Chapter Four

"Come forth, beasts of light." The eerie voice sent shivers not only up and down Lucien's spine,

but along his arms, which he drew to his chest in a fright, then sliding down his legs, which cringed until he stooped like a gargoyle, and was nearly as stony as one, frozen solid with fear.

"I am no child." Havingstrode to just behind Lucien, Adjia rested her hand on his shoulder.

He regretted his stinging thoughts about the Architect, who cared for and loved Lucien, despite not being made to care or love. She had sent him to Earth only after the logical deliberation with which her mind calculated everything.

"You're only yay high to me." The snickering Stranger swelled up in shadowy grandeur, the folds of his shadow cloak gleaming and radiating not only deep darkness but rich, black light, crammed with a shuddering, starry night. For a blinding moment, it was like being in arm's reach of an entire galaxy.

They were now so enveloped in the preternatural blackness that Lucien felt he teetered on a peak besieged by a vast abyss. While he could barely see, he knew one step in any direction lay certain death, consumed by the hungry, jagged chasms. One moment he felt he had set foot on a terrifying world, and the next he was like a ghost wandering the afterlife. He no longer breathed, he flickered, and he didn't cringe from the Stranger, he wisped away slower than a trail of steam.

"Who do you think you are?" As Adjia's grip tightened, her nails bit Lucien's shoulder. When he turned a look of reproach, he recoiled from the steel-stern glare that pierced the Stranger. His mother's head was like Medusa's, raised like a shield toward this powerful Alsantian myth.

"Call me god." The Stranger's eyebrow arched, his nose raised in a sneer, and his smile went from bright to burnt.

"You're no god."

"You sound so sure of yourself."

"You're a killer and schemer, but far from omnipotent. Since your arrival, Suvani has killed and harrassed more people than you. Should I call her god?"

The Stranger clasped his ribs and guffawed. "You're a hoot. So much better than the other one."

Lucien frowned, unable to make sense of this obscure dig at Adjia. Better than who? His father? His heart fell as the Stranger smiled.

Had the Stranger's eyes just flashed to Lucien? A bead of sweat fished down his brow, cheeks and chin, where it splashed onto the rags of his vestments.

"And my omniscience?" The Stranger's braggy, booming roar bottomed out in a gale of laughter, which ragged loud until he snuffled back his laugh and regained his composure. "Tell me of my divine plan, Architect."

"You do appear to follow some plan, but I wonder if you didn't find someone else's. Like pretending to understand the classics by finding a professor's scribbled-in textbook. If you were all-knowing, you would know not to come to our workshop."

"Oh, yes. You have many mighty weapons." When the Stranger's mocking laughter smacked into them, Lucien was ashamed of Adjia's stupidity, for nothing in the workshop was any danger to anyone outside it, least of all the god standing between them and her armory. "I'll take my chances." He hooted until his eyes squinted and his mouth was wet with tears of laughter.

"I'm not surprised you think me powerless," said Adjia. "As you're accustomed to thinking of everything in terms of potential. The universe you manipulate is one of pure potential, not one of design and intent. You could care less what my thinking is, since you've already assessed me as weak and unable to harm you, Stranger."

"It is as you say. We're fish swimming in an ocean of matter." He snickered. "And you're a small fry."

"The idea that some bits floating in your ocean of matter might hatch a plot against you is beyond you, isn't it?"

"Teamwork amongst atoms?" He laughed. "Very droll. No matter how many you are, I will always outnumber a mere molecule. There can be only One."

"No, there are many." The grizzled voice crackled through their quarrel, while the grey man moved with subtle silence, clad in midnight blue emblazoned across the breast with a black lion crowned with golden comets. His brow and nose were streaked with sunburn; his stubble glistened with sweat. "Many worlds, many minds, and many wills, despite the spread of your corrupting influence."

Adjia's eyes flashed, and a smile dimpled her lips, but she did not take her scornful eyes from the Stranger. "Ustragon. It's about time."

