Genoa stole the secrets of domesticating the gods from the Venetians. The Venetians stole from Genoa. Always chasing. Always fleeing. Always hunting up new gods with which to destroy each other.

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The man's head swung wildly, his fingers grasping towards the straining netted bundle. The touch of the God on an unholy man was not pretty. Halla could sense it, crackling the air from the Mouth to the man. It was a compulsion that filled him with blood lust, blanketed his mind with one urge: kill the dove.

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I spent the whole of the night lying awake, watching the sickly reflection of the moon in my wall of gilded mirrors. At last the sun rose, and I left my rumpled and sweat-soaked sheets with a great and sudden desire to see Gethsemane von Reis again. Before any part of my brain could protest, I washed and dressed, tucked the Times article into the pocket with my watch, and set off across the herb gardens to the shadows of Armitage Wood.

I went to see the specimens, because I thought I should know the face of the Enemy--my father would have been in there prodding and cutting himself--and immediately wished I hadn't. Cleaned of swamp sludge they looked like the gray ice mummies that had been found in caves along the Blue Belt.

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The music grew louder, skirling with strange harmonies that wove in and out of each other, and I knew then it couldn't be Nanny. I emerged from the artificial forest to stand behind my brother and sister. An elegant divan covered in striped cream and blue silk was faintly visible out of the corner of my eye. I crossed my arms over my chest as though I could protect myself. "Where is this?"

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They all had to die. That was the right thing, Saga knew for certain, so he buried his fingers into the mound and found the fuse. He yanked it free, unraveling hand over hand, clearing it of fetid earth and inspecting it for rot and wear as he went. When he held a full thirty sticks' worth, he laid straight the line and prepared the flint and replotted his escape route, upwind so the little things couldn't smell him when they came.

Ordinary catastrophe. Is there such a creature? All catastrophe feels extraordinary to the one caught in its tide. It is no comfort to the ones whose fortunes I read, to say to them, This thing is ordinary, this thing that will happen to you.

Cecily grabbed a shard from the mirror, traced an unsteady line along the flesh of her wrist. Scars and metal piercings adorned her arms where she'd cut herself before. "They demand the spilling of blood," Granduncle would always say, when he bothered to notice her at all. "They envy us, you see, and covet the iron flowing freely in our veins."

A heavy pressure struck Imre about the head--the air itself drumming his ears--even as his blade impossibly passed through Ariosa's shape without slowing. No impact. No blood. Instead she blurred and before his eyes faded into the air, a ghostly mist. He swore as he caught his footing, just an instant before Ariosa reappeared with a hammer-fisted blow that jarred Imre to the spleen. Vesti met hymn with a crack and Imre's battle-scarred blade exploded in a cloud of black and copper pieces.

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He shrugged into the straps of his cricket box and tested the mask of noise over the shuffle of his footsteps. The jostle irritated a chorus of angry chirping from the little territorial males. They didn't like being forced together. Saga for his part offered them the only advice he knew: "Time is the mother of chance." It was the Twelfth Knot and the favorite saying of Kagehana's escape master. Employ enough patience and even the strongest prisons will show you a way out.

The one who brings your food is named Osla. My birds are trained well, and this one will have struck at his eyes. Take this parchment quickly, speak his name, and he will fall like the rain outside your window. You must move quickly, for the first guard will be at the door.

A Seraph approaches me with two brands, red-hot from the coals. The first is Adultery, and it blackens my right cheek. I bite my tongue to swallow the scream. The second is Death, and it sears my forehead. This time I do scream.

The gallery erupted with the roar of a thousand voices--laughter, questions, taunts pouring down in a torrent of Silici that would have put any market auction to shame. Living swords grown from the bones of dead men were shaken. The ground beneath Imre's feet shook from the force of stone fists and sandaled feet pounding throughout the amphitheater. His head remained bowed.

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Abruptly his stronghold folded. His names struck. He tore my mind-veil off. Before I could react, the names retreated, reformed his stronghold. All too powerful for me. He laughed. "The Raker's daughter has taken a single two-syllable. Women, huh. Weaker even than your mother. So be more sensible than her, sweet Vendelin...."

Cecily grabbed a shard from the mirror, traced an unsteady line along the flesh of her wrist. Scars and metal piercings adorned her arms where she'd cut herself before. "They demand the spilling of blood," Granduncle would always say, when he bothered to notice her at all. "They envy us, you see, and covet the iron flowing freely in our veins."

Was she, Elna, depraved, as the book said? Was Parn? Parn had never an angry word for Elna, not even a scowl, not for anyone; how was that depravity? And what did her parents believe? Parn thought her parents would conceal her, protect her, defend her, but Elna feared otherwise.

I had seen the image in the Zuxugo girl's cloak, in the basketful of butterflies she had brought, but those had been stylized and lifeless. These butteflies were alive, brown, with one wide, staring eye on each upper wing. They didn't fly straight as the hawk would have, but bobbed and circled, haphazard. Their wings were far more delicate than any gold or stone image could depict.

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On the face of the matter I had to agree. While the estate would technically belong to the Imperial Family, I had been assigned the position of steward--quite a handsome income. "Security is the greatest illusion of all, Kenji-san. As for my poverty, it was more of a problem when I was drinking. Don't mistake me--I am not ungrateful. I am merely puzzled."

"She wasn't my opponent when I executed her." I accept mortal commissions; I've killed before. Those deaths were honest. Magdalena's was a waste, and my hands are filthy with it. With a casual nod, from a cleric who knew nothing about the sword-edge of truth, I have been made to feel like a heretic.

Dr. Benjamin, he was running, running through the rain from one tent to another, trying to save his Story Eater and those pasty wax circles he's spent so long collecting and, once, he looked up. Mala was sitting there on the top of the sea wall. She wasn't wearing a rain slicker or even shoes and she was just looking at him like he was a rat, like he was a bug. Like he was something with too many eyes and too many legs and all she wanted to know was what ridiculous thing he was going to do next.

A Seraph approaches me with two brands, red?hot from the coals. The first is Adultery, and it blackens my right cheek. I bite my tongue to swallow the scream. The second is Death, and it sears my forehead. This time I do scream.

Aidan's color had worsened overnight, and one of his ears had sloughed off, replaced by shiny grey scar tissue. His eyes were the only part of him still fresh and wonderful. He smiled at me when he woke and saw me examining him. "Morning." He coughed and spit a tooth into his palm. "Sorry."

I didn't have to ask whom he meant, but it seemed that Daiki, in this one regard, was not going to get his wish. The bushi produced two flea-bitten, scruffy men. Both were bruised and bloody but alive. Two more were not. Daiki kicked the body so that it rolled face up and studied the dead man's features. "It would seem the bandit has escaped me after all."

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Aidan's color had worsened overnight, and one of his ears had sloughed off, replaced by shiny grey scar tissue. His eyes were the only part of him still fresh and wonderful. He smiled at me when he woke and saw me examining him. "Morning." He coughed and spit a tooth into his palm. "Sorry."

Was she, Elna, depraved, as the book said? Was Parn? Parn had never an angry word for Elna, not even a scowl, not for anyone; how was that depravity? And what did her parents believe? Parn thought her parents would conceal her, protect her, defend her, but Elna feared otherwise.

Gris-Gris's fur moved where I blew on it, but nothing happened, and I felt desperate sad but also I felt so happy to know I wasn't a witch. It wasn't working and he wasn't coming back alive, so I wasn't a witch. But when I thought that to myself, something in Gris-Gris seemed to tremble, and I touched his chest with my finger and felt it move.

I knew I was not alone. Unseen things crept at the edges of my hearing, but none made any sign that they could talk to me, or that they recognized me as a friend. I began making the motions with my hands, which trembled a little. Will any of you talk to me? I asked, knowing it was futile to expect an animal to know the hand-signs that my family used to speak with me.

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The lenses continued to strike as I leapt over Phidias. I wrenched Lundqvist's stylus from the socket, heedless of the damage I did to both. "Professora Lundqvist!" I shouted, peering at her sensor ring and the brain beyond. But the walls continued to keen, and Lundqvist's phonograph remained silent.

Gris-Gris's fur moved where I blew on it, but nothing happened, and I felt desperate sad but also I felt so happy to know I wasn't a witch. It wasn't working and he wasn't coming back alive, so I wasn't a witch. But when I thought that to myself, something in Gris-Gris seemed to tremble, and I touched his chest with my finger and felt it move.

Lillian countered by flinging a particular spelled spice blend about her. I couldn't tell what it was supposed to do, other than make me want roast chicken for luncheon, but Lord Benderskeith fell to his knees. Lillian took advantage of his moment of weakness to reach for some of the fermented entrails. But Lord Benderskeith rallied astonishingly, summoning an ugly little imp to wreak havoc with Lillian's work.

The Prodigy scampered forward at once and sat before the pipe organ's keyboards. Kreisler was with him. Together they began to play, calling the automata back to their city. Just as we had planned. And I, I ran after the Clockwork King, driven, as ever, by the thought of Olympia. For I had more that I would know.

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Lillian countered by flinging a particular spelled spice blend about her. I couldn't tell what it was supposed to do, other than make me want roast chicken for luncheon, but Lord Benderskeith fell to his knees. Lillian took advantage of his moment of weakness to reach for some of the fermented entrails. But Lord Benderskeith rallied astonishingly, summoning an ugly little imp to wreak havoc with Lillian's work.

When he was done killing another glass, he dragged the demons' bodies out of the saloon into the street for the buzzards circling overhead. They'd eat anything. There were a few more people standing in the doorways of other buildings now. He couldn't tell if they were ghosts or not. He didn't have an eye for that sort of thing.

I tear the robe open. Father's belly's a ruin--but he has been, as he is in all things, strangely exacting. I press in with my fingers, feeling the wound's edges; mercifully, they don't go up underneath the ribs. No, he's slashed his intestines with expert precision--a deadly but slow wound. Plenty of time before swollen guts and poisoned blood will take his life.

But experience had taught me that dissertations on magical systems are incredibly dull for all save the oblivious nincompoop who actually believes anyone wants to listen. No, when people ask you what you 'do', all they really want is a snappy line or two they can repeat over dinner later. Well, to hell with that.

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I tear the robe open. Father's belly's a ruin--but he has been, as he is in all things, strangely exacting. I press in with my fingers, feeling the wound's edges; mercifully, they don't go up underneath the ribs. No, he's slashed his intestines with expert precision--a deadly but slow wound. Plenty of time before swollen guts and poisoned blood will take his life.

