Radaman pointed down the side of Crannag Dune which spilled over the walls of the city,

his words touched with a bravado that his eyes did not echo: “Slope’s strong enough.  

But it’s going to be tough taking it slow.”

Another look passed between them; confirming they both felt the pull of the Machine.  

It was a shy thing: they had both been peering at the Machine in the moment after

Radaman spoke, and had then stole a glance at their companion to see if

the other had noticed the weight of their obsession.

Down the slope they slid. Vradabon losing his balance on more than one occasion but

Radaman caught him at the bottom and helped him stand upright atop the city’s outer walls.

Ancient Kakaras: her ribs--star-beaten, wrinkled, and sweaty--welcomed them with a strange desire.

That was the smell, she thought.  

The one in the mindfield.  The one that

permeated every memory that haunted her, cloying--gripping the mind strings, the scent reminding the memory remembering the scent.  

Gunpowder.  

The tastes of Earth trailing her, reminding her that she would never be free.  That, sooner or later, she’d be going the other way.

Palamir peered over the parapet.

“This is the place: Camphor Downs.”

“That smell?” Hali asked.

“It is the scent of life. The scent of death. Add a half

cup of spoilt milk to fresh and it will still taste of rot.”

The scent: like drinking a mugful of worms,

feeling them wriggle between teeth, burrow

their way down your throat—the taste: inhaling

a decaying flower, one pedal still clinging to its life-color;

it lingers on the tongue, tumbles through

the nostrils: a placental decay that seems to never fade.  

Narha had whispered it to her: Camphor Downs,

land of the Swallowed, nest-home of the Izerac,

the slumbering one: it feeds the land and the land feeds it.

Kakaras, the dead city,

dragged a charnel wind across the plains,

the wind’s complaints broken by screams of pain as it

was squeezed through gaps in the ancient ruins.  The air

was heavy with heat but still Vradabon shivered.

The gibbering, purple moon served as

the shiver’s spark: One eye, its lid peeled back, gazed

at Vradabon and his shield-companion.

That feeling,

Cold Jax had said between fragrant puffs of cinnamol,

that is what it is to be a starkisser.

But Jax is dead, Vradabon reminded himself,

and now his words matter no more than those

of the dead before him.  

Along the stars they drifted, closer and closer to the coordinates…

At Quir-el they hear the story of a prince

who slumbers in an endless dream,

drifting in the spaces between universes,

in the realm of the lystere.  

The shores of Man-don Di’yoon--

mirrored by a pink sea,

as if eternally bathed by a setting sun,

echo with the verses of the Dreamer.  

The passing of dawn begats the next verse, and so on.

‘And so on it shall be’, echoes the refrain.

Along the stars they drifted, closer and closer to the coordinates…

Over the viridian fog of the Camphor Downs,

they see the slumbering Izerac--the spider; the worm.  

The Swallowed feed the Izerac and its dreams feed the Swallowed.

It always is. It always is not.

On Luschyton, under the moon-twins of Kykkith,

naked shadow-weavers chant from the book of the pale spider.

Anya hears the chittering in the caverns,

and sees the eyes in the dark.  

In the Coliseum of Pith

they watch the silent tragedy of Evincarustran,

the man who had all the strength of the stars but

was plagued to travel dimensions to save his daughter;

failure always one step ahead.

Along the stars they drifted, closer and closer to the coordinates…

Under the crystal tears shed by the Arvarda Leng

they observe the mute-monks of Mulrulond

bury the first child born within their walls for a decade.  

It is there that Morse departs,

enthralled by the solemnity of the ceremony,

and neither Anya nor Ezbelda find it strange.

By the citadel stones of Soros-at-the-Sanctum

they read inscriptions carved in moonbone

and dusted with pearl-of-polish:

of the Automaton, Jahari, and how

it was given life by the Mechineers of Vyse

and blessed to become Emissary of the Sacrosanct.

Along the stars they drifted, closer and closer to the coordinates…

The contents of the Fates Athenaeum:

books and scrolls of secret power,

ledgers of the most reclusive organizations,  

the original inscriptions for fire and sowing harvest--

all manner of all knowledge--are revealed to them for

three days, fourteen hours, thirty-two minutes and ten seconds.  