"Nearly the end times, I think."

"Pfaugh. No such thing. Nothing can be created or destroyed."

"Dear, you know my opinion. That's scientifically sound, and gives one ample room for meditation, but theory needs space for metaphysics. Just a little." Ustragon came shoulder to shoulder with Adjia, and the Architects faced The Stranger together. "Although I grant there is no first or final cause for this pretender to usurp."

"Is he a placeholder then?"

"Forerunners suggest precedents and antecdents, while our guest would say he is an eternal non sequitur, without beginning or end."

"We are his host, but he is no guest, but a parasite, consuming our efforts for his own purposes."

As the Architects bantered back and forth, their heads angled toward each other in a half-huddle, their stage-whispered taunts and philosophical reduction of his majesty no doubt meant for the dark god's ears.

Expecting some acknowledgement from his father, Lucien was disappointed when Ustragon only had eyes for Adjia, aside from sparing a scornful glance toward the Stranger. Lifting his head to the dark god, Lucien expected seething rage, and was taken aback by his look of cheery magnanimity, which, on a god's face, looked neither charitable nor condescending, but malignant and predatory, like an Emperor wondering which clown to kill. This beatific but dagger-y smile was as horrific as the swarm clouds, the Ashflowers, and the gore streaked battlefields.

"I suppose I should be grateful that you've set me such a sumptuous place at your table." The Stranger's cheery gloat was followed by a snickering murmur, as if a laugh track lurked in the shadows.

The billowing shade shaped into hounds, their fur black as night. "And in turn, why not give such choice scraps to my dogs?"

The growling hounds prowled around Lucien and the Architects, but as they pawed the circle,

they did not raise their heads, and give their prey a wide berth, as if respecting a strength only they could see.

The Stranger looked down with disdainful amusement. "They smell your confidence and think it strength."

"With good reason," said Adjia. "I said you ought not to have come to our workshop."

"That's rich. What have you brought here, Architect?" The Stranger favored Ustragon with a smile on his lips but a glare in his eyes.

"What have you brought here, Stranger?"

"Dreadful philosophers. Always posing riddles to riddles and answering questions with questions." The Stranger sighed. "It can only be death." He chuckled. "As if your inventions can destroy a god."

"You're scarcely all-knowing. You're not even all-listening. Only moments ago, my wife said nothing can be created or destroyed. That holds true for a god as well. Why aspire to the impossible, when we might forestall the inevitable? Fortunately, while creation and destruction are a tall order even in a magical universe, death only requires a modicum of disorder. A few grams of lead, a blade honed to a millimeter edge." Ustragon reached into his cloak. "I doubt you can be killed, but I have my hopes."

"You make me laugh, little man." But the Stranger did not laugh. As his shadows swirled, darkened, and thickened, he hulked, his hands the size of boulders, and his legs like tree trunks,

but his voice fading to a faraway echo, as if he had swelled not only twice his size, but to the sky,

which tinged the day to starry night where the shoulders of his robes touched the blue. "You would pit the hopes and gears of your greasemonkey brain against the stars and worlds in my eternal eyes."

"Science is a game of one-upmanship. You should learn the rules." With that, Ustragon drew his empty hand from the folds of his cloak.

Lucien staggered back, his heart racing. His father had bet their lives on nothing at all?

With the Stranger's amused malice resting on Ustragon, Adjia deftly withdrew a tiny glass box from her pouch and raised it high.

As Ustragon laid a thumb on one side of the cube, Adjia pressed her thumb to its opposite facet.

Light flickered in the glass, then streamed over the Stranger. When the blinding brilliance was reflected back, Lucien warded his eyes, gradually widening a gap between his fingers to peer into the blazing glare.

Lucien couldn't make heads or tails of what he saw--vitreous shards, jutting to a mountainous scale, magnified the light beamed by the cube. On these glassy prisms were strange edifices it hurt to look at, their lines bending askew, with parallels twisting, right angles curving, and curves never arriving at the end of their parabolas.

