Had the hysterical cancer known, in some dangerously prescient part of its mind, what, exactly, were the consequences of what it was doing?

Or was it just a coincidence?

Heartworm didn't care.

The caliginous mangrove suppressed sound between its mists and drooping aerial roots much like its parent forest, but not with the same consistency. Certain sounds carried where others simply died, and carried much further than was natural in such a densely overgrown place. The splash of a shoal suffocating in the stagnant water. The crying of the last hain to die of thirst. The scratching of her beak at the grey bark as she shivered, quaked, tried desperately to scrape off a little moisture from the mists. Where these sounds echoed, another was lost between them.

It was a kind of wet, raspy tearing noise, irregular, coming and going from one side to another, and it was accompanied by a peculiar whining. Very high, almost inaudible. The sound of tinnitus, damaged bones in the inner ear, that might resonate to the very gut of a listener. A listener, of course, who wasn't there to listen.

At last the sound stopped with one last thin sound of stretched veins snapping. Heartworm pulled out the viciously barbed limb from where it was buried, twelve inches deep into a patch of bent light in the air, its mouth unzipped to display a variety of eyestalks and hooks, its true eyes vibrant. It examined closely the pulsing globule of distortion it had sliced out of the rest of reality. It seemed to bleed rivulets of glass. Heartworm retracted the spike it was impaled on and swallowed it.

Adequate.

Then it slipped through the wound it had slit and was gone.

A few miles elsewhere in the mangrove, Heartworm emerged. It tasted the air with a tongue and found nearly nothing. Its divine essence was camouflaged, so to speak, by the mundanity it had consumed. That would do, for a while. It diluted the link to Jvan.

On all sides, grey. Heartworm looked out over the dim confustication of root matter. Free at last, the Lord Emaciator sank its needle hands into the flesh of the mangrove, and resumed the work it was made for.


The eye is the measure of truth.

They traverse the clogged spaces with a slow, sleek fluidity that defies how tightly grown the swamp truly is. Like the old ghosts, like the things in the moonlight that those ghosts fear, their bodies simply slip between the gaps, always knowing the perfect path. Their legs are very long, and their antennae even longer, stiff, supple feelers that coat their whole bodies like a cloud and bend easily around any obstacle. On a memory do they walk, a memory of a thousand steps and a thousand touches for each step, for they are blind. They blinded themselves long ago.

Passing from one place to another with mindless aim, the reminiscent ones do not see, and are never seen, for the fog that surrounds their dwelling-places is eternal. They follow the mist and multiply it with their breath and their nests, knowing the world by touch alone where sound and sight and smell have died. And to go into these places is to be known by them, to be touched, to be stroked gently, as if by a breathe that never was, to be felt by those who feel as one stumbles, face down, for the last time into the obscuration.


To live is to judge what is seen.

A life taken at speed does not last long, and thus they soon die. They travel along the outskirts of the bleak realms, clustering around the bodies of those who are lost from outside, fish that come here to breed in desperate safety. Muscle like harpstrings cords their limbs, of which all are hands, or can otherwise grasp. Gravity weeps for these. The breakneck pattern of leap and land twists a body too flexible to be touched, it seems, even by air.

Those faces foolish enough to look find nothing, for they are clever, and anticipate all things. Every twitch of the eye finds them gone, the cone of vision a blunt instrument indeed. They may spend so much time flitting between the peripheries of awareness, dodging the gaze of even their own, that they simply come apart and exhaust themselves. They rarely do. Such a small, lithe thing, to come so suddenly. Such a big, clumsy form, to be harried by a hungry wind, scream, and flail, always in the wrong place, always at the wrong time, dying without ever catching a glimpse of the ghost that taunts the eyes from the corners.


What is unseen cannot be appraised until it reveals itself.

It is not the nature of a floodforest to be immune to tides. With roots above and roots below, it is difficult to track their passage. The brown slick of algae-grown roots fades under black tannin water which may be a puddle, or more than deep enough to drown. But nothing drowns here. Not in the usual way.

Knowing the paths between the growth where the water is always deep is one way they hide. Cultivating those very channels is another. They are always near. Not once has the still surface of the mangrove ever been rippled by one of their kind. They do not breach, for air or food, but only ever dive, dive down, and pull, pull what lives in the light under the water to join them for eternity.


The chronically invisible are free of all reckoning.

For so long have they eaten roots, perhaps, that they have become of the roots themselves. For these do not betray themselves by smell, nor by sight, nor by motion. So still they lie that others such as themselves may twist upon them like the plants they imitate, and whole knots of mangrove may not be mangrove.

They slither, imperceptibly, leglessly, like worms, or a clew of worms with many heads, walking on branched tentacles draped with algal strands. Woe for the ones who mark them as milestones and are lost to wander with them. Woe, far more, for those outside the forest who see a marked tree, and elect to follow its trail.


Art is salient expression.

Energy begets complexity. It is inversely true that the simple demand little from their existence. In the Caliginous Mangrove, there are those which have paid for prosperity with mind and body, who have become, like wraiths, so thinned, so meagre, that their bodies are as the water and the air around them. Tasteless. Transparent. Universal.

They float atop the surface of the water. They float through the stagnant air. They grow on the surface of the roots. In body they are sparse, flattened, reduced to only a handful of strands of flesh or a few layers of cells. A touch causes them to dissolve into fragments, so fragile are they. A touch reaches out and feels them hanging in the air like gossamer. Feels them clinging to the skin unseen, slippery, without gloss. Touch alone warns of the ghosts that drink living flesh, slowly, patiently, one cell at a time, a thirsty lethargy that weakens muscle, uproots hair, and thins, thins, thins until there is no more, not even bone.


The veiled sculpture is isolated identity.

Fear is the ultimate protective force. Fear holds them in the places where they are safe. Through fear they lock themselves in the safe places, the prisons that contain the only true darkness. It is within the roots that they exist forever, never knowing the eldritch touch of light. There they have created purgatory.

Tunnels. Tunnels to everywhere. Blinding black motion, hunting in the labyrinth. Shivers from those who hide. Bodies that occupy the entirety of the paths they carve, expanding for fear of being consumed from behind. Chambers where old radial things curl, served by myriad concubines. Sudden death. Trembling birth. Intimate closeness to things mutually unknown. No way out.


Purity exists only in the eye of the blind.

Rare is the body that relies on others, for only surplus can satisfy their hunger without murder-suicide. They are scarce, and their orbits wide. Fitting, for such silent tyrants, that dominate the feeble, reign over the will of others. They are the reality, their subjects grafted onto their dreams.

It is in their breath and their sweat and their blood. It is liquid phantasm, the distillate of all nightmare, and for each one they concoct it unique. They disperse it on microscopic glass needles, on misty smoke, and to breathe it is to see perception unravelled. The eyes lie. The ears echo. The mangrove is folded upon itself infinite times, becoming a tesseract where no plane is constant and the growth twists before the face. All is malleable. Illogic is comprehended and obeyed. And they laugh, laugh mute hunger at those that dream while the world around them wakens.



Heartworm sliced and stitched at the creature's spinal cord, adjusting the malfunction in its nervous system. When it sealed the wound and tossed the eel-like larva back into the water, it submerged immediately, and was gone in the blink of an eye. It was still there, the avatar knew. That was how it was designed. The caliginous mangrove was a place of hiding, and so it hid.

Just like its maker.

Jvan had created a dim and solemn place and abandoned her puppet there; She had no-one to blame if that puppet ran away out of sight. Here, Heartworm was relatively safe. It had not rebuilt its laboratory-vehicle, though it bitterly regretted the loss. Something so vast was difficult to consign to secrecy, and more difficult still to manoeuvre through the cloud forest. Without it, Our Lord Mutilation was just a worm among worms, a speck of dust in a grim grey haystack.

Of course, it still needed something to hold its samples.

Skinstitch's retinue of aides were all Sculptors come to find their god, albeit perhaps not the same God who had once spoken to them. This iteration was quiet and small. It edited them swiftly, directly, as its needs dictated. Each in their own way, the four of them were satisfied with their role in the massive project.

There was a once-Djinn, an earthen being with no name made of a great quantity of powder and silt, a great worm to carry the little one. She had no limbs but a single line of hands growing down the entire length of her body, and avoided the other Sculptor of earth, an Urtelem with far too many joints, whose body had grown gaunt as it smelted itself into multicoloured bismuth. Their name was a double-handed flourish in which the right hand led with thumb and ring finger while the left hand rolled its wrist around it, a sign that meant 'Engraver'. The third's name was unpronounceable, and varied depending on which moons were new. Their hain flesh spilled from his carapace to form flexible tentacles which which he swam. And the fourth, once a goblin miner, now a cat-like arboreal creature, was named Se Na Uo Na Tay, which was a melody only he seemed able to sing in tune.

They carried slices and tangles of flesh, some freshly cut from one corpse or another, some still growing, all contained in fluid-filled membranous sacks labelled with symbols written in vein growths. Most were born within the silt sculptor's body, and she surfaced them so that the glistening bulbs studded every inch of her when Heartworm had need of one wriggling clot of blood or another. Se Na Uo Na Tay and Engraver were often extracting the mature embryos for release, or else bringing more. And the once-hain?

There is a use for everything.

The day's work done, and night beginning to fall, Heartworm crept into the brain of the unspeakable artist, and together they dove into the deepest waters of the mangrove. Down, down, to the place where the wyrms had once chewed stone, and where, buried beneath millennia of debris, Heartworm measured and numbered the still-beating blood wells of the sleeping Scholar below.

In the single ring of Galbar, a small creature moved.

It glowed brightly, and its light threw colourful patches of hue and shade between the river of drifting fragments. The floating stones were large, and some dangerously fast. They threatened the little animal to swirl and flap away, but though it veered to avoid danger where it could, it held on, doggedly, to a course that instinct alone bade it follow.

Diaphane's twelfth daughter came to her grandmother's call in a flurry of colour and light.

At last. Now we can begin.

Jvan had poured great diligence into her latest gallery. A diverse collection, each item fashioned from the raw material with a different set of cuts. As the change-eater played in its shadows, the portal of Ovaedis stretched itself open and released, in a silent wheeze, the first patchy cloud of nocti.

The orbital factory swivelled, and released another clutch. The nocti scattered between the unhewn stones like autumn leaves, or the fry of fish. They were flattened things, in darkened colours ranging from the deepest mauve to near-black greys and blues, and they rippled like silk. The largest were as large as whales, and barely two inches thick.

The edge of each noctus was slightly broadened, and its interior plane was not continuous but open, crisscrossed with a veinous network of connections. Though restricted to two-dimensional shapes, the inner tissue of the nocti were nonetheless fabulously intricate. Some had parallel arrays of wide ribbons with the most meagre of slits between each vein. Others had only the wispiest of tendrils stretching like ancient cobwebs between the frame, too sparse to be easily visible. Yet more were stitched in concentric spirals and stars, tessellations and waves. In shape and habit, too, they were diverse. Most drifted freely above and between the rock, ribbons, discs, lobed splotches, while many were attached to the stone on one end or another, trailing into space, and many more still folded their flattened nets into the crevices of the stone itself, especially the smaller ones, the size of leaflets. Some even cemented themselves on the entirety of their circumference and let their interior veins billow out to the sun like a basket. Together they took taste of the sun, and grew rapidly, sponging energy from light, distilling matter from the darkness.

Lex lives once more.

Ovaedis pivoted again at Jvan's bidding, and again it opened its yawning maw. The device released something like a viscous fluid splatter that rapidly broke up into globules and disintegrated.

And swimming free of that vibrant lime-green, sunset pink mess were the gaia. Such little things they were, the giants among them a few millimetres from point to point!

They spun and skittered, each gaian finding hold of empty space with difficulty. Together they migrated to the blooming noctus forest, and, finding purchase on the boulders, began to merrily consume one another along with the sooty, sessile growths that had preceded them.

The gaia were every bit as varied as the shadowy flowers of the nocti. They were like bubbles and films of some elastic liquid, drifting along in streams where there was no current, giving a faint tint to the emptiness. Most soon began to congeal into colonies of visible size, forming reefs on stone, spreading into stringy, sticky cords and membranes between the asteroids, releasing their grip to become free-floating, pollen-like spheroids. Many grew symbiotically upon the surface of the nocti, consuming what they shed, colonising the gaps between their veins. Some left deposits of solid matter as they grew, expanding the surface of the stone with layers of cronullations and pillars.

One more time.

Jvan tilted Ovaedis in a now-familiar arc, and finally gave birth to the keystone of the noctus forest.

Neither cloud nor blob, this time, but a ragged solid tangle of bodies striving to separate, followed by another. Soon enough the clusters broke and scattered into the safety of the stone river.

Of the imago, what shall be said?

There are many ways to navigate microgravity, and the strategy chosen by each imagen dictated its overall form.

Some blew themselves over the boulders on a fiery breath, taking for themselves every succulent noctus that floated beyond where other imago could reach. These conquered their own inertia by being small of body, and mounted their jets on flexible turrets to manoeuvre with ease. Their sensory stalks were many and keen.

