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  “And so seven dragons captured Kondorra. A nation as far away from Natan as possible. A way to hide the scent of our trail, should anyone seek to follow it. And our champions did not do what the man said. They did not simper. They did not pander. They dominated. They destroyed. The established their right to rule.

  “For thirty years they ruled Kondorra. For thirty years men bent their knees to the rule of dragons, as once all Avarra had done. And we laughed at the man for what he had told us. Because we did not need him.

  “But then, as we prepared to bring our rule to all of Avarra, things began to go awry. There was an uprising. History was repeating. Men were uniting against us. And in a great battle, the champions of Kondorra were slain.

  “Perhaps then we should have stopped. Perhaps then we should have recognized the ruination that our ambition would bring. But we were ready. We were poised for war. And again the words of that visitor to our shores were discussed. And we were so tired of struggling and scrabbling for survival. And the reports our champions had sent back to us … What they had learned mirrored what the man had told us. And so, in a great council, it was decided we would come to Avarra in force. We would become gods.

  “It was beautiful. It was magnificent. It was everything we dreamt it could be. We were welcomed with open arms. We were worshipped. We were obeyed. We were elevated. And even the gods trembled in fear at our might. The whole world rang with the sweet sound of perfection once more. We were where we belonged once more. We rejoiced.

  “And then betrayal. In our moment of ascension, our moment of victory. Everything torn from us. Our lives. The world cast into chaos and disaster. Our race closer than ever to annihilation.

  “Because the man who had come to our shores had lied to us. He had hidden his true intent. He had made us his tools. We were just a stepping stone for his own ambitions.”

  “Barph,” Quirk said. And gods … she saw it now. All of it. Thirty years ago, dragons had returned to Avarra out of legend. Because Barph had told them to. They had taken over Kondorra. They had oppressed it. And in Kondorra, Will had been born. Will who had been nurtured by a man called Firkin. A man who had filled Will’s head with dreams of revolution and plans to take down the dragons. A man who was, in the end, just a mask, a sham. A man who was Barph. It had all been his plan. And it had all worked. They had all been deceived. And Barph had won.

  “I will kill Barph,” said Yorrax, and there was no doubt in her voice. “For everything he has done to my kin. I will have my revenge or die trying.”

  And Quirk smiled, because in this dragon, this beast, this engine of destruction, she had found a kindred spirit.

  “You want to kill Barph,” she said.

  Yorrax nodded. “I just said that. About ten seconds ago.”

  “I want to kill Barph.” Quirk would not be distracted. Purpose was starting to return to her, slowly at first, but with increasing force.

  “But neither of us …” Quirk shook her head. “We don’t know how to kill Barph. We don’t even know if there is a way to kill him now. He’s too … He has the power of seven gods within him. It’s too much.”

  “So you have given up,” said Yorrax. She looked away. “I have not.”

  “He’ll kill you.” Quirk’s vision was still unfolding before her. The present was drifting out of focus. “He’ll kill me too. It’s inevitable.”

  “Well, I’m glad you appreciated the tragic history of my people.” Yorrax put her head down on the ground. “I’m happy I spent all that time sharing it.”

  “But it doesn’t matter that we’ll die.” Quirk was barely listening, caught up in the currents of her own logic. “If it’s inevitable, it’s not even part of the equation. What matters is what we do with the time we have. And what we can do with that time”—Quirk tried to restrain her smile but was unable to do so—“is hurt him like a motherfucker.”

  Yorrax picked up her head.

  “For six months,” Quirk went on, pacing now, unable to fully contain her excitement, “Barph has been focused on one thing: reshaping this world. He has a vision for how it should be.

  “There’s something he wants, Yorrax. And that means there’s something we can take away from him. Something we can burn to the ground.” Quirk fixed her bright eyes on Yorrax’s yellow ones. “We may not be able to win, but we can make sure Barph loses.”

  Yorrax hesitated, but didn’t say anything.

