A Red Sun Also Rises

7. RED

There was no night on Ptallaya!

The top edge of the gargantuan sun, a hellish inferno, erupted over the edge of the world. Inside the room, everything turned a vermillion hue. Outside, the landscape transformed.

I drew an unsteady breath. “What’s happening?”

Father Mordant Reverie gestured toward the mounted lens and said, “Use that.”

I reached for it and pulled the frame to the window. Magnified through the glass, I could see in better detail that the land beyond the city was undergoing a startling metamorphosis. The leaves of the various trees were turning black; thorny weed-like growths—also black—were coiling up from under the ground; and clawed, armoured, dangerous-looking creatures, some like spiny lobsters, others incomprehensible jumbles of jagged-edged limbs, were digging themselves out of burrows. The three Yarkeen changed in a matter of seconds from transparent to jet, and their long tentacles sprouted nasty-looking barbs.

“That which may not be spoken of in the sight of the Saviour is now upon us,” Reverie said. His mask suddenly bulged outward. Reaching up, he removed it. The lumps over his eyes were lengthening and thickening. I watched as they rapidly grew into horns, curling upward until their pointed tips were almost directed backward. At the same time, his body colour divided into stripes, some deepening to black, the others brightening to yellow, until his carapace had taken on the appearance of a tiger.

I glanced at Clarissa and was thankful to see that her forehead bumps were unaltered, her skin the same.

Reverie jerked his head toward the curved band of red fire and continued, “The Heart of Blood is rising, and soon its gods will come to Ptallaya.”

“Gods? Do they threaten us?” I asked, thinking of the City Guard and the defensive wall.

“They do. Now I am free to tell you the truth of this world. Once, long ago, Ptallaya was as you see it now and had been that way for all its existence: a place of savagery and conflict ruled over by the wicked creatures we call Blood Gods. Then the Saviour’s Eyes opened and looked upon it and found there was nothing pleasing to see, until, eventually, the Yatsill wandered into sight and were judged to be good. So the Saviour cast the Blood Gods out and made the Yatsill the new rulers of Ptallaya. However, the Heart of Blood itself could not be supplanted, so a balance was established. When the Saviour’s Eyes are open, the world is ours. We journey to the Forest of Indistinct Murmurings to recover the Servants who are delivered here from your world and to milk Dar’sayn from the fruit of the Ptoollan trees that our Magicians might be strong; and we take our children to the Cavern of Immersion to be made Aristocrats or Working Class. But when the Saviour’s Eyes close, the jealous Blood Gods return to Ptallaya. They possess the Aristocrats and attack Phenadoor—for they want to destroy it.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because Phenadoor is good and the Blood Gods are evil.” Reverie sighed and his eyes glittered. “Father Yissil Froon is fearful. He says there are now too many Workers and too few Aristocrats. The Magicians will take Dar’sayn to strengthen their protective powers but our supply isn’t sufficient for the challenge we face. Besides which, many Magicians are stricken with illness.”

“Father Reverie,” I interrupted, “Miss Stark and I were with Colonel Momentous Spearjab’s party during the journey to the Shrouded Mountains. He collected a great deal of Dar’sayn from the Forest of Indistinct Murmurings—surely it hasn’t been used up already?”

“It has been mislaid.”

“Mislaid? How?”

“I do not know.”

“Might it have been stolen?”

“Yes, that is possible, though I do not understand who would do such a thing, or why.”

My eyes met Clarissa’s and I saw she was thinking the same as me—our enemy had made another move.

“It is a calamity,” Father Reverie said. “When the Blood Gods come, it will be more difficult to resist them.” He raised his hands and examined them. They were shaking. “I feel that even I will be taken this time.”