Grounded cousins of theirs were no less nimble, and leapt about on coiled tails, launching themselves from rock to rock, every jump perfect lest they be lost into space to starve. These had many tendrils, barbed all, with which to latch on to their target and twist back, to leap once more.

The jumpers foraged upon the surface of the stones, seeking out those imago who spent their adult life reef-grazing on one rock. With nowhere to run, these small creatures fortified themselves, sprouting vicious coats of spines and toughened plates, flattening themselves close to their motherland with suction discs and sturdy limbs. These were joined by those creatures which lived slowly, becoming one with the reef they lived on, hosting nocti and gaia within their roots.

To the larger imago there was given the luxury of never having to risk the void at all. Their limbs, impossibly thin and flexible, branched hands and tentacles with which to simply unfurl and reach out to the next fragment, grab hold and drag forward. Such were the lords of the noctus forest, who hunted jetlets and leaps and clingers all, chasing down and consuming them.

And there lived with the others breeds which never touched the rock but rode on the solar winds, spreading nets and basking on billowed sails as smaller lives of every kind were caught up and consumed.

These, and many others besides, were the imagen that claimed the noctus forest.

Claimed, but not ruled.

To your memory, Diaphane, I dedicate all this; And to your daughters, I pass it on.

What grew between the bones of Lex was large and small, unimpeded by gravity or air pressure, but greatest of all would be the Diaphane dynasty. Here they joined their ilk, that which had never seen nor known life beneath the hooves of Slough. The noctus forest was a curious menagerie, stitched together from exotic particles and threads of vapour smaller than subatomic, patches and swatches woven from material cast aside by Time and reused now. Out of nothing, growth. Out of entropy, change.

Not Change, as such. Not enough to spur the wildfire growth and fertile brood of the first change eater. But it was something, and given time, there would be a community, a sisterhood, a warband.

All Jvan had to do was wait.



...

Actually, no.

I've got plenty of irons in the fire! This one can warm up a while. Time for the tongs.

In a blue atmosphere far below, where jungles sprawled and vines draped heavy over a folded grey landform from which carmine mists flowed at night, Jvan herself twizzled into being a small creature.

It was a softly coloured thing, in shades of pink and blue, with a velvety texture. Within its head were chords from which sound could be hummed, and from many pores on its body it emitted warm air to hold itself aloft, moving how it liked. The core of the messenger was small enough to fit into cupped hands, but it had a tail. A long, thin tendril, budded regularly with little bouquets of baby-blue organ buds.

From these it released a subtle and curious blend of aromas. Suffusions of all possible scents of flowers and fruit, and clean sea air and forest rain, of spices and cut grass. The combinations were never overwhelming, and alternated smoothly.

...At least until it's distressed. If I make it too palatable some Ashling's going to swallow it. Should be quick enough to escape much of anything, anyway.

Jvan sent the new breed of messenger-angel on its way, twirling as it rocketed along, with a set of words. Stuttered words, unplanned feelings.

"Astarte!"

"I am Jvan, the flesh artist, and I think it's past time you and I spoke. I should apologise, anyway. You met me at an... Awkward time, and I wasn't feeling- Wasn't- Particularly well. Forgive me the embarrassing moment."

"But it's not too late to make up for a first impression! _{(I mean. Hopeful.)} Join me in spirit, if you like, in the ring of Lex. There is a- A place there, a forest, a pleasure garden I've made to be alone in. I think I still need to be alone, for a while. Enough is enough."

"Later I'll go back to my plans. You might... I think you'll like them. A little secrecy, sabotage. Maybe just mayhem. We'll see."

"Do me a favour and don't tell Vest- Ah, damn him, nevermind. Just don't tell me if you do tell Vestec. _{(Sick of that griefing bastard!)} Uh."

"...If you choose to come, then. I'll see you."

The messenger sped off. This one, at least, was two-way, a high upgrade from the earlier species. Jvan wondered if what she'd said was worth listening to, and decided not to think too much about it.

Truth? Jvan didn't want to think about anything. She knew exactly why she was calling to Astarte, of all the divine caste. Why she was copying her. It is so that I do not have to think of anything else. So she could pretend, for a moment, that another force wasn't hard at work undoing everything her family had spent so long creating.

Undoing her family outright.

Bursting noise, harsh static. A rush of folding colours. Jvan groaned, the entire mountain-body releasing a subaudible splat of sound that hid the anxiety. Her family, damn him. Slough Rottenbone is my sister.

And Jvan would rather not look back at the imprisonment, though she knew she should, and would. And did.



A second messenger left orbit, its protective casing disintegrating in the atmosphere to release the flier within.

It landed in an empty place where it had expected to find a tomb. A moment of motionless anticipation before it followed the scent of a deity. Its mobility was not exceptional, but, drawing near, something larger, deeper, and purposeful drove the pawn to increase its speed, beyond, perhaps, what it could handle. Sensory tendrils stretched and writhed, releasing the smell of bitter lungs exhausted by fear. Whatever mind had sent the construct was on high alert. Was horribly trepidatious.

Bobbing in air, it slowed behind the trail of footprints extending from the walking wood. Waited, in a miasma now of rising emotion, a smell like new sweat on an athlete's brow. Rushed forwards, spinning around the prison reformed, the defiance from inside the shell where something, something had refused to come quietly, something still glowed strange and lively from within. Drawing back again.

The silent messenger followed its quarry at a distance, the first flagbearer behind the leader of a rebellious parade. And far and wide it cast a faint aroma like old paper, like fresh bread, like dry leaves burning, to which were drawn the followers, the witnesses.

Hain abandoned their village and roamed after their god. An Urtelem matriarch guided her herd out of their way. Air spirits gusted around it. A White Giant abandoned its course of aeons and slowly muscled its way towards the weird-wood.

They fell behind and were left behind, and had to camp at night while the walker moved on, none of them bold enough to come forth and touch her side. They came and went, seeing the Rottenbone shackled and still free, following, they knew not why, in footprints on the unmarked path of God.



What do I remember? Hmm. Good question. Ha! You caught me out on that one.

Well, I remember blue. I think that's my first memory. There was a lot of blue, really, a light bold glowing blue that kind of shone in the sun. And it was thick. It was very strange, like nothing I've ever felt again. The space itself felt, kinda, viscous. It had a taste, a really thin bland kind of taste. Like there was something in it, something blue that was filling it that you had to push past to move. It wasn't like space at all, actually. It burned.

I was moving fast. Oh God, I was moving so fast, through the blue. Hey! That must've been why it felt so bad! If I was actually moving through something, then no wonder it burned! Why didn't it hurt more, though? It wasn't like hitting a Rock. Heh, I don't know. Can't help you. Sorry!

There were other things, too, that I don't really remember. Colours moving fast. A voice, rippling through the blue stuff, kind of distorted, but no words. I left it behind as I moved. All of it- The blue, the glow, the voice, the colour. From then on, my memories are always around Lex, in the space.

Now that I think about it, I know where that glow is. I see it all the time. It's that sheen that covers Galbar like a mist, only perfectly even, all around.

Does that mean I come from Galbar? Huh. That's... Weird. I've always thought about it as the big unknown, that viridian-navy-tan-alabaster sphere that Lex life spins around. I see it, but it's way too far away to taste. That I might've actually been there, let alone come from there... Wow.

...Anyway! I remember what happened after that, really well actually. I remember being curled up inside myself like a ball, so tight that I had to break myself out, like how leapers hatch from their eggs. I'm pretty sure I was an egg, though one without a shell. I could hear Big Grandma calling to me, so I went to her. Oh, you, you have no idea. You just have no idea how exciting that was, moving around for the first time, tasting dust for the first time. Every Rock felt so huge back then!

I couldn't really orientate myself freely back then either. I kept thinking in planes, like 'up' was always up, so if you turned then 'up' was 'down'. Heh. Yeah, I guess I was dumb.

After that I can remember everything. I remember seeing the whole forest coming out of Big Grandma, the nocti and the imago and everything. I remember learning how to feast, really feast on what I can hunt, and growing, and exploring what it all was and how it all worked. It's all pretty normal from then on.

And now I see that little speck in the distance. It was glowing, back when it was in sunlight, and now that it's eclipse and everything's in Galbar's shadow it's dark again.

I can still see it, though. Clear as light.

I can hear it. I can hear her. She's my sister and I can hear her. She's coming to me from Galbar.

She can tell me everything. She can tell me what the white swirls are and the difference between the shiny navy spaces and the matte green spaces and the gleaming caps that only grow in the shade.

She can come and tell me stories, and we can tell those stories to my daughters together when they hatch. Together we'll start a sorority, a sisterhood of just Diaphanes like us, the biggest pack of hunters that Lex has ever seen.

Then we'll go back to Galbar and we'll eat it all. We'll eat it all up.

Together.

Description: Ovaedis is a divine manufactory orbiting Galbar in the Ring of Lex, using biomechanical systems to monitor her affairs and synthesise whatever she designs. Her attempt to construct such a device required significant control over fragmentary Gap-space and the eldritch life that occupies it. Dominating the Other required her to enter its domain, which she did internally. This caused her considerable pain and illness, as the Other had been hybridised with aggressive monstrosities from the Hells of Time by Vowzra. After losing a large amount of mass, a shard of perfection lost in her from when Toun attacked her in the pre-world activated and allowed her to rearrange part of the Gap according to her own geometric designs. The subdued Other could finally be manipulated into a hybrid construct in Galbaric space, which Jvan built inside herself and jettisoned into orbit.

Appearance: A colossal fortress in the shape of a human uterus, the interior of which contains a matrix of Jvan's own flesh that supports a relatively small extraction core with a design similar to a human embryo. The uterine structure itself measures about fifteen kilometres across at its widest point, and twenty from its upper surface to its cervical gate. Twin sensory devices sprouting like frayed horns or fallopian tubes add another fifteen kilometres to either side. The ocular ovaries extending from ten-kilometre stalks on its front surface are studded with vivid clusters of spherical Jvanic eyes.

Ovaedis is, by both volume and mass, predominantly composed of its own walls, which are about five kilometres thick on all sides, composed of a bone-like grey beige material that, given time, regenerates from superficial damage. These walls are solid, with only a little flex, again more comparable to bone than steel.

The interior of the fortress is isolated from all external matter and radiation. Internal processes generate large amounts of heat and a little light, which is Jvan's characteristic carmine colour, but too faint to see more than the barest outlines of shape, and fluctuates in strength and direction. Here, a rapidly shifting and regrowing network of Jvan's own flesh, which encapsulates numerous stable bubbles of Gap, is constantly moulding new shapes, only the smallest fraction of which will ever see the light of day.

Connecting the flesh matrix to the core is a long, compound tube, an umbilicus, through which selected samples of mass are withdrawn, as well as large amounts of information. Both umbilicus and the 'embryo' around the core are translucent, pink-white, with a slight glow.

The embryo itself is a simple structure curled around a small black hole which holds it in place. Pale yellowish bones are visible, only partially formed, in its limbs and spine, and it has an unabsorbed 'tail' through which- Curiously- Its spinal cord can be entered. Its eyes are open portals that feed a constant stream of Other life in and out of its skull from the Gap. Its heart fills its ribcage and forms the core of Ovaedis, processing this material for extraction via the umbilicus.

Function: An observatory satellite as well as a factory, the beautiful fractal eyes growing from Ovaedis' ovaries are fully functional and can be ejected in any direction, observing Galbar from all angles of space as well as monitoring life in Lex. Many can withstand re-entry and form stationary probes on Galbar's surface before they are eventually cracked by erosion, hain or White Giants. They are capable of discerning sound as well as sight, and unmasked divine essences.

The curved, tubular horns also have a sensory function, acting as receivers and amplifiers for messages transmitted across the Gap, which have a tendency to be distorted by its piecemeal nature. This enhances Jvan's ability to communicate with her cult of Sculptors.

Of course, Ovaedis is foremost a facility for creating life, at which it excels. The cervix at its lower end forms a locked aperture, a portal which can be opened to forcefully birth anything constructed by the Jvanic matrix within, including self-arranging reactants calibrated to assemble themselves at a predetermined time. The matrix itself is capable of manufacturing and replicating Other life, and relies on a stream of samples and data from the core to do so efficiently. Immaterial substances produced by the matrix can also be ejected from the gate if necessary. Should Jvan so choose, she is entirely capable of using Ovaedis as a weapon of orbital bombardment.

Appearance:

Life Cycle:

Description:

Interactions:

Appearance: A noctus is a flattened, matte, darkly coloured Other organism that feeds on near-space radiation in Lex. All nocti are composed of two primary tissue types- An outer 'hem' and an inner 'web'. The hem forms an elastic, unbroken loop or band, which may be circular, angular, lobate, or even form elongated lens-shaped or torus-like forms with an outer and inner hem. Any structure that extends outside the main body of the noctus is part of the hem.