Dr. Providence is always precise in matters of time.

When Anya reaches the Shining Wastes

and spies Ur, the numen nomad,

she finds that she is alone. A fortune of fate:

it is not befitting to seek the presence of the

Lonely Wanderer when in the company of friends.  

A single finger extends;

in that direction she will finally find the Kiskitan.

They see the spirits of the once living ghendi of Gargosh sparkle over the streams of the Silvarnium, tasting fruits cultivated by the long-deceased inhabitants, and sleep beneath roofs that have stood for longer than humanity’s existence.

All the contents of Fates Athenaeum: books and scrolls of secret power, ledgers of the most reclusive organizations,  the original inscriptions for fire and sowing harvest--all manner of all knowledge--are revealed to them for three days, fourteen hours, thirty-two minutes and ten seconds.  Dr. Providence is always precise in matters of time.

When Anya reached the Shining Wastes, and saw Ur, the numen nomad, she found that she was alone. A fortune of fate: it was not befitting to seek the presence of the Lonely Wanderer when in the company of friends.  A single finger extended and it was in that direction where she finally found the Kiskitan.

The Colonel’s hand danced dismissively

through a cloud of smoke.

“Three points? When, Barkley?”

Trying to save the attack,

Mr. Barkley snapped back:

“Oh don’t go lame now, Colonel.  

Were you prone to piss yourself when

you heard the call of the trumpet?”

“Man, have you ever even fired a rifle?”

“Yes, well, of course,” Mr. Barkley bristled.  

“He doesn’t mean at pigeons,

Mr. Barkley,” I said, smiling to myself,

proud of the double cut.  

They both paused trying to understand

who I’d intended to insult.

And there was the moment: during their hesitation.  

Their focus solely on me--

my eyes, my lips: either would do.  

The watch was already out and hanging.

All it needed was a gentle push.  

After all, they had come to the right man.

Anya woke alone.  The Wandering Eye was an

empty museum--a tribute to some past

she struggled to recall.  Snippets came and went,

like breath frosting against the cheeks of winter.  

Where would you go next?

The voice: an asteroid collision to her sanity;

Anya stumbled, one hand reaching for her head,

but no manner of pressure could

quiet the words crumbling through her mind.

Where would you go next?

Nets cast: redirects along a thousand frequencies.  

The scanner’s song, Morse had called it.  Newsfeeds,

public posts, private messages ripped open as easily

as a paper envelope, and their secrets poured into a pan.  

They sifted the data, and the yield was enough for them to forget,

for a time, where they were going, and why.

Anya slept: forgotten relationships and remembered fears.  

When she woke, she pushed what she didn’t want away,

into that box deep inside, the one whose walls

were lined with shattered glass, and whose interior

was lit by a fire fueled with things it ought not to be.

A hand reached inside me and squeezed my soul-heart.  

My brain screamed--fighting a presence that was

trying to snuggle up next to it and share the controls.  

Madeleine, I tried to shout, but the mouth was no

longer mine and I was no longer me and I heard

the threat it uttered forth and the anger it had

in its soul, all the fumes of punishment it had been forced

to inhale vomiting out of its mouth at her.

A rotten proboscis was sucking up the last of my soul.

Another memory-flake came and melted as easily but this

one tasted of sulfur and charcoal, deer piss and pine:

A statue of marble--its lips barely parting to speak the words:

What it will cost you?  Madness.

The statue stirred: lids of bark lifted to reveal giant

black pupils that whispered exotic and over-ripe insults.  

The pupils spoke but it was wrong because it was

her voice and it had not been her voice.

Only with madness can you delve past the shallows.  

One inky soul-drop remained.  The insectoid

syringe fumbled about, trying to find it.  

And then we saw each other.  The geist and I,

soul-eye to soul-eye.  And I knew then that it was

no simple geist but something even more chthonic.  

Grinning, it finished the memory for me, because, for now,

it laid claim to the thing.  It lay claim to all of me.

You might hold your breath for a time,

but eventually, we all dive too deep.