"Shh," I whisper. I lift my bone shears and disconnect his left clavicle at the articular process, snap it at the foramen. He is screaming but I do not hear it. The smooth shank of bone sucks out of the trembling meat of his back, and I hold it up to the gathering dawn light. There, buried in the center, is a diamond, blazing a deep and furious red at its heart.

Wilhelm doesn't know what he will say to her if he catches up. He isn't even sure that he will try to speak to her again. All he knows as he makes his way across the busy market square is that he wants to keep her in his sight just a little while longer, because her smile made him feel like someone other than pudgy Wilhelm from the paper store. He knows that once she slips away, life will become boring and ordinary once more.

I like to carve. I like to sculpt. But the ironwood trees in the forest shatter even the finest blades. Father says that the war has changed them, that the magic of the battlemages has infected the land, and I have no cause to doubt him--he has been my educator and my window on the world. Bone is easier to shape.

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The General is apoplectic. He would yell, no doubt, and strike me, but he cannot afford to yell, and if he strikes me I might betray him, through my bruises if not my words. I see him realize also, with the shock of a man who is not used to being in this position, that he has no choice. If he wants Nakshedil dead, he must agree to my requests.

Wilhelm doesn't know what he will say to her if he catches up. He isn't even sure that he will try to speak to her again. All he knows as he makes his way across the busy market square is that he wants to keep her in his sight just a little while longer, because her smile made him feel like someone other than pudgy Wilhelm from the paper store. He knows that once she slips away, life will become boring and ordinary once more.

He only had one shirt. One pair of pants. No shoes. He brushed his hand along one wall. The parchment was soft with age. He closed the door, walked down the hall, down the stairs, and into the street.

Oh, poor Enanatuma! We had been estranged long before my banishment. I had seen her only once since the day ten years ago when I had given up dancing and devoted all my energies to magic. I had done her a favor in return for the thousand kindnesses she and her father had shown me and had intended never to see her again. But she was still my sister.

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Zéphine hugged herself. "It doesn't matter. My dance will fail tonight. They will dress me in white and give me the draught of waking sleep so I can neither feel nor move. Then Marie will sew my eyes shut with unicorn hair and slit my arms from wrist to elbow. When the unicorns come they will drink my blood until I die and eat my soul when it escapes between my lips. That's why I've never loved my sister. I've always known the last thing I'll ever see is her sewing my eyes shut."

He only had one shirt. One pair of pants. No shoes. He brushed his hand along one wall. The parchment was soft with age. He closed the door, walked down the hall, down the stairs, and into the street.

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The Spider stepped out of the gate. She was a stooped woman with dark hair. The sockets in her face were empty and scarred over. She wore gloves that were cut off at the first knuckle. At each fingertip was a tiny glittering eye.

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The silver pool I had found, as things often were in the Other Forest, was still as glass, and impossibly clear. I saw his reflection first. Unlike the mother wolf, and the puppies, he was a wolf here as well as in the waking world. His coat was coal-black and silver-tipped, as the dark fourth pup would surely be when he was grown. You are not supposed to be here, he said. You are not.

I charged off, blind as the proverbial. With the burlap around my head, at any moment I could've tripped on a root or run straight into a tree. I let my instincts take over. The space around me revealed itself to me. I could visualize the forest, each root and fallen tree, all the colors strange and smeared. Weaving through the trunks at full tilt, I believed that I might escape after all.

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His tone filled her with a strangeness. Some of it was pleasure at his diffident compliment, some of it was fear, and some more elusive tendril buried in the emotion was something unsettling, like watching a shark drift up out of the depths and vanish again. Sternly she told herself that all of this was normal, and Mother wished her to learn from this creature, who certainly would be strange! She would not let fear master her.

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We have neither heard nor seen sign of the ehrekh since leaving the caravanserai three days ago. Perhaps the gods toy with me on my final voyage home, for my mind is resolute--no matter what dangers might present themselves in Harrahd, I will return home. Or if my Alenha has fled back to our village, I will search for her there.

I loved him with gratitude and pity, and in time, as I saw the hero he was, I came to love him with reverence and envy, too. And all the time I hoped I might also do a great deed--that I might cure a hero of his scars. But my love, and what understanding I can offer, do nothing. Still he writhes, crying out in the night.

I heft the shovel in my hand. The glint of it doesn't compare. If I sharpened it, maybe. If I flattened it out with a mallet and ran the edge against a stone until it sparked like death-day firecrackers, then it just might outgleam the cat's ruby torque.

I get up and go to my old war chest. I wipe down the carved top once a week, but when I open it dust wafts up from the inside. My weapons are all well put away, but the metal looks dull from dust sticking to the oil. I kneel. The scent reminds me of an attic, of things forgotten.

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All was silence, and Uhammad was alone with the desert and his phial of spice. He held it above his left eye and focused on his strongest memory from their journey. After pulling back his lower eyelid, he tapped some of the powder into it. It burned worse than the bright red peppers he used to flavor his dishes. He felt weightless. Despite his sudden wish to fight its call, it had all too soon taken hold of his entire being.

I heft the shovel in my hand. The glint of it doesn't compare. If I sharpened it, maybe. If I flattened it out with a mallet and ran the edge against a stone until it sparked like death-day firecrackers, then it just might outgleam the cat's ruby torque.

I crumbled to my knees on the front steps of the church as the hinkypunks closed in on Danny O'Neil. In the twilight of the village square, their bodies were like whirling balls of smoke and light, each one's single foot hopping almost too quickly for me to see. They had brought the smell of the bog with them, thick as sludge and duckweed.

And what music he created. His sculpted notes and cascading chords--ripped from the heart of ruined, grieving PameMorturas--were sweet and somber, furious and mournful, filled with the longing of unfulfilled lives and stolen years. They spoke of things that once were and now could never be again, of the selfishness and jealousy of those who had wreaked destruction not only upon that poor city but on the future of mankind itself.

Marten hesitated. This life in the Wrights' Division, ground under the heel of the Bull's soldiery, or the pyre... but he was a coward, and the books, the books.... He sagged and took Gerda's hand, nodding. Just till I can escape.

I crumbled to my knees on the front steps of the church as the hinkypunks closed in on Danny O'Neil. In the twilight of the village square, their bodies were like whirling balls of smoke and light, each one's single foot hopping almost too quickly for me to see. They had brought the smell of the bog with them, thick as sludge and duckweed.

I was a plant in the crowd to drum up excitement. Boss stayed in the tent all show and gasped during the finale when Elena "fell" and only caught herself by one foot in the very last second. I could hardly keep from laughing at the rubes that panicked and then applauded three times as loud as they would have if it had all been perfect. Elena and the others had Boss's copper bones--what could happen to them that couldn't be mended?

For the first few years, she only passed information, while the reports of faery incursions began to grow. Then--when they went to London for Violet’s introduction into society--three things happened. The faeries turned the Prime Minister’s fingers into twigs and his eyes into acorns. Papa died. And Thomas discovered what she was.

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I was a plant in the crowd to drum up excitement. Boss stayed in the tent all show and gasped during the finale when Elena "fell" and only caught herself by one foot in the very last second. I could hardly keep from laughing at the rubes that panicked and then applauded three times as loud as they would have if it had all been perfect. Elena and the others had Boss's copper bones--what could happen to them that couldn't be mended?

They ran through the tumbles and bumps, grips and leaps, Buzzard tossing and turning with Razor as she barely noticed, thrashing about to make it look real. And as they tussled on the ground, Buzzard snaking his python choke around Razor’s mighty furred neck, he spied the balcony. All the children were leaning over, pointing and laughing, ignoring Lady Astra, who smiled and nodded, then shoved Konrad hard through the stone rail--

I do not want his scrutiny now, with the cool blade of the dagger pressing against my thigh. On the nearest dance path, a woman laughs as a fat prince covers her ears and throat with wet kisses. I feign interest as he spins her across the path, through the starlight that pours into the atrium. Unbidden, I picture our last dance together, on a night so similar and so different.

He'd called her excellent! Four's heart soared, and she sped up to keep pace with the music's racing beat. Oh, let them watch. Let them ooh and aah, them with their foul stinking breath. Even when sweat rolled down their noses and fell to her platform in large blobs, splashing so she had to jump out of the way, she never flinched. Let Master see how strong she was.

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Anger gave Sen cold focus, but it made Leksen crazy. She sidestepped his first wild blow and got in a solid kidney punch that made him howl; he grabbed her arm and slugged her in the stomach. Sen snarled that away and clawed his face, leaving bloody furrows down his cheek. It wasn't a Dance of any kind, but she didn't care. It was her sacrifice to the Warrior. Either he was going down, or she was.

I take one stone hand in the other and unscrew it. Inside my hollow wrist is a padded pocket. A mantis scuttles out, tethered to me by a chain as fine as hair but stronger than anything I could name. It scurries up my arm, across my cheek, and props on the tip of my nose. “Time now,” it clicks. “You go.”

This half-life dragged at her. She felt weary all the time, a chilled-bone sluggishness of motion that belied the quickness of her thoughts. It was not painful to breathe, but it was tiring, and she began to eschew it when alone and unworried about frightening the living.

I like to carve. I like to sculpt. But the ironwood trees in the forest shatter even the finest blades. Father says that the war has changed them, that the magic of the battlemages has infected the land, and I have no cause to doubt him--he has been my educator and my window on the world. Bone is easier to shape.

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By sheer force of will, Sen forced herself upright. She hadn't won; that much was clear. If that had been the Grandmaster's test, then she'd failed, and this had all been a waste of everybody's time. She couldn't look at Kerestel, at Criel, at anything other than the Grandmaster's feet. The silence stretched out, harpstring-tight. And then he spoke, his mild voice betraying nothing more than it had before.

I do not want his scrutiny now, with the cool blade of the dagger pressing against my thigh. On the nearest dance path, a woman laughs as a fat prince covers her ears and throat with wet kisses. I feign interest as he spins her across the path, through the starlight that pours into the atrium. Unbidden, I picture our last dance together, on a night so similar and so different.

They couldn't be serious, Morrow thought, could not possibly be...but then the Major allowed the squid to slip from his fingers and into his mouth. Miss Twickenham stifled a horrified gasp. Morrow's heart quickened its beating. Surely, there had been some sleight of hand in the Major's actions. What he had witnessed was impossible, and he wondered just how strongly the professor’s tobacco had been tinctured with laudanum.

His tone filled her with a strangeness. Some of it was pleasure at his diffident compliment, some of it was fear, and some more elusive tendril buried in the emotion was something unsettling, like watching a shark drift up out of the depths and vanish again. Sternly she told herself that all of this was normal, and Mother wished her to learn from this creature, who, certainly, above all other things, would be strange! She would not let fear master her.