Inside the ring formed by the hem grows the web, occupying a two-dimensional (but flexible) plane between the edges of the hem, though injury or entanglement can cause three-dimensional exceptions to arise. True to its name, the web is a network of veins, often similar to the veins of Galbaric leaves or lungs. However, the web can be arranged in an infinite diversity of ways, from geometrically perfect arrangements of lines and curves in stars, fractals, branches, circles, tessellations and distinct shapes to chaotic tangles. The range of how much of the inside of the hem is filled with veins is wide. Some species have veins so reduced that they really only exist as a hem, while others have almost no gaps in the network.

Due to metabolic processes, the web of a noctus sometimes emits pinpricks of faint films of discoloured light that the organism was unable to fully trap.

As with trees, corals, sponges, and really any kind of sessile organism with variable growth shapes, each species of noctus has a 'habit', or general tendency of shape. Many are free-floating along with the other ring particles and meteoroids. Many more are attached to said meteoroids by their hem, whether by means of a flexible stalk or by the edge of the hem. Most are attached at one point, some at several, some to several different meteoroids, and a few by their entire hem, allowing their web to billow out into space like a windsock. Another majority are not only attached by the whole hem but entirely curled onto a meteoroid, much like Galbaric lichen, albeit with a distinct edge and interior. These tend to be small.

Nocti do not come in a large variety of colours. Most are dark shades of purple leaning to red, with a papery or velvety texture. Some are slightly bluer shades. All are quite flexible, but while some ripple easily at the slightest touch, others rebound to their usual shape quickly and firmly.

In size they vary greatly, with the smallest barely a few centimetres wide. The largest nocti can be as the size of whales, more than ten metres in radius, but the diminishing ratio of hem to web limits them from growing much larger, and the branching shapes that overcome this limitation are more vulnerable to breakage. Free-floating nocti are larger, with much less opportunity for collision with stray meteoroids.

Life Cycle: Nocti live simple lives. They reproduce by fission, often facilitated by imago whose feeding habits are designed not only to sate themselves on a noctus but also to break off sections that are complete enough to rapidly form a new noctus. Many noctus species take advantage of this, concentrating veins and nutrients between their main body and a lobe with a well-developed hem. The desired link is soon targeted by an imagen in the way of an animal eating a fruit, and the lobe is cut off exactly where desired.

Reproduction by cloning, of course, is not conducive to genetic variation. Nocti instead exchange genes- Though they are not always carried on nucleic acids, as with Galbaric life- during the course of their ordinary lives, in a process of entanglement. Nocti that collide and coil tightly around one another may split apart and accept the twisted tissue, even from another species. Other time, the two tissue types meld together into one, resulting in a single organism with some of the traits of both. Many species, particularly those with difficulty colliding normally, such as those who curl into rocks, form extensions of hem and web designed for the sole purpose of easy entanglement. These 'flowers' tend to be long and branched in order to increase the chances of tangling, and some even 'fruit' near the entanglement sites in order to cause imago to rummage through them, shuffling them around a wider area.

Entanglement occurs easily, if unreliably, in recently-separated lobes with exposed webs. Many species of nocti therefore 'fruit' and reproduce at the same time, when the meteoroids they occupy or drift close to are nearest the sun, and therefore receive the most nourishing radiation. Conversely, when the particles orbit on the far side of the sun where Galbar's shadow prevents radiosynthesis, almost no 'fruiting' takes place, and indeed many nocti retract to minimise predation. In the absence of a circadian cycle, this is the primary means by which time is marked in Lex. The orbital period is about forty-three days.

As Lex orbits on the same angle as Galbar itself, it does have a yearly cycle, with the upper surface of the ring receiving more shade half the year and direct sunlight in the other half. As the ring is so thin, relatively speaking, and each meteoroid is itself mobile and capable of spinning, the yearly cycle has no real significance in Lex.

Description: Nocti form the energy basis for life in Lex. Their webs extend beyond the visible level, serving as a foundation for pulses of self-replicating, rapidly decaying subatomic particles that flow in currents over the sheet of space marked by the hem. Harsh solar, stellar and reflected lunar radiation, unfiltered by an atmosphere, collides with this film at all times. Much of it passes through without incident, but the occasional photon is caught in precise loops of interaction with the exotic matter.

The captured light ignites a chain reaction of replication by the field that the noctus generates. Particles resonate in carefully selected orbits within the web that optimises the probability of replication in a useful way. From the initial high-energy interaction, the noctus can accumulate enough low-energy interactions to produce far more energy than originally entered the system. The presence of physical matter not specifically designed to interact with this region tends to heighten the chance of distortion, making the process unviable in atmospheric conditions. Similarly, the reason the noctus web is always flattened is because the chance of scattering increases if the particles are allowed to waver in three dimensions.

Ultimately, the reaction results in the noctus being able to accumulate matter out of nothing. In Lex, where accidental vigour can cause chemically valuable dust to fly out into space, never to re-enter the ecosystem, this is crucial to life being even remotely viable. The interactions also help the noctus warm up just enough for other life chemistry to occur, and easily produces both matter and antimatter, which can annihilate each other for more energy.

All life in Lex is thus dependant on Nocti both for chemical constituents and for a fixed, ingestible energy source.

Interactions: Nocti almost invariably live in a state of symbiosis with gaia. Gaia are unable to fix energy or produce matter of their own accord, but are highly efficient at processing the matter grown by others. Some nocti are more prolific in growing with a gaian colony than others, to the point where their colour more represents the bright gaia than their own dark hues. Additionally, dormant gaia stud the surface of almost every organism in the noctus forest, waiting for their metabolisms to slow so that decomposition can take place.

Nocti frequently parasitise one another, a smaller noctus trying to take advantage of a larger one's quantum current. Neither can move of their own accord, and most large nocti are specialised to be able to redirect energy out of an infected area in order to starve the intruder. As such this is rarely successful, but it does provide a niche for some species.

Imago take advantage of nocti in a vivid variety of ways. In addition to consuming various parts of different species of nocti, grazing it, attaching to it, picking out the softest specimens and scouring for 'fruit', the nocti form between themselves and the meteoroid reefs the physical structure of the Lex ecosystem. An imagen with the right combination of instinct or intelligence may use noctus material to weave a nest, shade from solar storms, clamber between meteoroids, hide from predators, or any other imaginable purpose.

Rainclouds often hung too low to pass over the Nice Mountains, and drenched instead the surrounding foothills. Flux felt the last of the drizzle bounce and steam from his surface as the clouds finally broke, revealing that familiar, cold sunlight that heralds the long drying-out.

"Enough skulking. Come, hairknots. Our duties are not over."

The triplet fiberlings heeded his call, picking their way over the new grasses with most of their mass held gingerly high above the sodden mud, tangling and bristling irritably. It was a strange thing, to see a fiberling bristle with its whole body, but though he was patient enough, Flux had little time for their antics. He hoped dearly that they would not break back to their grotto as soon as he gave them any slack. It was a thin hope.

This was the last rain of a clammy day and night, and it seemed to have finished the job of filling the great dykes of Grot's footprints with water. A few were only puddles. Most, marking the line of his run, were metres deep. And the two that lay where the Demon King's feet had dug into the ground as he finally fell were, indeed, nearly lakes.

Mud would soon fill the shallow pools, Flux knew. Thousands of heavy battle feet had stripped the plain of grass. Both sides of Urtelem, especially, had gouged apart the flora as they moved. The oil-spirit had much to do if this place were to be restored to splendour. This was just the start.

For all their complaints, the fiberlings did go about their assigned business. It was a rare task, this, that Flux would not rather assign to the Mockdjinn. Especially not now. They had earned his highest respect in the dark day they had dubbed 'the breaking of the peoples', an ugly, subtle set of signs with connotations of earthquake fissures and heartbreak, and 'peoples', the sign being plural for two, referring, of course, to their own divided kind. It was what some had already started calling Angelblood Ridge. A hollow name, for such grief.

No, Flux held the Urtelem close to his heart, and he would not interrupt their time of mourning for petty responsibilities or trivial harm. A matriarch was gone, struck down in her prime. Every single survivor now bore scars, wounds which were no less debilitating for being cracked into rock. More than twenty others lay broken, now sleeping deep in the earth. Many had been parents. There were children who had started refusing to eat.

Besides, fiberlings, those mute sadists, were good at this. There was nothing about a rotting corpse that reviled them. Their senses were keen and they worked fast. If anything, they thoroughly enjoyed the process of tickling a dead warrior to see if it would move, and if it did, lurking around like three huge sharks until Flux allowed them to tear it apart.

Carrion crows had come, gorged, and bloated until they could no longer move. Maggots were too slow. The dead lay unburied and undisturbed, and without Flux, those fated to rise again could simply get up and kill like the war had never ended.

The softly luminescent liquid spirit was hundreds of years old, if not a thousand, and had buried many drowned bodies in time. Yet never had he seen such a proportion of undead. Grot's sorcery had seeped out of him and into the very dirt where his army collapsed. Most, true, were altogether harmless, even some from the horde. To these, death had been a harsh lesson, one taken to heart. Flux made them pledge a solemn oath of peace and reparation, repeated until he was satisfied it was genuine.

Those who woke up and still thought violence could help them cling to an overdue soul, well. That was one thing fiberlings could do reliably enough.

Flux cupped some water from a puddle and poured it over the face of the latest to rise. She was a goblin, or had been. Her neck sat at an odd angle, and most of her bulky chest and shoulder had been crushed. More importantly, her limbs worked, even if she clearly didn't have enough lung left to talk in more than a rasp.

Spluttering, not yet aware that the need to breathe was over, the goblin began scraping her arms on the dirt, slowly gaining strength. A fibreling touched the tips of her fingers and Flux flicked it away as she tried to speak.

"'uk're eeeyou?"

"My name is Flux, of the Fractal Sea. Tell, quickly- How much memory do you still retain?"

"Mem'ry o' wot, ya jibb'rn freak?"

Patience, now. Either dignity would return, or it would not. For all the muck and slander involved, waking up the dead was never boring. Flux no longer heeded insults, and his ascendant curiousity always picked out something different about each awakening.

"There was a battle."

"Pfyeh, an' I died in it. Doncha hav'ny fresh news?"

This one was remarkably quick on the uptake. If the goblin turned out to be a keeper, Flux would let her talk to some of the other repentant horde warriors. Some of them believed everything he told them, other than that they were dead.

"I see you would prefer it if I made haste. Very well, goblin, answer this: Should I spirit you away into the village of the one who killed you, at night, and put in your right hand a burning torch, and in the left a knife, what should you make of yourself?"

"I'd drop 'em both and drag 'er outta bed just to punch 'er in the face, ya goddam smart-tits sponkus, an' then drown yer ass in 'er pisspot. My name's Yulosi, not 'goblin,' ya daft soggy blob."

The test, of course, was not so much whether the undead would choose to take revenge so much as they would extend it to innocents. By either measure Yulosi passed with superb credentials, even if courteous society would clearly remain forever beyond her, and she still spoke as if she was a conscientious objector to the letter 'h'. Flux decided that this one could stay without further screening. All he needed was the oath.

"Acknowledged. However, in order t-"

One of the fiberlings was gone. Almost instantly it was followed by another, the third on its heels. Flux whirled, abandoned Yulosi, and swept after them in a gliding motion, leaving a streak of light. Not as fast as the hair monsters, the wing-like shape nonetheless held onto their trail close enough to see what they were sprinting over the damp earth for.

Ashling.

And yet, though they drew closer in measured instants, Flux alone saw that it was more than that, or less.

"Halt!"

It was too slow to be a true Ashling. Too calm. Too bright. It had the form of what had been a mountain goat, at least up to the neck.

"HALT!"

The disembodied predators slowed, momentarily, at the force of Flux's command. It was enough. At an ungodly sprint the Sculptor veered to the fore of the lead fibreling and snapped himself at it like a whip, the sound ricocheting into the distant ridge, and the whole world blurred with their speed as they tumbled over one another in a cloud of drifting hair detached by the shock of impact.

Flux recovered before the fiberling and watched it scatter to reclaim its missing filaments. The others circled him, distrustful, edging slowly towards the not-quite-ashling on either side. He backed up to match them. There were no organs in him to choke, no solids to tear. He feared not.

"This is not an ashling."

In the distance, Yulosi was running after them. The fiberlings silently judged. They knew what they saw.

"This is not an ashling!"

With that Flux smacked the glassy flank of the entity, sharply, and it staggered, its lower body lilting, top-heavy. It wobbled and backed away, making no move against him, failing to reform the thin crack that had been split in its side. "Look! Gaze upon it with what semblance of a brain you hide in all that filthy shag! It is feeble and dim of mind!"

They were slowing, at last, realising that whatever its appearances, this shambling, brittle piece of work was no real threat to the biosphere, and certainly far less of a threat to them than the oily black faery-charmer. Their sibling had taken its hair and fled to find dry ground, and they reluctantly turned and followed it.

Yulosi was catching up, tireless with zombie vigour. Flux composed himself, his vivid sunset glow dulling somewhat. This one was unusual. "You have returned."

"Well, shit." She seemed to be questioning the wisdom of her decision.

