Might sprang back to life with a knee-trembling surge. I slammed it into its scabbard just as my nerves began to twitch and my cock stir. The pain in my back and side vanished, as pain always does when Might is working for me instead of against me.
Reality rippled. Yzyrchye’s limbs burst forward like an exploding flower, flying over me toward the door. Axton threw out his arms, as if trying to shield my cousin with his slight body. Far stepped through the door and Yzyrchye’s probes froze a foot away from it, as if blocked by a balewall nobody could see. The walls of the basement bent and vanished around alien corners, leaving us in a void of white light and rank balewind.
“Kyrchye save us,” Lorencz whispered. She ran her hands over her face and staggered toward me, grabbing my shoulder as if for support. “What the hell’s going on?”
“What is that?” Croix asked, forgetting his prayers.
I had to swallow several times before I could speak. Might was fighting hard for my attention.
“That?” I grated. “That’s Far.”
Lorencz’s hand tightened on my shoulder.
“We need to go.”
“Where?”
“Shit, I don’t know. Anyplace but here.”
Croix stepped up next to us, clutching the holy symbol around his neck as if it were his anchor to sanity.
“Droit?” he asked.
“Yes?”
“You did well.”
I scoffed. I didn’t need his praise.
“Don’t stand so close,” I warned. “Either of you.” Might didn’t like Lorencz touching me. It wanted me to do something about it. Preferably something violent. Optionally something sexual and violent.
Yzyrchye’s mouths were gibbering, forming expressions of curiosity and outrage, challenge and anger, interest and hope. More orifices opened, a thousand mouths to express its thoughts in languages I remembered hearing on my travels and in languages I didn’t think were human at all.
Then Far spoke. Its voice was deep and roaring, and it sounded more human than Yzyrchye.
“Where is my children?” Far bellowed.
“Mine.” “Sentinels.” “Here.” “Gone.” “Change.” “Mine.” “Bound.” “Mine.”
Far stepped forward, closer to the probes. The bulky transient was an awkward mimicry of humanity, with a twisting, changing mask of a face and a heavy coat that moved contrary to the laws of physics. Only two aspects of the transient’s form seemed fixed: the workhouse badge on its coat sleeve, depicting a hopscotch board and the numbers 123456789, and the broad-bladed knife shoved into its belt at an angle that would have sliced a human’s leg to shreds. I wondered if the badge and knife, like Might, had their own sentience, or whether they were simply an extension of the transient.
“Children is mine,” Far declared.
“Sentinels.” “Lost.” “Here.” “Mine.” Yzyrchye’s probes began to twitch, moving back and forth across the space around us, dancing convulsively through the balewind. One of the desiccated corpses hanging from its body twitched, dried eyes rolling back and forth. It might have been female at one point. “No.” “No.” “No.” “No.” “No.” “No.” “No.” “No.” “No.” “No.” “No.” “No.” “No.” “No.” “No.” “No.” “No.” “No.” “No.” “No.”
The basement walls returned, bent, stretched, split into thousands of bale-oozing breaks across the Line. Lorencz shuddered, still clutching my shoulder. Croix whispered prayers.
“Mine,” Far repeated. It reached out a squirming, pale hand that had too many fingers, and then too few, and an open baledoor appeared before it. The door was the most realistic bale construct I’d ever seen, right down to the saltwater corrosion on its iron handle. Far grabbed the handle and pulled the door shut.
The brilliant glare from Yzyrchye’s shredded reality vanished. Only the palest baleglow was left, a faint Pall to indicate that all was not right with the Line. I blinked, my eyes adjusting to the darkness.
Far and Milka stood before me. Nobody was touching my shoulder.
We were back in the basement storage room again.
Everyone else was gone.
“Useful,” I said, looking at the girl. “You must be Milka. I’m Droit. I used to be Yzyrchye’s Hound. Does that make you Far’s Bitch?”
She lifted her chin. I’d been told she was twelve, maybe thirteen, but she had an older girl’s body and an adult’s sneer. She wore a simple schoolgirl’s wool skirt and sweater with the Vigilance’s sigil embroidered over her left breast.
“I’m not Far’s servant,” she objected. “I’m his partner.”
“I used to think I had a partnership with Yzyrchye, too.”
“Far’s my guardian. He’s every child’s guardian.”
“That true?” I looked directly at the transient.
“Yes.”
A straight answer. I was impressed. Yzyrchye had never answered anything so directly.
“How’d you get here?” I asked, looking at the girl again.
“Doctor Axton found me hiding and told me what was happening.” She lifted her chin. “The sleepers are my responsibility. Magister Carel told me so.”
“So you called Far?”
“He’ll help me find them. He’s not afraid of Yzyrchye.”
“It ought to be.” I looked at Far again. “Where’s everyone else? Michael, Lorencz, Axton?”
“Here.”
That sounded more like Yzyrchye. I gestured at the empty room around us.
“Here? In this building? In Cislunar?”
“Here.”
“What the hell does that mean?” I looked around again and realized the charnelhouse smell hadn’t diminished and that a warm wind still stirred around us. It took me a moment, but then I understood.
We hadn’t returned to Cislunar. Far had reconstructed Cislunar around us.
“Milka, do you know where we are?” I asked.
“Across the Line. It drives most people mad,” she said, as though standing in hell were a normal occurrence. “But Far will protect me.”
“Is it going to protect me, too? Or my cousin, or my partner?”
“You’re grown-ups.” She shrugged.
Might urged me to grab her and carve the sneer off her lips with the edge of my dagger. I rubbed my hands on the tatters of my leather coat, then unbuckled the empty baldric across my back and let it fall. I pulled off my Watch badge and took off the useless coat. I clipped the badge to Might’s sword belt and cleaned the tops of my boots with the inside of my ruined coat.
“Where’s Yzyrchye?” I asked as I straightened up, dropping the coat on the floor. Milka was looking at me like I was mad, but I felt more in control.
“Not here,” Far replied.
“Good. I’m going to find my cousin and my partner. Are you going to stop me?”
“No.”
“Are you going to fight Yzyrchye?”
“No. Yes. No. I not know word.”
“Try ‘hell no.’ You’re no match for Yzyrchye. And it’s going to want to take Milka away from you.”
Far shook its head, once, jerkily, an imperfect imitation of a human gesture. Still, it was more human than any gesture I’d ever seen Yzyrchye attempt. I was impressed.
“Far likes me,” Milka said with a trace of pride. “And I know more about the sleepers than he does.”
“If Yzyrchye’s got them, they’re probably dead. It likes to study people. And it isn’t very careful when it does.” I turned toward Far’s door.
“Wait.” Milka held out a piece of chalk. “Do you know how to draw a hopscotch board?”
“I learned last month. I didn’t think Far liked adults.”
“Just in case you find the sleepers first.” She thrust the chalk at me. I shrugged and slid it into my pants pocket, then pulled open the door.