Clarissa made to speak but Reverie stopped her with a curt gesture. “Yissil Froon is my most valued counsellor but he has already secluded himself in order to meditate. Even if I knew where he was, he’d be in too deep a contemplation to respond to my presence. I have no recourse, then, but to trust my own instincts. I’m of the opinion that your research into the affliction that has befallen us is of crucial importance. If you do not find a cure, the Aristocracy, stricken with the disease, will have little resistance to that—” He pointed again at the red sun. “Mademoiselle Clattersmash and her colleagues will continue to assist you. Work fast, please. The situation is dire.” Reverie turned to me. “Aiden Fleischer, you are a Servant yet you have been placed with the City Guard. Be alert. Your life is in danger. Now leave me. I have many things to consider, not least being whether your dissonance, Miss Stark, is advantageous to us or a danger. If New Yatsillat survives the current cycle, it might still be better if you are banished to the Whimpering Ruins on the Shelf Lands.”

“Better is hardly the word I’d choose,” I murmured.

Having been summarily dismissed, my companion and I left the room. As we stepped onto the ramp, we heard the Magician murmur to himself, “What does the Saviour intend? If only I knew this, then I might bear these losses.”

We descended through the corkscrew passage, now weirdly illuminated by the crimson radiance, and I was reminded of my terrible nightmares on Koluwai—those horrific visions in which I moved through my own arteries.

“I’m baffled,” I said. “We’ve been here all this time, I’ve asked repeatedly why there’s a City Guard and a defensive wall, but received nothing but prevarication—and now Reverie just outs and tells us that we’re to be invaded!”

“As we discovered,” Clarissa responded, “there are things that cannot be mentioned in the sight of the Saviour. Lips have been sealed by the power of religion—or, at the very least, by superstition.”

“What manner of creatures are these Blood Gods, I wonder, and why am I in particular danger?”

“It appears that we shall soon find out.”

We came to the door, passed through it, and went down the steps to the street. With the hellish light shining from the landward horizon, the whole of New Yatsillat had sunk into shadow and become a well of darkness beneath the ruby sky.

Clarissa stopped and peered around.

“Something else?” I asked.

She made a small noise and raised her hands to her eyewear. She hesitated for a beat, then suddenly took hold of her goggles, pulled them from her face, and left them dangling around her neck.

Her eyes were wide open.

“I can see, Aiden! This light—something about it allows me to see without protection! Without pain!”

“Your eyes,” I gasped, stepping back in shock. “They’re bright yellow!”

“Yellow?”

She looked at the sky, then across the city toward the sea. “It’s visible to me—the Magicians’ shield. It looks like an aurora borealis. I can see it radiating from various points around the third terrace. Except—” She furrowed her brow. “Except there’s a particularly strong source down there—” She pointed to the northern edge of the bottom terrace.

“From the fishing village?”

She nodded and murmured, “It’s different. Powerful. Pure.”

“But I thought it was a purely telepathic phenomenon.”

“It is—but I don’t know how to describe it to you except in visual terms. Hum! What would a Magician be doing down there? Reverie said they’d confined themselves to their temples—but there are no temples on the ninth level.”

“Perhaps it’s Yissil Froon. Shall we go there?”

“We haven’t time. The cure has to be the priority—I must get back to my laboratory.”

We crossed to a Kaljoor-drawn hansom cab parked at the side of the road. Its driver, Working Class, was unchanged—we soon learned that only the Aristocrats had become “horned tigers” like Father Reverie. Clarissa called up to him to ask if he could drive us to the third terrace. He turned his mask to us and said, in the dullest of voices, “What was that?”

“I asked if you are available,” she said. “We need to be taken to Dissonance Square.”

The Yatsill flexed his fingers slowly. “Dissonance Square, you say? Where’s that?”

“I just told you. Third terrace.”

“Hmm?”

“By the Suns!” I exclaimed. “Aren’t you listening? We want to be driven home.”

The creature made no response, either lost in thought or just too stupid to comprehend.

“Come on,” Clarissa said.

We moved away, soon reached the avenue, and decided it would be quicker to walk the rest of the way home, which was a fair distance but downhill all the way. The city had suddenly become almost completely silent, with its traffic at a standstill. A heavy mist was drifting in from the sea. Groups of Workers stood about, partially obscured by the gloom and condensing atmosphere.