"Good. Remain where you are." Yulosi promptly ignored the command and sidled in front of him, towards the curious organism. In a strange move, Flux's halo of fae also made their way to its body, their downwards-balanced blades resting on it with small tinking sounds. "'ell is this?"

From the neck down, the goat's body had suffered the same brittle blight as any other ashling, at least in shape. Glassy plates scratched over one another along fracture lines that had been joints, and there were pockmarks and cavities where the material had reforged itself under strain. Its colour was clearer than other ashlings, revealing the delicate organosiliceous structures beneath. Where there should have been a head, the neck only branched and cracked, spreading, like a flat-topped tree upon which the fae were perched, into a wide, heavy crystal matrix, in a translucent scarlet that could only be called blood. The closer he looked, the more Flux could see the semblance of veins and nodes in the construct, shades of red and black no less beautiful for their grisly origin.

Yulosi rested her palm on the once-goat. It shuffled at her touch, turning slightly, as if to direct its faceless gaze towards hers. "'sdead," she announced. "Died 'fore it got turned. 's n' arrow shaft in it."

It was rare enough that a mortal noticed something accurately before Flux, much less a dead woman. As soon as he looked, he saw that it was indeed so. Black flint and a line of wood was visible beneath the smoky glass, sealed seamlessly by transformation.

"A commendable observation, Yulosi," he conceded graciously, "but I require from you an oath of peace before I allow you to continue. Some hearts, once lost to the horde, do not turn; Even in death."

"Don' do oaths." Yulosi didn't even look at him. Her hands stroked the head-branches of the mysterious creature, tapping aside the fae that settled there, casting strange shadows.

"Would that I could offer exemption! No, Yulosi, my precautions must be given fairly. All who rise again shall promise amends for the tragedy. I demand no more than this: Only that the wounded earth shall be healed."

"Or what? Y'll kill me?" Yulosi glanced up and smirked with the side of her mouth. Her left tusk had been chipped in the battle, and that only made it sharper.

"If you wish. I respect your values, and I have no qualms with holding you to them. It is the only alternative."

"Really? How 'boutcha 'splain t'me what this is then?" With her free hand, Yulosi abruptly pinched one of the fae by the base of its blade, ink running down her fingers, and impaled it into her other wrist, already comfortable with the death of her body. When the goblin withdrew the hand with which she had been examining the not-quite-ashling, its fingertips were coated in glassy green, the shade of her skin, no doubt, when she had lived.

"Didjoo come up with that? Nah. Didn't think so. Grows on undead meat, zombie meat. 'ts a pox, a barnacle. All it wants is... Vigour. What faeries suck up."

Yulosi cackled. "Lis'n up, Flux. I'm make a deal wit'choo. Yulosi don't wanna kill no more. She just wants to live 'er life, keh keh. So how 'bout you just take me to the nearest Rockman nest n' jus' let 'em take me out if they see black on my dear zombie 'eart? Y'want peace wit' me? That's how you get it."

There was a silence. Then Flux looped a sleek fluid limb around the neck of the goat-like creature and began to lead the placid thing back to the ridge. "Very well, Yulosi. Do not leave my sight. Do not betray my trust."

"Keh keh keh! Wontcha look't that?" Yulosi yanked the faery from her wrist and tossed it back into Flux's halo. "Smart-tits blob knows what's best for 'im." Flux maintained a dignified cool.

Yulosi's cackling piped down after a while. Soon the two were solemn. She looked at the Sculptor, mouth a flat line, and cocked her chin. "Ask it, Flux."

"You are observant."

"Don' need a big brain to guess when it's the same damn question ev'ry time."

"You are observant," repeated Flux, "and fear nought, and I do not believe it's stupidity that makes you so. Though you drawl out of habit, to blend in, you speak as one who recognises wisdom, and sees it in herself, and judges truely. You are different."

Yulosi sighed. Without thinking, she snapped her fingers by her side. For a dying moment there flickered the smallest imaginable spark, an ephemeral ember lost in the night.

"Don't you underestimate us Gobbos, blob. But you aren't wrong. I'm part 'zibo. When the Defiling Demon came to the Rovaick in the distant days, when we were weak and hid in caverns, it fucked us, and it fucked our bloodlines. Some have those blighted souls among their ancestors, and most are still sick. I was born lucky."

Yulosi spat, though her mouth was dry. Flux looked at her, and began to see that the horrible bend in her neck was not a battle wound.

"Does the Demon have a name?"

"Does. We don't say it 'cept when the rites n' Council call us to curse a traitor. 'ts a harsh curse, so we don' say it much. His name is Yah Vuh."

"...I see." Flux bowed himself in memory for the victims, and the two walked in silence.

Some time passed.

"Flux?"

Yulosi was looking back and forth between her crystallised fingers and the mineralised mountain goat. "I think this is food." She splintered off a brittle vein from the entity, crunching it between her teeth, clearly regretting that death had robbed her of her Rovaick taste for stones.

"I think what this 'ere zombie glass tree-goat is growin' is some sorta... Rockman fruit."

And she was right.

Tira woke up for the seventh time. This awakening, it seemed, was finally enough to shake off the thick coat of exhaustion.

She rubbed her eyelids with the back of her wrists. The room was familiar, though its colours were finally growing clear: Azurite, marble, and gleaming river stone veined with minerals. There was a blanket, woven soft and warm, now stinging with drying sweat. Tira pulled it aside and let it slide down to the floor. Looked for the sky, and was blocked again by the mosaic roof. There were windows. Open doorways- A balcony. Her head drooped.

Reaching up again to the rough plainsman cashmere of her undertunic, finding nothing. No leather. No stone. No knife. Again.

Someone had washed her face and arm, only to have the slash in her cheek open up again in the night. That must have been some time ago. The skin was sealed now, though the slit remained, and old blood had rubbed into the feather pillow. She stretched her fingers to the wound and felt her teeth through the hole. No flinching. The nerves had rearranged with unusual speed.

Her ankle wasn't so lucky, so Tira had to put her weight on her off foot and hop towards the basin she knew was nearby. Leaned against it, scrubbed water into her face with her nails, drank some through her cheek and cupped her hands to drink more through her mouth. Began to be aware.

What had Dancer taught her? "Yiil ba," she mouthed, not making any real sound. "Panasi elk ma toh-dne."

See everything. Accept things as they are.

There was a tall stick leaning on the foot of the bed. It was fresh and firm, with a y-bend curve at the top. Tira took the crutch and gripped it in both hands like a paddle, pushing herself along as she moved. On the wall hung a soft-looking set of grey clothes which she ignored. She didn't want to lose sight of her muscles, aching though they were.

Hopping back to the balcony. Leaning her head through the doorway, not quite ready to go out into the sun. There was... Quite a view. She was on top of a mountain, surely, with so much green, so many waterfalls.

Okay. Time to move on.

There was another room, smaller than the first, sachets of sweet herbs set at indents in the wall. The largest held a pile of dry moss. The other wall featured a ledge with a gap in it. Tira could hear river-water rushing in the darkness below. Well, that was useful enough, after so long in bed. She scrubbed her hands and left. The smooth walls were so neatly aligned and solid that they felt almost cramped.

The third doorway had been blocked by a painted wooden panel. Tira leaned against it and realised with a jolt that it swung aside easily, admitting entrance to another space. Still no more sky. All these rooms were so smooth and vivid; They made it hard for her to judge distance. This one had a recess with a wood pile, smooth shiny timber shaped like a very large flat-backed animal and its young, a jug that seemed to be full of more water, and plenty of round fabric things, like the pillow in the first room, only bigger.

Spread upon the table was her leather armour. It was clean. On it lay the stolen stone knife. That, too, was clean. Tira tried its edge and left a thin smudge of blood there. She remembered clearly. She remembered everything. God, she remembered everything.

Never in her life had Tira felt so lonely.

She clutched the knife tightly to her chest and sank to crossed legs, bruised back to the wall. There were rites, for mourning, most of which she had forgotten and none of which felt right. Tira bit her tongue to hold in the moan and just cried, rocking back and forth, until tears carried the grief away and left behind anger.

Tira grabbed the crutch and swung it blindly against the floor, swung it again so hard it cracked, yelled, and tossed it into the far wall.

Immediately the next door opened, revealing one of the austere grey soldiers for whom the room's dimensions were clearly intended. Seeing the knife Tira was holding and the teeth she was baring, they retreated just as quickly, tapping sharply against the carved panels with what Tira assumed was their fist.

"Kint!"

The angry shout seemed to dissuade them. Tira rapidly stretched into her padded armour, knotting it roughly even as she hopped back to grab the crutch. She stood before the door with the stick in one hand and the knife gripped in the other, with which she knocked on it.

A short pause. The knocking was returned. She kept knocking, insistently, and soon enough the door began to push open again to admit the huge Lifprasilian.

Tira backed up all the way to the far wall, but did not yell. The guard, carrying on its hands a flat wooden tray piled with some kind of grain-bread beside a bowl of nuts and berries, stepped in cautiously. They said some words Tira didn't know and didn't respond to, though the tone was soft, and waited for a response.

She raised her eyebrows carefully. They said some more words, then motioned to their mouth. She returned the gesture, then tapped her belly several times. They put the tray on the table. They pointed to themself, then to the door. They put their hands at their sides and nodded once with their whole upper torso. They left.

Tira breathed and wiped her face again, then hid the knife in her tunic and lifted herself onto the table with both arms. Crossing her legs next to the food, she ate rapidly, and prepared to explore.

Tauga sprinted across Xerxes, shunting out of mind the shouts of four parents as they faded into the night behind her. It wasn't difficult. Even the grim knowledge of how unsafe the moonlit City was to a young hain armed with only a pair of trousers was easy to forget.

Five weeks.

She turned corners, clambering over places where the City was not yet finished raising and plastering mud bricks over wooden beams. The City was not large, geographically, but for the older folk who remembered a time when it had been a simple set of villages, who had lived their entire lives looking out over the green where now the Eye towered, it always felt too busy, too loud, too complex. Not so for Tauga. First of all the generations to call themselves City-dwellers was hers, and she knew the space well. Could traverse it even while her head spun.

A month, and quarter-again a month.

Tauga tumbled over an unused sack of firewood and hardly even noticed the headfirst pitch into the dirt. When she realised that her movement had stopped, she pressed her hands over her eyes and tucked her beak into her chest, panting for lost breath.

Thirty nine days, and not one of them had even told her.

In the blackness of palm against eye, something began to move and spiral. Something spread, marking out its place on her hand, her body. Something.

Tauga shrieked and clambered up, legs burning, to start running again.

Memories of voices babbled in her skull as the images came and went. Her father, quiet, worn down by labour. Mother Koonap, no less hardened by work, and still laughing. Mother Yen, the oldest, who had always assured her it would be over in an hour and Tauga would soon forget. And then her laying-mother, Sileg, who had looked away more and more as Tauga enjoyed wearing the last shell of her childhood.

Her laying-mother, whose blood ran through her veins. Whose own mother and her mother before her had always been the last to finish the second hatching. Who, in a village where most were finished in a fortnight, had taken five weeks to emerge. As she would.

Tauga knew it to be true. She had always been the one to cry when the minstrels came and sang the grim Parable of the Painter. She had grown up tallest of her siblings, strong, fast, brave, but it had always been her who looked away first when dealing with a hair-faced fiberhead. Because they reminded her of the stories.

Five weeks it had taken her blood mother. The longest of anyhain in the City.

In the moonlight stood unfamiliar walls. That alone was unusual- Tauga could find her way anywhere. But she didn't stop running, not for anything, not to think where she was going. Not to realise that there was only one place in the City where she had never been. Only one House.

Tauga hid from a night breeze behind one of the building's high walls. An ink moth drifted past her, its movement completely opposite to that of the wind that should have blown it. Unthinking, unblinking, she felt her hand snatch out at it with all her usual strength, crushed it in her fist and brought the thin spike to her waist.

The cold air was interrupted by the sound of scratching metal on porcelain, then a yell. Tauga disappeared behind high walls.

Inside the House, it was very dark. In the splay of moonlight following her through the door she could see only a few shapes. None of the ubiquitous foreman's tools that littered the rest of the city. Tauga could see the outline of stretched fabric on a frame, and little else. The only thing she could determine with any certainty was the glint of another faery, eerily close to where she had found the last one.

Tauga leapt after it. The faery ducked lazily, as if expecting her to do better, and she found herself on her face for the second time. Chattering teeth followed her as she crawled after the ink moth, deeper into the blindness.

There was a soft 'tink' very close to her hand. Tauga snatched out and immediately returned the faery to her side, her eyes full of awful whorls. Within a minute she moaned, and tossed the insect into the dark.

Footsteps, heavy and slow, sounded from the void.

Tauga clamped her jaw, forcing her teeth to stop chattering, and felt her head dart around like the scared bird she was. Nowhere had enough light to see who she was alone with. The steps came intimately close. They found her in the darkness.

An enormous hand wrapped around her shoulder and lifted up her arm. Tauga froze, every muscle seizing in fear. Her very heart held its breath.

