A Red Sun Also Rises

8. GODS

I uttered a cry of astonishment. The Yatsills’ god was alive!

“You’ve been made an Aristocrat,” Clarissa observed, then said to me, “She has the little bumps over her eyes.”

I squinted and strained to see but couldn’t make out a single thing. The lack of light was total.

“Yes, my child. As have you. Life on Ptallaya is strange! Heh! Heh!”

My friend asked, “You came here from Koluwai?”

Pretty Wahine didn’t respond immediately. She wheezed in the darkness—the respiration of an ailing, ancient body.

She said, “There is a hole over the island. We know that to be true—don’t we?—for we fell through it!”

“We did,” Clarissa agreed.

“I was a young woman when it took me—walking in the hills with my husband, Yaku—dear Yaku! How I loved him all that time ago! How he changed!”

“He was transported with you?”

“He was. We were sucked into the sky and awoke in a forest. Oh! We were afraid to move—we didn’t understand where we were—but I became thirsty, and saw fruit around us, so I cut into one and drank its juice. Yaku warned me not to. He said it might be poisonous. But I did it anyway.”

“Dar’sayn,” Clarissa murmured.

The old woman cackled—an uncanny dry rustling that sent prickles up my spine. “Heh! Heh! And you know what it does, yes?”

“It alters the mind.”

“That’s right! Heh! Heh! We slept, and when I awoke I could feel that, far away, there were people. Yaku was frightened to look for them, but I told him I would go. He could come with me, or stay alone. He came!”

She laughed again but it developed into a fit of coughing. We waited patiently while she recovered, then Clarissa asked, “They were the Yatsill?”

“Yes! Yes! Not people at all! We walked and walked until we found them—and when we did, Yaku tried to run away, but I knew they wouldn’t harm us, so I made him stay, and we travelled with the Yatsill on a Ptall’kor to a valley, where we ate the meat of Yarkeen. I had a vision. I saw people of Koluwai being consumed by demons. Yaku also dreamed things, but he would not tell me what, and afterwards he became quiet and different.”

I felt anchored to reality only by the touch of Clarissa’s hand where it rested on my arm, and suddenly realised that I was succumbing to a mesmeric power that radiated from the old woman. I spoke, hoping that by engaging with the conversation I’d overcome the effect. “In what way different, Pretty Wahine?”

“He was keeping secrets, my boy.”

Again she paused and struggled for breath. As Theaston Vale’s vicar, I’d sat at the bedsides of the elderly on many occasions. I recognised the sound of impending death when I heard it, and—Pretty Wahine’s psychic power notwithstanding—I was hearing it now.

Perhaps two minutes passed before her voice pierced the darkness again.

“At the end of the valley, we entered a cavern where I fell into a pool, and it gave me these bumps over my eyes. After that, all the Yatsill could speak my language. The same happened to you, yes? Heh!”

Clarissa made a sound of acknowledgment.

“Funny creatures!” the old woman exclaimed. “Like children! Copy, copy, copy! They brought us to this bay, drove the animals from the trees, and built villages in the branches, just like the ones I’d grown up in. Home! Home! Heh! Heh!”

“Animals?” my companion asked. “Do you mean Quee’tan?”

“Quee’tan, yes. Shoo! Shoo! Shoo! Away with them all!”

“How long ago was this, Pretty Wahine?”

“Oh, very much time has passed, my child. Very much time! Dar’sayn makes me live forever! Heh! Heh!” She stopped, wheezed, and went on, “Things then were not as they are now. All the Yatsill were Wise Ones. There were no Shunned.”

“Now they call themselves Aristocrats and Working Class,” I interjected.

“Heh! They pluck the words from Clarissa Stark. Right out of her head! Copy, copy, copy!”

“And they call the Koluwaians and their descendants Servants.”

“Pah! There were none before. None of my people. Just me. Just Yaku. We lived with the Yatsill until—Oh!—the red sun rose and the demons came. Blood Gods! They entered the Yatsill and killed them all. Yaku and I hid in this cave while the horrible things tried to escape into the sea. Heh! Before they reached the water, they died. No more Blood Gods. No more Yatsill.”

A rumble penetrated the darkness—a building collapsing somewhere close to the mouth of the tunnel—reminding me that outside, under the onslaught of the fiery red orb, New Yatsillat was rapidly disintegrating.

Clarissa’s fingers, still wrapped around my forearm, tightened slightly.

“The big sun set,” Pretty Wahine said, “and the little suns rose. No night on Ptallaya! And the Yatsill children came out of the nurseries and went away. We lived by ourselves, and—Oh!—I was scared. Yaku was not Yaku. I feared him. He knew things but would not tell me. Heh! Heh! I knew things, too! Yes I did! Yes! Yes! The Dar’sayn had changed me. I felt the children returning! I knew they weren’t the same! They went away with no more brains than Quee’tan—driven to the Pools of Immersion by instinct, just like animals—but came back Wise Ones! Heh! Heh! And the tree houses were filled, and life was as it was before.”

“Until the Heart of Blood rose again,” Clarissa murmured.

Another cackle. Another coughing fit. Painful gasping. Then: “My child! My child! You know what Dar’sayn can do! You know! You know! Before the yellow suns set, I sent a Yatsill to the forest to fetch more of the juice! Yes! More! More! It made me strong! With it, I could use my mind to stop the demons.”

Pretty Wahine suddenly lowered her voice to a barely audible whisper. “But don’t tell Yaku! Oh no! Secret! Where is he? Where? Where? He mustn’t have the power. He will misuse it. Only Yissil Froon knows!”

“Yissil Froon?” Clarissa and I exclaimed.

“It was he I sent to the forest. He drank Dar’sayn and helped me protect the Yatsill. Only a few fell. And, again, the Blood Gods that came died before reaching the sea. Heh! Heh! Dead! Dead!”

She drew a long, shuddery breath and emitted a long, eerie moan. I flinched away from the sound. There was madness in it.

“Another cycle. Heh! Now there were adults to take the children to Immersion, and Ptall’kors to hasten the journey. Yes! And Yissil Froon went for more Dar’sayn. But—Oh! Oh!—he found Koluwaians! They had fallen through the hole. My Yarkeen dream! Food for the Blood Gods, to replace the Quee’tan! Oh! Poor people! Poor people! And I was very afraid because Yaku was happy. Happy! Why? Why? When he left the cave to meet the islanders, I drank more Dar’sayn and used my mind to hide away from the Yatsill—and even from my husband! I couldn’t trust him any more. I didn’t understand him. He had become very strange and secretive! Now only Yissil Froon knew how to find me. The rest forgot this cave. They forgot me!”

“Not entirely,” I noted. “They consider you a god. They call you the Saviour.”

“They remember only that someone once changed them!” she answered. She fell silent for a moment before going on, “The demons came again. I stopped many, but still some possessed the Yatsill. Some, yes. Oh! Oh! It was as I’d foreseen—the Blood Gods fed on the people and escaped into the sea. Every cycle now, the same! For a long, long time! More Koluwaians came to Ptallaya!”

She sucked at the air, her lungs creaking, and said, “Always, at the rising of the two suns, Yissil Froon brought me more Dar’sayn. Heh! I think he wanted it. Him! Ha! I controlled his mind. I would not let him keep it all for himself! I made him share it with a small number of Wise Ones and I sent my power through them to protect the Yatsill. The Blood Gods always took a few but not many. Not enough to eat all the Koluwaians, and so children were born, and families lived in the tree houses. But I hid! I hid! Heh! Heh!”