“They look bewildered,” I observed.

“Whatever intelligence was transmitted to them before,” Carissa remarked, “it wasn’t enough to keep them properly engaged with the work they’re expected to do. Now the Magicians’ protective mantle is blocking what little intellect the rest of the Aristocrats can transmit. It’s as if the Working Class has regressed to its natural animal state. This imbalance between Aristocrats and Workers is an unqualified disaster for the Yatsill.”

I sent a breath whistling through my teeth. “If the extreme weather continues and the labourers remain immobilised, New Yatsillat will be in a terrible state of disrepair by the time the yellow suns rise again.”

“Worse. The Yatsill lack foresight. It was the roots of the forest that held these steps of land together. When the trees were cleared, the whole bay became prone to mudslides. There’s a perfectly enormous engineering job ahead of us. We’ll have to shore up every level, and we need to do it as soon as possible or New Yatsillat could be swept into the sea.”

“How can you do it if the Workers are incapacitated?”

“I may have to recruit the Servants.”

I was suddenly struck by a thought so disturbing it stopped me in my tracks. “Clarissa, kichyomachyoma is aggravating the situation by weakening the mental connection between the Yatsill.”

“It is, yes.”

“And I’m the origin of the sickness. Yarvis Thayne opposed my presence here and he was murdered. You are trying to find a cure, and an attempt was made on your life. Doesn’t it suggest that Iriputiz purposely infected me and sent me here to cause this problem?”

Clarissa’s eyebrows went up, creasing the skin around the two bumps on her forehead.

“It does,” she said.

“And also that he was working on behalf of the Blood Gods and has allies here in the city?”

“Yes.”

“I was half-insane with pain during the witch doctor’s ritual, but I distinctly remember him shouting, ‘Not you!’ when you threw yourself onto the altar. I don’t think your being here and being made an Aristocrat were a part of his plan, which means all this—” I waved an arm at the city surrounding us “—was unanticipated by the enemy.”

Clarissa stood and thought for a moment. “Hmm,” she grunted. “And I wonder how much it complicates matters for them?”

She set off at a fast pace down the steep thoroughfare, calling back, “Hurry, Aiden! If that baleful sun makes the enemy more powerful, then my colleagues and I are in greater danger, for surely the Blood Gods or their agents will try to stop our research!”

We hurried home and, upon arriving in Dissonance Square, were surprised to find Kata standing in the gloom with three other Servants. All were wearing flowers in their hair and strung around their necks. They appeared excited.

“It is nearly the time of release,” our housekeeper informed us as we hurried past her. “Will you wish it upon me?”

“Is it what you want?” Clarissa called back, mounting the steps between the two guardsmen who were supposedly standing sentry duty at our front door but looked more like they were lounging.

Kata shrugged. “This is my home. I know of Koluwai only through stories. If I could stay here, I would, but it is tradition to be released.”

“Then I wish whatever you truly want for yourself,” Clarissa responded.

We entered the vestibule and crossed to the laboratory. Fathers Clutterfuss and Meadows were both still at work, striped and horned, fussing over their test tubes, flasks, and Bunsen burners, but Mademoiselle Clattersmash, also transformed, stood a little apart, apparently in a daze, her limbs twitching strangely.

Clarissa announced, “I believe kichyomachyoma is being used as a weapon. The fact that we are seeking a cure puts us in danger. It’s likely the Blood Gods have agents in the city who might be stronger now the Heart of Blood has risen.”

A test tube shattered on the floor.

“I’m sorry,” Father Meadows mumbled. “I’m all fingers and thumbs today.”

“Are you all right?” Clarissa asked.

“I think I’ve succumbed to the disease, Miss Stark.”

“You are trembling. Do you need to lie down?”

“I shall work for a little longer.”

“Very well, but when you rest, please do so here. You shouldn’t leave the house without a guard to accompany you.”

Meadows grunted an acknowledgement.

