We walked out of the cathedral and into a light snowfall. The cold air hurt, but it cleared my head. I took a few deep breaths, feeling as though the world were steadying under my feet.
“So.” Lorencz gave me a sidelong look. “How’s it feel, not having Might anymore?”
“Much the same as it’s felt for the last five years.”
“Well, sure, but even if you weren’t carrying it around with you, you knew it was hangin’ in your kip if you ever needed it.”
“It’s gone now.”
“You ain’t worried?”
“I gave up worrying years ago. It’s a waste of mental energy.”
“Seem to remember you saying you don’t do guilt, either.”
“Worry, guilt, regret … they’re all useless emotions.” Snow crunched underfoot as we walked, grinding into the dirty cobblestones. Mirrored windows distorted our reflections as we passed. I wondered if Far had to control every aspect of its simulacrum, or whether it just set the thing into motion and let it run like clockwork.
“So you don’t regret being Yzyrchye’s Hound?” Lorencz pressed. “Nothing you did bothers you?”
I shook my head, then wished I hadn’t as spots swam over my vision.
“It’s pointless to waste time on regret,” I said. “It’s more useful to deal directly with the consequences of your actions.”
“Consequences like a bunch of your old enemies throwing you across the Line.”
“Exactly. Or like killing someone in a fit of jealousy.”
Lorencz opened her mouth but lost her words as the city shook.
We staggered as the street buckled, bent, and snapped. Shining ivory skewers thrust up through the cobblestone, no wider than my wrist but taller than the roofs of the buildings around us. I grabbed my cousin’s collar as a skewer slashed his coat, a half-inch away from tearing into his flesh. Blood welled around the base of the skewers, dying the snow crimson.
“Croix!” Lorencz shouted, turning. “Croix!”
“They’ve lost control of the construct,” Michael gasped.
The snow turned into rain: a heavy, thick torrent of raw tissue. I ducked under the nearest eave, dragging Michael with me, and tried the door. The handle turned and I threw it open, taking a half-step inside before catching myself on the doorjamb.
The building’s floor dropped away into a black void.
“Where’s Lorencz?” I asked, smelling a fetid balewind rushing up from the darkness. I backed up and slammed the door. Lorencz was already on her way, dodging between the skewers and crouched against the gory downpour. A gobbet of flesh hit my cheekbone and slid down my face. I wiped it away.
“Calling up some hats might be useful,” I suggested.
“I can’t call anything,” Michael reported, his voice taut. “Something’s controlling the bale.” He pressed against the wall as Lorencz ducked under the eaves next to us. Luckily, Cislunar, even hell-Cislunar, was built for storms. Flesh splatted off the steep but wide roofs and fell into the street several inches from our faces.
“Your calls working?” Lorencz asked, looking at Michael.
“No,” Michael replied, tersely.
“Judging from the weather, I’d say Yzyrchye decided to fight back.” I eyed the bony skewers and raining flesh.
“So much for Kyrchye protecting us,” Michael muttered.
“Well, we ain’t suspended in raw bale yet.” Lorencz grimaced. “I really hate to say this, but I think I’d feel safer standing next to Far.”
“We don’t know where he is.”
“Far!” Lorencz shouted, cupping her hands around her mouth. “Hey, Far!”
“What about Axton?” Michael grabbed Lorencz’s sleeve. “We need to find him, too. He’s our friend, whether we like him or not.”
Lorencz blinked, staring at him.
“We’ll get Axton,” I said, decisively. I’d learned a long time ago that unfinished business always comes back to haunt you. “Come on.”
“What if the city don’t hold?” Lorencz asked, gesturing at the street. “What if the whole damn place falls apart?”
“Then we all go balemad. Come on, what are you so worried about? Croix’s given us last rites, and you’re as squared away with Kyrchye now as you’ll ever be. Today’s a good day to die, Lorencz.”
“Fuck off, Droit. It’s never a good day to die.”
“Let’s go,” Michael said, stepping out into the street. I followed and Lorencz brought up the rear, exercising her repertoire of Dockside profanity under her breath.
The ivory spikes were set close enough together make movement difficult. Their pristine whiteness was now smeared with blood from the rain, and the snow around their bases melted into a bloody soup. I paused and set my hand against one of the spikes. It quivered slightly and felt warm and fleshlike. A little like Might.
“Look.” Michael pointed.
I turned. Cislunar’s palace, set at the top of the hill that overlooked the city, was rising on an ivory foundation, its walls twisting and tilting. New towers erupted from the old like bright, clean bone jutting through corrupt flesh. The fleshstorm had cleared, and the balesky served as a dull silver background for the abstract nightmare growing where the palace had once stood.
I glanced over my shoulder. The cathedral was still there, its spires rising above the rest of the city unchanged.
“Looks like war,” I said. The building next to us dropped straight down into the ground, leaving behind a hole that opened into the void. Balewind whipped out of it, stinking and hot.
“Shit, that can’t be good,” Lorencz muttered, shoving us both forward. “Shake the dust off, gentlemen.”
We ran. The balewind blew harder as more buildings slid into the void, plummeting down like the crumbling sides of an iceberg I’d seen once, years ago, when I’d been on a ship far north.
A hot balewind cut through Far’s faux winter. Billows of ugly grey fog swirled around our legs, smelling like death. I took another look at the castle. Its angles made my aching head ache some more, and its walls were excreting some kind of brittle coating.
One entire side of the city plummeted into nothingness. The street beneath us shuddered and I braced myself on one of the spikes. Waves of dull bale lapped at the side of the street, which floated beside them like a boardwalk near the ocean.
We looked at each other and glanced backward again. The cathedral still stood, anchoring the street. We looked forward. On the other end of the street was Blackstone Hospital, squatter and wider than it ought to be, its windows reflecting scudding bale like mirrors and its walls dripping bloody bits of flesh.
“Go ahead,” I urged them, crouching next to the edge of the street. “I’ll catch up.”
“You ever hear about curiosity and the cat?” Lorencz demanded.
“I’m more of a dog person, myself.” The cobbles were slick with blood and my foot slipped. Lorencz grabbed my sword belt, steadying me.
“Easy, asshole. Don’t waste all my bandaging.”
I laid on my stomach, hanging over the edge and peering beneath the street.
It was nothing was a thin crust of stone floating on bale, pierced by spikes that bent at unnatural angles. I followed the angles with my eyes, tracing them to a point where the castle’s foundations might be if they reached down to the center of the earth. Huddled there, the apparent source of the ivory skewers, was a dark, spine-covered bulk like an enormous sea urchin. Dark protrusions swayed as I watched, shifting slowly, methodically, like a spider building a web. My vision blurred and for a moment I thought I was falling. I felt Lorencz haul me back.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“You’re right,” I said. I staggered as I stood, and she had to steady me.
“About what?”
“This isn’t good.” I looked back up at the castle. “I think that’s Yzyrchye. We have to go.”
“Wait — the whole palace is the Sovereign of Hell?”
“Yes.”
“If Kyrchye really wants me to worship him, he could try sending a miracle right about now,” Lorencz muttered. We both took off for the asylum, Michael joining us. More buildings dropped into nothingness and we tried to ignore them as we ran, dodging through spikes and slipping on blood and bits of flesh. Everything trembled again and another huge part of the city vanished.
Three buildings remained, connected by two spike-pierced streets. The cathedral, the palace, and the asylum. Kyrchye, Yzyrchye, and Far, I could only assume.
We piled up at the hospital door. The hot balewind whipped our hair and coats around us, tugging us toward the edge of the street. I shoved the door open and we hurried inside, Michael slamming the door shut behind us.