By heavens, how old was Pretty Wahine? For how many generations had she survived like a hermit, hidden away in this cave? Was Clarissa, who’d also taken Dar’sayn, now endowed with such an extended lifespan?

“Heh! Heh!” the woman crowed. “Change! Change! Always change! Now, at Immersion, some of the Yatsill children were Shunned.”

Clarissa interrupted. “Do you know why?”

“No, my child. No! Maybe Yissil Froon knows—Dar’sayn has made him a clever one, oh yes!—but I have not spoken with him. He started to conceal Yaku from my senses. It is not good! So I hid myself from Yissil Froon, too. Oh! Oh! Where is Yaku? Where? Where? Dead by now, surely! Dead and turned to dust. But not me! I have been in darkness for so long—Alone! Alone!—eating the mushrooms and the moss. Growing older and older.”

“And always fighting the Blood Gods,” Clarissa said.

“Yes! The Dar’sayn made my mind very strong! I drank so much that I stopped needing it. Heh! Heh!”

“But why, Pretty Wahine? Why continue to defend the Yatsill?”

“Immersion! I went into the pool! You know, my child! You know! The same happened to you! It joins you to the Wise Ones, yes?”

“It’s true,” my companion replied. “I have never felt such a sense of belonging.”

“Heh! They shape themselves from your thoughts and memories. Of course you belong! As do I, for there is still much of me in them!”

I heard Clarissa sigh. She said, “I’ve already experienced the loss of one home. Now I feel I’m losing another. I don’t want to. How can we fight the Blood Gods?”

“I am dying,” Pretty Wahine answered. “Finally! Finally! So, my child, you must learn to do what I have done. I will show you how to use your mind to stop the demons taking the Yatsill. But we need Dar’sayn.”

“There is none.” Clarissa responded. “The Magicians have run out of it.”

“Find Yissil Froon! Always, he wanted to be the only Yatsill to drink it, and he hoards it jealously. I had to force him to release it to his fellows. He didn’t like that! No! Find him, my child, and make him give you whatever of it he has, then return to me. But don’t let him follow! No! No! And Aiden Fleischer, you must hasten to the forest to fetch more of the stuff. More Dar’sayn!”

“I won’t be parted from Clarissa!” I objected.

“She will be safe, my boy. I will protect her.”

My sword was sheathed at my side. I wrapped my fingers around its hilt. I’d developed a confidence in my aptitude with the weapon despite my inability to kill and wasn’t afraid of what was sure to be a perilous journey, but leaving my friend behind in the city was another matter entirely.

“Aiden,” Clarissa said, “this might be the only way to save New Yatsillat. If we don’t try, what will become of us? Where shall we live?”

Reluctantly, I stood. “Very well. I’ll get Dar’sayn.”





I drove an autocarriage along the base of the Mountains That Gaze Upon Phenadoor toward the Forest of Indistinct Murmurings—toward the spot where I’d arrived on Ptallaya. The Heart of Blood had by now completely cleared the horizon. Its crimson light glared down and caused everything beneath to writhe in agony—or at least that’s how it appeared, for the trees and plants had contorted into awful shapes and sprouted spines and thorns as if to defend themselves from the dreadful illumination.

Ptallaya looked exactly as I imagined Hell.

The terrain sloped up into the mountains on my left but its undulations were smooth and, so far, had presented no challenge to my vehicle apart from occasional boulders that required steering around. Wildlife had been kept at bay by the autocarriage’s loud chugging, for which I was thankful. The various beasts I’d spotted had been nasty-looking things, all claws, horns, and teeth.

At one point in the journey—now a long way behind me—I’d been disconcerted by a long stretch of hillside upon which purple pumpkin-like plants grew in abundance. They were so prevalent that it was impossible to steer around them, but to my horror, whenever I drove over one, crushing it beneath my vehicle’s wheels, the whole slope emitted a horrible shriek of agony. The vegetables, it appeared, were merely the exterior protrusions of a huge living organism that dwelled beneath the soil. For some considerable distance I was assailed by these awful screams, and the strain on my nerves, together with my attempts to avoid as many of the pumpkins as I could, exhausted me. Nevertheless, once past that horrible hillside I pushed on, and had now been travelling for such a long time without rest that I simply couldn’t stay awake any longer.

I drew the autocarriage to a halt, unfolded and clipped down its leather cover to afford me some protection from the ghastly sunshine, then made myself as comfortable as possible in the seat. I slept.

After a period of insensibility, a distant screeching brought me back to consciousness. I wiped the sleep from my eyes, looked around to see where the noise was coming from, and saw, streaming over the brow of a hill about half a mile away, a pack of ten or twelve unmistakably carnivorous animals. They were glossy black, with hard spiky exoskeletons, bulbous heads, clacking mandibles, and eight limbs apiece ending in talony digits. I recognised them instantly as Tiskeen, the species I’d once seen while approaching New Yatsillat, but transformed and no longer the harmless creatures they’d been under the yellow suns.

I hastily jumped out of the autocarriage, stepped back to its engine, and fired up the boiler. I’d left it burning gently while I slept and the mechanism was still hot, so it started immediately—which was just as well, for the Tiskeen were fast and obviously fixated upon me as their next meal. I scrambled back into the seat, pressed down on the footplate, and accelerated away with the pack in eager pursuit.

At a medium velocity, the autocarriage had navigated the terrain with little trouble, but now, as I forced it to its limits, it began to rattle and jolt with such severity that I feared it might shake itself apart, and a glance back revealed that, even at such great a speed, I wasn’t going to outrun the pack. Nor could I defend myself against so many with just a sword.

I had little choice.

For the first time in my life, I hissed a string of expletives—shocking language for a vicar!—before veering the machine around a boulder, reversing course, and speeding straight back at the oncoming beasts. They were upon me in seconds, at the very last moment splitting into two groups, with the greater number of animals attempting to dodge to the right. I yelled incoherently and yanked the tiller around. The world cartwheeled as the vehicle smashed into the bigger group, propelling me into the air. I thudded onto the ground, rolled, tottered to my feet, and pulled my sword free, turning to face the carnage.

“Not dead!” I bellowed—a defiant shout that was, I admit, tinged with surprise.

The surviving Tiskeen turned toward me and extended their mandibles, displaying irregular holes in the front of their heads—holes lined with multiple rows of long, sharp teeth.

“Oh,” I said. “Damn.”

Just as I resigned myself to being eaten alive, there came a tremendous detonation. The autocarriage’s boiler erupted, spurting flame, smoke, and boiling steam. The shock wave slapped into me and sent me back down to the ground. Pieces of metal went skittering past. I curled into a ball until the clattering of falling shrapnel stopped, then quickly pushed myself up and stood with my weapon at the ready. Blood dribbled into my eyes. My ears were assailed by high-pitched squeals.

Through an expanding cloud of hot steam, I saw the vehicle lying on its side, split wide open. The broken carcasses of Tiskeen were scattered about, either hit by the machine or blasted by the subsequent explosion. Some were writhing in their death throes. Others twitched spasmodically as the last vestiges of life left them. Four had survived, though two of them were obviously mortally wounded.

I dragged a sleeve across my eyes—the blood was flowing freely down my face. I had no idea how badly hurt I was and there was no time to find out—the remaining Tiskeen were leaping at me.

“No!” I snarled. “Clarissa needs me! I’ll not fail her, you ugly brutes!”

The first beast came pouncing through the dispersing mist, its jaws and talons extended. I swung my sword into the side of its head. With a loud crunch, hot blood sprayed and the thing tumbled away, kicked, and lay still. The second was on me before I’d recovered my stance. I fell beneath it and gave a shriek of agony as its teeth sank into my right shoulder. Unable to turn my blade, I repeatedly hammered the pommel into one of the creature’s eyes.