Mademoiselle Clattersmash’s head turned slowly to face us. “Come with me,” she said, in an oddly hollow voice. “I have something to show you. It will clarify matters.”

She pushed past us and left the room. We followed her to the front door, puzzled.

As we stepped back out of the house and into the square, I snapped at the sentries, “Stand to attention! Stop slouching like that! Draw your weapons and keep them in your hands. Be ready to defend the house.”

One grumbled an unintelligible response, slid his sword from its scabbard, and reluctantly straightened up. The other didn’t move.

Kata and her three companions were chatting happily, their mood a striking contrast to the sense of oppression caused by the carmine sky, the impenetrable shadows, and the swirling fog.

Clattersmash ignored the Servants, crossed the square, and entered one of the roads that led out of it. Clarissa and I trailed behind.

“Is this really necessary, Mademoiselle?” my friend asked. “Where are you taking us?”

“To a place where you’ll find the answer,” came the cryptic reply.

“The answer to what question?”

There was no response. She moved on.

We ran after her, turned a corner, and proceeded along a residential street, then, a few minutes later, entered a dingy passage. We rounded another corner, and another, until we were deep in the maze of narrow alleys that criss-crossed behind the city’s main thoroughfares.

Finally, Clattersmash stopped beneath a leaning tenement building and turned until her crow mask was pointing straight at us. Its tip was shaking. Tremors were running up and down the Yatsill’s body.

“You—” she began. “You must—must—must—”

Her head suddenly jerked backward. She screamed. Her hands flew up to the front of her jacket and the sharp fingers dug into the material and ripped it open. The jacket, and the waistcoat and blouse beneath, were torn asunder. She clutched at her mask and yanked it away. Her vertical mouth was spread wide, the inner beak gaping.

“My name is Mademoiselle Crockery Clattersmash!” she screeched. “And I am taken!”

Clarissa backed away, bumping into me. I pushed her aside and drew my sword.

The front seam of Clattersmash’s body cracked open as if being pushed apart from within. A knot of red, suckered tentacles swelled out from the widening gap. Her face sank into the hood-like shell of her head.

“Clarissa! Run!” I shouted.

Clattersmash collapsed onto the cobbles and a repulsive tangle of thrashing limbs bulged out of her. The carapace of her arms and legs turned semi-transparent as the inner flesh withdrew, sliding out, wet and glistening. A sickening thing of squirming appendages and pulsating organs rose from the wrecked Yatsill.

“I must feed,” it said, in guttural, bubbling Koluwaian. A dripping limb extended and pointed over my shoulder. “Then I must take that one to Phenadoor.”

I risked a quick glance back and saw Clarissa pressed against the side of the alley, her hand covering her mouth.

“I told you to run!” I yelled. “Get out of here!”

The Blood God—for, undoubtedly, that’s what the monster was—lunged forward, lashing out at me. Automatically, my blade went up and sliced through tentacles.

As it had before, my training guided my movements, but from the moment I engaged with the creature I knew that something was wrong. I had to kill it, that was plain, but I couldn’t. As it hit out at me again and again, my sword met and removed its limbs, yet I was incapable of striking a fatal blow. Disgust welled up within me; a hatred of the violence I was forced to do; a surge of utter abhorrence, not at the monster that faced me but at the one I’d become if I killed it.

My feelings weren’t real. I realised it immediately. As I ducked and dodged the thrashing appendages, carving at them with my blade, it was absolutely clear to me—for the first time—that my interior battle wasn’t interior at all. Since my arrival in New Yatsillat, my emotions had been manipulated from without. Something was preventing my natural recovery from the lingering shock and fear I’d felt at discovering Polly Nichols’ corpse and was, instead, accentuating and perverting the memory.

Of course I wasn’t Jack the Ripper! The very notion was patently absurd!