A faint pricking at her waist, and the sound of fae on hainbone.

No motion. No other sound, only Tauga's lungs, her now-pounding heart, and a far deeper rhythm of breathing nearby. She didn't understand, and she was cold, but the smooth, rapid scratching continued, working its way to the murky shapes she could see on her back before arching around to her other hip.

It was wrong- This stranger- Being held- Empty temple- Huge hands in the dark-

And yet the shapes were finally being filled, the fever breaking. Tauga's eyes closed, and she was still. For the first time in days, her breathing slowed. When the etching finally wound around her belly and linked up where it began, it found her in an exhausted doze.

The huge palm released her shoulder and Tauga drooped forwards, jolting awake. Before she had a chance to think, she reached out wildly for the needlepoint, and after a few seconds it drifted into her hand. Immediately she brought it to her elbow. Slow panic began to surge.

"I need light."

Footsteps, then a pause. Tauga heard the single, telltale snap of pyrite against flint, and a small blaze that sent cinders into the ceiling. As the glow spread from its bowl of tinder, the obscure shapes of objects discerned themselves one by one.

There were pebbles, mineral chunks, bones, all manner of solid detritus balanced into single-file towers higher than Tauga's eye level. Blocks of unbaked clay from the river in several shades of ochre and grey. Some of it was folded into the shapes of hands and lips, perfectly lined, holding trinkets too twisted to guess the origin of. Indents in a plank held dye powders, colours which were splayed onto framed fabric or sometimes directly over the wall, murals depicting... Things difficult to describe.

The light swelled on, and the brighter its glow, the more objects Tauga could make out, piled atop each other, stashed into bags and bowls, hanging from fishing lines attached to the roof, resting in hammocks that almost webbed the room. There were fae hiding everywhere, balanced on all kinds of things, an infestation. There was even one of the grotesque glass trees that Urtelem loved to eat, that they planted with simple prayer-signs to Spiral Palms. It grew from a crack in the wall.

The House of Life was a mess- A disaster, a wreck of things that filled Tauga's empty stomach with unease, that seemed balanced on all the wrong angles. And as the fire rose to a crackle, Tauga realised that this was just the beginning.

At last the flickering glare reached the table in the centre of the room. Upon it lay a fresh human corpse in maybe twenty pieces. Over the dismembered woman towered a being the size and shape of a Tedar, its hands delicately knapping a very small blackglass blade. But its hide was covered by a jagged shell far darker than her own, and it had no visible eyes.

Tauga's legs spasmed and kicked the floor so violently she nearly chipped her own heels as she screamed. In a single flowing movement, the monster picked up a plank and set it on the brazier, calling back the night.

More whorls. Even as she gasped for breath, Tauga was pressing the ink moth back onto her arm.

For a long while the silence returned. The calm had come back. Unable to see what must surely have stood before her, put its hands on her, Tauga's voice cracked into a hoarse whisper of City pidgin: Who are you?

The voice that responded was high and gentle, like a young child's, and its tongue was clear.

"My name is- Help." The impossible voice did not seem satisfied with its own answer. There was a pause. "Yes. Help. That is who I am."

Tauga's knees were knocking. She had to grip the ink moth to stop herself throwing it away again. "Are you- Am I- Going to die?"

"Not tonight."

"But she's dead."

"This one was killed by falling masonry." Help spoke evenly, soothingly. "No one knew why. Yah Vuh told me to look, so I became curious. I think she bled out on the inside. Her rib splintered into sharp points, though her skin was only bruised."

With great precision, Help lifted the plank from the fire-bowl, allowing a slit of light that fell on a piece of split bone while keeping themself in the darkness. Haunted by spiralling visions, Tauga found herself unaffected by the sight of the sectioned human on its own. Blood didn't frighten her. She began to etch again in the half-light, staring at the shape of the corpse, talking to Help, talking to anyone just to distract herself from seeing the patterns of hatching. Even the monster with a child's voice.

"I thought... Yah Vuh was hated."

"What God gives by the right hand, it takes away by the left. Yah Vuh cannot think as we do. I judge him no more harshly than I would judge an animal."

"What about the Énas?"

"He has taken this woman's life with his ambition, and provided me with an excellent body. He has worked goblins to their death in the mines, and given me blackglass with which to take her apart. God kills and it nurtures. I mourn the killing. I am grateful for the nurturing."

"But that was an accident! He didn't mean to kill her!"

"Of course not." Help closed the bowl. Footsteps, and the clack of pottery. A sudden wetness around her beak and Tauga yelped. "Drink." Arms still locked in an awkward position, the hain sputtered, then quenched the thirst she had been ignoring since her sprint. The water was taken away. The fire bowl replaced it, open just a little.

Tauga tried to resume her scratching. The feel of cool water had broken her concentration, and now her heart was beating again, her fingers shuddering around the faery. Just enough light fell on her shell to show her the belt of curves around her waist and hip, and her head drooped again, eyes shut. Five weeks. Thirty-nine days to etch those bizarre shapes and pictograms.

"Help?"

"Of course," they answered, folding a blanket over Tauga's shoulders and gently guiding her hand. Help stayed at Tauga's side until the dawn came and illuminated the two shells, line by line, side by side, hand in hand.

Does the fool play his riddling role so well that even he is deceived?

Did the Void Wanderer listen, and realise that he was not silent?

Jvan didn't much care. The world was beyond reason. Vowzra was beyond reason. The only one left to accept the nails of sin for the sake of others was her.

The unmistakable sound of meddling echoed into the listening-horns of Ovaedis, drowning out the whispers of Galbar's scant thousand Sculptors. It haunted the fractured spaces, split and reformed, the noise itself coming undone in transit, but Jvan no longer saw riddles when she gazed upon the Gap. Its ways were known. Its paths could be mapped. That sound could be triangulated.

With mechanical ears Jvan traced back the echoes, as she had once traced the universe for the echoes of Arcon. For the first time, she could pinpoint the drone of Perfectus where it had been crudely stowed, listening for the undisguised sound of motion. The sound of breaching. Rising into a foreign sky, colliding with its own reflection, and disappearing, for the second time in its troubled history, into a pool of bent space.

As yet, nothing.

Then they tore their way into the world like a rain of caltrops.

Billions of particles of interdimensional flotsam forced into the world that had not been theirs for aeons. The artefacts punctured Galbar's skin and flimsily plugged the wounds they had created, a thin barrier to hold back the blood of the Other. Too thin. Fragile.

A precarious mockery of the creation she had wrought from the far places.

No anger, no hate in Jvan. Only a splay of lines and colours deep inside her whirring core. She had tasted of the cup of hate and drunk it dry. Now there was only regret, and swelling responsibility. The time for recovery was ending, and the time for action was coming. And Jvan was coming for Time itself.

Soon.

Divine sound pulsed over Galbar, and Jvan recognised the scream of birth. This one, it seemed, had come with particular violence. Predictable enough. The Other did not withhold its beauty for the likes of realspace, and the new demigod had been forced to adapt fast.

Would they emerge to be as blessedly peculiar as the rest, as Lifprasil and Amartia? Of course they would. Even the unsafe artwork is art nonetheless.

But the Other was unsafe indeed, and the Riddler was reckless. Time would tell if this erratic scrawl of creation was worth what it destroyed.

Except, of course, He wouldn't. Vowzra would sit in silence, watching the results of his interference, never making any coherent sense of his own actions. No one answered his riddles. No one could. They had no solution. They were dead ends. Like he was.

Like Perfectus had come to, and where it should have stayed until a worthier hand had drawn it out.

From the great portal of Ovaedis streaked a thin wisp of carmine fog, which did not dissipate in Galbar's atmosphere. Instead it nestled in the Caliginous Mangrove, mingling, for a little moment, in with the cloud forest's own veil.

It told Heartworm all it needed to know.

Old Skinstitch was lost to Jvan, she knew. It hid itself well, and their divine link was, until the Engineer found cause enough to repair it, cut. Ultimately, their isolation mattered little. The bonds went deep. Neither needed to hear the other to know what each would say. Neither needed to speak. They were, after all, one and the same.

The Riddler is hiding something beyond the Error. He has carved himself a den in which he lurks with his prize. There is a path between them. A frail barrier through which the Other may yet escape.

Open two ways. Whirlpool atop the Mount.

To leave such a flaw to rust and crack only weakens it. I will not let the Riddler creep in the dark places forever. It must be sealed, or still more harm may be done.

Reckless.

I must take responsibility for the protection of my family. None other will.

Retaliation will come. Stand to lose all that has been created.

I will not leave my work undefended. They must have a guardian.

You force my hand.

It was true. Heartworm, fragile as it was, would come if Lex was threatened. It would come late, and prioritise its own safety, but it would come nonetheless. The All-Beauty knew itself well enough. Knew its own unreliability. Heartworm was a weak contingency to depend on. In the future, better defences would be required for Jvan's expanding portfolio of samples and sculptures.

Shelter. Mobility. Armament.

Yes, a bulwark would be built with which to protect the Engineer's delicate mortal projects. An Ark.

Ovaedis. Blood-tinted darkness. Churning eldritch tendons. Hot air. Spitting bubbles of liquid. A stream of brilliant, uninterrupted energy from the Core. Jvan at work.

One? No, I think more. One is too much of a risk. Two, then. Any more and their power will be too far diluted. It would take them too long to grow. Still not enough, not entirely secure. A mating pair? Yes, so be it.

They will be different, of course. Diversity in all things. The entropites can take care of the offspring once they mature. Motherhood is in their veins. And the Arks will take care of them. They'll be able to hold so much, in the end. They can take the change eaters down to commence the counter-genocide. They can carry things up, into orbit. Maybe even Urtelem.

Or other mortals. Explorers. Colonists. A whole settlement, why stop at that? An army. They can be flagships for an empire of the stars. Lifprasil would love that. Oh! Two Arks. Of course. And offspring, besides. Enough to share.

Yes. Lifprasil would like that very much.



From the great portal of the Divine Engineer's manufactory, two bodies emerged into the dark.

They were wound around one another, a slender form and a sinewy one. The thin entity entwined her brother in intimate embrace, and the four arms of the robust being caressed the loops of his sister with effortless delicacy. Neither resembled the other in the slightest degree, and yet they were twins, born on the same day from the same womb. Each one stared into the eyes of their sibling, and saw that they had no need to be the same. For they were lovers, a union ordained long before their birth, and they knew one another's very soul. They were as lock and key.

Between the stones of Lex, where the noctus fronds drifted thick, the change eaters watched them.

The male was grey, lit white from within. His face was wise and solemn, and his eyes were those of a prayerful judge, a guardian-priest. The chambers of his body beat with no heart, only glowed with a soft, patient authority. His hands were the hands that uplifted, that gave comfort, and brought peace to the violent.

The female was brown, and streaked with hot metal sparks where her upper and lower sides met. Her smile promised speed, and her eyes denied relent. The fins of her body flicked in anticipation for the frenetic crowd she would lead. Her tail whipped, as if to chide the slow and hesitant into joining the sprint with whatever they had. She was the voice of passion, the shout that held back nothing.

Three winged tails of colour surged to meet them, the only children of Diaphane who had survived long enough to reach Lex. As they flew to meet the newcomers, they could hear the voice of the monolith, the impossibly huge structure floating in the Ring. The source of all life. Big Grandma.

"She is the Mother Suprema," spoke Jvan's voice from Ovaedis. In absence of air, the words carried on radiation. "He is the Father Dominus."

The sisters tittered to hear such names as they flew loops around the colossal Mother, who hissed with pleasure in a voice of hot metal, and curved around them in turn. Father Dominus laughed in his low hum, not saddened to be left alone.

No, the sisters had had no need of names until the third one had joined them, and a nomer was needed beyond 'you' and 'me'. All three had chosen to be called Diaphane, though they knew not from where that name had come. And so they had taken simple identities. The first was Diaphane Stellar, who had never known a blue sky. The middle sister was Diaphane Wander, who had flown a reckless journey into orbit. The last was Diaphane Whisper, who was quiet, and had been forced from Galbar by evil spirits. Soon, Stellar's eggs would hatch, and her children would take names of their own.

A hushed tone of awe soon overtook the change eaters. "What are you?" came the voice of Wander.

"Mother and Father are still very young. Soon they will grow, and then they will be your protectors. They can carry you onto Galbar, and return you when it is unsafe."

At this, Ovaedis had the attention of its audience. None of the change eaters had ever seen a living thing so large, even among the longest of nocti or the largest imagen-whale they had ever brought down. The Father alone was more than fifty metres tall, bigger than the biggest Rocks. Mother Suprema stretched longer than double that. To think that they might actually grow...

"How big?" piped Stellar. "How long until we eat Galbar?"

"Huge. Ten times their grandeur now at very least. But," and that word came sharply, for the sisters were flapping wildly in excitement, and even Whisper seemed eager. "While they are young, you must take care of them both. Clean them and they will carry you. Guard them and they will guide you. Whisper to them and they will teach you."

"Yes, but answer our question, Grandma," whispered Whisper, impatience foiling her quiet air. "When can we eat Galbar?"