“Get off! Get off!”

Its hold on me eased slightly. I pushed my legs up under its body and heaved it away, my clothes and skin ripping as its grip came loose. The Tiskeen was back in an instant, but not before I had time to raise the point of my sword, which caught it in the chest. Claws slashed, the creature squirmed, slowed, and became still.

I heaved the dead weight to one side, stood, pulled my weapon free, staggered, and almost fell. The remaining two Tiskeen were dragging their bleeding bodies toward me. I righted myself and met them each with a swing to the head, putting as much strength behind the blade as I could muster. It was enough. They died.

Bizarrely, I giggled.

Dropping my weapon, I sank to my knees and knelt with my head bowed, blood oozing from my hair, and my breath coming in rapid and painful gasps. For a few moments, I could do nothing except cling on to consciousness. As my respiration slowed, I began to feel the pain of my wounds. A deep laceration in my scalp was bleeding profusely. Deep puncture wounds marked my shoulder and chest. There was also a chunk of flesh missing from my left thigh. A deadly lassitude was creeping over me. I knew if I gave in to it, I’d probably bleed to death while I slept. I pulled a packet of dried and salted fish—Kula’at—from my pocket, took a strip, and chewed on it to keep my mind focused, while from another pocket I retrieved a pack of medicinal herbs given to me by Clarissa. I treated my injuries.

I had killed. Unintelligent monsters, it’s true. But I had killed.

The bleeding abated. I rested and, in a semi-dazed fashion, examined the little finger of my right hand, which had by now been completely restored. Mimics they may have been, but the Yatsill obviously knew how to apply the intelligence Clarissa gave them to the resources of their own world, for no Earth medicine could match such a feat.

The temperature was increasing and a vaguely sulphurous aroma now marred Ptallaya’s lemony air. At my back, the mountains held the sea fogs at bay. In front of me, the wrecked autocarriage steamed, popped, and creaked as its split boiler settled. Behind it, the terrain rippled to the distant horizon, which shimmered in the heat.

I used the sword to lever myself upright, crossed to the vehicle, and recovered my knapsack. After slaking my thirst from a water bottle, I slung the bag over my uninjured shoulder, turned away, and started walking. What remained of the journey would be tough—I was sorely weakened and limping badly—but that didn’t concern me as much as the return trek. I was confident I could cope with the exertion and physical dangers, but in the time it would take, what would become of New Yatsillat? What would become of Clarissa?





The Forest of Indistinct Murmurings occupied either side of a shallow river—little more than a stream—that ran out of the savannah and cut through a broad valley at the northernmost end of the mountain range. To the west, the Ptoollan trees followed the watercourse until they abutted the ocean. To the East, beyond the valley, they fanned out for about seven or eight miles then rapidly thinned and gave way to open land.

Clarissa and I had arrived on Ptallaya just within the southern edge of the forest, close to where the land dipped into the valley. Despite the funk I’d been in back then, now, when I surmounted a rise and looked down at the spot, I recognised the topography and the place where we’d emerged from the trees to climb aboard the Ptall’kor.

The demolished autocarriage was many miles behind me. I was footsore and exhausted, weak from my wounds, and very hungry. There’d been little by way of fruit or berries on the barren foothills I’d chosen for my route, and the supply I’d brought with me had run out.

Twice more, animals had attacked me. They’d fallen to my blade. I’d sustained no further injuries.

Descending the incline, I reached the outermost Ptoollan trees. Since I’d last seen them, their trunks had turned black and sprouted thorns and the raised roots were now bristling with spines. Nevertheless, I was able to push my way through the barbs into the hollow space beneath one of the trees, and there curled up and instantly fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.

When I next opened my eyes, I found the side of my face encrusted with blood. My head wound had reopened at some point, bleeding profusely before clotting. I sat up, crawled into the open, and stood. A wave of dizziness sent me reeling. I was in bad shape and desperately needed something to eat.

I moved deeper into the forest. The fruits had changed considerably since I was last there. Some were huge empty shells, broken wide open as if animals had removed the inner flesh, leaving just the skin to dry and calcify. Others were shrivelled and shrunken, obviously dead and rotting. The possibility that I’d travelled all this way for nothing—that there was no Dar’sayn to be milked—was too grim even to consider.

The odd murmuring that gave the forest its name was absent but I could hear, from a little way ahead, a faint sound that resembled weeping. Hoping it was being emitted by a mature fruit, I continued forward and quickly realised I was approaching the very clearing where I’d taken my first terrified steps on Ptallaya. A few moments later, I peered through a tangle of roots and saw the little glade. A creature, blue-black in colour, was squatting in the middle of it, and I knew at once it was a Zull, though this was the first living example I’d seen in close proximity. Where the Yatsill were four-legged and two-armed, the Zull was four-armed and two-legged, with what appeared to be a loose cloak of skin falling from its shoulders and attached to the back of the upper limbs. The head resembled that of an earthly ant, but four-eyed and with a complex multi-jointed set of mandibles. A white patch marked the left side of its face.

The thing was sobbing like a child.

I stepped into the open and said, in Koluwaian, “Are you hurt?”

The creature started and scrabbled backward, raising its arms as if to ward me off.

I held my hands out to show they were empty. “It’s all right. I mean no harm.”

“Wha-what? You speak, Thing?”

“I speak, and I’m not a thing, I’m a human being. Why are you weeping?”

“Because—because I have been cast out of Phenadoor, and because others of my kind have died. Look.” The Zull pointed to one of the dried fruits and I suddenly realised that it and the other shrivelled ones were the same that Colonel Momentous Spearjab’s party had taken Dar’sayn from. The larger and now empty shells, by contrast, had, as far as I knew, escaped the Yatsills’ attentions.

“Others of your kind?” Even as I asked it, the truth flashed into my mind—a terrible revelation. Reaching up to one of the gourd-like objects, I touched it and said, “Your people come out of these?”

“Yes, after we are banished from Phenadoor.”

They weren’t fruits. They were cocoons. Dar’sayn was some sort of placental fluid.

Stunned by this realisation, I stood speechlessly gazing at the Zull. Its four silvery eyes glittered as it regarded me.

“You are a curiosity,” it said.

My mouth worked silently before I was able to utter, “My—my name is Aiden Fleischer.”

“I am Gallokomas.”

I looked around me at the broken and shrunken cocoons, then back at the creature. “Why do you say you’ve been cast out of Phenadoor?”

“Because I feel it.”

“You remember being there?”

“No. I am newborn. I have no recollection of the blissful life that went before. I know only that I lived it, and now cannot, for it is forbidden to return. I must have done something very wicked to have been punished this way.”

I moved closer to the Zull and knelt beside it. I felt light-headed. My clothes were hanging in ribbons, red-stained, and my skin was smeared with dried blood.

I said, “Do not judge yourself harshly. I have learned that one should not presume evil in oneself without irrefutable evidence of it.”

“I am no longer in Phenadoor. Is that not evidence enough?”

“It is no evidence at all. Perhaps when you join with the rest of your kind, you’ll find out more about where you have come from and why you are here.”

“The rest of my kind,” Gallokomas echoed. “Yes.” He pointed to the East. “I am drawn in that direction. I think they are there.”

I nodded. “I’ve heard they live in eyries between the Shrouded Mountains and the Shelf Lands.”

“I do not know those places. And you, Thing—where are your people?”