One moment, the bizarre imagery was cast upon the Stranger's robes, not unlike a movie screen; then the Stranger dwindled and faded until he alighted on the glittering ridge of the glassy mountain.

"Strange that you should crack in moments what I have not in eons." The Stranger's snide murmur still reached through the flickering portal. "As you have done me a favor sending me here, numbering your days has fallen to the bottom of my to-do list."

Adjia was about to shout back when Ustragon tapped the cube, and the portal darkened, then died, dissolving the eerie otherworldly vista. Cupping the cube in his hand, Ustragon scooped it to his chest then slid it in the folds of his cloak.

"Let's hope you have a few years to think of a rebuttal."

"Who's to say he can come back as easily as that? You heard him--he had been trying to find his way back for ages."

"If he's not an omnipotent god, he is a plenipotent being. We must take care."

"I thought we won," Lucien's euphoria died in their sobering realization that they had little knowledge of the Stranger or his fate. "Are you saying it's not over yet?"

"Who is this?" Ustragon's brows drew into a crease.

"This is our son, Ustragon."

"I wasn't gone that long."

Adjia tittered. "No, our first born. Lucien. The one we sent to Earth."

Lucien's mind clutched at "first born." Having not heard of any siblings before this, Lucien had assumed he was an only child. "What did you say?"

"I'm sorry, Lucien," said Ustragon. "I should have recognized my own son. I was just thinking how familiar you look, and trying to place your face."

"What did you say?" Lucien repeated. "Do I have a brother? A sister?"

"He takes after me." Adjia preened with pride.

"I'll grant that he's perceptive," said Ustragon. "What do I say, Adjia? It's a troubling question, philosophically speaking."

"It isn't so hard," she sighed.

"Do I have a brother or sister, or not?" asked Lucien. "How can this question be hard to answer?"

"You're right," said Adjia. "You do have a brother or sister."

This seemed not only an odd way to answer the question, but deliberately obtuse and obstinate. Lucien threw his hands up in exasperation. "Well, which one?"

"I don't know," said Adjia.

"You sent that one away too? Hopefully not to Havala. That world was burned to a cinder."

"I mean I don't know, Lucien. Your father and I decided not to use our instruments to determine the gender of the baby."

"The gender?" Lucien struggled to comprehend this new information. "You mean you're pregnant?" He was going to have a little brother or a little sister.

Ustragon laid his hand on Lucien's shoulder. "Let's not belabor the obvious. We're not safe. If the Alsantians haven't overrun the workshop, it's only that they're afraid of the sentries."

"What sentries?" asked Adjia, a look of puzzlement on her face.

"Exactly," said Ustragon. "No doubt they're frightened by our parked walkers and striders."

Lucien thought back to the awe-inspiring mechanical titans in the hangar. "If I didn't know you, I wouldn't risk getting stomped flat by going in there. You have a hangar full of scarecrows." He glared at Adjia. "We didn't have to rush here. We left so many behind. We might have saved the Elder, and brought Isola and Akachi."

"Never underestimate your enemies, as even the wicked and foolish can be brave. In fact, they're taking a risk right now." Ustragon pointed to the platoon half jogging and half climbing uphill, toward the overlook.

"They can't catch us now. Not after all that." Adjia seized Lucien's hand. "Where is it, Ustragon?"

"Where's what?"

"The strider."

"You took it."

"I mean the prototype. You didn't come here without it?"

"Why would I bring the prototype, when you took the other on a joyride?"

"We don't have time for this." Lucien jumped ahead, dragging at Adjia. "Whatever you want from the workshop, we'll get it now."

As they swiftly descended the ridge to the vale of the workshop, an acrid smell smoldered, the workshop grounds became hazy, then smoky, until walls of thick smoke silvered the air.

"Close your hood, Lucien." Having drawn hers tight with the drawstring, and seeing him holding his shut with his free hand, Adjia withdrew a golden pin from her hair, pierced both flaps of his hood so swiftly and surely that he had no time to flinch, tucked one flap down over the pin, then pierced it again, holding his hood snug.