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This half-life dragged at her. She felt weary all the time, a chilled-bone sluggishness of motion that belied the quickness of her thoughts. It was not painful to breathe, but it was tiring, and she began to eschew it when alone and unworried about frightening the living.

Only as the song nears its end do I risk a glance at my audience. I see a movement behind Dr. Mesmer’s head. For a moment I think it is a trick of the doubled mirrors, that I’ve caught a glimpse of myself reflected from the other room. But reflections do not wear strange clothes. The man stands in the back of the room. His eyes are closed, and his jacket is torn. His head is bleeding.

"You're one of the lucky ones. We could put a mask on you, keep the particles out for a few days. You'd turn back into what you were before." I moved closer to the fort and took another reading. The needle hovered over yellow. My tongue felt as dry as sand.

I felt it, or rather Gaumont’s body did, and with such force that it took me a moment to throw it off, a sudden desperation not to see what lay beneath that heavy drape of fabric. Yet I watched eagerly as the hands drew back the folds of grey material to reveal a granitic face, human in form, but so frozen that its wrinkles might have been carved from stone.

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"You're one of the lucky ones. We could put a mask on you, keep the particles out for a few days. You'd turn back into what you were before." I moved closer to the fort and took another reading. The needle hovered over yellow. My tongue felt as dry as sand.

They couldn't be serious, Morrow thought, could not possibly be...but then the Major allowed the squid to slip from his fingers and into his mouth. Miss Twickenham stifled a horrified gasp. Morrow's heart quickened its beating. Surely, there had been some sleight of hand in the Major's actions. What he had witnessed was impossible, and he wondered just how strongly the professor’s tobacco had been tinctured with laudanum.

Whether I was drunk or sober, Princess Teiko haunted my dreams. I had always assumed, if I drank enough that one day this would no longer be true, but there had been fifteen years of drinking after we parted, plus two more after her death, and now my optimism was quite exhausted. As this foolish hope had been all that I had to fight her with, there was nothing left for me to do tonight except the only sensible thing--I surrendered.

Dollies were the chore of my life: winding them, mending gears, and keeping good care of their pricier parts which pleasured the men.

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Whether I was drunk or sober, Princess Teiko haunted my dreams. I had always assumed, if I drank enough that one day this would no longer be true, but there had been fifteen years of drinking after we parted, plus two more after her death, and now my optimism was quite exhausted. As this foolish hope had been all that I had to fight her with, there was nothing left for me to do tonight except the only sensible thing--I surrendered.

The house was bigger on the inside, as Dorota expected from a witch. What she didn't expect, in the flickering candlelight, was the filth. Spiderwebs, of course, in the corners, in the grimy chandelier, festooned with crumbling bits of insects trapped, dismembered, neglected. The floor might have been red, might have been stone; the thick black grease of it gripped the soles of Dorota's boots as she inched through debris down the long corridor. The walls might have been red, too, red wallpaper dancing with bouquets of slime and countless handprints.

A group of officers cluster below the mark on the wall. One balances an inkpot, another copies the symbol onto parchment, a third notes its location on a map of the city. Near where they stand there is a patch of bloody ice splashed against the stones next to an odd-shaped bundle of rags, the buckles of a Legionnaire's uniform winking out at us. We stare, and the officer with the map waves us away.

I had little talent for poetry, but my instruction in the classic metaphors was probably no less extensive than Akio's. The poem was both an entreaty and a question; that much was clear. But what was the answer? One who might be able to tell me was beyond speech now and might be for some time, if not forever.

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A group of officers cluster below the mark on the wall. One balances an inkpot, another copies the symbol onto parchment, a third notes its location on a map of the city. Near where they stand there is a patch of bloody ice splashed against the stones next to an odd-shaped bundle of rags, the buckles of a Legionnaire's uniform winking out at us. We stare, and the officer with the map waves us away.

Ernst fumbled with the new sword at his side, but it had some ivory-inlaid clasp keeping it in place and he screamed in terror, at which point the medium muttered something and all the lights went out. Ernst freed the sword and swatted in the dark with it, backing against a wall, which was when he felt the itchy spider hairs rub against his throat.

I finally scent Leaver at far edge of mamafield, past where my roots have ever dug. I don't feel safe so far outcircle, but he's traveled alone for years. He's been so far outside we wouldn't even scent his death. And that's what he deserves.

Son squeezed billows of black ink around the ship to mask his approach, remembering what Two-Father had told him: Always curl your tentacles around the front, never in the back where the whirling tail-blades lie. Never rest your tips on the deck, lest they chop off the ends of your sensing-limbs. And should you brush against a long, thin tube of metal, draw away quickly before it squirts fire.

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Izzy pushed himself up, trying to see. A flickering light like the reflection of moonlight on the ocean cascaded over the hall, and through it shadows darted like knife-edged fish--Society guards, he realized a little late, moving between him and the light. A gentle roar and boom heralded the trundler automaton's actions: settling down again, after whatever it had done to contain someone.

I finally scent Leaver at far edge of mamafield, past where my roots have ever dug. I don't feel safe so far outcircle, but he's traveled alone for years. He's been so far outside we wouldn't even scent his death. And that's what he deserves.

He had sworn never to speak of it, not to anyone, but his tongue betrays him in an instant. "Sometimes I think I’ve been here before. In my dreams...I have the strangest dreams." He pauses, fighting not to say more, and into that pause comes the young man's quiet answer. "Dreams of this place. Not this cell--a proper chamber, with a proper bed, and servants, and no shackles. But a prison just the same."

For the first few years, she only passed information, while the reports of faery incursions began to grow. Then--when they went to London for Violet's introduction into society--three things happened. The faeries turned the Prime Minister's fingers into twigs and his eyes into acorns. Papa died. And Thomas discovered what she was.

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He had sworn never to speak of it, not to anyone, but his tongue betrays him in an instant. "Sometimes I think I’ve been here before. In my dreams...I have the strangest dreams." He pauses, fighting not to say more, and into that pause comes the young man's quiet answer. "Dreams of this place. Not this cell--a proper chamber, with a proper bed, and servants, and no shackles. But a prison just the same."

Staring into the witch's cup, I feel something loosening inside myself, a knot I hadn’t known resided in my chest. I nod as though drowsing, despite feeling in some ways strangely alert, aware of minute details: the snap and hiss of the driftwood fire; the whuffle and scuff of gull feet scrabbling on the windowsill; the heavy presence of Katte’s broken body. Almost, I think I can hear the knitting of my friend’s fractured skull, the remaking of her rent skin.

Garran spotted the fountain long before he reached its base. Water spurted into the air, sprung from a stone wineskin held by a life-sized statue of the founder of Vihal...one of the murderers of Beliath. Garran repeated that fact in his head as he pushed through the last throng of people, a part of him both amazed and horrified that no one had stopped him yet; a much deeper part shamed that he had not stopped on his own.

Oh, poor Enanatuma! We had been estranged long before my banishment. I had seen her only once since the day ten years ago when I had given up dancing and devoted all my energies to magic. I had done her a favor in return for the thousand kindnesses she and her father had shown me and had intended never to see her again. But she was still my sister.

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"Shit," I said, and that sat there ugly and twitching between us for a few seconds before his stallion decided he'd had enough and wanted to go check out the mares. The King just had enough time to swoop up into his saddle before the horse made a beeline through the crowd. "Come and see me sometime, Livia!" he called, and then he was gone, swallowed up in the blue.

Garran spotted the fountain long before he reached its base. Water spurted into the air, sprung from a stone wineskin held by a life-sized statue of the founder of Vihal...one of the murderers of Beliath. Garran repeated that fact in his head as he pushed through the last throng of people, a part of him both amazed and horrified that no one had stopped him yet; a much deeper part shamed that he had not stopped on his own.

Mielbok stared at the boy. "I'm Mielbok the White Worm! Mielbok the Foul! Mielbok the Eater of Minds! What can you do for me, human? To me, you’re just food not yet ripe. A fruit just waiting to be plucked! Quiet yourself, before you wake the Lady. She'll make a mockery of you!"

Sanquor shook his head. How could such foolishness, such misunder- standing, have taken root? Of course the thoravids had to be destroyed; of course any trace of them had to be scourged. They were an abomination in the sight of the Tetharan.

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The shadows on the buildings seemed alive with movement, although the air was too cool for mirages. The memory of my dream still lingered, fooling my weary brain into believing that I glimpsed animal shapes writhing there. I hurried my pace along the empty streets, wondering if I should just pay the Commissaire's bribe and be done with the place.

Lession's first catch was an old drunk, a silver-haired sailor who was staggering through one of the back streets. When he bit a chunk from the drunk's shoulder, the man went limp. The initial thrill of tasting meat soon evaporated. The flesh was old, sour, steeped with alcohol. He couldn’t take this back for Hurkerna. No. Goat would taste far better.

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Meurig scrambled to his feet, confused. “Your pardon, that I missed prayers,” he said to Father Ambrose. “My heart is too heavy for my words to rise.” He had pierced the skin of worlds, however briefly. Now Rhiannon was a sword again, and Caedmon would die."

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Mielbok stared at the boy. "I'm Mielbok the White Worm! Mielbok the Foul! Mielbok the Eater of Minds! What can you do for me, human? To me, you’re just food not yet ripe. A fruit just waiting to be plucked! Quiet yourself, before you wake the Lady. She'll make a mockery of you!"

A floating tree starts as a seed in the sky but needs no soil. It takes air, sun, and rain and turns them into leaves and branches. It doesn’t need roots either. It only grows more leaves and branches, until a full-grown floating oak is like an uneven ball of leaves. I asked L'Acoste, are they the work of nature or some wizard so long ago that he had been forgotten? His response was "who knows these things."

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Sully could practically feel her glance brushing along his skin like silky smooth lips. It could, more to the point, the thing inside him, exploiting his senses as if they were its own. She stood and stretched, then strolled to the doors of carved tulgey wood that opened into the mews outside. Sully caught her fragrance, the scent of her feminine places, a smell of spice and rich dark petals of bloodleaf. "Sabrina? Don’t get too close."

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I wondered then if there was inside my brother a seed of sorts, a slender elongated bulb like those I'd seen in Anne's workroom. Thinking the police would never know, I drew the coverlet away, revealing the bloody mess of his shirt. A large hole gaped several inches beneath his chin, just to the left of the breastbone. I dropped the blanket back over him and stepped back, shaking in fury.

