Saul felt the bandage tighten around his head, applying pressure to his wounded scalp. Irene stepped away. He looked into the mirror. His reflection looked pale. The bandage wrapped around his head appeared dark compared to his skin.
“Why did you tell them not to trust us?” he asked.
The two of them were alone in a small chamber within the House of the Dancer.
Irene sighed. “I thought it was what you wanted. To protect this world, we let them grow in distrust of others.”
“But they ended up not trusting us either.”
“The plan did not work out perfectly,” Irene said. “The children here are young. We can still teach them who we really are.”
“And who is that?” Saul asked. “That’s a real question.” He turned from the mirror to face her.
Her expression was firm, but her eyes soft. “I think you’re better than you were.”
“What happened to me getting weaker and weaker like you said when we made this place?”
“We were fighting. I tried to provoke you.”
“So you didn’t mean it? I find that hard to believe.”
“I meant it then.” Irene brushed dark hair back from her forehead. “But I would not say it now.”
“A change of heart,” Saul said. “That’s not like you.”
“Who says that?” She reached for his hand and held it up between both of hers. Cold fingers intertwined with his. “You? Or someone else?”
“Me,” he said. And he slipped his hand free of hers.
* * *
Wind battered the forest as the column left Duskhaven. Petals fluttered on flowers. Branches trembled against tree trunks. Leaves scattered from the forest floor.
The storm heart called Idisa rumbled with thunder five miles to the left. Saul and the others leaned in the strong wind and marched, or slithered in the case of the grounded lear birds, toward the place the Dancer called Grandtalon. Directly behind Saul, Bantos trudged along, face turned toward the storm winds, arms spread as if trying to catch as much of Selere’s gusts as possible.
“So this is what it feels like,” said the cyclops, “To breathe the air of beginning.”
“Poetic,” said Saul, surprised.
“Thanks to you, Saul,” said Bantos with a smile.
I wonder how that got into him. I did not intend it. Or did I?
Saul shrugged. “I’m not so sure. You learn quickly.”
Bantos beamed with his single eye closed against a fierce blast of cold wind from the storm.
* * *
They came to a world stalk with the wind still high. This vast tree-like plant was black wood with few remaining leaves thanks to the wind. Those leaves that did remain were deeper green than those of the plants around it. The column slowed and then began to march along the world stalk.
The Dancer led the way across, alongside Canx Twinfold. Saul and Olivia followed side-by-side, behind the two art-children’s billowing robes. Light from both directions began to fail as the day threatened to close. In the twilight, they made their slow way along the world stalk.
All of the smaller branches at the mid-point of the black stalk had been stripped away by Idisa’s gale. Only the heartiest and greenest of the stalk’s limbs remained as braces to hold onto when the breeze stiffened. The sounds of lear birds complaining came from behind them, sibilant voices mixed with the clack of their beaks.
Olivia clutched her long coat around herself. The bags of supplies they each carried rustled and whipped in the wind. She squinted into the storm’s center, where the dark interior clouds circled the eye. “We’re lucky it isn’t raining too,” she said.
He nodded. “I had no idea creatures would choose to live so close to the storms.”
“Fascinating,” she said, not sounding fascinated at all.
Nat huddled in Saul’s breast pocket, safe from the wind. He looked up at Saul with gleaming eyes. “I hope Hush is faring well.”
Saul had not spoken to Irene or her bird child in the hours since they had left the House of the Dancer. He gritted his teeth and dug the toes of his boots into the world stalk’s hide. “I’m sure he’s not much worse off than we are.”
He gripped the strap of his supply bag where it slung over his shoulder. At least he wasn’t wearing one of those huge robes. The art-children must be incredibly heavy not to be blown away like parachutes, given their baggy clothes.
Stray drops of rain began to speckle Saul’s hands and face. He turned to Olivia. “You were saying?”
“You made the place, not me.”
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He had to wonder how true that was. Even though Saul and Irene had offered the most direction to the world, there had been two other agents involved in Selere’s birth. Luther. And Olivia. All four of them had touched the hilt containing the blood of Apahar. All four of them had contributed to this world whether they knew it or not.
Quite apart from that, Saul remembered how Olivia, despite lacking the spark of a maker, had activated one of his oven rods while fighting back then. If she had no maker abilities at all that should have been impossible. How much did makers really know about exiles?
Saul looked in Olivia’s direction, but she had already turned away. He grimaced and pulled himself forward, against the wind.
* * *
They crossed another planetoid, then another world stalk. Across a stark planetoid stripped of all but the hardiest vegetation by the storms, they marched until they reached the world stalk that connected to the settlement at Grandtalon on the planetoid twenty degrees up and almost three miles away.
Idisa’s winds still buffeted them with every step, but the planetoid on which Grandtalon was situated looked serene compared to the last few the group had crossed. Saul’s weary limbs surged with hope at the thought they were nearly there after days of rough travel.
Twigs stuck in everyone’s hair. Eyelids drooped, for sleep was not easy to find in the howling winds.
The lear birds in the rear of the column, talkative as they could be, fell as quiet as the score of cat children who marched ahead of them in stoic silence. In the lead, Canx gave little sign of relief, but the dancer pulled her green robe tighter.
She turned so her teary eye looked back at those who followed her. “Seyam,” she said, choosing the word the denizens used for the humanoid cat children, “Assume the greater aspect. Lear birds, hold onto your rider.”