"They're not coming down, Adjia."

Ustragon pointed up the hill at the werewolves pacing the ridge. There was malice in their eyes,

and their snarls trailed to the base of the slope, but they did not descend the hill. Moreover, their scowls shot not toward Lucien and his parents, but the fuming smoke and shouting troops bursting from the flaming workshop.

"You spoke too soon." While Adjia's face was cowled, her grief could be seen in her blinking eyes, shining tears, and muffled moan, and when Ustragon grasped her hand, she worried it free, until he clenched her fingertips and brought them between his hands. "All our designs. All our blueprints."

"But not all our plans. And not our work. There's still the hangar."

"Not for long." muttered Lucien. The Alsantian infantry, having fallen back into ranks, marched for the hangar with white, frightened faces, goaded by their shouting, sword-waving officer.

"That's it, then," sighed Adjia. "The only future for science now is making playthings for despots and tyrants."

"And hoping they won't see all the applications." When Ustragon dropped into a slouch, he no longer looked like a conquering hero.

"You're not giving up? They're not there yet!"

"They're so much nearer, Lucien, and it's farther than you think. Lucien!" Her shouts echoed in his eardrums as he clenched his teeth and sprinted for the hangar doors. Hearing pattering steps behind him, Lucien kept his eyes forward, fearing any pause might break his stride. As he neared the smoke,

he drew in a deep breath, then poured on so much speed that the smoke puffed around him and billowed into the charging Alsantians as he hurdled their clattering, outstretched spears and darted for the doors. When he could no longer hold back his burning breath, he panted a colossal groan, a belch of air that lifted his last staggering steps through the hangar doors. Whoever raced behind him drew in a roaring gasp as well, then laid an arm across Lucien's back. Lucien shivered, and tried to step away, but they sagged upon him, so that he stumbled under their slumping weight.

"Son...help...the..." Ustragon tried to gasp more, but only mouthed the words and didn't have the air for them to take shape. Seizing a giant iron bar, he dragged it toward the door, where the soldiers had regained their wits and headed for the entrance. When Lucien took the other end, they ran it forward like a lance, propped it on the open door, and pushed, so that it swung shut, meshed with the opposing door, and sealed the hangar with a loud, metallic clack. Then they dropped their end of the bar, bracing the door.

"What about Adjia?"

Ustragon looked at Lucien sharply. "Your mother will be fine."

"I'm glad. But we won't be."

"We have everything we need, and they can't break in."

"Can't an army do anything it sets its mind to?"

"What mind?" When Lucien calmly met his glaring sneer, Ustragon's expression softened. "You're right. The hangar is by no means impregnable, but you assume we'll still be here when they figure out how to crack our shell. If it shields us for twenty minutes, that will be sufficient."

"Then what? I'm tired of running."

"Had I any intention of running, I would have left the hangar to the Alsantians." As his snort flared his nostrils and darkened his smile, rage streaked from his creased brow, as if lightning coursed from there through the crow's feet at the corners of his eyes, his wrinkled jaw, and his grizzled chin.

"They would have blown themselves up all day before learning anything of our science."

Lucien snickered. "Blown themselves up all day. That's funny."

The Architect arched his eye. "I meant in series, Lucien, not that they would blow themselves up and reconstitute themselves...oh, have your laugh." That Ustragon could say something so hilarious without cracking a smile charged Lucien with uplifting energy, as if the Architect's repressed, potential laughter had to spark up somewhere, and crackled in Lucien. As he cracked up, Ustragon's face darkened more. He walked briskly down the first aisle toward the monstrous walker and crooked a finger toward Lucien, who stepped up to a jog to keep up with the long-legged Architect. "I may actually have a use for you."

At this snide remark, Lucien's grin deflated to a frown, his shoulders slumped, and his jog dropped to a walk.

"Your mother said you have a knack for piloting our walkers."