Son squeezed billows of black ink around the ship to mask his approach, remembering what Two-Father had told him: Always curl your tentacles around the front, never in the back where the whirling tail-blades lie. Never rest your tips on the deck, lest they chop off the ends of your sensing-limbs. And should you brush against a long, thin tube of metal, draw away quickly before it squirts fire.

Why an armed man should have been the one worrying, she never explained, but I had seen the tumblers tossing one another in the air and the strongman lifting all six dancing girls on his outstretched arms like they were no heavier than a pair of sleeves. I could guess what would happen to anyone who was caught out.

She was in the fields and out of sight of the kin-nest before she stopped to reconsider. Tahn would die anyway, once the Destroyer broke completely free of the barrier. If the old fool wanted to hurry the process, why stop him? He was no friend of hers, just another selfish lackey of the ley-readers. He’d probably only gone to manipulate her into following him. And like a soft-shelled hatchling, she was doing exactly that.

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Why an armed man should have been the one worrying, she never explained, but I had seen the tumblers tossing one another in the air and the strongman lifting all six dancing girls on his outstretched arms like they were no heavier than a pair of sleeves. I could guess what would happen to anyone who was caught out.

Every time I opened it, it felt as if I were opening one of the House's doors, and indeed, the book was filled with pictures of them, marked with strange glyphs and sigils. Hundreds of times, I painstakingly copied the diagrams onto doors in the attic, and always there was a sense of impending something. Yet when I opened the doors, the symbols would vanish, and the door would be just a door.

Abe experienced the odd sensation of Madame Oljon inside his head aligning her face with his, pushing eyes and lips forward past his own as they both stared at the small figure near the center of the room sitting cross-legged on a high cushion, naked save for a loincloth, smiling idiotically (not unlike, Abe thought, the wizard Philoneus’s own idiotic smile).

The man's head swung wildly, his fingers grasping towards the straining netted bundle. The touch of the God on an unholy man was not pretty. Halla could sense it, crackling the air from the Mouth to the man. It was a compulsion that filled him with blood lust, blanketed his mind with one urge: kill the dove.

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Abe experienced the odd sensation of Madame Oljon inside his head aligning her face with his, pushing eyes and lips forward past his own as they both stared at the small figure near the center of the room sitting cross-legged on a high cushion, naked save for a loincloth, smiling idiotically (not unlike, Abe thought, the wizard Philoneus’s own idiotic smile).

I had seen the image in the Zuxugo girl's cloak, in the basketful of butterflies she had brought, but those had been stylized and lifeless. These butteflies were alive, brown, with one wide, staring eye on each upper wing. They didn't fly straight as the hawk would have, but bobbed and circled, haphazard. Their wings were far more delicate than any gold or stone image could depict.

For the first few years, Violet only passed information, while the reports of faery incursions began to grow. Then--when they went to London for her introduction into society--three things happened. The faeries turned the Prime Minister’s fingers into twigs and his eyes into acorns. Papa died. And Thomas discovered what she was.

But experience had taught me that dissertations on magical systems are incredibly dull for all save the oblivious nincompoop who actually believes anyone wants to listen. No, when people ask you what you 'do', all they really want is a snappy line or two they can repeat over dinner later. Well, to hell with that.

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I had little talent for poetry, but my instruction in the classic metaphors was probably no less extensive than Akio's. The poem was both an entreaty and a question; that much was clear. But what was the answer? One who might be able to tell me was beyond speech now and might be for some time, if not forever.

I walked down the aisle, passing frozen spectators whose eyes were riveted to the screen and weeping blood. I recognised the Mayor immediately by his bold muttonchops, and beside him, the actor Franchot Aucoin, whose lecherous exploits were as legendary off-screen as on. Both men were bleeding as though their eyes had been gouged out and pressed back in.

A lift of a wing and their soaring arc encompassed the whole of the house. They swung around it and Abby could see them now, the twin pillars of stone upon which she'd lived all her life. Suddenly she was dropping nearer, nearer, and then they landed in the carved hollow in one pillar just a foot above the tide. She ignored the trembling in her legs as she crouched at the edge and dipped her fingers in the water.

For the first few years, she only passed information, while the reports of faery incursions began to grow. Then--when they went to London for Violet's introduction into society--three things happened. The faeries turned the Prime Minister's fingers into twigs and his eyes into acorns. Papa died. And Thomas discovered what she was.

They landed in the carved hollow in one pillar just a foot above the tide. She ignored the trembling in her legs as she crouched at the edge and dipped her fingers in the water.

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Carla caught her breath as the shape came clear: a face of pipes and fittings and gears, its eyes glowing faintly with the sheen of werglass. The mouth was only an expressionless line of cable, but when the voice spoke again there was no question whose it was. "Who is she?"

I demanded the return of Tahileh. She was mine, and had been working for Leuhovesen instead for far too long. I thought of the cries I heard the night before when I slept beneath the attic, but I refrained from saying anything, which given Leuhovesen’s temper that day was probably wise.

So I made a horse. I made bones of iron and a mane of silk. Tendons of rubber from the king's caravans. I gave it a belly made from a wine vat. Around this I wrapped a skin of black and brown velvet--brindled bars such as no horse had, but that would make a cage to contain its life. I would ride this horse to freedom, away from my prison to the wastes where I’d fly with my sisters on owl wings.

It came to Jabey that Sloan’d never looked at these glasses in proper light; what if they were just a cheap shiny? But the sudden sharp panic receded as he pulled them from his pocket and unwrapped the linen. They were indeed a tiny pair of opera glasses, with a simplicity and a heft about them that suggested expense.

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Katherine's hands found the button at the throat of her dress, and she unstrung the tiny loop that kept it fastened. I gazed at her milk-white skin and swallowed. Katherine laughed. Her fingers flew down the front of her dress like birds, shedding waves of fabric with every motion. She stepped out of the pile of material at her feet and stood naked before me.

'Twas Abigail who answered, standing some way across the deck. It sounded like the entire crew took a collective breath at the sight of her. Water streamed from her now ill-fitting gown. It seemed as though she was coming apart, becoming water as she crossed to us. Through corset and skirt, it drenched her.

A church grim like Magrat could taste death, scent it on the air, feel it in the marrow of her bones. Every mortal carried a little bit; death was always a possibility, from accident or disease. But sometimes the possibility grew stronger, closer, when a man stood at a fork in the road, then chose the path that led toward peril.

The Prodigy scampered forward at once and sat before the pipe organ’s keyboards. Kreisler was with him. Together they began to play, calling the automata back to their city. Just as we had planned. And I, I ran after the Clockwork King, driven, as ever, by the thought of Olympia. For I had more that I would know.

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A church grim like Margat could taste death, scent it on the air, feel it in the marrow of her bones. Every mortal carried a little bit; death was always a possibility, from accident or disease. But sometimes the possibility grew stronger, closer, when a man stood at a fork in the road, then chose the path that led toward peril.

So I made a horse. I made bones of iron and a mane of silk. Tendons of rubber from the king's caravans. I gave it a belly made from a wine vat. Around this I wrapped a skin of black and brown velvet--brindled bars such as no horse had, but that would make a cage to contain its life. I would ride this horse to freedom, away from my prison to the wastes where I’d fly with my sisters on owl wings.

The spider creeps closer, dragging its meal behind. Moira counts its eyes again. Seven. The spider's the only thing that has reality. It's realer than she is, right now. She's already on her way out--has been since the burns, really. She tries to breathe, but the wrappings are so tight, and the weight on her chest is so heavy.

My voice sounds thin and choked when I speak. "Let the soldiers choose for themselves," I say. "Let those who wish to flee leave now, in good faith. I will not have them stay to be murdered for a cause they cannot support. But let food and bandages be stockpiled through the day, and close the gates"--I almost say, at nightfall, but it is always night now--"before midnight. We will hold my father’s fortress until the last."

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The spider creeps closer, dragging its meal behind. Moira counts its eyes again. Seven. The spider's the only thing that has reality. It's realer than she is, right now. She's already on her way out--has been since the burns, really. She tries to breathe, but the wrappings are so tight, and the weight on her chest is so heavy.

They thought of it as a game, these dusty old men. Tease the dim, pretty little poppet with bits of magic to keep her dazzled and quiet. They’d never realized how much I had actually understood until I'd raised my head from my work and pulled back my hair so they could see my eye, see that I'd received the curse of knowledge. Then they were frightened, and rightly so.

The nightmares had mostly stopped now, and my face only ached on hot days. I never looked at myself in the stream, so I wasn't sure what color the scars were, but my fingertips told me the skin was tough and dead. As for the rest, once I washed myself out with lemon juice, I just went on with my rituals in the temple, because someone had to. I tried not to remember. Not to let it rule me. But now that he was at the temple too, I felt a little safer.

"You?" I stood, furious, and as I did the red brazier-light glinted on something behind the throne that I could not see. "Did you not have enough of father’s blessings while he lived? He gave you gifts, and horses, and talked of the great kingdom you would inherit. Meanwhile I sat in your shadow and the heap of your scorn. No, brother. For this once I will have something that you have not had first."

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The nightmares had mostly stopped now, and my face only ached on hot days. I never looked at myself in the stream, so I wasn't sure what color the scars were, but my fingertips told me the skin was tough and dead. As for the rest, once I washed myself out with lemon juice, I just went on with my rituals in the temple, because someone had to. I tried not to remember.

Sully could practically feel her glance brushing along his skin like silky smooth lips. It could, more to the point, the thing inside him, exploiting his senses as if they were its own. She stood and stretched, then strolled to the doors of carved tulgey wood that opened into the mews outside. Sully caught her fragrance, the scent of her feminine places, a smell of spice and rich dark petals of bloodleaf. "Sabrina? Don’t get too close."

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I felt the first cut like a violation. Pain burst in my chest, would not cease. I screamed and screamed until my voice was raw. No. No. I never asked for this! I saw a priest lift out a bloody, pulsating thing dizzyingly high above me, and a sensation of emptiness spread from the hole in my chest and swallowed me.

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Jeris tensed. "A rogue territorialist?" Circle Circle Six, nominally protected by its more prominent neighbors, had one of the highest turnover rates for territorialists. If it had just been a change of regime, Jeris would have sat back to see how long the newcomer lasted. But the bone-map's reaction had been a clear warning that he would have to intervene.

The body was my own, and not my own. It was no mere trick for others’ eyes; my very joints seemed strung together more loosely, and my breasts ached under the tight bindings I had always worn. By the end of each night I had nearly adjusted to this female form, only to be wrenched back to my natural male one at the first whisper of dawn.