  “I have people,” Quirk pressed, walking toward Yorrax now. “People who hate Barph.” She licked her lips. A vision of the future was beginning to form in her mind. She was beginning to see things clearly. “You can join us.” No, that was wrong. “We can join you. Together we can bring this world down around Barph’s ears.” She smiled. Gods, she thought she might even laugh despite the mounting pain in her head. And she should sit down, but she couldn’t. She put a hand on Yorrax’s flank. “Together. Think of everything we can do. Think of everything we could burn.”

  Yorrax’s black tongue snaked out, licked a lower lip.

  “Humans,” she said. That was it.

  Quirk understood the objection, though. “If you have a horde of dragons hidden nearby that are poised to rain destruction down on Barph, then I’d be more than happy to join them.”

  Yorrax was silent for a moment, then she raised her injured wing. “I cannot travel far.”

  And then Quirk did laugh, because if that was Yorrax’s only remaining objection, then her argument was won.

  Three days later they climbed up onto what was left of the brothel. Yorrax’s claws scrabbled through the rubble. Quirk went mostly on all fours, occasionally steadying herself against Yorrax’s flank. The pale-blue scales felt oddly warm, and supple despite their strength.

  Upon the mound of broken stone and wood, Yorrax spread her wings. The wood of the splint Quirk had built creaked, and Yorrax grimaced.

  “You’re sure you’re ready?” Quirk tried to force all the impatience out of her voice, to appear nothing but concerned.

  “I do not need your concern,” rumbled Yorrax. Then she spat three balls of fire into the square. They landed with sharp detonations. “If you tell anyone about this,” said Yorrax, as several screams drifted up from the town beyond, “then I shall kill you and everyone dear to you.”

  “Yes, but that’s why I like you,” said Quirk, and, grabbing ahold of the spot where Yorrax’s wing joined her body, she hauled herself up onto the dragon’s back.

  “If I drop you,” Yorrax said, “then our partnership is over.”

  And then vast muscles contracted beneath Quirk, almost throwing her free. She clutched desperately at the edges of scales. She gripped the beast’s flanks with her thighs and cursed at the top of her lungs.

  Yorrax’s wings smashed at the air. Small hurricanes whirled past Quirk. She felt her hair pulling painfully at her skull.

  Again and again, Yorrax beat at the air, and again and again, Quirk fought for solid purchase on the beast’s back. Her heart was hammering in the back of her throat. Her headache felt ready to split the world in two. Her stomach lurched. Her palms were sweaty.

  And then the ground dropped away, and everything was worse.

  It seemed to her they hovered for a moment, hanging above everything. The world becoming smaller and smaller. But as that happened, the last of her fear and doubts dropped away.

  At some unspoken signal both of them let fire loose into the sky, filling the air with heat and fury. Then they were racing forward, ready to scorch the earth clean.

  12

  The Downward Spiral

  Down in the Hallows, Lette stood at the head of a gorge that was like a knife wound in the landscape. A gibbering wreck of a man was pointing to it and saying, “Deep, deep, deep,” over and over again while drooling on himself. He’d tried to claw out Lette’s eyes earlier, which was why he was bleeding now.

  “Okay, Sparrow,” Will said to the man. “Thank you for showing us. That’ll … Oh gods, Balur.”

&n
bsp; Balur had just killed the man.

  “What?” asked Balur. “Were you not being done with him?” He wiped his hands clean. “Sorry, I was thinking you were done with him.”

  “Just because I was done with him doesn’t mean …” Will broke off and shook his head. “Why is this a concept that needs explaining?”

  “But he was being a horrifying psychotic killer,” Balur said.

  “So are you!” said Lette. Balur looked at her. He was pretending to be wounded.

  She rolled her eyes and went walking into the abyss. Eventually the others followed.

  Lette would be the first to admit that she had not handled all her time in the Hallows with perfect grace. Things had been … difficult at first. It had been a difficult time for her. She had been morose. She could admit to that. Her efforts to find a way out lackluster. She’d had trouble finding hope.