Smacking across my face, a limb ripped the flesh of my cheek and a squirming length of muscle slapped down onto my shoulder, curling over my back and around my waist. It ripped my jacket and shirt away and suckers latched on to my skin. I felt spines pierce my flesh. Instantly, as venom was injected, the strength drained out of me and I dropped to my knees.

Dimly, I saw that the Blood God possessed a skeletal structure. The front of it was exposed. I raised my sword and pressed its point against the creature. All I had to do was thrust the blade home.

Do it! Do it!

My arm shook, my vision blurred, Polly Nichols rose up and looked down at me, her intestines looping to the ground, the gashes in her throat mouthing the words, I do not even consider you a man!

Shame and humiliation flooded through me.

The fatal blow was paralysed.

I raised my head and screamed my frustration and terror.

The tentacle suddenly loosened and slipped from me. I fell sideways. At the periphery of my vision, I saw Clarissa clinging to the back of the creature, plunging her dagger into it again and again. The thing flopped to the ground, flailed wildly for a moment, and lay still. My friend rolled off it and stood, swaying, her eyes glazed.

I struggled to my feet. “Clarissa!”

She staggered forward. I caught her as she buckled but hadn’t the strength to hold her. We both went down in a heap.

A minute or so went by, and we lay breathing heavily before pushing ourselves upright to regard the fallen thing.

“It’s all right,” I said huskily. “You killed it.”

She picked a strip of my shredded clothing from the ground and used it to wipe her dagger blade. Sheathing the weapon, she said, “Poor Mademoiselle Clattersmash.”

I shivered. “I don’t know what’s happening here, Clarissa, but we’re right in the middle of it. I’ve been used to weaken the Yatsill, and a powerful influence has kept me in a state of emotional confusion, accentuating my natural timidity and fears. Look—” I turned and pointed at the gutted corpse of the Yatsill.

In that instant, everything was as it had been in my Yarkeen vision.

“That is exactly what I saw in the Valley of Reflections.” I gazed into my companion’s yellow eyes. “How deeply have I been manipulated?”

She took a deep breath, released it slowly, and gave a slight shrug. “I don’t know, Aiden. Let’s get back to the house.”

I sheathed my sword and looked down at myself. My clothes were hanging in tatters and I was covered from head to foot in gore, some of it my own. The Blood God had lacerated the right side of my chest, my back, and both my arms. Round sucker marks dotted my skin.

“I feel numb, but when the venom wears off, this is going to hurt.”

We began to retrace our steps but hadn’t got very far before my legs started to give way. Clarissa stepped in and lent me physical support.

The fog had become so impenetrable we could see only a few feet in front of us, and when we finally reached Dissonance Square, the figures standing in it were all but obscured. We approached and discovered them to be Father Clutterfuss, Kata, and two of the three Koluwaians we’d seen with her earlier. The third was on the ground at their feet. He was dead.

Clarissa left my side and squatted beside the body. After a brief examination, she said, “Drained of blood. There are sucker marks all over him.”

Kata nodded. “He has been released.”

“Father Spreadflower Meadows was taken,” Clutterfuss said. He pointed at the corpse. “The Blood God fed.”

I rounded on Kata. “Is this what it means to be released?”

She nodded. “It is how we are sent to Koluwai.”

“This man hasn’t been sent anywhere, Kata! He’s been killed!”

“His body is gone, but his spirit will be reborn on your world.”

I, who had once been a priest, snorted disdainfully. “Absurd!”

“Where are the sentries?” Clarissa asked.

Clutterfuss answered, “They chased after the Blood God. It will try to enter Phenadoor, as they always do after first releasing a Servant. Perhaps it will be stopped at the wall.”

“Mademoiselle Clattersmash has also been taken,” Clarissa said. “And you, Father? How do you feel?”

“I am quite well, thank you.”

“Let me see your hands, please.”

The Yatsill held out his arms. His long fingers were moving slowly but steadily, without the trembling and jerking that had been so noticeable in his colleagues.

“Good,” Clarissa said. “Will you come inside and help me to dress Aiden’s wounds?”

“Of course.”

I ordered Kata to follow us.