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Such is our addiction. Living formless is its own refuge--our skin-shifting a means of escape, to always have a new identity waiting in the tank for when the one we wear becomes overly tiresome and persistent. But the King no longer wearies of change, and has but one face now to show the world. And though it resembles candle wax, it remains. "That is my difference," he says.

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"They will want you always," said Madame. "If you do not find a way to guard against them, they will pursue you. They love to destroy, and you make it possible for them to destroy again and again. If you are in their power, they can cut that page's throat again and again. You understand? They need not find something new to smash until they have wrung all the joy out of one toy, if you are with them. You must not let them take you."

The true story the Slow Game tells is depicted in the scenes that are enacted as we players meet in the maze and move towards the central tableau. The audience members meet with each other, share what they have seen and try to decipher the overall meaning. The Slow Game moves ceaselessly, a great beast that never seems to shift and yet is never in the same place twice.

His pain is too much; we cannot hide any longer. In a flutter of copper wings, we descend from the pine tree, settle near Nezahual: the hummingbirds on his shoulders; the parrots on the stone rim of the fountain; the lone quetzal balancing itself on the handle of the broom.

Of course, this was very nice for all the other women of the world, but not for me. For me, Dollies were the chore of my life: winding them, bathing them in oil, mending gears and joints, and keeping good care of their pricier parts which pleasured the men. I cannot say that I hated it, nor that I was fond of it, only that it was my task every single day to care for these immortal metal beauties.

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His pain is too much; we cannot hide any longer. In a flutter of copper wings, we descend from the pine tree, settle near Nezahual: the hummingbirds on his shoulders; the parrots on the stone rim of the fountain; the lone quetzal balancing itself on the handle of the broom.

Now a cold anger overcame Absinthe. How could this boy deign to come between him and his treasure, tittering his way across the Archipelago? How could he himself think that frills and creamy silks could deliver into his hands what he desired? Elaborate capers were all well and good at whiles, but most times the only solution to a problem was a swift, sure, well-delivered blade.

“You remember. You can tell me how Surnyao was. And then I can go home, and tell my people, and we will take that light with us into the darkness.” It would come regardless. The last suns would burn out, and Surnyao would go into the Crush, as countless worlds had gone before them. But they could go as Asurnya, with the strength of all they had forgotten. They could make their own light.

Jesper whirled. Right at his back, feet clacking on the limestone, was one of his steam-powered wolves. But instead of ambling across the gravel path and back into the forest, it went utterly mad, hoping forward and back, tail pinwheeling. It jumped forward, teeth bared; the air rent with a scream and the ugly sound of ripping fabric; the wolf danced away with a mangled petticoat in its gleaming jaws.

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"You remember. You can tell me how Surnyao was. And then I can go home, and tell my people, and we will take that light with us into the darkness." It would come regardless. The last suns would burn out, and Surnyao would go into the Crush, as countless worlds had gone before them. But they could go as Asurnya, with the strength of all they had forgotten. They could make their own light.

"Um," Absinthe said. The perfect opportunity had sailed athwart his bows. All he had to say was "What a beautiful dress you are wearing, my lady," and the room would burst with his men attacking, overcoming the crowd, and the jewels would be his. Something was holding back the words. She was so beautiful....

But when Mister Hadj started in on them cowboy songs--well, as sure as I'm standing here, when that man got to crooning a tune he made the earth itself cry. This ain't just me tale-telling, you hear? I seen tears fall from big red rocks when the old man hummed. Heard stones weep as they parted before him. So when Mister Hadj said that a stone in the road told him where to find Parson Lucifer, I didn't doubt it.

Khatire couldn't seem to catch her breath, afraid to swallow the fouled air. The cut in her palm throbbed like heartache. She had just killed one of the precious vaimen. In the eyes of the emperor, her life was forfeit.

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But when Mister Hadj started in on them cowboy songs--well, as sure as I'm standing here, when that man got to crooning a tune he made the earth itself cry. This ain't just me tale-telling, you hear? I seen tears fall from big red rocks when the old man hummed. Heard stones weep as they parted before him. So when Mister Hadj said that a stone in the road told him where to find Parson Lucifer, I didn't doubt it.

Carneby and the young woman attend the Apogee Swim, that moment at the height of The City's bound when the air is becalmed. Lifeguards watch over the citizens who swim into the great void with flippers and paddles made of cardboard and tape. The young woman is ecstatic as she ventures out above the green and blue smear of The Earth. They thrash their cardboard fins, flirting with the airy abyss which is the only respite from the numbing continuity of The City.

I knew I was not alone. Unseen things crept at the edges of my hearing, but none made any sign that they could talk to me, or that they recognized me as a friend. I began making the motions with my hands, which trembled a little. Will any of you talk to me? I asked, knowing it was futile to expect an animal to know the hand-signs that my family used to speak with me.

The full moon let me see the train coming. It raged up the path of the old tracks but it wasn't on them. It wove across them, ignoring their boundaries, sweeping like a snake on sand. It was a long one. It'd be full of a lot of good things--nails, cotton, wood, corn. That pleased me. Made everything a little more worthwhile, as worthwhile as dying ever got.

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I knew I was not alone. Unseen things crept at the edges of my hearing, but none made any sign that they could talk to me, or that they recognized me as a friend. I began making the motions with my hands, which trembled a little. Will any of you talk to me? I asked, knowing it was futile to expect an animal to know the hand-signs that my family used to speak with me.

And what music he created. His sculpted notes and cascading chords--ripped from the heart of ruined, grieving PameMorturas--were sweet and somber, furious and mournful, filled with the longing of unfulfilled lives and stolen years. They spoke of things that once were and now could never be again, of the selfishness and jealousy of those who had destroyed Morturas and the destruction they had wreaked not only upon that poor city but on the future of mankind itself.

Tarc was awake for a couple hours at the beginning and end of my shift, and those hours were longer than the ones I spent with my thoughts. He was chatty as a guiro-bug. He didn't just talk, though. He asked questions. The more he asked, the more chary I got that he'd figure out what I was doing--that one of his marks was my little girl, and that I meant to stop him.

The man's head swung wildly, his fingers grasping towards the straining netted bundle. The touch of the God on an unholy man was not pretty. Halla could sense it, crackling the air from the Mouth to the man. It was a compulsion that filled him with blood lust, blanketed his mind with one urge: kill the dove.

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Condescension, from a slave, though Periphas. How appropriate. He got up, following the loggerhead along the circus' aisle as it swam. The carvings on its shell were spidery and thin, interconnected traceries meaningless in any language of logic or linear thought. He doubted that an untrained eye, even in the first row, would know them for what they were: the marks of madness bent to will. The symbols of a sorcerer's attention.

Tarc was awake for a couple hours at the beginning and end of my shift, and those hours were longer than the ones I spent with my thoughts. He was chatty as a guiro-bug. He didn't just talk, though. He asked questions. The more he asked, the more chary I got that he'd figure out what I was doing--that one of his marks was my little girl, and that I meant to stop him.

He'd called her excellent! Four's heart soared, and she sped up to keep pace with the music's racing beat. Oh, let them watch. Let them ooh and aah, them with their foul stinking breath. Even when sweat rolled down their noses and fell to her platform in large blobs, splashing so she had to jump out of the way, she never flinched. Let Master see how strong she was.

Unified by poison--by the power of the elder's will--the ragged line of sorcerers dissolved, passing through a ring of tall stone stelae carved with human shapes. Nods and mumbled words shaped tenuous alliances along demarcations of homeland and creed. The buzzards found perches among the empty seats. This, Periphas realized, is why Eurytus waited. The humans would fight, exhaust themselves to within inches of death; then the centaurs would gallop in, laughing.

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She was in the fields and out of sight of the kin-nest before she stopped to reconsider. Tahn would die anyway, once the Destroyer broke completely free of the barrier. If the old fool wanted to hurry the process, why stop him? He was no friend of hers, just another selfish lackey of the ley-readers. He'd probably only gone to manipulate her into following him. And like a soft-shelled hatchling, she was doing exactly that.

He'd called her excellent! Four's heart soared, and she sped up to keep pace with the music's racing beat. Oh, let them watch. Let them ooh and aah, them with their foul stinking breath. Even when sweat rolled down their noses and fell to her platform in large blobs, splashing so she had to jump out of the way, she never flinched. Let Master see how strong she was.

There's always a woman. And she plays her part, one way or the other. "The stranger’ll come for you," I tell her, trying to tip-toe round the vulgarity. Whether it's The Marshal or The Hired Gun, the innocent's champion gets the woman. He'll be good to her, but she'll never forget, never be quite the same when he rides away.

I lifted my muzzle and sniffed. The wood was different today. Fine dust still hung in the air and sparkled in sunlit shafts. Such a thing this sparkling was. I gazed at it in wonder. Had the light ever been just so before? Was this a new thing?

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The old man's form shimmered in my grasp, like a mountain peak glimpsed through summer haze. Another instant and I did not hold an old man at all, but rather an oni. He was perhaps a head taller than myself, with red skin, gleaming tusks and horns, and black hair as coarse and thick as a horse's mane. He continued to struggle, and it was all I could do to hold him.

Jesper whirled. Right at his back, feet clacking on the limestone, was one of his steam-powered wolves. But instead of ambling across the gravel path and back into the forest, it went utterly mad, hoping forward and back, tail pinwheeling. It jumped forward, teeth bared; the air rent with a scream and the ugly sound of ripping fabric; the wolf danced away with a mangled petticoat in its gleaming jaws.

I felt it, or rather Gaumont's body did, and with such force that it took me a moment to throw it off, a sudden desperation not to see what lay beneath that heavy drape of fabric. Yet I watched eagerly as the hands drew back the folds of grey material to reveal a granitic face, human in form, but so frozen that its wrinkles might have been carved from stone.

Kenji began to chant. It might have been a passage from the Diamond Sutra; I was not pious enough to know one book of Buddhist scripture from another, but Kenji, despite his flaws, knew nearly all of them and could recite the appropriate passages at will. Which he was doing now. The shadow moved away from us toward the outbuilding as we stepped out onto the rear veranda, always keeping the structure to its back, or such I judged its back to be. It was hard to be certain with something so close to formless.

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I didn't have to ask whom he meant, but it seemed that Daiki, in this one regard, was not going to get his wish. The bushi produced two flea-bitten, scruffy men. Both were bruised and bloody but alive. Two more were not. Daiki kicked the body so that it rolled face up and studied the dead man’s features. "It would seem the bandit has escaped me after all."