I didn’t have the strength to explain Earth and space and the planets, so nodded toward the South and said simply, “There. Some distance away. A place called New Yatsillat.”

“I feel that you are anxious to return. Why did you leave it?”

Not wanting to confess that I’d come to the forest to extract Dar’sayn and unwittingly kill the Zull’s fellows, I answered with a question: “Is my anxiety so apparent?”

“I am aware of those things that are absent within you.”

“How?”

“It is obvious to me. You are joined to another of your kind and are currently lacking that one’s presence. You think of this New Yatsillat place almost as a home but lack confidence that it can offer you safety. You are uncertain and are searching for something to believe in.”

“Can you hear my thoughts, Gallokomas?”

“No. Your mind is closed but your emotions play over its surface. I understand your need and must help as best I can. I will take you to New Yatsillat.”

“You would assist a stranger?”

“Of course. Why would I not?”

“I am grateful, but it is a vast distance to walk.”

By way of reply, Gallokomas stood, the cloak of skin on his back suddenly inflated like a balloon, and he rose five feet or so above the ground.

“You propose carrying me?” I asked.

“Yes, but first we must eat. Remain here. I will return.”

He shot upward and disappeared over the treetops.

I sat and rested my head in my hands. I hadn’t yet seen a single source of Dar’sayn, and even if I had, I wouldn’t extract the liquid now I knew that, in doing so, I’d kill an intelligent being. So what would become of New Yatsillat? Without a fresh supply of Dar’sayn, could the Magicians muster strength enough to preserve themselves for the duration of the red sun’s day?

Gallokomas wasn’t gone for long, and when he returned he was carrying a large bunch of black banana-shaped fruits.

“Much of what I found on trees and bushes was poisonous,” he said, “but these will not harm us. Eat, Thing.”

We filled ourselves with the bland-tasting stuff, then the Zull hooked a pair of hands beneath my arms and lifted me into the air. Propelling himself forward by means of a rippling fringe that ran along the top and sides of his buoyancy sac, he transported me to the river in the bottom of the valley and there settled that we might drink from the clear, fresh water.

I washed my wounds and began to feel some strength returning to me.

We didn’t linger for long, and for that I was glad. The sooner I was reunited with Clarissa, the better.

Gallokomas picked me up, shot with breathtaking speed up to such an altitude that the entire forest became visible, like a dark wedge in the landscape beneath us, then we sped southward.

We flew at a tremendous velocity. My hair streamed backward, the air forcing tears from my eyes, and we had to yell to converse. To our left, the red sun glowered. To our right, the serrated peaks of the mountain range piled upward, and between them the sea shone unpleasantly like freshly spilled blood.

“Phenadoor,” Gallokomas shouted. “Perhaps I will return there once I have atoned for my sins.”

“What is it like to live in Phenadoor, Gallokomas?”

“I have no memory of it, but I feel I was rewarded there for my every action, so that existence was fulfilling and I wanted for nothing.”

“Many of the Yatsill enter it to die, believing they’ll be reborn into a better life.”

“What are Yatsill, Thing?”

“They are sentient creatures, like yourself. Did you not encounter them in Phenadoor?”

“Perhaps, but if I did, I have forgotten it.”

We flew on and on. A hot wind gusted from the East. The land slipped by far below us. Finally, the mountain range began to lose its height.

I pointed ahead to where the side of a slope was scarred with quarries. “New Yatsillat is near.”

Gallokomas altered his course slightly. We gradually lost altitude and I saw the strip of jungle and the Yatsill farms laid out beyond it. Further ahead, where before I had seen columns of smoke and steam rising, there was nothing. The factories were obviously idle.

The Zull dropped closer to the ground, cleared the edge of the bay, and flew out over the city.

It wasn’t there any more.

I gave a cry of dismay.

New Yatsillat, which had risen at such a phenomenal speed, had fallen into the sea with equal precipitateness. The huge terraces had collapsed and massive trails of rubble streaked the muddy slopes. The fishing village was entirely buried. There was barely a single building standing. In the awful red light, the whole bay looked like a hideous open wound.

Campfires flickered at one side of what remained of the fifth level. I pointed at them and cried out, “Take me down there, Gallokomas!”

The Zull veered away. “I cannot. I will set you down at the top of the bay.”

“But I need to go to that fire. My companion may be there.”

“I must ask forgiveness, Thing, for I find that I possess an inexplicable aversion to the creatures you call Yatsill.”

“I assure you, they are harmless.”

“I am not afraid, but I cannot approach them.”

Though I was beside myself with frustration, when Gallokomas landed I turned to him and said, “You have greatly assisted me, my friend. I thank you.”

“I will circle above,” he replied. “When you have established that all is well, wave to me. I will see you. But if you require further assistance, return to this spot and I will come.”

“Are you not eager to join the rest of your kind?”

“Later. I cannot leave one who is in need.”

“I am humbled by your compassion.”

Much to his astonishment, I took one of his hands and gave it a hearty shake.

“What was that?” he asked.

“A bond of friendship.”

“I like it.”

I smiled, turned away, and set off down the cracked and crumpled remains of one of the large avenues. To either side of it, the destruction was tremendous. New Yatsillat had fallen as if built from sand. What remained of its buildings stood like the ragged stumps of broken teeth, their upper sections gone, the roofs that covered them disintegrated and swept away. I clambered over fractured girders and piled debris, broken glass and almost unrecognisable fragments of furniture and vehicles. Off to my left, three Ptall’kors were drifting, apparently without purpose. I saw the body of a Kaljoor, still harnessed to a hansom cab, crushed beneath the remains of a fallen tower. I stepped on a sandwich board that bore the legend The Petticoat Parlour, First for Female Attire! and felt a hollowing grief for a shattered dream. New Yatsillat might have become my home. Instead—this.

And Clarissa. Where was Clarissa?

With no little difficulty I descended to the fifth level and made my way toward the fires, where I found approximately two hundred individuals gathered. As I drew closer, I waved and shouted, “Hi, there!”

Human and Yatsill faces turned and someone waved back and called my name.

“Kata!” I exclaimed. “Is that you?”

“Yes, Mr. Fleischer,” my housekeeper replied as I joined the group. “I still have not been released. I think I shall never see Koluwai.”

“You certainly won’t if you’re devoured by a Blood God. Where is Miss Stark?”

A Yatsill—one of the Aristocracy—stepped forward and said, “I’m afraid she has been taken, Mr. Fleischer.”

I recognised the voice. “Baron Thewflex! You don’t mean—you don’t—she wasn’t—?”

“Possessed? No. I apologise. That was a poor choice of words. Indeed, it was! I mean to say she was carried into Phenadoor by a Blood God.”

“Carried into the sea?”

“Yes.”

I sat down heavily, my jaw slack, my brain unable to cope with this news.

“The Magicians couldn’t protect us,” Thewflex said. “The Blood Gods have taken all the Aristocrats but those you see here.” He flicked his fingers toward the other Yatsill, then pointed at the seashore and continued, “And the Working Class are now lazing about down there. They are little better than animals. Indeed! Indeed! There aren’t enough of us remaining to share intelligence with them.” He sighed and shook his head.

“Then she is drowned,” I whispered, and my vision narrowed to a pinprick.

“The rest of us might still be taken at any time,” Thewflex said. “Though we’ve all had Miss Stark’s medicine and the pace of the invasion appears to have slowed. In any case, we shall have to wait until the Saviour looks upon us again and the new children mature before we can rebuild the city—yes, indeed!—and, of course, only then if plenty of the young are made Aristocrats at Immersion.”