  She wasn’t sure how else she could have handled it, though. There had been a moment—a moment just before she was killed—when she had … what? How to put that into words?

  They had been about to overthrow the dragons. They had been about to overthrow the gods. They were about to free Avarra from dictators … Will had created a moment. A movement. He had united humanity in a moment of pure rebellious independence.

  It had been so beautiful. And she’d been part of it. Everything she’d been doing. It had meant something. Will had created meaning for her.

  And then it was gone. Then she was dead, and it was all ash. Who would take that well?

  But now, here, stepping into this gorge, stepping toward power … could she believe again? Could she be part of something again?

  Will caught up with her, put an unselfconscious hand on her arm. The gorge, it seemed, had had a salutary effect upon the sensibilities that Balur’s murder had affronted.

  He grinned at her. “We did it!” he said. “We actually did it! We’re going to the Deep Ones! We’re going to go home!” He grabbed her arm, and for a moment it felt as if lightning were shooting up to her shoulder. “We are going to take this fight all the way, Lette. All the gods-hexed way.”

  Suddenly she thought that she was going to kiss him. And she wasn’t sure it was a good idea. They had been down that path, and it had not ended well for either of them. But right now, gods … she would like to kiss him.

  His eyes looked very large and very deep. Her breath came fast. Her heart unloaded a flurry of blows against her sternum.

  “So—” Cois said from far too close, and Lette almost gasped, managed to make it simply a sharp inhalation. She whipped around slightly too fast. Trying to hide her movements, she slowly slipped the knife she’d drawn back into her sleeve.

  Cois arched an eyebrow at her. “I know, I know, I should have asked this earlier, but you are totally set on this whole Deep Ones plan, are you?”

  Lette felt Will’s good mood evaporating off him like steam. “Wasn’t finding them your plan?” he asked.

  Cois looked shocked. “Shit, I hope not. I think I just mentioned them to piss Lawl off and then you went and made all these plans.”

  “About five months ago,” Will checked.

  Cois shrugged. “If you say so.”

  “And you’re bringing this up now?”

  Cois looked around, a pantomime of innocence. “I appear to be.”

  “But you said they’re where you got your divine powers from, right?”

  “I think,” Cois said, adding a little of hir own bite to hir words, “that I said they were horror and insanity made into physical nightmares that enslaved me and my brethren. Did you miss that bit?”

  “But you took in their blood and you became the gods,” Will said.

  “You seem very fixated on that part of the story,” Cois said.

  Lette was still holding her knife. If she’d thought Balur would ever forgive her, she might have considered using it to encourage Cois to be more forthcoming.

  “Because it’s the bit that gets me out of here.”

  “Drinking the blood of something so utterly beyond your ken it will use your sanity as a small, squishy plaything.”

  “You drank it, didn’t you?” Will had stopped walking now, was leaning in. Balur was baring his teeth.

  “I, Will,” Cois said, ever so sweetly, “am not human. I look human. I behave like a human. Admittedly, I have slightly better tits than most humans. But I am not a human. I am of the Deep Ones. I am their creation. I am built upon their designs. There is compatibility. You … you are Lawl’s thing. He made your race. Little batteries of worship to power the gods. That’s what you were designed to be, which I know sounds awful and demeaning, but that’s because it is awful and demeaning. But the point is, you and I are not of the same design. We are not built by the same minds.”

  “So it was good for you, but it isn’t good for me?” said Will, doing an increasingly poor job of controlling his anger. “Okay for the gods, but not for mortals? Well, guess what you are now.”

  Cois finally seemed to attempt some conciliation. “This is not simple jealousy, Will. Yes, the gods achieved much by stealing the power of the Deep Ones. But we also lost some things. And some things changed irrevocably. And it was not all to our design, or even our liking. I will not take their power again. I don’t think …” Zhe shook hir head.

  “You worry about being replaced,” Will said.