“But I’m waiting to be released,” she said.

“I’ll not have you killed,” I responded angrily. “Get inside, at once!”

Our housekeeper reluctantly followed us in. The shell of Father Meadows was lying on the vestibule floor.

Clarissa said, “Kata, clean up as best you can. We’ll arrange to have the body removed as soon as possible.” She steered me through into the laboratory. Clutterfuss entered and closed the door behind us. They sat me on a bench and started to clean my wounds. I looked at my hand. My missing little finger was already half-grown back.

“Father,” I said, “Miss Stark and I have been on Ptallaya for some time now. Why did no one tell us that the Blood Gods invade through the Yatsills’ bodies?”

“Only through the Aristocrats,” he corrected. “We do not speak of the Blood Gods when the Saviour’s Eyes are open.”

“Why not?”

“To speak their name is to give them presence.”

“As ever,” Clarissa muttered, “superstitions and traditions bar the way to truth.”

I winced as she dabbed lotion on my wounds. “Do you think there’s another world orbiting the suns?” I asked her. “Is that where those horrible creatures come from?”

“Ptallaya doesn’t orbit, Aiden. If it did, all three suns would periodically be visible at the same time, and I’m quite certain that never happens. Am I right, Father?”

Clutterfuss answered, “The Eyes of the Saviour and the Heart of Blood are eternally opposed.”

“In which case, this planet must hang revolving between the twin suns on one side and the red on the other. As for whether there’s another world out there, it’s a possibility, I suppose.” She looked over my shoulder. “What is it, Father?”

The Yatsill, while cleaning the cuts on my back, had given a small exclamation.

“This,” he said. “It was beneath Mr. Fleischer’s skin.”

Clarissa reached past my head. When she pulled her hand back, I saw she was holding a very small object. She examined it. “It appears to be a seed of some sort.”

“Iriputiz cut me all over and pushed seeds into the incisions,” I told her. “They burned like the fires of Hell.”

“And when we awoke on Ptallaya, your symptoms were gone. We might have the answer. This seed could contain the cure for kichyomachyoma.”

“Then let us get back to work,” Clutterfuss urged.

Having treated my injuries, my companions returned to their chemical apparatus. I told them I’d take care of the corpse in the vestibule, which I did by the simple expedient of dragging it outside and leaving it in a corner of the square. With the city in crisis, there seemed no other choice. Certainly, I was unlikely to find Workers possessed of enough wherewithal to take it away. Besides, I was unwilling to go off in search of any. I hadn’t forgotten that the thing that burst out of Mademoiselle Clattersmash had pointed at Clarissa and said, “I must take that one to Phenadoor.”

The Blood Gods wanted my companion.

Some little while later, my presentiment was proven correct. I’d closed and locked all the window shutters and had just locked Kata in her room—she’d been persistently attempting to sneak out of the house—when something thumped at the front door. I crossed to it and shouted, “Who’s there?” The portal rattled as the thumping was repeated. I drew my sword, reached out, pulled the door open, and was confronted by a Blood God. “I have already fed,” it gurgled in the language of the islanders. “I will not harm you. Do not attack. Let us be civilised.”

“Very well. What do you want?”

“I sense the presence here of one I must take to Phenadoor for examination. Please, stand aside.”

I levelled my weapon at the beast. “Who wants to examine her?”

The thing’s eyes swivelled toward my blade. “I do not know.”

“Then who told you to come for her?”

“I am newly emerged. Something communicates with me but I do not know what it is, only that I must obey it in order to secure good status in my society.”

“I’ll be civilised up to a point,” I said, “but I’ll kill you rather than allow you anywhere near her.”

“That is unfortunate. It means we must fight.”

The Blood God lunged at me. I stepped back and slammed the door in its face, quickly sliding the bolts home. For some time, the thing pounded and scraped at the portal, then at the windows, but it eventually gave up and departed.