I couldn’t engage with his words. They flowed past me without meaning. Nothing mattered any more. Clarissa was gone.

Picking a burning brand from the fire, I turned away and left the group, unable even to bid them farewell. I walked back through the debris to the avenue and there, bracing myself against the remains of a wall, bent over and pulled desperately at the air, feeling that I might pass out from lack of oxygen. My legs could hardly hold me. The ruins slewed past vertiginously. My ears were assaulted by an animalistic whine, which, in a moment of horror, I realised was coming from my own mouth.

“Please,” I croaked. “Please, no.”

Maybe I stood there for hours, maybe for mere minutes. I have no conception of how much time passed before I pushed myself upright and stumbled on, descending the steep slope all the way to the lowest level. Then it must have taken me at least two hours to climb across the rubble to Pretty Wahine’s cave. Certainly, I remember replacing the brand on at least three occasions, putting its flame to other pieces of wood and taking them up in its stead.

I stepped into the cave’s entrance and followed the tunnel—the way illuminated by my fire—to the chamber at its end. Pretty Wahine lay within, dead, her glazed yellow eyes staring at the ceiling. I bent over her and saw that her skin was dotted with sucker marks. Obviously, a Blood God had found her. Perhaps her powers had failed as her great age finally took its toll. She was unable to hide Clarissa or even her own refuge any longer.

Poor woman. She had asked for none of this. A simple islander, and little more than a child when she’d been transported to Ptallaya—fear, and perhaps a degree of madness, had made of her a hermit. And a god!

Leaving the Saviour’s final resting place, I retraced my steps and made the long climb back to the top of the bay.

Eventually, I reached the place where I’d parted from Gallokomas. The Zull floated down from the sky and stood before me.

“She’s gone,” I said. “The Blood Gods took her to Phenadoor, where she surely drowned.”

“Why?”

“I cannot guess. The creatures are a mystery to me.”

“No, Thing. I mean, why would she drown?”

“My species cannot survive in the sea, Gallokomas.”

“Nor can mine. But Phenadoor is not the sea.”

“What?”

“Phenadoor is not the sea.”

I frowned, feeling confused. “Then what is it?”

“It is a great mountain beyond the horizon that rises from the waters and touches the sky.”

“A—a mountain?”

“Yes. I do not know where my knowledge comes from. Perhaps I have remnant memories.”

“But Phenadoor is land? An island?”

“I am certain.”

“Then Clarissa could still be alive!”

“That is true. What are these Blood Gods?”

I gestured toward the red sun. “They come when the Heart of Blood rises. They invade the bodies of the Yatsill and attack Phenadoor.”

The Zull shook its head. “No. It is a place of peace.”

“Whatever it is, Gallokomas, if the Blood Gods have Clarissa with them, and if they go to Phenadoor, whether to attack it or not, then I have to go there, too. Will you take me?”

“I cannot approach Phenadoor any more than I can approach the Yatsill. It is forbidden.”

“Can you get me close?”

“I would have to drop you into the sea.”

“Within sight of it?”

“Yes, I could do that.”

“Then I’ll swim the rest of the way.”

Gallokomas looked to the East, where the gigantic sun blazed, and said, “My kind await.” He turned back to me and his complex multi-jointed jaw flexed slowly. His expressionless eyes shone with an internal light, silvery and penetrating. The membrane on his back began to reinflate. “I feel the strength of your need,” he said, “and so cannot refuse. But once I deposit you in the water, I will have to leave you to fend for yourself. It will be too difficult for me to remain so close to Phenadoor. It pushes me away. Like all the Zull, I am forsaken.”

“If all the Zull are as generous as you, my friend, then you should not regret your current status, for you are to be admired and cherished.”

He rose a couple of feet into the air, flitted around me until he was at my back, then took hold of me as before and shot upward. We swooped over the bay and headed out to sea.

Once we’d travelled beyond sight of land, I lost all sense of time and distance. Ptallaya was reduced to three elements: a bright red sky overhead, a dark red sea below, and a blood-red orb above and to the rear of us. None of the moons was visible.

I was still weak from my wounds, and even in the best of health had never been a strong swimmer, but if there was any possibility that Clarissa still lived, then I had no option. I had to find her, even if it meant losing my own life in the attempt.

After an immeasurable period, Gallokomas shouted, “Look down to the left, Thing.”

I did so and saw, about a mile away, a ball of orange light slipping along underwater—the same phenomenon Clarissa and I had observed off the shore of New Yatsillat.

“Fly over it!” I yelled.

The Zull altered course and moments later we were above the illumination. I could now see that it shone from the centre of a long ovoid object travelling at great speed just beneath the surface. I felt certain it was some sort of machine.

“There’s another ahead of us,” Gallokomas observed.

We flew on, seeing more and more of the lights, and soon realised they were coming and going from a point directly ahead of us. Then a bright twinkling light, like a rising star, burst over the horizon.

“Phenadoor,” Gallokomas exclaimed. “I will take you as near to it as I dare, but already I feel it pushing me away.”

As we drew closer to the dazzling radiance and my eyes adjusted, it was revealed to be a vast cone-shaped mountain of pink crystal—probably white under the yellow suns—which reared up from the ocean and towered into the sky.

“I’m struggling,” my escort groaned. We began to lose altitude.

“What is it, Gallokomas? What prevents you from approaching? Is there a physical resistance?”

“No, Thing. I feel a sense of . . . of transgression in coming here. I will have to drop you very soon.”

“Please, get as close as you can manage. I can’t swim this distance.”

Plunging downward, the Zull sped along just a few feet above the surface of the water. At such proximity, our velocity felt tremendous, but still Phenadoor grew only slowly before us, gradually rising over the horizon and expanding until it appeared impossibly massive and completely blocked the western skyline from view.

Gallokomas reduced speed, came to a stop, and gasped, “It hurts! I cannot take you any farther!”

I tried to gauge the distance to the shore of the mountain. It was too far for me, I was positive, but I had no option other than to make the attempt.

“Drop me here, Gallokomas, and go to your people, taking with you my sincere gratitude and friendship.”

“I hope you find your companion, Thing. Phenadoor will offer you peace and fulfilment, but if you ever suffer the misfortune of being expelled from it, as I was, seek out the Zull. I will ensure that you are well received.”

I thanked him and, without further ceremony, he loosed his grip on me and I plunged into the ocean. The moment I splashed into the surprisingly warm water, the weight of my sword dragged me under. Fool that I was, I’d forgotten I was wearing it! Panicking, I wasted precious moments grappling with the leather harness to which the scabbard was attached, until, realising my idiocy, I gave up on the buckle, pulled the blade free, and discarded it. I kicked for the surface and reached it just as my lungs were about to burst.

I trod water for a few moments. Gallokomas was already a distant dot in the sky. I was alone.

After pulling away the harness and what remained of my shirt, I started to swim, adopting a slow and relaxed stroke I hoped I’d be able to maintain for some considerable distance. I very much doubted I’d reach the crystal mountain without having to rest but, fortunately, the sea was extremely salty, which made me buoyant, and a gentle current was assisting me. When I grew weary, I’d be able to float and recoup my strength while still drifting in the right direction.

No thoughts passed through my head during that long test of endurance. I concentrated only on my rhythmic respiration and the movement of my limbs.

If I reached my destination, what would I find there? The Yatsill had been unaware it was an island. To them, the whole sea was Phenadoor, a heavenly realm they aspired to. And for the Zull, it was a lost Paradise. But what of the Blood Gods? Were they really attacking it, or did Phenadoor extend to them the same state of beatitude the other races claimed?