  And that gave Lette pause. She looked at Will. And in her mind this had always been about the power to escape here, to get revenge. But the Deep Ones’ magic … Could it really make a god out of Will?

  “I worry about you, Will,” Cois said.

  But Will was already storming deeper into the gorge. He was already refusing to turn away from his goal.

  And even though he might well be an idiot, and he might well be making a mistake, one that might even cost her, Lette was warmed by Will’s commitment, by his sense of purpose. And she was jealous of it, and wanted to live it through him. And so she followed.

  Down the gorge they went. Down. Steep rock walls rose on either side of them. The artificial light of the Hallows dimmed. Loose scree crunched beneath their feet. They didn’t come to the end of the gorge on their first day. Nor on the second. The walls stretched up impossibly far. Every moment felt like twilight. A blue phosphorescent fungus started to daub the walls, giving everything an ethereal glow.

  Lette thought about what Cois had said. She thought about what hir motives might be. Of all the gods, zhe had been the most amenable, the most sympathetic. Zhe did appear to be genuinely affectionate toward Balur, and as strange as Lette found that idea, she appreciated it all the same.

  She wasn’t sure Cois was jealous of Will’s potential power.

  But when zhe had seen him use that last remnant of hir magic … maybe?

  She drifted closer to the former god(dess). For a while they walked alongside each other, both trying to avoid contact with the strange fungus.

  “If Will …” Lette broke the silence and then realized she wasn’t sure what to do with the pieces. She struggled to find the right way to phrase it. “If he drinks the Deep Ones’ blood, if he takes their power … what happens then? What is he taking, exactly?”

  Cois walked on for ten paces before replying. “Those are two different things,” zhe said. “And I think you’re asking them in the wrong order.”

  “How about you just answer both,” Lette said, “and I don’t have to explain to Balur why you’re shitting out your own teeth?”

  Cois smiled. “And here I was thinking I knew everything there was to know about sweet talk.”

  Lette didn’t smile back.

  Cois sighed. “When … If Will takes the Deep Ones’ power into him, then it will take up residence within him. It won’t be part of him. You shouldn’t think of it like a crown, or an extension of his willpower. It will be something … other to him. A creature, almost, that feeds him, but that also feeds on him. It won’t be a creature, but that’s the closest word I have. It will be a thought
, really. An idea. But not his own thought. Not a thought that will fit in his skull. I tried to explain. I really did. You’re not of them, you see. You’re made of different stuff. So exactly how this creature, this thought will manifest inside him … I don’t know.” Zhe looked at Lette’s expression. “I really do wish I had better answers.”

  Zhe sounded genuine, Lette decided. Genuine could be faked, and she could be fooled, but her gut was all she had to go on down here.

  “Will it fuck him up?” she asked in the end. It was a bald question, and exposed more of her own fears than perhaps she would like, but perhaps a direct question would beget a direct answer.

  “Maybe.” Cois shrugged apologetically. “Maybe not. It will change him. Somehow. But power always changes people.”

  Lette reviewed the answers she’d received. “So you don’t know shit?” That seemed like the big takeaway.

  Cois gave hir sad smile again. “What I really know about is love, Lette,” zhe said. “And I know that the man you pretend not to love is going to be someone else soon. I don’t know who, though. And I don’t know if you’ll still love him. Maybe once I would have, but I’m someone else now too.”

  Lette considered punching out Cois’s teeth after all. What sort of pissing answer was that?

  But she had plenty of time to think about it. The descent went on. And on. And she saw the blue light of the fungus reflected in Will’s eyes, and she knew that ending Barph was all he cared about. That was his purpose. His goal. And she had taken strength from that.

  But now … here … in this dank hole … was his goal still hers?

  13

  Never Go Full Lovecraft

  Will could feel the walls of this place sapping the others’ resolve. It was the fifth day of descent. Lette was slipping back into the quiet introspection that had marked her first few months in the Hallows. Afrit was dragging her heels. Even Balur and Cois’s lovemaking was muted. In unguarded moments Cois looked scared.