I felt it, or rather Gaumont's body did, and with such force that it took me a moment to throw it off, a sudden desperation not to see what lay beneath that heavy drape of fabric. Yet I watched eagerly as the hands drew back the folds of grey material to reveal a granitic face, human in form, but so frozen that its wrinkles might have been carved from stone.

I go further in, to the ghosts. The first ghost is the ghost of the Boots. They are two holes in the wave of stone that half-fills a room of the old house. No telling who felt inside the pair of holes and found they were the shape of the inside of a boot. If you slide your feet into them--first checking that nothing has gotten there first--you can ask the ghost for a wish.

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I go further in, to the ghosts. The first ghost is the ghost of the Boots. They are two holes in the wave of stone that half-fills a room of the old house. No telling who felt inside the pair of holes and found they were the shape of the inside of a boot. If you slide your feet into them--first checking that nothing has gotten there first--you can ask the ghost for a wish.

There's always a woman. And she plays her part, one way or the other. "The stranger'll come for you," I tell her, trying to tip-toe round the vulgarity. Whether it's The Marshal or The Hired Gun, the innocent's champion gets the woman. He’ll be good to her, but she"ll never forget, never be quite the same when he rides away.

Her age was impossible to say, for her face was crusted with muck and roots. Her teeth were like kernels of mottled corn. She was naked, her skin textured like stone, gray and gravelly. Wet, bulbous mushrooms grew in the moss around her womanly crevice. Her reek nearly brought me to my knees.

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Her age was impossible to say, for her face was crusted with muck and roots. Her teeth were like kernels of mottled corn. She was naked, her skin textured like stone, gray and gravelly. Wet, bulbous mushrooms grew in the moss around her womanly crevice. Her reek nearly brought me to my knees.

"When you sat down so suddenly, the movement caused an infinitesimal trauma to the flesh in your head. In that chaos, a few of the tiny creatures that compose your brain were killed. Are you sad for them? Or do you only care about them so long as they provide you with movement, emotions, the mirrors that reflect my mind in yours?"

The warmth, then swift coldness, of piss on my legs brings me back from the rolling horror oozing over the dirt-pack towards me. Still a league distant, it is monstrous. A grotesque boil on the earth; a seething mass of tree spars and rocks that scalds the ice around it into steam. The way it moves! Questing forward, then rushing into the blackened space before it. Each thrust accompanied by boulders grinding, great snappings of century-old trunks as it heaves ahead.

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Grampa huddled inside, exposed in the corner. Bark and Thorn crouched next to him covering their faces. The gleaner struck--one-two--and in less time that it took to draw a breath, Grampa and Thorn were trussed and thrown over the gleaner's back like sacks of meal. Bark, the bravest of my littermates, whimpered and dodged out of sight into the yard behind the house. The gleaner stepped forward and raised its serrated front legs.

The warmth, then swift coldness, of piss on my legs brings me back from the rolling horror oozing over the dirt-pack towards me. Still a league distant, it is monstrous. A grotesque boil on the earth; a seething mass of tree spars and rocks that scalds the ice around it into steam. The way it moves! Questing forward, then rushing into the blackened space before it. Each thrust accompanied by boulders grinding, great snappings of century-old trunks as it heaves ahead.

The girl did not answer for a while; for so long, in fact, that Yudhyana had started to move back towards the camp. When she spoke, her voice stopped him, as surely as a knife drawn across his throat. "Everything lives and dies," she whispered. "Everything changes, and all changes end in death."

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While the Royal Society's ostensible reason for our expedition was to offer the hand of friendship and scientific inquiry to their poor isolated cousins, any idiot could see that it was also to assay whether air power could bypass the gun emplacements. Thaumic reservoirs might be useless for certain engineering methods, but that hardly made them worthless, as the Royal Society well knew.

Niddy's pale corpse lay naked on the table. Her eyes were held shut by river-worn pebbles rather than the coins I'd placed before I left. The dress that should have graced the corpse, Niddy's best, was on Trilla. Though it shamed me that my sister’s body was shown such dishonor before strangers, it didn't hurt as it might have. If justice prevailed, that dress would be all the benefit Trilla's treachery brought her?

Harvesting the bodies meant taking a few risks, but it was easy enough for a steady man who did his research and kept himself sober, and anatomists always needed fresh bodies to dissect. And if we dug up a not-so-fresh body, well, wigmakers and dentists pay well for human hair and teeth. We'd lived well back then, Bet and me, and we'd planned to give our baby girl everything she wanted.

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The girl did not answer for a while; for so long, in fact, that Yudhyana had started to move back towards the camp. When she spoke, her voice stopped him, as surely as a knife drawn across his throat. "Everything lives and dies," she whispered. "Everything changes, and all changes end in death."

Willow kicked the pedal and steered to a tree leaning over the lake. Giff squealed, confused that she wasn't at the mast. Susie hopped, wanting to explore. In the scramble to disembark, unbalanced by the cargo-bag, Willow lost her footing and hung over the black water. Giff caught her jacket and swung her to the bank. Her legs trembled, or it might have been the quaking ground.

The mountain would not watch her without replying, for such was too close to deceit. But before he turned his thoughts away from the valley and the woman standing in it, he saw once more her face, her eyes that had glittered moments ago with threatening tears. He felt the shapes of her feet, pressing into the soil. Then he looked instead to desolate ridges of stone and silent peaks, but the image of her remained.

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We staggered on, Danny's outstretched arms lapped over mine for support. After another hour the clotted blood around his mouth was crusted black. "Sun," he said. "Sky. Time. No time for us. Once there was, long ago. We hunted together, remember? Now all those memories are breaking like clouds across my eyes. Letting me see farther than ever before."

She looked dead, as well she would be if she were anything else. Only a powerful magus could live without a soul. But even Khatereh needed the touch of her soul once in awhile; on midsummer day, as was her personal tradition, she would let it rest within her and be renewed. With her soul inside her body, she would be as vibrant and beautiful as a twenty-two year-old sister ought to be, and when it was removed she would look healthy again, for a while.

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"Every day they march to feed my glory," said Yan to me. "They hate it--still they come. Oh, your people are equal enough now. Junglefolk, plainsfolk--they all mingle together, dally in the sheets and knife each other for coin. And every day they make sacrifice. Blood I get. Toes, ears, fingers. Lives. And all willing...so to speak."

The kraken watched us from the safety of a four-fathom gap, craning its horned head back and forth. It seemed content to wait; already the sea had claimed the remains of the Ice Queen. We, however, would freeze to death before the creature ran out of patience.

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Harvesting the bodies meant taking a few risks, but it was easy enough for a steady man who did his research and kept himself sober, and anatomists always needed fresh bodies to dissect. And if we dug up a not-so-fresh body, well, wigmakers and dentists pay well for human hair and teeth. We'd lived well back then, Bet and me, and we'd planned to give our baby girl everything she wanted. But then the Anatomy Act passed and the demand for bodies plummeted.

I'd almost managed to relax when I smelled the perfume. It clung to the blankets. A cheap floral scent. Violets maybe. I kicked the blankets off, but I could still smell it. I'd had a woman here. Probably a woman I had paid. A whore. And I couldn't remember that?

If Lady Percivalia loved the cinematographist in her chaste way--and she thought despite all propriety that the rising, fluttering, tremulous sensation she felt when she looked at him might be a kind of love--then she loved him because he had brought her the shapes and shadows of creatures that dwelled outside the confines of her life.

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The mountain would not watch her without replying, for such was too close to deceit. But before he turned his thoughts away from the valley and the woman standing in it, he saw once more her face, her eyes that had glittered moments ago with threatening tears. He felt the shapes of her feet, pressing into the soil. Then he looked instead to desolate ridges of stone and silent peaks, but the image of her remained.

I was fascinated by the statues in the Khan's gardens. They were all of men, clearly warriors, dressed in a strange armor. One night in the gardens I met an artist who sketched the statues in secret. He showed me his portfolio, which contained drawings of the face of a certain statue he had sketched night after night for years. "He is speaking," the artist said. "See the movement of the lips and the line of the jaw. I do not know what he says, but he is forming words over the months and years."

Of course, this was very nice for all the other women of the world, but not for me. For me, Dollies were the chore of my life: winding them, bathing them in oil, mending gears and joints, and keeping good care of their pricier parts which pleasured the men. I cannot say that I hated it, nor that I was fond of it, only that it was my task every single day to care for these immortal metal beauties.

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If Lady Percivalia loved the cinematographist in her chaste way—and she thought despite all propriety that the rising, fluttering, tremulous sensation she felt when she looked at him might be a kind of love—then she loved him because he had brought her the shapes and shadows of creatures that dwelled outside the confines of her life.

A heavy pressure struck Imre about the head—the air itself drumming his ears—even as his blade impossibly passed through Ariosa’s shape without slowing. No impact. No blood. Instead she blurred and before his eyes faded into the air, a ghostly mist. "Blind me," he swore as he caught his footing, just an instant before Ariosa reappeared with a hammer-fisted blow that jarred Imre to the spleen. Vesti met hymn with a crack and Imre's battle-scarred blade exploded in a cloud of black and copper pieces.

Pirates of the highest tier, the ones whose names and exploits were discussed avidly even in inland cities like those of conquering generals and master calligraphers, raided poetry itself. To understand her trade, a pirate must be a poet herself, and could not take a name until she had scribed a poem in the language of her sea-yearning soul.

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Pirates of the highest tier, the ones whose names and exploits were discussed avidly even in inland cities like those of conquering generals and master calligraphers, raided poetry itself. To understand her trade, a pirate must be a poet herself, and could not take a name until she had scribed a poem in the language of her sea-yearning soul.

She turned her back on him to reach for her pack, shielding her hands with her body so he wouldn’t see her fingers sketching the words of the attack spell that she mouthed under her breath. She licked her fingertips, holding the spell on the tip of her tongue, and turned round to face him while she dug in the pack for food. He opened his mouth. "Could..." was as far as he got.

Of course, this was very nice for all the other women of the world, but not for me. For me, Dollies were the chore of my life: winding them, bathing them in oil, mending gears and joints, and keeping good care of their pricier parts which pleasured the men. I cannot say that I hated it, nor that I was fond of it, only that it was my task every single day to care for these immortal metal beauties.

The gallery erupted with the roar of a thousand voices—laughter, questions, taunts pouring down in a torrent of Silici that would have put any market auction to shame. Living swords grown from the bones of dead men were shaken. The ground beneath Imre’s feet shook from the force of stone fists and sandaled feet pounding throughout the amphitheater. His head remained bowed.