Lucien's spirits and smile lifted again. "I wouldn't call it a knack. And when did she say that? I've been with her for days, since I arrived in Teriana."

"You haven't seen all our tricks, Lucien. Not yet."

"You texted from your phone. Big deal."

"Texted? Phone? Is that an Earth communicator?"

"Yes."

"As for where I was, I was on the mirror world."

"That's what it's called? Mirror world?"

"Its true name is ineffable."

"What?"

"Unspeakable. Nothing living here could speak the name in one breath, and any attempt would be meaningless noise."

"Isn't there anything we could call it?

"It's a gigantic word, like a googol but with letters, but one significant snippet, repeats infinitely within the alphalogical pattern. Orom. It's as good a nickname as any, even if there are dozens of other significant clusters of phonemes."

"How on Earth do they have time to say it? And how would you know what a googol is?"

"They're mute by our standards, communicating with mirror flashes. As for a googol, math concepts are transdimensional. Why wouldn't we have them here?"

"But isn't it named for an Earth mathematician?"

"When we sent you away, I brushed up on Earth's fundamental concepts. I wanted to see what kind of place it was." He sighed. "Believe it or not, your mother and I did care whether you lived or died."

"That's good to know. But googol is hardly a fundamental concept."

"I'm disappointed to hear you say that, Lucien. Math is not only fundamental, it's the cornerstone of all knowledge, both science and magic."

"What about things neither scientific nor magical?"

The Architect snorted. "Such as?"

"What about Ashflowers?"

Ustragon whistled. "You have me there. I should have anticipated that answer. It's time for the next generation to step up to the workbench, I suppose." Ustragon jogged up the scaffolding steps leading to the walker cockpit.

"Well?" huffed Lucien. Soreness and exhaustion shook and hardened his legs, as if they were turning to stone, and his aching arms sagged like leaden weights, as if Lucien was only another robot in this strange arsenal.

"You think I know the answer? While your mother takes pleasure in serving up riddles,

I'm no sphinx, but a firm believer that questions should stop somewhere, that we should be satisfied with answers that fit the facts, that theorists must not only put their ideas into practice, but materialize them in machines, turn them on, and see the upshot of their worldview. Machines are a powerful form of expression, Lucien. They bring art one step nearer life. As an architect and inventor, Lucien, philosophy and theory are only part of my toolbox. I'm all about building things. If I knew the answer, I would tell you. Perhaps in the science and math of entropy, one might unravel the mystery of the Ashflowers." He threw the cockpit open. Compared to the squirrel's compartment, it was spacious, but Ustragon and Lucien made a tight fit in the ten foot cube. Securing Lucien to his seat, the Architect turned to the dash. "While I scarcely know how Ashflowers fit into the big picture, I do have something to show you. Hopefully the audio and video are good." He glanced at Lucien with trepidation, then flicked a switch. "I watched this coming back from Orom. Not that I personally saw it happen."

"How could you see it, but not see it happen?"

"Don't they have recorders on Earth? A peace viewer picked up this scene, marked it suspicious,

then transmitted it the moment I returned from Orom." He sighed. "Unfortunately, it came in a batch. As war broke out when I was in Orom, there were near three hundred other videos. Adjia's communiques had kept me up to speed, but I took an hour to skim through, and I'm glad I did, or I would not have seen this. This may make sense of what's going on out there."

"You mean we're under attack?" Lucien made a sarcastic gasp.

"Ha." Ustragon's puff of laughter one-upped Lucien's over-the-top gasp. "No, I mean the other conflict--the civil war embedded in this siege." Having inserted a long, bifurcated key that resembled a tuning fork into a keyhole in the shadowy dashboard, the Architect started the ignition, flicked on the lights, toggled a few switches, then turned a dial by the smaller of two screens.

When he raised the steering wheel, the assembly released a hiss of air, and when he pushed it forward, the walker broke free from its mooring chains and headed for the hangar doors.