Five more times the creatures came to the house and five more times I denied them entry. When the sixth visitor arrived, I didn’t bother to leave my chair. The door rattled beneath the onslaught but held firm. Then a muffled shout reached me. “Why the blazes won’t you let me in! I know you’re in there! Indeed I do!”

Recognising the voice of Baron Hammer Thewflex, I strode to the door, and, with my sword drawn, opened it a crack. Thewflex was indeed on our front steps.

“Show me your hands,” I demanded.

He did so. They were steady.

“How do you feel?”

“Absolutely fine, old chap,” he replied. “I only wish I could say the same of my colleagues!”

“Come in.”

“The confounded Blood Gods are everywhere,” he said as he entered. “I was practically tripping over the blessed things all the way here.”

I closed the door after him, called for Clarissa, then said, “It is a peculiarly tranquil invasion. Are your people putting up no resistance at all?”

“The City Guard are doing what they can, but the disease has knocked the population sideways. I’ve seen more Guards staring into space than swinging their swords. The situation is thoroughly catastrophic!”

Clarissa stepped from the laboratory with Father Clutterfuss, and Thewflex reported, “I came to tell you that Lord Brittleback and Father Reverie have just been taken. The House of Lords and Council of Magicians are in disarray. The Heart of Blood isn’t yet a quarter risen, and already New Yatsillat’s Aristocrats are dwindling so fast that we’ve lost all influence over the Working Class. Do you know where I might find Father Yissil Froon, Miss Stark?”

Clarissa handed a small flask of liquid to our visitor. “Drink this, Baron—it’s the cure. We’ve just perfected it. No, I haven’t seen Yissil Froon in a long while. Apparently he’s sequestered himself somewhere in order to meditate. Why do you want to see him?”

Thewflex removed his mask, swallowed the formula, and replaced his face covering.

“The protection provided by the Magicians simply isn’t working. I was hoping Yissil Froon could advise me. Indeed I was. Indeed! Indeed!”

“Father Clutterfuss has two bottles of this cure,” my friend said. “You and he should go and ensure that every remaining Aristocrat receives a dose. Treat the Magicians first. The stuff isn’t Dar’sayn, but it might, at very least, give them a little more strength.”

“Rightio, but I fear it’s come too late, Miss Stark. The outlook is bleak.”

The two Yatsill went to the door. Thewflex turned back and said, “You are one of the very few Servants left, Mr. Fleischer. Do you hope for release?”

“Most certainly not,” I answered.

“Then guard yourself well.” He gave a nod of farewell and, with Father Clutterfuss, departed.

I addressed my companion. “I’m more concerned with guarding you. The Blood Gods appear intent on taking you into the sea.”

“Then you’d better sharpen your sword,” she responded, “because we have to leave the house.”

“It’s too dangerous! Those infernal creatures are everywhere!”

“Maybe so, but Baron Thewflex was right—we have to find Yissil Froon. As Father Mordant Reverie suggested—and Clutterfuss has since confirmed—he’s survived a great many cycles of Ptallaya’s yellow and red days, and if there’s any way we can help the Yatsill to survive this invasion, he’s the one to tell us how. We must go to where the shield emanates from the fishing village. I feel positive that Froon is its source.”

I hesitated. More than anything else, I wanted to keep my friend safe, but she was right—we couldn’t stay in the house forever. There were already deep cracks appearing in its walls. Like every building in the city, it was falling apart.

“Very well—but keep your dagger drawn and don’t leave my side.”

We donned our coats and stepped out into the peasouper. The vapour glowed redly around us. Driving would have been perilous in the extreme, especially with the roads being littered with abandoned vehicles and rubble, so we walked to the avenue and made our way down it. I kept my hand on my sword’s hilt, expecting at any moment to see a Blood God come writhing out of the roiling murk. What few of the Working Class we passed were unclothed and docile. There was no sound other than the occasional rumble and clatter as buildings collapsed.

“This place was built on my memories,” Clarissa muttered, “and has crumpled into nothing. Is my past so flimsy?”