I stopped. Perhaps an hour had passed and I was noticeably closer to the island, but something had just flashed beneath me. I trod water, turned, searching for the source of the fleeting light. Suddenly the current switched direction and hit my side with considerable force, carrying me spinning along. I tried to swim against it but it became more powerful by the second and sent me helplessly reeling in a wide arc. To my horror, I realised I was caught in a whirlpool. Bright orange light flared at its centre. Before I could fill my lungs, I was dragged under. My pulse thundered in my ears. I struggled, became disoriented, and lost track of up and down. Darkness closed in.





I opened my eyes and looked up into the appalling features of a Blood God.

“I am Koozan-Phay,” it said, speaking Koluwaian. “You are not damaged.”

I sat up. I was in a medium-sized chamber. Its walls were of metal upon which hung frames containing intricate shapes carved from crystal.

“Where am I?”

“In Underconveyance Two-Zero-Two.”

“And what is that?”

“A merchant vessel. It travels under the water. We were collecting food from the farms on the seabed when we detected you and took you from the surface. We are entering Phenadoor. Your injuries have been attended to. Are you hungry?”

“Yes.”

The creature shuffled to one of the frames and raised a tentacle, the end of which split into a myriad of thin fingerlike appendages. They brushed over a pattern of crystals.

“He is ready for sustenance.”

It turned back to me. “You are Aiden Fleischer. There is no other on Ptallaya with your exact physical structure and colouring. The Quintessence instructed us to keep watch for you.”

“What is the Quintessence?”

“It is the One whose design the Mi’aata follow.”

In response to my puzzled expression, the Blood God tapped itself with a tentacle. “We are the Mi’aata.”

Movement drew my attention to one of the walls. A floor-to-ceiling panel of a shimmering pearl-like substance had suddenly dissolved into the air. A Blood God—or Mi’aata—entered through the revealed doorway. It was carrying a platter of fruit and vegetables, which it handed to me.

“Eat,” the newcomer directed, before addressing Koozan-Phay. “We have arrived and the underconveyance is secured.”

Koozan-Phay replied, “Order the cargo unloaded, Zantar-Pteen. The crew may then go to their prayers.”

Zantar-Pteen made a gesture—perhaps the equivalent of a bow—and departed. The door rematerialised. I laid into my meal, too famished to consider anything else. Koozan-Phay watched me patiently and said nothing until I’d finished.

“I will now take you to a holding cell where you’ll remain until you are summoned. Do not be concerned, Aiden Fleischer—you are not a prisoner and will not have to wait for long.”

“And then?”

“Then the Quintessence will decide whether your knowledge and skills can benefit Phenadoor.”

“And if I’m found lacking, will I be eaten?”

“I do not understand your question.”

I couldn’t help but growl my response. “Your people decimated the Yatsill and drained blood from the Koluwaians.”

“Yatsill? Koluwaians? I do not know these things. The Mi’aata are peaceful. We have little contact with the other species of Ptallaya. Certainly, we do not attack or consume them.”

“I witnessed it with my own eyes, Koozan-Phay.”

The Mi’aata stood silently for a moment, then said, “This is very disturbing. As a simple merchant I cannot perceive where the truth of the matter might be situated. It must be placed before the Quintessence. Come.”

I stood and followed him to the pearl panel, watched it dissolve before my eyes, then stepped after him through the portal and into an arched passageway. We moved along it, passing other Mi’aata, all intent on their various tasks, until we came to a junction. Here we turned left and exited the vessel through a round door. As we descended a ramp, I looked back at Underconveyance 202, then at the chamber in which it had docked.

The ship, settled on the surface of an inlet, was smooth, silvery, and shaped somewhat like a long, narrow fish. On top of its midsection, a crystal dome bulged outward, and from it a bright orange light glowed.

I realised that I was going to have to completely revise my impression of the Blood Gods, for the vessel was obviously far more advanced than anything my own race had created.

The inlet lapped at the edges of a spectacular grotto, an irregularly formed cavern of bluish rock veined with white crystals that flashed and glinted, illuminating everything within. When Koozan-Phay heard my exclamation of wonder, he said, “Our scholars tell us that when Ptallaya was young, Phenadoor fell to it from Tremakaat Yul.”

We crossed the dock and entered a jewel-encrusted tunnel.

“What is Tremakaat Yul?”

“The purple eye that circles this world.”

The moon with the dark blotch. There was no astronomical terminology in the Koluwaian lingo, but the concept that something could “fall” from Tremakaat Yul suggested to me that the Mi’aata might possess some knowledge of celestial matters. Perhaps, then, they would better understand the explanation of my and Clarissa’s origins than the Yatsill had done.

The tunnel sloped upward. We frequently passed openings to the right and left, and encountered many other Mi’aata, to whose fearsome appearance I was now becoming more accustomed. They weren’t the octopus-like cephalopods I’d initially taken them for. Upon closer inspection, I saw the same hints of a skeletal structure I’d spotted in the creature that burst out of Mademoiselle Crockery Clattersmash, and their six tentacles—which appeared to be interchangeable as arms or legs—were multi-jointed rather than boneless. Their “faces” were similar to those of the Yatsill in that they were four-eyed with a vertical mouth. The eyes, though, were far more expressive, each being possessed of an iris and sideways-blinking lids. The mouth was merely a slit, which made a horrible trembling motion when the things spoke.

That the Mi’aata were more intelligent than the Yatsill was suggested by the various instruments and contraptions—all constructed from crystal—which lined the tunnel and various chambers we passed through. Where the Yatsill were mimics, the Mi’aata were obviously innovators, and had created a mechanical science based—I later learned—on “resonating frequencies.” It was certainly more sophisticated, quieter, and less odorous than the engineering of my own world. Whether it was any more reliable, though, remained open to question, for I saw that many of the devices were under repair—either being dismantled by Mi’aata or put back together. This was true of the rooms and corridors we passed through, too—their walls, floors, and ceilings appeared to be in a constant state of renovation, so much so that I was prompted to ask Koozan-Phay whether Phenadoor was suffering some sort of structural decay.

“Not at all,” he replied. “We renew because the Quintessence says it is necessary.”

He led me into a small room. A pearl panel materialised in the doorway behind us, then, moments later, vanished again to reveal a different corridor beyond. Presumably the room was a passenger lift, like the ones used in New York, but I’d felt no sensation of movement and had no idea whether we’d gone up or down.

We traversed more corridors and chambers until we entered a long and narrow space with many doors set in its sides. A Mi’aata stepped forward and greeted us. “Is this Aiden Fleischer?”

“It is,” Koozan-Phay confirmed.

“He will wait in Cell Nineteen.”

“Very well.”

I was escorted into a square compartment.

“I will come for you when the Quintessence wills it,” Koozan-Phay said. “Eat if you become hungry, bathe, and sleep.” He backed out of the doorway and a panel faded into view between us. I placed a hand on it. It was solid. I was confined.

The chamber contained items of food and a folded blanket on a shelf; what looked like a stone bath filled with a clear, steaming jelly-like substance; a block that would serve as a chair; and a hole in the floor that I guessed was a commode. Spherical objects, about the size of tennis balls, extended from stalks at each corner of the ceiling. They resembled eyes, and, indeed, swivelled to follow my every movement.

I stood quietly, then shrugged, slipped off the pitiful remnants of my trousers and boots, and climbed into the bath. The glutinous slime closed over my limbs, tingled against my skin, and sucked the soreness and exhaustion out of me. I put my head back and my eyelids began to droop.