As they neared the exit, Ustragon flipped another switch, and they creaked open excruciatingly slow, so slow it set Lucien's teeth on edge, not only from their glacial screech but his dread that they would collide with the doors. But Ustragon had timed it just right, so that the walker's stride was flush with the metallic scrape of the doors.

As they exited, the invaders fell in behind them, trailing a few feet back from the walker's massive feet. Whereas the one Lucien drove was only twelve feet high, and he had sat between its shoulders, so that it felt more like an armored exoskeleton than a vehicle, the giant walker was at least sixty feet high, and the Alsantians did not even try their swords and spears against its colossal struts.

Two arrows caroming off the canopy registered in the cockpit as two tiny flicks. After that, the archers saved their arrows. Even in walking, the gigantic robot surpassed the Alsantian infantry, who were soon left in the dust by its enormous, relentless stride.

On the dashboard's small screen, dozens of humans and animals hunkered over bizarre wooden devices, played a lilting melody, soon hollowed out by enormous drum blasts. The drums were oddly tiered, and their squirrel drummers deftly flicked their drumsticks with loud snaps up three scales of drum skin, each tier slightly smaller than the last, so that the tap that boomed on the bottom cracked in the middle and rapped at the top. What sounded like bass and cello was disconcertingly produced

not by strings, but long thin reeds whistled in by hulking frogs and giant owls, their eyes bulging over enormous blows into the mouthpieces, exhalations which somehow bowed back and forth like strummed strings.

Ustragon glanced at the orchestra sadly, then turned the dial.

"What was that?"

"Musicians. You have musical ensembles on Earth." It was a statement, not a question, but there was a look of bemusement in Ustragon's face.

"I know what music is. How are they playing with a war going on?"

"It's hardly a live performance. I recorded that by a camera I installed in the Terianan High Theater."

"So this is your DVR."

"I don't know that acronym. The technology isn't so common here as to require abbreviation,

and, in fact, existed entirely in prototype between the hangar and the workshop. This symphony was added to a list of recordings according to my previously established settings. I think it was the last thing recorded there. The last thing ever to be recorded there," Ustragon said wistfully. "When Suvani first tried to oust Vemulus from command, he took out his aggression on our city, including the theater. Not that we weren't undermining him at every opportunity, but I wish he had not chosen the theater." He sighed. "I knew I forgot something. It's the next recording, Lucien. Turn the dial a single click."

When Lucien reached for the dial, the restraining belt pulled him back. When he fumbled with the seat belt, Ustragon reached across the dash with his long and limber arm and pushed Lucien back into his seat. Ustragon's arm clasped him tighter than the taut seat belt. "We're going faster than we appear, Lucien, and while the glass is arrow proof, its probably not proof against defenestration."

"Defenestration? "

"Being thrown from a window. Respect your restraints, Lucien." Ustragon then leaned forward with a peeved look on his face, his own restraints pulling so tight that his face reddened as the cross belts pinched his robes.

When he flipped the switch, the haunting woodwinds and bizarre windblown strings died with a click, and as the orchestra had been in the middle of a swelling crescendo, it left Lucien with a hollow feeling, and made the crammed cockpit feel a little more lonely, as if the music had wanted to play out to completion.

The next scene was another hill, flying two golden banners emblazoned with Suvani's red and purple, between which were Alsantian commanders in full regalia, bedecked with capes, epaulets, medals, and breastplates enameled red and purple, sporting miniature emblems inscribed on the left breast: like a mask of comedy, a scarlet werewolf with a black, gaping smile; two green unicorns with crossed horns, and tails flowing above and below the rampant beasts, carving a heart in the red enamel;

a golden dragon with fanned wings, whose tail entwined its neck three times, making jewelry of its own appendage; and other, less artistic, and gorier devices, designed not to impress one's peers but inspire fear on the battlefield: hung men, skeletons with broken bones, and a bloody cat, studded with protruding dagger hilts. These standards were emblazoned not only on their armor, but on banners planted further up the hill, and running down the slope to the enormous horde of humans, werewolves, and talking beasts, not only those carnivores whose fealty Suvani had sworn, but Terianan turncoats,

even some herbivores, like the rabbits, moles, and beavers busking the crowd with food, drink, and defeated, obsequious smiles.