Such is our addiction. Living formless is its own refuge—our skin-shifting a means of escape, to always have a new identity waiting in the tank for when the one we wear becomes overly tiresome and persistent. But the King no longer wearies of change, and has but one face now to show the world. And though it resembles candle wax, it remains. "That is my difference," he says.

The final scenes leave me breathless. The priestess’s condition enters its final stages, and, though she hammers at the portals of her sealed chambers, no-one comes to her aid. The artist responsible for the narrative cuts his scenes faster and faster, becoming more and more metaphorical. We see her eyes tighten in pain; a shot of the two birds, both young and old, silhouetted against a gas flame; the woman’s hand clenching her bed sheets; the gas flame flickers; the woman’s hand relaxes; the young canary sitting alone on its perch, its older companion nowhere in sight.

Such is our addiction. Living formless is its own refuge—our skin-shifting a means of escape, to always have a new identity waiting in the tank for when the one we wear becomes overly tiresome and persistent. But the King no longer wearies of change, and has but one face now to show the world. And though it resembles candle wax, it remains. "That is my difference," he says.

"A splinter." Maria holds it out to show me. I make a motion to take it from her with my remaining whole hand, and she nods. The splinter is long enough to be one of my absent fingers, and it takes two tries to pull it free. A drop of blood wells up in its path. "My mother used to kiss my cuts." She stares at her own blood idly, remembering home or food or what I do not know.

"A splinter." Maria holds it out to show me. I make a motion to take it from her with my remaining whole hand, and she nods. The splinter is long enough to be one of my absent fingers, and it takes two tries to pull it free. A drop of blood wells up in its path. "My mother used to kiss my cuts." She stares at her own blood idly, remembering home or food or what I do not know.

"You?" I stood, furious, and as I did the red brazier-light glinted on something behind the throne that I could not see. "Did you not have enough of father’s blessings while he lived? He gave you gifts, and horses, and talked of the great kingdom you would inherit. Meanwhile I sat in your shadow and the heap of your scorn. No, brother. For this once I will have something that you have not had first."

The bite of winter spins in and Father whirls on all fours to face the doorway. Beyond, the night is almost here. He barks, then shakes his pelt into place and trots out into the darkness. His tracks stand stark in the snow and the moonlight.

Meurig scrambled to his feet, confused. "Your pardon, that I missed prayers," he said to Father Ambrose. "My heart is too heavy for my words to rise." He had pierced the skin of worlds, however briefly. Now Rhiannon was a sword again, and Caedmon would die.

The bite of winter spins in and Father whirls on all fours to face the doorway. Beyond, the night is almost here. He barks, then shakes his pelt into place and trots out into the darkness. His tracks stand stark in the snow and the moonlight.

Blindness taught me to use my other senses and trust in portents, balancing the evidence of sound, touch, smell and taste against the ambiguous suggestions I sometimes received in dreams or in waking. The Sisters praised God for granting me self-sufficiency even as they forbade me to speak of my 'visions' to strangers. Needless to say, when the king's sister arrived in person on a warm morning in the early summer of my twelfth year, demanding to see their blind charge and claiming we had met in a dream, the Sisters were mightily confused.

Unified by poison--by the power of the elder's will--the ragged line of sorcerers dissolved, passing through a ring of tall stone stelae carved with human shapes. Nods and mumbled words shaped tenuous alliances along demarcations of homeland and creed. The buzzards found perches among the empty seats. This, Periphas realized, is why Eurytus waited. The humans would fight, exhaust themselves to within inches of death; then the centaurs would gallop in, laughing.

Oh, poor Enanatuma! We had been estranged long before my banishment. I had seen her only once since the day ten years ago when I had given up dancing and devoted all my energies to magic. I had done her a favor in return for the thousand kindnesses she and her father had shown me and had intended never to see her again. But she was still my sister.

I felt the first cut like a violation. Pain burst in my chest, would not cease. I screamed and screamed until my voice was raw. No. No. I never asked for this! I saw a priest lift out a bloody, pulsating thing dizzyingly high above me, and a sensation of emptiness spread from the hole in my chest and swallowed me.

I felt the first cut like a violation. Pain burst in my chest, would not cease. I screamed and screamed until my voice was raw. No. No. I never asked for this! I saw a priest lift out a bloody, pulsating thing dizzyingly high above me, and a sensation of emptiness spread from the hole in my chest and swallowed me.

Blindness taught me to use my other senses and trust in portents, balancing the evidence of sound, touch, smell and taste against the ambiguous suggestions I sometimes received in dreams or in waking. The Sisters praised God for granting me self-sufficiency even as they forbade me to speak of my 'visions' to strangers. Needless to say, when the king's sister arrived in person on a warm morning in the early summer of my twelfth year, demanding to see their blind charge and claiming we had met in a dream, the Sisters were mightily confused.

Then Sunshine had his hand on Creeper's shoulder, and in another ten fighting strides Thiever and I were there too, forming a wall between him and the emptiness beyond. Holding his arms, we braced our feet in the living sand and hauled back toward town. Did I mention distance is funny out there? It seemed a very long way back.

The song became a chant, slow and rhythmic as a sleeping heart. The dance wove together three women, then four, then one alone with steel in her hand. Zel dreamed on her feet, free of pain, comfortable with the prospect of death. The white bed, the rubied throat. Two of the sisters went away into the darkness beyond the ring of fire. When they returned, they bore a white ghost between them. A white-feathered ghost with yellow eyes that burned brighter than the flames.

Then Sunshine had his hand on Creeper’s shoulder, and in another ten fighting strides Thiever and I were there too, forming a wall between him and the emptiness beyond. Holding his arms, we braced our feet in the living sand and hauled back toward town. Did I mention distance is funny out there? It seemed a very long way back.

I like to carve. I like to sculpt. But the ironwood trees in the forest shatter even the finest blades. Father says that the war has changed them, that the magic of the battlemages has infected the land, and I have no cause to doubt him—he has been my educator and my window on the world. Bone is easier to shape.

The rest of the birthing was hard work, but painless. Dziko and Terra sprinkled water over the clay to soften it and kneaded the flesh together until there was no way to separate his riverbed brown from her sunset orange. Then they divided the babyflesh into two equal pieces, soon to be their children.

I like to carve. I like to sculpt. But the ironwood trees in the forest shatter even the finest blades. Father says that the war has changed them, that the magic of the battlemages has infected the land, and I have no cause to doubt him—he has been my educator and my window on the world. Bone is easier to shape.

Kenji began to chant. It might have been a passage from the Diamond Sutra; I was not pious enough to know one book of Buddhist scripture from another, but Kenji, despite his flaws, knew nearly all of them and could recite the appropriate passages at will. Which he was doing now. The shadow moved away from us toward the outbuilding as we stepped out onto the rear veranda, always keeping the structure to its back, or such I judged its back to be. It was hard to be certain with something so close to formless.

Kenji began to chant. It might have been a passage from the Diamond Sutra; I was not pious enough to know one book of Buddhist scripture from another, but Kenji, despite his flaws, knew nearly all of them and could recite the appropriate passages at will. Which he was doing now. The shadow moved away from us toward the outbuilding as we stepped out onto the rear veranda, always keeping the structure to its back, or such I judged its back to be. It was hard to be certain with something so close to formless.

And then some nights we'd cross the river. Cumberan soldiers would discover that someone had insinuated flux-weed into their pottage greens, and in the dark end up with handfuls of nettles with which to wipe. Baskets, lobbed into a bivouac as supper was served, broke apart, freeing swarms of hornets. Spores of certain fungi, introduced into casks of wine, sent soldiers shrieking and stumbling in panic through the woods. And the polecats....

"No, I'm talking about real people. Flesh and blood like you and me. They're taken from places they call home and sent into this stormy sea to help calm the waters. It never ends because it's the storm itself, the unending conflict, that makes the world we know a reality. Along with all the other worlds that could be."

We settled in a semicircle, me facing the others, just far enough outside the ravine that the smell of wolfsbane and their sweat covered all traces of sheep's blood on me. I knelt on one knee, ready to leap away. The shepherds clustered behind Nydor, all but one of the men, who stood apart, an arrow nocked and ready. "What are you?"

I get up and go to my old war chest. I wipe down the carved top once a week, but when I open it dust wafts up from the inside. My weapons are all well put away, but the metal looks dull from dust sticking to the oil. I kneel. The scent reminds me of an attic, of things forgotten. I pull a sleeve over my hand and wipe the dust away. It leaves a shiny spot and a greasy stain on my cuff. It's just a work shirt but the stain bothers me.

But experience had taught me that dissertations on magical systems are incredibly dull for all save the oblivious nincompoop who actually believes anyone wants to listen. No, when people ask you what you 'do', all they really want is a snappy line or two they can repeat over dinner later. Well, to hell with that.

It came to Jabey that Sloan'd never looked at these glasses in proper light; what if they were just a cheap shiny? But the sudden sharp panic receded as he pulled them from his pocket and unwrapped the linen. They were indeed a tiny pair of opera glasses, with a simplicity and a heft about them that suggested expense.

But experience had taught me that dissertations on magical systems are incredibly dull for all save the oblivious nincompoop who actually believes anyone wants to listen. No, when people ask you what you 'do', all they really want is a snappy line or two they can repeat over dinner later. Well, to hell with that.

Sanquor shook his head. How could such foolishness, such misunderstanding, have taken root? Of course the thoravids had to be destroyed; of course any trace of them had to be scourged. They were an abomination in the sight of the Tetharan.

Sanquor shook his head. How could such foolishness, such misunderstanding, have taken root? Of course the thoravids had to be destroyed; of course any trace of them had to be scourged. They were an abomination in the sight of the Tetharan.

The Doctor looked back at us, his expression equal parts contempt and amusement. "I accept your commission," he said. "Come back in a month, on the night before the dedication, and not before. You shall have your clockwork man. Whether the demon you have bargained with accepts him, well, that is not my affair."

He did neither. He grabbed her by the shoulder, shoved her to the floor, and left. Alsanit should have chased him, but her legs were too limp. She sat on the tiled floor of the room he rented in a Shred whose name she had already forgotten, shaking and on the edge of tears, and knew her people were doomed.

Hubley dashed forward, and crashed head first into something stretched solidly across the passage. She lay stunned for a moment on the cold stone floor, the cries of the sissit suddenly very far away. Then, in a daze of memory, she realized she'd run headlong into the wall her youngest self had cast. She was leading them out into the Sun Road! The Timing was exact!