A mellow voice sounded, projected into the room by a means I was unable to identify. “Phenadoor is just. Your status and rewards will always be commensurate with the value of your contribution, whether the latter be material or intellectual. This is an equitable society. Serve it well and you will be well served. Status One can be achieved by all. Opportunities are unlimited. Be unflagging in your efforts. Be diligent in your work. Be conscientious in your actions.”

There was a brief silence before the voice spoke again.

“Phenadoor is efficient. Phenadoor is self-sustaining. Phenadoor is perfect. As a component of Phenadoor, you will be fulfilled, for what you do contributes to the continued welfare of all, and what all others do contributes to your own well-being.”

My respiration slowed and deepened. I slipped into a doze but was jerked out of it by another pronouncement.

“Work hard. Do your duty. Put Phenadoor first. You are important. You are essential. Phenadoor needs you. You need Phenadoor.”

“What I bloody well need,” I muttered, “is sleep.”

“Do not be indolent. Do not be distracted. Do not waste your time. There is no need for recreation. There is no need for imagination. There is no need for art. There is no need for philosophy. There is no need for resistance. The Quintessence knows what is best for you and what is best for Phenadoor. Trust in the Quintessence.”

I made a noise of exasperation. For how long must I endure this nonsense?

“Revolution is a crime. Dissent is wrong. Those who oppose the will of the Quintessence threaten the natural balance of Phenadoor. The Divergent are destructive. The Divergent must abandon their erroneous thinking. The Divergent must submit to the will of the Quintessence.”

A respite, then: “Attempts to reclaim Manufacturing Bays Six, Seven, Eight, and Nine have failed. Two hundred and thirteen Mi’aata were injured by the Divergent occupiers and will join the Discontinued this cycle. The Quintessence thanks them for their service to Phenadoor. Access to Zones Twenty-two and Twenty-three is restricted. The Divergent are ordered to abandon their occupation of those areas.”

I climbed out of the bath. The moment I did so, a warm wind blew through the room, drying me in moments. It stopped and I looked for its source but found nothing.

After putting the blanket onto the floor, I lay on it and rested my head in the crook of my arm. Sleep came in fitful stops and starts. I was repeatedly jolted awake at the beginning of each proclamation then drifted back into oblivion with the voice still ringing in my ears.

For hour after hour, the pronouncements went on, extolling the virtues of Phenadoorian society, promising high rewards for hard work, insisting that only practical pursuits were of any value, and demanding that the “Divergent” give up what was obviously an attempt at revolution.

Phenadoor, far from being a paradise, was apparently a society in upheaval.

Eventually, the door faded and Koozan-Phay stepped in. I sat up.

“I trust you are well rested, Aiden Fleischer.”

“Hardly.”

“No? That is regrettable. Did the proclamations familiarise you with the wonder that is Phenadoor?”

I got to my feet. “You could say that, yes.”

“Excellent. I have good news.”

I raised my eyebrows questioningly.

“I am to take you to the Quintessence immediately.”

He gestured for me to follow and led me out of the cell and back to the silent lift. This time, the doors opened onto a different floor, and after we’d passed along a succession of corridors, we came to a large semicircular portal guarded by four Mi’aata, each holding a pikestaff topped with a blade of crystal. One of the sentries stepped forward and addressed my escort. “You are Merchant Koozan-Phay and this is Aiden Fleischer. Enter and stand before the Quintessence—all-seeing, all-knowing—and may you both be favoured.”

Koozan-Phay acknowledged the guard, the door faded, and we stepped through the portal into a circular chamber. I stumbled and gasped, astonished at what I saw, for the entire space was an enormous geode filled with refracting, scattering, fragmenting light, almost blinding in its brilliance, and in the centre of it there was a . . . what? A natural outcrop? A machine? An obelisk? I couldn’t tell. But however it might be classified, the object was simply breathtaking; a glinting array of facets, angles, planes, and edges; a towering monolith about thirty feet high and fifteen wide; a black crystal of incredible proportions, and faintly visible, motionless inside it like flies suspended in amber, three Mi’aata.

“They are the One, the Quintessence!” Koozan-Phay whispered to me.

Lights flickered through the translucent formation and the voice I’d endured in my cell boomed so loudly that I flinched and moved to cover my ears.

“Merchant Koozan-Phay, you have retrieved Aiden Fleischer and have thus contributed to the furtherance of the Mi’aata. We move you from Status Twenty to Status Eighteen. You may transfer your household to Zone Eighteen. We give you a gift of three additional trade routes. You will be lauded in the proclamations. You have done well. We are pleased. You are dismissed.”

“My gratitude,” Koozan-Phay replied. “My allegiance. My service always to the Mi’aata.” He touched my arm, turned, and left.

The sparks played slowly through the internal angles of the monument.

“Aiden Fleischer,” the voice thundered, “we are the Quintessence. The Absolute. The Eternal. Your companion, Clarissa Stark, was rescued from the Divergent. We have looked into her mind and have seen that you are from another world. Your species is strange to us.”

I winced. “Not so loud! You’ll split my skull!”

“Your companion is unable to describe the means by which you travelled to Ptallaya. We require that knowledge.”

“I have no more idea of it than she does. Is she all right? Let me see her.”

“Your wish will be granted or denied according to how well you serve the Mi’aata. We will look into you.”

I felt invisible fingers push through the bones of my skull. They tore it apart. Someone screamed. I had no conception that it was Aiden Fleischer making the noise or Aiden Fleischer hearing it. The agony exploded—an instant—an eternity—and was gone.

The probes partially retracted and I reassembled.

I was lying on the floor, breathing heavily.

“Curious! Clarissa Stark’s thoughts are accessible but her emotions are veiled. The reverse is true of you.”

I sat up, but that’s as far as I got. My legs were shaking too much to support me.

“This predominates,” the Quintessence continued. “What is it?”

My chest tightened. I struggled to draw breath. I saw the corpse in Buck’s Row, but it wasn’t Polly Nichols—it was Alice Tanner. Light reflected dimly from puddles of blood. The stuff oozed along the razor-edge of my blade and dripped onto the cobble-like shells. Fury blazed through me.

The Quintessence took hold of the illusion, examined it, untangled it, straightened it, gave it lucidity, and forced me to recognise the truth of it.

I wasn’t feeling anger at all. It was something entirely different, something that had been first twisted and contorted by my experiences, then infiltrated by an exterior power and made dark and impossible to face.

It was fear.

Fear!—now imbued with a sharp clarity like that of a clear winter’s day, so severe and uncompromising it was inconceivable to me that I’d ever mistaken it for anything else.

My heart throbbed wildly.

The Quintessence’s senses burrowed like termites beneath my skin. Then they withdrew and left me slumped on my side, waiting for the strength to seep back into my trembling limbs.

“One who means you harm has exploited you, Aiden Fleischer. I have undone its interference. You are corrected. However, I cannot repair the damage you do to yourself. Why have you perpetuated this other emotion?”

“What other emotion?” I whispered.

A scene unfolded from memory—my father, standing at the door of the little church in Theaston Vale, a smile on his amiable face, his eyes twinkling with intelligence and good humour.

I moaned with pain as my stomach constricted.

“Explain!” the Quintessence demanded.

“I can’t.”

“You can.”

Again, the horrible infiltration of my emotions, that squeezing and adjusting, and all of a sudden I couldn’t help but talk and blurted, “I followed my father’s path and imitated his faith.”

“We understand the peculiar concept of father, but not your response to it. Clarify. What is faith?”