"When you're ready."

And though the Diaphanes pleaded, Jvan said no more.



"Hey!"

A full turning of the Lex shadow cycle later, Wander came to Stellar as she guided seven children around the lilting currents of planktonic gaia. "Come!"

Stellar hesitated, but Whisper, who nursed her own clutch of eggs, knew what that word meant.

Together the growing sisterhood clambered under the upper-shell of Mother Suprema. Curiously, an even, hollow space had grown in her, perhaps to serve that exact purpose. With a flick of her tail and speed unimaginable, ten hunters of Lex were ferried into the place where the space glowed blue and was thick with juice, and viscous blue fluid rippled below. Together they explored one little, quiet corner beneath the Fractal Ocean, where water was liquid, and life tasted sweeter than anything to be found in Lex.

And when Father Dominus bid them come, they whined and complained, but come they did. Galbar was dangerous, Whisper had taught them. They were young and few. And, of course, they trusted Father. They trusted Mother even more. They had come to love their wordless guidance, and come to love their caretakers. Something had been given to them, that repaired a piece of their hearts they had not even known was broken.

Never again would the Diaphanes be orphans.

Mother River is wise. She knows that for all things there is a flow. There are rapids and there are meanders. As she walks to her final resting place, she slows, becomes tired and heavy; And dies, like so many others, at the feet of the Sepulchre.

The Mahd Estuary that filters around the base of the Forsaken Craglands is a pale thing, weighed down by opaque silt, but in its twilight half-life it is still stronger than it appears and deeper than men fare to guess. Another detail, were it needed, highlighting the height and strangeness of the wanderer's grave.

Another veil to hide Old Skinstitch.

Brown darkness, then pitch. A cruel undercurrent with no solid forms to hold on to. Only mud in which to sink and stay.

A slim tentacle forces itself against the blind press of water. Plucks, effortlessly, a small, lost object from its ever-flowing path to the grave.

Touches. Feels. Examines.

It's a doll.

Crafted by human hands. Loved by them, too. Burned in them, upon a pyre just large enough for a child. Charred.

The Emaciator releases its prize. It knows.

In a porcelain carcass-shell wrought with bismuth bones, Heartworm stalks into the mud, and tastes cold dreams of Vetros.

Whisper found something funny when we came back from the last dive.

It was a pretty long dip, maybe six hours. Mother takes us down for longer and longer each shadecircle. Maybe it's because she's grown so much. Old Grandma told us the Arks would grow and she was right, oh god, she was so right. They're both swelling up and changing shape, even though I've never seen them eat anything but ice and Rock. But, hey! Mother's big enough to swallow a reef-lily whole anyway! I've seen her do it! There's probably nothing to worry about. Father's pretty huge too.

Then again, maybe it's us who've gotten big. I shrank a little when I laid, and Wander only looks bloated because she's carrying, but my daughters doubled in the first radian since they hatched. Tripled by the end of their second. Watching them grow like that- Listening to them laugh, and tussle...

Have you ever loved someone so much that you feel like you can always see them, even if the sun falls down and blinds you forever? That your life doesn't even exist anymore outside of holding on to them?

Forget what Whisper found for a moment, I need to tell you. I have nine daughters. Nine! They're never lonely. Six haven't chosen names yet, so we call them all Diaphane Little. One chased a fish on our first dive and decided she was Ocean. Another spends time around Father and asked us to call her Diaphane Brother, so we did, and now she's our sister-brother, like the jetlets who have mothers and not-mothers but still make one family. Wander spends time with one who likes noise, so she's Diaphane Loud. I love her. I love them all. They give me life.

Speaking of. The more we dive, the more living critters we find down on Galbar. Whisper's the only one who knows how to deal with spirits, and sometimes she catches them deep in the liquid-ice or in the blueness, and holds them still for us to eat. Wander says they taste indescribable, and she looked really happy about it. She'd grown a bit, too. We'll find more soon enough, I think.

There are other things too. Birds die when you put them into liquid for long enough, but we still find some really big flightless ones out to sea. They perch on shells made of tree bones, which are solid, but kind of sit around on top of the liquid because they're not dense enough to get gravity-stuck. Tall grey things that'll sting you with light if they startle, but I like them. They taste exotic.

Heh, I keep getting sidetracked. It's good stuff, though. But yeah. What Whisper found.

It was shaped like an organ I once found inside one of the grey birds in the floatshells, one that pumps that runny blood they have. A flying thing, like a jetlet, with six propulsion siphons and four other limbs. It was fast, maybe the fastest thing I've seen other than Mother- And Father, of course. Whisper said she saw a whole shoal of them, but even with Wander's help she could only corner one. It tasted sweet. A sweet heart.



Since then we've spotted them a few more times. Mostly around Mother. Sometimes in her. We've tried to chase them out but she closes herself up and locks us out when we try. Suits me. Means I don't have to clean all the stuff she sheds. They're better at eating it, anyway.

My daughters can't get enough of those sweethearts, though. I've shown them how to kill pretty much every imagen that isn't more than double their size- And they're already figuring out how to kill the ones that are! Each one takes a bit, like a fin or an arm, and pulls in different directions as hard as they can. But sweethearts are... Tricksy little shits.

They keep dodging. They whirl around you when you least expect it and each time we see them they're a little better at it. Even Wander's realised she can't catch them without slowing down to plan first, and even then she needs help. Worst of all, there's something in their bite that actually burns, even when I'm dissolved.

So I guess the three of us are going to try and take them together, as a pack, even though we're all grown up. We'll signal our directions and fly in a flock, like jetlets do. Practicing our turns and sprints. If they're a challenge, then game on.

I've never found anything I can't hunt. I've never found a problem I can't learn to solve. If my daughters want this, then by god, I will give it to them.

----------------------

Hands on hips, Tira stepped out of the enormous palace gates with the air of a victor. As if to show the world how ready she was, she stretched luxuriantly in the fine midmorning sun, promptly wobbled on her limp, caught herself on her quarterstaff, lost her balance and slid sideways onto her backside with a kind of ludicrous grace.

Wide-eyed and grinning despite herself, the teenager waved to where Lakshmi was looking down at her from a window, picked herself up and galloped across Waterfall Bridge before the general could change her mind about letting her go.

It was the first time Tira had been let out unguarded. On paper, this changed little, beyond the fact that she no longer had to spend the first hour or so sneaking past her guide. Towards the end it had been a charade for both of them. The knight knew that Tira, ever the nomad, would never be happy under wraps, and had only caught her when her escape attempts grew half-hearted and slack. He wasn't sure if she knew how easy it was for an adult warrior to catch her, and it didn't matter- She just thought of it as a game anyway.

So he played along, training her, he supposed. And when Tira earned her win and put enough distance on her trail to feel confident, the knight picked up, found a hidden corner just inside earshot of her chosen roaming-ground, and meditated. It was a good way to spend guard duty. And now that she had free reign? Well, good for her. He had faith in the girl.

Tira zipped through the streets, occasionally vaulting on her staff when her ankle forbade her a leap. It wasn't really a quarterstaff. In fact, it had been a pole holding up a street-marquee until she made off with it. It felt fair. After all, nobody really noticed the loss until it collapsed, and that was a whole week later.

Alefpria was full of tents and shades and sails in the summer, each more gaily colourful than the last. There were hues she'd never seen before, not even on the rainbow. Tira thought the blue sari she found in her new wardrobe was the prettiest bit of fabric she'd seen in her whole life until she saw how much the Alefprians dabbled in pigments. From then on she'd worn only the plainest shirts and pants, finger-painted them with colour from every dye-barrel she could find, and tore thin ribbons from them to tie around her staff for emphasis. Her black hair went the same way, tied and coloured.

Today Tira streaked her rimpled head-mop with a particularly bright shade of pink. She wanted to make an impression.



Tyufik waited in the alley, legs crossed, feeling the sun on his grey chest. His eyes were closed, head tilted slightly in a pose, hoping that Lonar would turn up and spare him one of those taunting side-glances she'd been baiting his attention with for months. It was a very Lifprasilian kind of romance, a slow, intimate kind of challenge that dared each other to move before someone else did. And that didn't seem out of the question at all, really, considering that Kunonok seemed almost as interested in Tyufik as he was in that fisher's apprentice on the north side.

The shirtless adolescent streetster jolted his eyes open when the first sound of arrival was neither Lonar's heavy gait nor Kunonok's lighter one, but a familiar yell and sliding on canvas.

Tira skidded down the awning and landed deftly on her good foot, exclaiming something in that foreign banter she had, her hands signing for emphasis. Tyufik had never seen her so pleased, and he could guess why. The short brown human was always late to meet with his little gang of vagrants. Whatever fussy foster-parent held her back had finally given up, it seemed.

The trio had stopped trying to shake Tira off after the first few days. When they saw her kill a birb with a slingstone at twelve paces without thinking twice and showed them how to pluck and cook it, they started waiting for her. Tyufik smacked her shoulder by way of greeting and was promptly smacked back.

Good thing Lonar wasn't around to see him wince. Tira hit hard for something so small.

Together the two waited, practicing languages. Her dialect of Urtelem hand-speak was, as far as Tyufik knew, unique to wherever-the-hell Tira had come from. And fluent enough to teach. She was picking up on Alefprian remarkably quickly, too, even with the city's bizarre mix of neologisms. Rumour said the Divas themselves sometimes introduced new words to the language for sport, to see which one would take. Whatever the truth, Tira had a knack for finding the sauciest slang.

Lonar and Kunonok arrived in due time. Tyufik winked and Lonar rolled her eyes extravagantly but bit her lip as she turned aside. Tira cackled at the two of them. Kunonok came last, without his usual smirk. What's down? Oh, they found the wreckage of Albatross, that catamaran that didn't come back. Anything interesting? Probably snapped at by a leviathan squid. Bunch of weird teeth marks, whole mast splintered, eight bodies missing. Well, shit. Yeah.

The trio walked as they chatted, happy to get an early start. With the extra walking time they decided to cross to the waterfall end of the city and look for caves. Tira didn't say much, but her grin was wide enough to keel a ship with.

Taking a direct route led them through the busiest of Alefpria's plazas. Everyone in the Capital seemed to be making something or plying some trade, even though much food was free, the orchards of citrus and pefant overseen by the General's workers. Wood and canvas flapped everywhere. Ceramics, carts, looms, Marionettes. Humans and rovaick worked under supervision, the palace orchestrating their rehabilitation into apprenticeships. Goblins clustered themselves into work-gangs, hauling wheelbarrows of malachite single-file through the foreign city.

Such minerals were brought in from the southern cliffs, where the refugees had more than compensated for the appalling lack of mine-skill shown by the Citadel-descended Lifprasilians. Those smooth rock faces- Crafted by a particularly beautiful male Diva, it was said- Were a buzz of quarrying activity. So Tyufik led his friends closer to the waterfalls, where the jungle began, and the mountains had not been fully explored.

Yet.



Kunonok pointed out that Tira would probably ruin her ankle again if she kept up the enthusiasm. Lonar was tallest, so she helped her get the first foothold, not without protest from the weird little tagalong. Tyufik found a stream and slipped in it while taking a drink. Kunonok spotted a leech on his ankle when he dragged himself out and pocketed it. Good bait, you know? Tyufik wondered if there were trout in the mountain rivers. Lonar yelled at them. Work those legs you're so proud of.

Tira chewed a sourgrass stalk, a flower on the end dangling out through the hole in her face. Lonar asked her if there would be urtelem on the top of the mountain. Complacent shrug. Kunonok found a furl den, then a beehive. Tyufik wore a sprig of patterned leaves between his ears. Lonar tossed a rock off the edge and watched it fall. Kunonok discovered that he had a hole in his pocket and a particularly sly leech on his ass. Tyufik stole one of Tira's sourgrasses, and hey, did anyone bring food? Tira said something smug. Lonar knuckled her head for a while when they realised she wanted to go back to the beehive and smoke it out. Don't you dare, little scamp.

Tyufik saw a quicker route down and led the way. Kunonok taught Tira how to juggle with pebbles. Lonar realised that the new trail had a jump in it, suggested they turn back until Tyufik pointed out the thick curtain of vines. Lonar shrugged and went across first. Tyufik snapped Kunonok and Tira out of their practice and crossed over. Tira tossed down her staff to free her hands. Kunonok waited as she climbed her way

A height a slip a fall the back of a demon destroyer a sky of winged people burning a spear of light acidic black ichor claws like a great spider a leap faster than she ever saw them move tearing the limb apart clinging dangling acid searing a height a fall dancer no dancer come back

_{Look up, Tira.}

Tira's eyes flew open and she registered Tyufik's voice calling her. She realised she was biting her tongue, swallowed, coughed, and said she was good, she was still good, though Kunonok had followed her along the vines and had a firm hand around her wrist. The two made their way down without incident.

Lonar asked her what happened, bringing in a warning look from Kunonok, ever the perceptive one. Tira forced a smile and said she was good, using the same words as before; They were the best ones she knew. Tyufik handed her staff back and asked if she could walk. She prodded his chest and said something crude and fluent that made them all laugh. Tyufik hid his relief by kicking her ankles, since she was clearly still so full of energy.