The other ghul came at them. Raseed sped past Adoulla, his forked sword slashing. The creature snaked left. The boy's weapon whistled through empty air. The ghul drove its scaly fist hard into the boy's jaw. It struck a second time, catching Raseed in the chest. Adoulla was amazed that the boy still stood.

Shaken, I reach for her arm as though to pull her back, and feel rough skin under the robes: old scars, burns, long healed. For some reason I am reminded of another traveller, long ago, a little girl fleeing a burning house, running out into our pilgrim-train. She would have become a priestess when she grew up, I think. It is not impossible. Tekel, the woman had said before she died, and I wonder what she shares with my son.

He did neither. He grabbed her by the shoulder, shoved her to the floor, and left. Alsanit should have chased him, but her legs were too limp. She sat on the tiled floor of the room he rented in a Shred whose name she had already forgotten, shaking and on the edge of tears, and knew her people were doomed.

His tone filled her with a strangeness. Some of it was pleasure at his diffident compliment, some of it was fear, and some more elusive tendril buried in the emotion was something unsettling, like watching a shark drift up out of the depths and vanish again. Sternly she told herself that all of this was normal, and Mother wished her to learn from this creature, who, certainly, above all other things, would be strange! She would not let fear master her.

"I can preserve (here insert animal's name if known, otherwise state 'your loved one') in any pose and moment of expression that you desire. Whenever you are plagued by dolorous thoughts of his (or 'her,' never 'its') passing you may simply turn your gaze to your mantelpiece and your spirits will be raised as you see him (or 'her') captured eternally in a moment of zestful energy."

My voice sounds thin and choked when I speak. "Let the soldiers choose for themselves," I say. "Let those who wish to flee leave now, in good faith. I will not have them stay to be murdered for a cause they cannot support. But let food and bandages be stockpiled through the day, and close the gates"--I almost say, at nightfall, but it is always night now--"before midnight. We will hold my father's fortress until the last."

"No, I'm talking about real people. Flesh and blood like you and me. They're taken from places they call home and sent into this stormy sea to help calm the waters. It never ends because it's the storm itself, the unending conflict, that makes the world we know a reality. Along with all the other worlds that could be."

The full moon let me see the train coming. It raged up the path of the old tracks but it wasn't on them. It wove across them, ignoring their boundaries, sweeping like a snake on sand. It was a long one. It'd be full of a lot of good things—nails, cotton, wood, corn. That pleased me. Made everything a little more worthwhile, as worthwhile as dying ever got.

The music grew louder, skirling with strange harmonies that wove in and out of each other, and I knew then it couldn't be Nanny, though I did not recognize the instruments. I emerged from the artificial forest to stand behind my brother and sister. An elegant divan covered in striped cream and blue silk was faintly visible out of the corner of my eye. I crossed my arms over my chest as though I could protect myself. "Where is this?"

Shaken, I reach for her arm as though to pull her back, and feel rough skin under the robes: old scars, burns, long healed. For some reason I am reminded of another traveller, long ago, a little girl fleeing a burning house, running out into our pilgrim-train. She would have become a priestess when she grew up, I think. It is not impossible. Tekel, the woman had said before she died, and I wonder what she shares with my son.

It wasn't just the minotaur's life in Boreas's hands. If Eurytus won the wager, the two human rebels would die center stage at the Circus, under torture, giving up everything they knew. Eurytus would rob them of dignity, hope, faith. If they had any left.

So well did Anansya tell the tale, little did I realize until too late that her ritual had already snared me, thrusting me into the tapestry of shadows. I became the hero laced with light, while my body sat mindless before the screen. The past had become present through Anansya's magic, the players and props conjured from my memories. I could feel an odd thinness to my flesh.

"I can preserve (here insert animal's name if known, otherwise state 'your loved one') in any pose and moment of expression that you desire. Whenever you are plagued by dolorous thoughts of his (or 'her,' never 'its') passing you may simply turn your gaze to your mantelpiece and your spirits will be raised as you see him (or 'her') captured eternally in a moment of zestful energy."

The man's head swung wildly, his fingers grasping towards the straining netted bundle. The touch of the God on an unholy man was not pretty. Halla could sense it, crackling the air from the Mouth to the man. It was a compulsion that filled him with blood lust, blanketed his mind with one urge: kill the dove.

The full moon let me see the train coming. It raged up the path of the old tracks but it wasn’t on them. It wove across them, ignoring their boundaries, sweeping like a snake on sand. It was a long one. It’d be full of a lot of good things—nails, cotton, wood, corn. That pleased me. Made everything a little more worthwhile, as worthwhile as dying ever got.

The Prodigy scampered forward at once and sat before the pipe organ’s keyboards. Kreisler was with him. Together they began to play, calling the automata back to their city. Just as we had planned. And I, I ran after the Clockwork King, driven, as ever, by the thought of Olympia. For I had more that I would know.

The farther they traveled, the more Skald's old trade seemed to distort what he saw, forcing the faces he'd learned over the last few weeks to conform to the city vision. This one will break after a day, he would find himself thinking as the other drovers hailed him. This one is strong, but he favors his left knee; use the hammers first. This one will not break on his own, but hurt any member of his family and he'll tell you anything just so you'll stop.

The farther they traveled, the more Skald's old trade seemed to distort what he saw, forcing the faces he'd learned over the last few weeks to conform to the city vision. This one will break after a day, he would find himself thinking as the other drovers hailed him. This one is strong, but he favors his left knee; use the hammers first. This one will not break on his own, but hurt any member of his family and he'll tell you anything just so you'll stop.

It wasn't just the minotaur's life in Boreas's hands. If Eurytus won the wager, the two human rebels would die center stage at the Circus, under torture, giving up everything they knew. Eurytus would rob them of dignity, hope, faith. If they had any left.

I held my father while he died. It was all I could do, but I whispered fiercely, "Father, I'll get your sword back one day. One day when he least expects it." I'm not sure Father could hear me by then, but I never forgot my promise.

I well knew that only human blood and human lives kept the end of the world at bay. I had abased myself before gods, offered them what they needed, from human hearts to flayed skins; I had wielded many obsidian knives myself in many sacrifices. But the concentration of images in that room seemed almost unhealthy.

The young man's eyes fixed on my face, his straight, dark brows elegantly raised. I pressed myself against him and forced down a shiver. It may have only been the wine, but it seemed to me that, even through the layers of silk and brocade, I could feel the cold radiating from his flesh.

I lifted my muzzle and sniffed. The wood was different today. Fine dust still hung in the air and sparkled in sunlit shafts. Such a thing this sparkling was. I gazed at it in wonder. Had the light ever been just so before? Was this a new thing?

"How little you understand. A man of power is at war with everything that lives. LeKestra knows this. So do I. You, Therese, on the other hand, have yet to learn the importance of choosing the right side."

I held my father while he died. It was all I could do, but I whispered fiercely, "Father, I'll get your sword back one day. One day when he least expects it." I'm not sure Father could hear me by then, but I never forgot my promise.

Deathfire shot an arrow through the man's back. Then he drew his sword. The woman and children would be easy enough to kill, but he wanted to take care of the baby first. "Don't worry," he said, rubbing a gentle hand across the woman's sweat-soaked brow. "I'll make it painless for all of you."

The wizard raised a hand, his long, pointed nails painted with blue lacquer. With one finger, he drew a slashing arc through the air. Pain seared like fire along Kseniya's cheek, a line cutting across one of the old scars. She clenched her jaw to keep from crying out. She remembered that pain all too well.

His body lengthened, his worn leather footings bursting as his legs, now fused, spiraled behind, scaled and glistening black. Even when the foul thing had fully turned, its hands still grasped at the air while the twisted mouth shrieked fearful things. It would have seemed only a beast, powerful and deadly, were it not for those hands and eyes, so like a man's but not, a living sacrilege.

The man's head swung wildly, his fingers grasping towards the straining netted bundle. The touch of the God on an unholy man was not pretty. Halla could sense it, crackling the air from the Mouth to the man. It was a compulsion that filled him with blood lust, blanketed his mind with one urge: kill the dove.

I lifted my muzzle and sniffed. The wood was different today. Fine dust still hung in the air and sparkled in sunlit shafts. Such a thing this sparkling was. I gazed at it in wonder. Had the light ever been just so before? Was this a new thing?

I have not spoken with my own voice in nearly seven years. I knew this would be my fate long before it happened--but only now do I understand what it means.

Khatire reached out to grab the child, who twitched with dreaming, and froze. It was a girl, almost four. They were all brothers and sisters, all bearing mark of their father’s features. A lump, hard and stinging, grew in Khatire's chest. There were so many! She could only save one.

His body lengthened, his worn leather footings bursting as his legs, now fused, spiraled behind, scaled and glistening black. Even when the foul thing had fully turned, its hands still grasped at the air while the twisted mouth shrieked fearful things. It would have seemed only a beast, powerful and deadly, were it not for those hands and eyes, so like a man's but not, a living sacrilege.

The tunnel grew narrower, then the ceiling lowered as well. Soon she had to crawl on knees and elbows. Her world closed down to a bubble of light no more than a few handspans across, surrounded by a mountain of rock that pressed in on all sides. Rock that hid her from the light, the air, and her husband the Sun.

Khatire couldn't seem to catch her breath, afraid to swallow the fouled air. The cut in her palm throbbed like heartache. She had just killed one of the precious vaimen. In the eyes of the emperor, her life was forfeit.

I have not spoken with my own voice in nearly seven years. I knew this would be my fate long before it happened--but only now do I understand what it means.

The spider stepped out of the gate. She was a stooped woman with dark hair. The sockets in her face were empty and scarred over. She wore gloves that were cut off at the first knuckle. At each fingertip was a tiny glittering eye.

Mistress Needles said, “Then may we be in harmony, to the degree harmony exists in this cesspool of a universe. The sword’s presence may yet prove a desirable thing. For your freedom, Imago Bone, and that of the companion who brings you fear and pain, depends upon its destruction.”

The Spider stepped out of the gate. She was a stooped woman with dark hair. The sockets in her face were empty and scarred over. She wore gloves that were cut off at the first knuckle. At each fingertip was a tiny glittering eye.

"All who possess this weapon have regretted it, even the fiercest of killers, mad Lord Runestock, say, or bloody Sir Fairbeast, or Captain Slaughterdark who abandoned it here. Behold the Sword of Loving Kindness."

The tunnel grew narrower, then the ceiling lowered as well. Soon she had to crawl on knees and elbows. Her world closed down to a bubble of light no more than a few handspans across, surrounded by a mountain of rock that pressed in on all sides. Rock that hid her from the light, the air, and her husband the Sun.