I touched her hand. “Your remarkable mind may have given form to New Yatsillat, but do not judge yourself by what’s happened to it. It’s become what it is through the actions of beings entirely alien to us.”

“Exactly as my life on Earth was ruined by a being utterly alien to my working-class background—an aristocrat. I sometimes think I’ll forever be denied a place where I feel I belong.”

“I hardly think the Aristocrats here are responsible for this chaos. They’ve been invaded by an evil predator.”

“Evil, Aiden? We shall see.”

We continued on down the steep and wide thoroughfare, stepping carefully over networks of cracks and deep fissures, passing from the fourth level to the fifth, on to the sixth, then across the muddy seventh. Through the fog, we saw that parts of the defensive wall had subsided, and when we came to the gate, its six guards didn’t even challenge us—they were staring into space, oblivious to all.

The eighth terrace was devastated, having for the most part slipped onto the ninth. Two Blood Gods were squirming through the mud and debris, vague forms in the haze, heading toward the sea. I stopped Clarissa and we stood motionless until the things had passed.

A crash echoed from far off—yet another building tumbling to the ground.

“By heavens!” I exclaimed. “The magnitude of destruction is incredible! The city is deteriorating as fast as it was built!”

Clarissa pointed to our right. “The emanation is coming from over there.”

We reached the lowest part of New Yatsillat and found it half-buried by rubble from above. Abandoned boats floated aimlessly in the bay. Thousands of Yatsill had taken to the water and were feeding much as seals do, diving from view and bobbing up a few minutes later with fish in their mouths. It was hard to believe these creatures possessed a language, let alone that they’d been capable of creating a civilisation.

“Look!” my companion cried out. “What is that?”

I followed her pointing finger and saw an orange light sliding along beneath the surface of the water. We watched until the fog swallowed the illumination.

“Some sort of machine?” I speculated. “How many more mysteries can we deal with?”

We moved on.

Clarissa led me northward, steering past some heaps of fallen masonry and clambering over others. She put her fingers to her temples. “This telepathic transmission is strong, but it does at least drown out my obsessing over those blessed blueprints.”

“I thought you’d stopped thinking about them.”

“Maybe. I can’t tell. I suspect they’re still knocking around inside my skull, but their racket has been thoroughly muffled.” She pointed ahead to where the terrace abutted the high cliff face. “If Yissil Froon is the source of the psychic protection, we’re very close to him.”

We continued on until, finally, we came to a row of warehouses—mostly still standing—that had been erected against the cliff. Clarissa entered a narrow gap between two of them.

“I’m blind as a bat,” I grumbled a few moments later as we were engulfed by pitch darkness.

Clarissa took my arm. “I can see clearly. There’s a cave just ahead.”

Beneath my feet, I felt the cobbles give way to bare rock.

“It’s a natural tunnel,” my companion murmured. “Put a hand on the wall to your left. Let it guide you.”

The passage wound from side to side, gradually sloping upward.

After many minutes had passed, Clarissa said, “It looks like it opens onto a large space. Not far to go now.”

I squinted into the blackness but saw nothing.

A few paces later I heard trickling water and jumped as a quavering voice, speaking Koluwaian, called to us from somewhere ahead. “Welcome. I’m glad to meet you at last. Come sit with me.”

“Who is it?” I hissed.

“An elderly woman,” Clarissa answered softly.

“Please,” the voice said. “Come! Come!”

Clarissa tugged my arm and whispered, “She’s sitting in the centre of a cave. There are mushrooms and some sort of lichen growing all around the place. The water you can hear is a stream falling from a niche in one of the walls. My goodness! The woman is very old! She’s emaciated, and—and she has yellow eyes!”

We moved a little further forward then stopped and Clarissa pulled me down to the floor. I sat cross-legged and waited patiently.

Just in front of us, the thin reedy voice said, “I greet you, Clarissa Stark, Aiden Fleischer. Heh! Heh! My name is Pretty Wahine. The Yatsill call me the Saviour.”