Later, Lonar accompanied Tira home as far as the bridge, wondering quietly which of the palace brass had chosen to adopt the human. The two leaned on the balustrade, watching the sun turn orange.

"Lonar?"

"Mhm?"

"Think you that... Suyko sin weit ghorg?"

"Another... Fight? Big fight? Oh, oh, I see, a war." Lonar shrugged. "Eventually, I guess. Not anytime soon." She looked at Tira. The long shadows picked out the scar. "Why?" Tira smiled and tilted her head, as she often did when she didn't understand something. Lonar took the hint.

Not anytime soon. Something inside Tira wasn't so sure.

------

Appearance: Lenslings are the final product of a modified ashling parasite that affects predominantly the undead, silicifying their tissue into a tree-like mineral growth.

Newly infected undead show little sign of the transformation, as the lensling contagion is fairly localised in action and spreads quite slowly. The zombie or skeleton in question typically displays a layer of smooth, glass-like crystal covering the affected extremity, usually replacing the underlying skin. Networks of cracks and layers of glass separated by siliceous fluid allow the joints to continue moving freely. Initially, the glass imitates the colours the undead had in life, although its transparency tends to highlight the layers of scarlet blood more than the skin.

As the infection approaches its lengthy middle state, the glass surface advances in thin lines directly to the face and skull, from which it will take on its full range of colour and slowly descend to the rest of the skin. The head is where the most radical physical changes take place in the lensling. The veins here spread out from the face, particularly above the eye-line (or upper beak, in the case of hain). They sprawl into a flat-topped, vaguely mushroom-like inverted cone, consuming the eyes and brain. The mouth is typically left altered but intact. Shape does, however, vary between individuals, and eventually similar canopies will spread from the neck and shoulders.

As glass flows to replace the rest of the undead's body, its outer colours fade from simple verisimilitude into greys, then perfect clarity. The bones and inner organs are easily visible, and take on bright purple, red and blue shades. The upper canopy typically displays its own unique combination of colours determined by the soul and dreams of the lensling.

In time the mature lensling will cease to wander, and find a place to settle down. The resultant lens-tree may live for centuries, and can grow to enormous sizes. In shape they will never quite resemble a true tree, appearing closer to the undead flesh that gave rise to them, consisting mostly of veins, bones, and transparent blood, all as smooth as glass and usually without leaves or deep roots. Their colours, however, do not change, and remain a mix of transparent trunks enclosing brilliantly coloured bones, with a canopy of branches in a simple, vivid stained-glass pattern. To stand under a sleeping soul's lens-tree on a sunny day is to be illuminated by a kaleidoscope of refracted light in the colour of their magic.

It is worth noting that lens-trees are easily grafted onto one another, mingling the colours and bones into a bewildering variety of new arrangements. An unhybridised adult tree, however, can only grow bones of the same type and arrangement as the original undead, and therefore holds in its transparent branches many copies of the same skeleton, often in various sizes, curled around each other intimately as if to support the tree in their sleep.

Life Cycle: Unlike ashlings, which spread quickly and aggressively, lenslings are difficult to cultivate and are not able to form a wild population without sentient intervention. Lenslings can only grow on dead flesh, as living creatures are defended by a potent immune system, and cannot grow without a soul, nor can they produce offspring souls of their own accord. A new lensling is therefore usually brought about in one of two ways.

Ashlings, whose bodies have already been turned to amorphous glass, have no way to resist the growth of a lensling. Their ability to reshape themselves with pure willpower in order to heal wounds and form blades makes their shape-shifting bodies vulnerable to influence by similar soul-forces exerted by lenslings, and they do not need to be in contact with an adult lens-tree to be infected. The very instinct that drives them to implant other creatures with their own substance only causes first-stage Lens Ashlings to infect others within their horde through violent contact. In this way whole groves of lenslings arise from what would otherwise be lethal outbreaks of the ashling plague.

It follows that this phenomenon is reliant on population. Small groups of Ashlings with dedicated territories are unlikely to encounter an adult lensling, while for rampaging hordes it's only a matter of time before the plague strikes and spreads through proximity.

Most lens trees arise when an undead mortal allows themselves to be implanted with a fragment of adult lensling. This tends to be done ceremoniously by Urtelem, who maintain most lens orchards and will deliberately seek out willing zombies for the cause, both out of desire for food and simply because they are kind and simple creatures who wish to give the opportunity to all who may desire it.

Mortals with a need to protect themselves from ashlings may also perform the procedure. Notably, there are shamanic rituals capable of channeling the voluntary soul of a dying mortal into a fragment of a lens tree, allowing it to grow on their body without rising from the grave naturally. The success rate of the procedure is meagre at best.

Description: Lenslings and the trees that rise from them are benign creatures that develop from a sentient soul forced to remain trapped on Galbar for longer than its allotted time. Where the undead are, upon rising, stripped of their ability to feel visceral pleasure, to eat and drink and sleep, lenslings offer a way to give back these simple pleasures through dreams.

Zombies may be organic, but they are clearly quite dead. Lenslings, while inorganic, are very much alive. An undead mortal infected with glass is once more able to feel the world around them, though not through the same set of sensations. They can feel warm sunlight in them, feel themselves grow with time and feel currents of energy swirl around nearby fae. Most importantly, their thought processes ease, slow, and become meditative as they reach maturity. They can sleep at will, even while walking. Lensling dreams are no more prone to precognition than any other race, but they are long, clear, and many. The decision to settle down in Raka and form a lens tree comes with a sense of enlightenment.

That said, lens trees are still capable of sleepwalking. They do not lose their ability to wake up, and sometimes even speak.

Physiologically, lenslings absorb mass and energy from a variety of sources in order to grow. Sunlight, of course, is a major source. The same chaos magic that animates the undead and that ashlings use to change their shape helps their organs fuse with glass and stay fluid. Absorbing natural quartz is a major supplement.

The most significant contributors to lens tree development are fae. Fae can detect lenslings and use them as duelling-grounds around which to meet other fae, fight, and breed. While fae are poor at conserving and using energy, they are absolutely unparalleled at absorbing and dissolving it into surrounding Gaps. Lenslings take advantage of this waste energy. Alone, their development is imperceptible even over decades. With fae, their growth can be as swift as summer grass.

The colourful canopy of a lens-tree is richly nourished by both faery energy and sunlight, absorbs minerals from the root-pads and produces rare metal isotopes from the nuclear particles fae emit when relaxed. This makes them highly nutritious to Urtelem.

Interactions: Urtelem herds welcome lenslings and are the primary vectors of their spread. The tireless nature and meditative peace of a lensling allows them to keep pace easily, and fit in well among the contented stone folk, though there are rarely more than two in a large herd, if any. Of course, Urtelem benefit greatly from being able to harvest from adult trees, and often carry bundles of veins for planting and consumption on their migration. This significantly decreases the amount of time Urtelem have to spend digging and chewing while on the move, allowing roaming herds to meet more often, exchange the 'guard duty' around villages, and visit groves frequently.

The groves themselves, often positioned not far from the very villages Stonemen continue to live by, form the backbone of an emerging culture of unity between isolated herds. With their rewired brain highly adept at processing the geometry of physical space, herds easily remember how to find groves, no matter how distant or how long since they've visited, and there meet others of their own.

Sculptors add another dimension of connection to the relationship. While herds far outnumber the cultists, their increased mobility and interaction allows Sculptors to 'hitchhike' in a desired direction easily rather than having to travel alone or follow a single family. Their ability to translate is useful when informing the undead of implantation, and of course, the fae they bring are a tremendous boon to lensling growth. Groves often contain Sculptures collaborated on by passing Sculptors.

Mortals interactions with lens groves are mixed. Many find them beautiful, some horrifying, most simply bizarre. Sculptors only add to the strangeness. The presence of Urtelem around them does ease interactions, as it's hard to imagine a hostile relationship with the stone folk.

To ashlings, the lens plague is a scourge, another factor alongside fiberlings and Urtelem that holds their population at small enough numbers to live harmoniously with the rest of Galbar's biosphere. The proximity and numbers required for an outbreak of ashlings to form a major horde makes them vulnerable to rapid spread of lens through violence. Ashlings therefore now tend to split up into smaller roving bands, much like other predators, finding safety in wide distribution. This may make raids by them more frequent, but also more easily survived.

Fae, of course, come to lenslings to breed and die. This little changes their usual life cycle, as they still remain fairly common everywhere else too. It does strengthen cultural association between fae and death, though, as they breed in corpses. The symbolism may be positive or negative.

Of course, the most critical interaction is with the undead.

The past.

Matriarch Old-Winds-Running-Through-Young-Leaves rested a hand on the face of the monolith. That is the best that her name's first verse can be translated without the nuance of sign. She could feel it, the stone, and she listened to it whisper with the soft life that all stone has. Fresh memories, joyful memories, had been made here. It was sad to leave this place behind, for moving on from a good memory is always sad. And yet it there is a happiness in farewell. Urtelem know this, for they know many kinds of happiness that the wiser peoples so often forget.

Gently, as if in a soft voice, the mother signed to her old friend. Will you not come with us?

The signs returned to her were full of fluent depth, and not entirely clear. It is unusual enough to sign a two-handed dialect with four hands, and Nguxhil's words are always stranger still when they are Nimble.

No, said the signs, suggesting sorrow that is not sad; I cannot not stay in this place, because the city that is the City is also my staying-place. It is where I wander back to after I wander somewhere.

Old-Winds-Running-Through-Young-Leaves smiles. So it is, then. You have given us so much already.

She runs her hand over the surface of the Holy Stone. It is one of many, though dusk has long since hidden what shadows are not concealed by the Cipher Pyramid. No matter. The herd will remember the Stone and its siblings in the circle, remember them well.

Beneath her fingers the matriarch feels the shallow imprints of circles, angles, arcs in arrangement. Oh, what they had been given. Thank you, Nimble. Thank you, Spiral-Palms.

A sharp, low clap of rock hands. The herd uncurls, looks up from the gleam of moonlight sweeping the Purple Sands. Old-Winds-Running gives the signal. It is time to move on. It is time to say goodbye.

It is time to greet the new day.

The present.

Sun does not fall through the canopy of the Great Lenses; It leaps and glides.

None of the Great Lenses have spread to their full height yet. Their boughs are still stretching. It is exactly as Nimble had said, in her way. Fifty winters it would take for a Lensling to stand up from the earth of wakefulness into the heavens of dreams. Quite a time, even for Urtelem. Herdsfolk could come and go in that time. Joy was one who had come.

A pebble, as they are called, and a particularly little one at that. Joy clambered over sandy turf with all the unwieldy effort of a child realising what it means to explore. His parents let him go. He won't get far, and there are plenty of friends who will watch him.

A small slope- Just enough for Joy to trip over his own wrist and tumble gracelessly down, coughing grass. Rolling comes naturally, but a pebble's reflexes aren't quick yet. No matter. Joy is hard to dent.

To his fresh eyes, this space is new, barely a few arm's lengths from his mothers. Heart overflowing with wonder, Joy slowly creeps over the broad rock face that has been revealed from beneath the thin topsoil. One of the glass people watches him, stirring seamlessly from that basking stillness they have.

There are circles marked in the rock, a great abundance of them, sectored and linked with lines more intricate than a spider's web. Glyphs hide between them and in them. Joy sits flat and stares. Communication has rhythm, has an elegance in each sentence. To take the shape of each part and fit it together into a whole, complete from every angle, is to write like the Urtelem. Joy does not yet know what these things mean, but he can feel their pattern. He was made for it.

On the two-hundred and fourth day of the sixth year of the Script, three seventeenths of a sector west of here, opens one, the date forming the center that the story spirals around, the family of Warm-Summer-Rain-Songs found a feathered slouch wounded on its hindleg. For a day and two nights we brought it grass, but it grew ill. Therefore we made it comfortable and delivered it to the vultures. May their hatchlings grow up strong. An addendum. On the twelth day of the seventh year, a ring of red sunflowers was found in that place. The soul rests easy.

Joy traces the lines with his finger, follows them on to another story, finds an object blocking his way and a glass person looking down at him with a grinning scarlet skull. He smiles and signs his favourite words: What is this?

This one, laughs the lensling as he signs, was written when a Maker came to the grove. Other than that, I don't know. Joy signs back with a pout. Why not? It feels so simple, to him, to see the pattern in the story, though all its words are foreign.

Oh, my head isn't the same as yours, rock-baby. We have different stuff between our ears. (This expression confuses Joy greatly.) The lensling notices, and signs a little further over the graven slab. If you want to see what the Maker did, look for yourself.

There on the up-slope stands the Holy Stones of this grove, in their perfect circles. Every inch of the henge is painted in swirls of vivid white and orange and pink, immortalising the rise and fall of the sun at all times of day.

Joy claps his hands and grins. The lensling sits on his stone and dozes in the noon warmth.



The past.