As she spoke, Saul heard hisses of air, of the kind he associated with gern cutting passages. Yet there was no foul odor. He looked back down the line. Each of the cat-children seemed to expand, going from the size of a human to something more in line with that of a horse. When each of them grew, there came the hissing sound. Each seyam grew large enough to fill out the billowing robe. When Saul looked forward at Canx and the Dancer, he saw both of them had done the same.
They retained their shape for the most part, though their limbs were proportionally thicker than they had been. Did they really gain mass? They must, for the wind did not bother them as much as before.
Saul had once experimented with art-children that could change their shape. He had not realized those experiments had manifested from the back of his mind into some of the most prominent forms of life on Selere.
Each lear bird, now quite equivalent in size to the seyam, wrapped the front of his or her serpentine form around a cat’s waist. Saul glanced at the others from Earth. Olivia whistled. “So much for laws of physics,” she said.
“Naturally,” said Irene. “This is a maker world.”
Olivia rolled her eyes. She turned to Saul. “Anything else you think they can do that we should expect?”
“I don’t think so,” said Saul. “I’m not sure precisely how they accomplished this task either. But my guess is each of them has matter stored within the taph they can shift into their physical forms on command.”
“In earthling, please?” asked Morrie.
“Their souls carry the added mass for them,” said Saul.
Morrie furrowed his brow. “Is that the best you can do?”
“Earth lacks terms for art-children,” said Saul. “Understandable considering they are all-but unknown to exiles.”
“Until now,” said Morrie.
“No one is gonna believe this if we ever get home,” said Kari.
Saul shrugged. “When we get back, that will be the least of our worries. Guardians.”
“Oh yeah, the hit men from other worlds.” Morrie grimaced. “How can we forget?”
“Guardians are not contract killers,” said Irene.
“You could have fooled me,” said Morrie.
Olivia nodded.
Irene shook her head. Her dark hair streamed in the wind. “They protect the council’s secrets. And manage problems.”
“You sound like you’re on their side.” Olivia scowled.
“I’m only honest about what they represent.”
Saul sighed. “We have another problem right now. Everyone find a partner or two. Something tells me the wind on this stalk is gonna be the worst yet.”
* * *
The five of them formed a chain with Saul in the lead as the heaviest and began to cross the world stalk toward Grandtalon. Wind tugged at their hair and clothes. Saul was grateful for the bandage, tight around his head, for keeping his hair from whipping with every gust.
They pressed on, but the settlement was still at least two miles away and the incline, steep.
Saul linked hands with Olivia ahead of him, and Irene behind him, followed by Kari, then Morrie. Bantos completed their chain at six-bodies-long by taking up the rear. Rult was built low enough he could creep under the ridges of the stalk and avoid the worst of the winds.
Hush clung to the massive shoulder of one seyam. Saul knew the proud bird child well enough to guess how annoyed and humiliated he felt. But hunkering down was safer than braving the perilous air between planetoids, especially so close to a powerful storm heart.
Below them, miles further from the storm, a green and shadowy shape loomed among the other planetoids. Saul squinted through the wind at the mass of tightly connected spheres. The world stalks that connected them were overgrown, bloated, and twisted. Gnarled plants covered in thorns protruded from clusters of lurid flowers. The effect was strange and hideous.
“What is that?” Saul murmured.
Olivia followed his gaze. “You made the place. You tell me.”
“It isn’t something I intended,” said Saul.
Irene scowled. “It was not here before I left.”
“The Tangle,” said Canx from ahead of them. “It is the realm held by the gern.”
Saul’s eyes narrowed as he continued to look at the cluster of planetoids. “It’s right there.”
“The storm heart keeps them from invading,” said the Dancer. “The winds punish us all.”
Suddenly, Saul felt a give from behind him. He glanced back. Kari had released Irene’s hand. The wrinkled mask of Vulture appeared on her face.
“Irene!”
“I see her.” Irene backed toward Saul and Olivia. She released her grip on his hand. Hush held her sword inside his mouth.
Vulture drew her weapon from thin air. Morrie staggered back down the incline of the stalk. Wind battered him, and he cringed down to keep from being thrown into the air.
Saul freed his oven rod from his pocket. He, Irene, and Olivia faced Vulture. The winds dragged at the gray cloak hanging from the art-child’s shoulders.
“Saul Burton,” said Vulture. “This is the message of the council. You will not escape. This world belongs to us now.”
“Simon found us.” Saul gritted his teeth. “You’ll have to take that up with the art-children here.”
“After your death.” Vulture lunged at Saul along the stalk.
He darted to one side, releasing Olivia’s hand. They both avoided Vulture’s thrusting blade. The art-child controlling Kari pivoted to face them.
“Master is here. We will hunt you down.”
Saul clutched the oven rod. “Don’t make me hurt you.”
“If you can. Try.”
Vulture raced toward him. He dodged to one side. His shoes slipped on the curve of the world stalk. And then he teetered over the side.
Saul hung in the air for a split second. Vulture swung her blade in a wide arc. Olivia cried out in pain. Flecks of blood scattered into the wind. Irene’s hand found his wrist in a flash.
Olivia seized the hilt of Vulture’s sword.
Irene lost her footing. Saul’s stomach lurched. He could not even look at her thanks to a blast of wind.
Vulture toppled with Olivia.
All four of them careened into the storm winds. Hush’s avian cry followed them. Wings rushed in the gale.