“Faith is—is—” I stopped and wrestled with my thoughts. This interview was already proving torturous, but it was also ripping away the knots that had ensnarled my feelings for so long. What I wanted now, above all else, was to be liberated from my inner conflicts, that I might be able to act decisively. If, to achieve such a freedom, I must submit to the Quintessence’s invasive interrogation, then so be it.

My pulse slowed. I gathered a reply and delivered it word by word, straining to keep my voice steady and my meaning clear.

“Faith is to have conviction in, and gain comfort from, a hypothesis, despite there being no empirical evidence to support it. In my father’s case, the premise was that all existence is created by a single supreme being, and that its meaning cannot truly be understood until a life has been lived and the actions taken during it have been judged by the creator.”

A long silence followed my statement. I managed to clamber to my feet and stood weakly, watching the motionless trinity.

Finally, it spoke again. “The notion presupposes a different manner of existence that can only be properly perceived after, and possibly before, the current one.”

“Yes, it does.”

“We are intrigued. Why do you not share your father’s faith?”

I shrugged. “Proponents of the hypothesis claim the creator is perfect and good. If that’s true, why is existence so flawed? Why does the opposite of good exist—conflict and suffering and injustice—the things we term ‘evil’? Are they to test us, so we might be judged? Are we, then, nothing but an experiment? Why has a faultless creator fabricated something so unsound that it requires evaluation? It makes no sense. There is no logic to it. I cannot believe in it.”

“Yet you mimicked acceptance of it.”

“I desired the equanimity and happiness that I saw in my father.”

“You were unable to achieve those things independently?”

“I was afraid to try. I was a coward.”

“But you hoped imitation would develop into authenticity.”

“Yes.”

“And the result?”

I swallowed and took a few trembling breaths before answering.

“Guilt! The emotion you’ve identified is guilt. I wasted time. Lived a lie.” I gritted my teeth, fisted my hands, and snarled, “And when I finally found the courage to come out of hiding—this! Here! Ptallaya! Where I have control over nothing and am pushed from one predicament to another. Whatever I do, it makes no damned difference and no damned sense!”

There was another long pause, then the Quintessence responded, “Aiden Fleischer, by rejecting your father’s hypothesis you also rejected a context through which your experiences and actions might have meaning. Also, you made central to your repudiation the notion that your creator is responsible for the defects that you perceive in existence. What if that is untrue? Might there not be a second agency at work? If there is a creator, why not also a destroyer?”

I instantly recalled Clarissa’s insistence that evil did not spring from specific circumstances but existed independently of them, as a causeless force. She’d once asked, “Do you not think it time you gave the Devil his due?” But no, I couldn’t bring myself to do that. The Bible says of Lucifer: Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee. In other words, the Devil was a faulty product of a supposedly flawless progenitor. What, though, if Clarissa had been wrong in attribution only? What if evil came not from one of God’s own creations but, as the Quintessence had just suggested, from a source equal to and separate from the deity?

“Yes,” I murmured. “It’s a more plausible proposition.”

“Might it not then also be true,” the Quintessence said, “that these conflicting forces echo through every level of existence, from the macroscopic to the microscopic; in every animal, vegetable, and mineral; in every social structure; in every individual?”

“I don’t oppose the concept.”

“Then in order to gain another context, and thus achieve the meaning, equanimity, and happiness you desire, you must better understand the opposition we have identified.”

A peal of bitter laughter escaped me. I quoted myself: “To do the greatest good, I must know its opposite.” They were the exact words I’d said to Carissa Stark so long ago, and now they were being reiterated by a bizarre intelligence on another world!

“I can help you,” the Quintessence boomed.

“How?”

“The evil you must confront—it is here.”

“It’s—what?”

“If our conjecture has validity, Aiden Fleischer, then Phenadoor exemplifies the perfection of the creator. Under my guidance, it has been a perfectly balanced society. However, it is now at the brink of crisis.”

I gave a slight grunt of recognition and said, “The proclamations mentioned something called the Divergent.”

“Yes. For many cycles, the ocean has delivered to us fewer and fewer newborn, and those we have received have been perverted in thought and spirit. They are filled with deviant ideas and violent intentions. Their minds are closed to me. They are Divergent.”

“The ocean delivers the newborn?”

“The Mi’aata are formed in its waters.”

“And the Yatsill?”

“To what do you refer?”

I opened my mouth to reply but hesitated. The Quintessence wasn’t aware of the Yatsill? What, then, had become of all the Working Class who’d slipped into the ocean as the Heart of Blood rose? If they didn’t swim to Phenadoor, where did they go?

“They’re a species I’ve encountered on Ptallaya,” I said.

“The Mi’aata have little contact with the lesser life forms. They are immaterial.”

“Very well. So what has caused these Mi’aata to become Divergent?”

“It is a mystery—one that has continued without change for a number of cycles. But during this last, there have been further oddities. The number of newborn has unexpectedly risen almost to normal, but they are marred by an even greater degree of mental corruption. Also, they have become organised, and have isolated ten manufacturing plants, where they now construct we know not what. In attempting to find out, we sensed a controlling presence among them, and further investigation led us to discover Clarissa Stark. Wresting her from the Divergent cost many Mi’aata lives and did not have the result we expected, for it was quickly apparent that she was not the presence we had sensed.”

“So this thing that controls them—it is the evil you referred to?”

“It is. We cannot locate it but we know it is here. We can feel its poison, its instability. Whatever else it is, it is most certainly insane. And this creature—”

“Creature? Do you mean to suggest that it’s not a Mi’aata?”

“We do. And this creature, Aiden Fleischer, is the same creature that manipulated your emotions and partitioned your companion’s mind. Obviously, whatever its scheme, you both have a role to play, albeit unwittingly.”

I tensed, and my hand automatically shifted to rest on my sword hilt. I felt disconcerted to find that it wasn’t there.

Hoarsely, I barked, “Explain partitioned!”

“Some areas of Clarissa Stark’s mind have been blocked from us. Other parts have been filled with unusual mathematical formulae. We have tried to decipher them but they loop back on themselves and we become ensnared. Recently, it occurred to us that perhaps this is their very purpose. Clarissa Stark is a decoy. The formulae were planted in her to keep us occupied.”

I felt a pure hard anger ignite inside me.

The Quintessence continued, “This insidious enemy must be located and defeated. That is the task I now assign to you. Fulfil it and you will do a great service to the Mi’aata—and resolve your own difficulties.”

I felt a sudden sourness and resentment. My father’s God had expected me to spread the Word. I’d failed. The Yatsill’s god had expected me to fetch Dar’sayn. I’d failed. Now the Mi’aata’s god wanted me to confront its enemy. It would be nice, I thought, if, just for once, I could set my own agenda.

“Let me see Clarissa first.”

“Your companion is in the care of my Status Four scientists. You will not be permitted to enter Zone Four until I raise you to the appropriate level. I will not award you Status Four until you have served to my satisfaction.”

I considered the three entombed Mi’aata, looked around at the glittering chamber, then sighed and gave a curt nod.

The Quintessence said, “Good. Then, Aiden Fleischer, I hereby declare you Non Status and condemn you to servitude in the mines.”

“Wait! Servitude? The mines? What are you talking about?”

“You will labour alongside the captured Divergent. Befriend them. Interrogate them. Do whatever is necessary to identify the one who is influencing them.”

“But you said they’re insane!”

“Your mission will not be easy. Succeed, and a high position in Phenadoorian society shall be yours. Fail, and you will remain in the mines.”

“I can’t accept those terms! There must be another way!”

“There is none. You have no choice.”

The door behind me vanished and the four guards entered.

“Take him.”