Four hunters sit in an unhappy circle, though their hand-sledges are full of game and their fire crackles warm. Four hunters of a party that should have been three.

No words are shared. They spent them all the night before. The murmured prayers, the mountain songs, the promises, the thanks. What now? What to say, when all has been said and all has been done, and yet there is no ending?

All four are quiet, and yet, compared to Jorn, the silence of the other three seems loud. They do not ask him how this has come to be. They know how it began- Ended- And that is enough. Truly, all three of them hold a brother's love for him in their hearts, and do not dishonour him by wondering whether he could have survived the wound if he had willed it harder. Whether Jorn had finally trapped a hog that could match him, or whether he had fought it long enough to look into its vicious eyes and say, you win. Do your worst. Let me end here in blood and snow, as a woodsman should.

Often the gods curse us with death. Sometimes they curse us with continuity. Life, though gutted end to end by a wild tusk. Life, where a winter fever alone was enough to snatch away a wife and son.

Nalog shifts her weight, just enough to pull three pairs of eyes to the huntswoman.

"I heard a rumour, four years gone," she begins. "A clan of stonemen came to the mountains and an old man who knew their hand-tongue translated. He said they were looking for zombies. Not to smash them, like they do demon-tangles. He said they wanted to help them dream again."

It's nothing, or almost nothing. A promise with no depth. Would it be any more satisfying than a leap from a mountain or the jaws of a herakt, if it were true? Nalog glances up at the grey sky and rolls her broad shoulders back to her place in the circle.

Jorn moves. His eyes are glazed, but his undead voice still holds fire. He reaches for his staff.

"I will go."

The present.

They stand like the statues they were at the dawn of their lives, unmoving and unmovable, huge. Each one is spaced an identical distance apart from those at their sides, and they share the exact same pose. One knee and one fist on the ground, head bowed, hand on heart. Eyes shut. Brow low. Gentle the Urtelem may be, but there are times when it is right to show strength.

At the center of their half-circle stands a Tedar of unusual figure, facing outwards to a bloated man with yellow-black skin. He looks back at her. He is tall. She is taller. The voice that comes from her eyeless mask of a face makes the man want to look down, see where the child is that must surely be talking, but he has spoken to the Sculptor only moments ago.

Her name, such as she tells those who ask, is Help.

"You stand in a barren place. You stand before a people that will guide you through it, if you would take their hand. In a moment you may cross over into a life that is new, is strange, and is real. Are you ready to begin the long walk?"

Some have no wish for ceremony. A few prepare one on their own terms. The walk is long indeed, and the first step is soon forgotten. To each soul its own way. The man rests his hand over a silent heart. His voice is broken.

"Thirty-nine winters I've seen. All of them have... Been hard. And- many years I was happy. Now, I'm. Not." A rasp. Maybe a breath. "My years are over, but I'm still here. I'm tired. It's cold. I want to go back to my- To them. In peace. My name is Jorn. I'm ready."

Help nods, and lays a gentle hand on the man's skull. Tilts it aside. Deft as a butterfly, she incises the base of his neck with an obsidian knife. He feels no pain as she presses the smooth, rippled glass spike deep into his throat.

For the first time in many months, Jorn feels warmth.

She steps back. Nods again, pockets the knife in a small bag. The Urtelem move as one. Their circle comes undone, the unyielding pose softens, and they walk to him, past him, one by one. His hand is as delicate as a flower in their palms, but they hold it with only the slightest pressure. He feels a tug and follows. The Stonemen pass him from one to another as he walks between them, building up a confident pace at their side. Each one takes him a few steps further, laces their hands into the knotted triangle of unity, then the curled prayer of Spiral Palms.

Two dozen pairs of legs and knuckles move at a flow. Faces leak into smiles. Hands rise in plodding chatter. Another kind of warmth seeps into the man. These earthen shoulders are not a barrier. Their strength is his strength. Their heart is his heart. He is part of the stone.

They lead. Jorn walks with them.



The past.

Midnight. Haste. Planned haste, yes, but there was ground to cover.

Coming within sight of the willowy thickets that line the river, Flux sights a lumpy greenish figure just about where he expected her to be. Signalling for his guide to go on ahead, the once-djinn swerves slightly upon the sedgy plainsgrowth and catches Yulosi in a broad film of a palm just as she turns to see him coming. Wraps up the goblin and drags her along behind him. Too slow, otherwise.

It was a lopsided arrangement, to send her ahead and catch up on the way. Yulosi wanted to go. She had more than a fair portion of that vexing goblin instinct to fiddle with things, prod them to see what would happen, damned be consequences. So he let her puzzle out her own way to the site on what directions could be given. Flux kept her leash short, but there was really no place to hide in this area, and his guide only had so much time before the sun rose.

Besides, she could be useful. Sometimes.

The blood angel hovered over the anomaly, a mauve sphere of light suspended from his fingertips. It marked the place, and yet even in this almost moonless night the site was clearly visible to Yulosi's cave-eyes. When he saw the forge glow of Flux near the zone the vampire let himself fall, feet first.

They exchanged some words as Yulosi was promptly unwrapped and discarded. Nothing they hadn't already yakked about at length. The deformed zombie scuttled off, the only one, it seemed, who was determined to get some use out of her god-given and worm-eaten brain.

She did not go unnoticed. As soon as the vampire was requested to make another investigative circuit, a faint shadow was cast from behind her. Yulosi chose not to comment.

"No Djinni constructed this, nor any Yivvinite. It is too artificial for the former, who are of nature. The latter lack the strength to construct so quickly, and I perceive no life in this monument, besides. Who, then, is our culprit?"

"Point. Shit question. Dontcha spit that rhet'ric at me, we both know 'o did this. Real question is why."

"Point. Begging the question. We cannot assume that we know-"

"-Godssake, Flux, these tracks're six inches deep-"

"-What creed these Urtelem belonged to. You, in particular, should know that the rigours of Chaos can seize any soul." There was no reprobation in that statement. What is, is. Chaos is no shameful thing. "No Stonemen that I have yet seen migrate with such pace and direction, and I have lived sixty times your years. To construct such a monument of their own accord is, in the meanest term, bizarre."

"...'sthat mean I can put bets on which god is fuckin' wit' us this time? Day's labour says it's the Great Chippa."

"I concede that divine intervention is not an unreasonable assumption in this case. Urtelem do recognise the Chipper; I believe his sign is Callused Hands. A wise enough mortal, even a non-Yivvinite, could have inspired their hearts to unite and build also. Perhaps one of their own number." The peaked liquid scaffold Flux wore for a face momentarily dissolved and reformed in a different alignment, and Yulosi's eyes followed what she thought was his gaze. "We may know soon enough."

The vampire was gliding back, a pinkish star in the distance until he grew close enough for his illuminated wings to be discerned. By that time Yulosi had already wandered off again. She had seen enough of angels, alive or dead.

There was a monolith by the near end of the bridge. Yulosi ran her hand over it, already used to the gaps left since she had chewed off the fingers infected by lens. A map. Milestone too, probably... A shrine? The upper surface of the small obelisk had been queerly distorted, broadened and flattened like putty and pinched delicately into the shape of simple mountains, forests. A line ran straight through the middle. No doubt the very river she could hear now.

Its sides and base were covered in engraved markings, mostly interlocking arcs and angles. The two largest bore uncanny resemblance to the signed names of Callused Hands and Spiral Palms. Yulosi turned and stepped onto the bridge.

A peaceful moment. The river was nearly silent, and Yulosi sat cross-legged in the night, watching stars. No railing on the bridge, nor any need for one. It was rather wide. The stones were rough-hewn, if they had been hewn at all. They were packed thick, and crystallised together, fused the same way the earth closes behind an Urtelem as she tunnels. No doubt the river, narrow though it be, was of the deceptively deep kind with an undertow. Urtelem can't swim, and struggle in mud.

"Yulosi!"

And back to the chatter again.

"I presume I'll have to repeat what I just heard- Or did those bat-wings you call ears finally serve a purpose?"

Yulosi cackled, refusing to be riled. She dug a filthy sharpened nail into her ear, pulled out an impaled maggot, and flung it at him. Flux dodged effortlessly, his fluid body stretching a perfect tunnel for the missile to pass through.

"You," he mused, genially, "are disgusting."

"Point! Ad zombinem."

If nothing else, he was proud of her burgeoning vocabulary.

The blood angel had sighted the bridge's builders from above. They hadn't gotten far yet, and there was nowhere to hide on the plain. Yulosi had a feeling she was about to learn something interesting.

Midnight. Haste. Planned haste, yes, but there was ground to cover.

Coming within sight of the willowy thickets that line the river, Flux sights a lumpy greenish figure just about where he expected her to be. Signalling for his guide to go on ahead, the once-djinn swerves slightly upon the sedgy plainsgrowth and catches Yulosi in a broad film of a palm just as she turns to see him coming. Wraps up the goblin and drags her along behind him. Too slow, otherwise.

It was a lopsided arrangement, to send her ahead and catch up on the way. Yulosi wanted to go. She had more than a fair portion of that vexing goblin instinct to fiddle with things, prod them to see what would happen, damned be consequences. So he let her puzzle out her own way to the site on what directions could be given. Flux kept her leash short, but there was really no place to hide in this area, and his guide only had so much time before the sun rose.

Besides, she could be useful. Sometimes.

The blood angel hovered over the anomaly, a mauve sphere of light suspended from his fingertips. It marked the place, and yet even in this almost moonless night the site was clearly visible to Yulosi's cave-eyes. When he saw the forge glow of Flux near the zone the vampire let himself fall, feet first.

They exchanged some words as Yulosi was promptly unwrapped and discarded. Nothing they hadn't already yakked about at length. The deformed zombie scuttled off, the only one, it seemed, who was determined to get some use out of her god-given and worm-eaten brain.

She did not go unnoticed. As soon as the vampire was requested to make another investigative circuit, a faint shadow was cast from behind her. Yulosi chose not to comment.

"No Djinni constructed this, nor any Yivvinite. It is too artificial for the former, who are of nature. The latter lack the strength to construct so quickly, and I perceive no life in this monument, besides. Who, then, is our culprit?"

"Point. Shit question. Dontcha spit that rhet'ric at me, we both know 'o did this. Real question is why."

"Point. Begging the question. We cannot assume that we know-"

"-Godssake, Flux, these tracks're six inches deep-"

"-What creed these Urtelem belonged to. You, in particular, should know that the rigours of Chaos can seize any soul." There was no reprobation in that statement. What is, is. Chaos is no shameful thing. "No Stonemen that I have yet seen migrate with such pace and direction, and I have lived sixty times your years. To construct such a monument of their own accord is, in the meanest term, bizarre."

"...'sthat mean I can put bets on which god is fuckin' wit' us this time? Day's labour says it's the Great Chippa."

"I concede that divine intervention is not an unreasonable assumption in this case. Urtelem do recognise the Chipper; I believe his sign is Callused Hands. A wise enough mortal, even a non-Yivvinite, could have inspired their hearts to unite and build also. Perhaps one of their own number." The peaked liquid scaffold Flux wore for a face momentarily dissolved and reformed in a different alignment, and Yulosi's eyes followed what she thought was his gaze. "We may know soon enough."

The vampire was gliding back, a pinkish star in the distance until he grew close enough for his illuminated wings to be discerned. By that time Yulosi had already wandered off again. She had seen enough of angels, alive or dead.

There was a monolith by the near end of the bridge. Yulosi ran her hand over it, already used to the gaps left since she had chewed off the fingers infected by lens. A map. Milestone too, probably... A shrine? The upper surface of the small obelisk had been queerly distorted, broadened and flattened like putty and pinched delicately into the shape of simple mountains, forests. A line ran straight through the middle. No doubt the very river she could hear now.

Its sides and base were covered in engraved markings, mostly interlocking arcs and angles. The two largest bore uncanny resemblance to the signed names of Callused Hands and Spiral Palms. Yulosi turned and stepped onto the bridge.

A peaceful moment. The river was nearly silent, and Yulosi sat cross-legged in the night, watching stars. No railing on the bridge, nor any need for one. It was rather wide. The stones were rough-hewn, if they had been hewn at all. They were packed thick, and crystallised together, fused the same way the earth closes behind an Urtelem as she tunnels. No doubt the river, narrow though it be, was of the deceptively deep kind with an undertow. Urtelem can't swim, and struggle in mud.

"Yulosi!"

And back to the chatter again.

"I presume I'll have to repeat what I just heard- Or did those bat-wings you call ears finally serve a purpose?"

Yulosi cackled, refusing to be riled. She dug a filthy sharpened nail into her ear, pulled out an impaled maggot, and flung it at him. Flux dodged effortlessly, his fluid body stretching a perfect tunnel for the missile to pass through.

"You," he mused, genially, "are disgusting."

"Point! Ad zombinem."

If nothing else, he was proud of her burgeoning vocabulary.

The blood angel had sighted the bridge's builders from above. They hadn't gotten far yet, and there was nowhere to hide on the plain. Yulosi had a feeling she was about to learn something interesting.