There was a trumpet blast--no doubt a tremendous burst of brass, however tinny over the walker's speakers--and the officers made a quarter-turn, so that left now faced right,

and all drew their hands into a salute.

When Lucien absurdly craned his neck lower and squinted, as if that would help him see the dim, grainy recording better, it only chaffed his neck and shoulders on the seat belt, but his next eyeful dropped his jaw, made his heart skip a beat, and filled the canopy with his astonished yell--"that's Conrad!"

"You know of Prince Conrad?"

"He was in the Mansion with the rest of us." Lucien slackened into his seat. "Jgorga said he was a prince, but I never really made that connection."

"Neither did I. " Ustragon's nostrils flared, jetting a thin breath so potent his collar fluttered and dust blew from the dashboard. "I identified the Prince of Gaona from the heraldic devices inscribed on his breastplate, but I should have guessed the long lost Prince also attended your school. To be honest, I should have remembered it, as I no doubt knew his fate at one point, but left the conspiring to Adjia. It was long ago, and my mind is so many cobwebs, sticking only to scientific facts, but porous to everything else."

"Breastplate?" That wasn't even the strangest thing Ustragon said. "School? It was hardly a school...wait a minute! Do you mean he's wearing Suvani's colors?"

Ustragon flipped a switch and grainy stripes ran through the paused video. "Watch. This next part will concern you, if this lad is your friend."

"More frienemy than friend. Conrad's too much of a bully to be anyone's friend."

"Watch, Lucien."

Ustragon flipped the switch, and the video resumed. Conrad's outrageous armor was enameled head to toe, a brilliant snowy white, whiter than a bridal dress, his shoulders and helmet topped with golden spikes and dazzling scarlet feathers, respectively, and all this pompous finery exaggerated even more by Conrad's embarrassed, slouching attempt to strut in. If ever a moment was made for a bully to strut and lord it over others, this was it, and Conrad bungled his opportunity, but the crowd only hooted and roared even louder.

Lucien was flabbergasted--why would anyone bow to or cheer on Conrad?

When Conrad also made a subtle turn, and went to one knee, the crowd screamed themselves hoarse, their bizarre chant sounding nearly like "who's funny?", their chant garbled by their frenzy.

"Suvani!" they chanted, over and over, and when the Queen of Alsantia stepped forward from her sheltering line of officers to take Conrad's hand, they roared even louder. It felt like nails were being driven into the fabric of this moment, that he was not only seeing an outbreak of collective insanity, but witnessing history.

How was Conrad at the center of history? Lucien's teeth grated.

"How? How can Conrad be King of Alsantia?" Hearing the spite in his voice, Lucien dialed it back. "He's only a little older than me."

"He was already fifth or sixth in the line of succession. Maybe higher." Ustragon waved his hand absently, as if to prick the inconsequential bubble of this detail. "This is only a promotion. Remember, your friend..."

"Frienemy."

"...was Prince of Gaona, and already destined for wealth and power, if more of the former than the latter, and now that distribution has only shifted. He's gone from crown prince of a minuscule but filthy rich island to prince consort of all of Alsantia. As the entire continent is being crushed and impoverished by her draconian government and endless armies, not to mention the Stranger's blessing,

we can only hope Suvani's power lessens in this new dynamic."

"He'll never mellow her out. While I don't know her, can't you see they'll be bad for each other, Ustragon? Is there even such a thing as a good couple? I can't say I've ever seen one." Realizing what he said and to whom he spoke it, Lucien glanced away from his father. "What are they saying?"

"The audio is severely distorted by the screaming troops, and as they never stop shouting, stamping, and clashing swords and shields, the message here isn't the words, but the chaos of what we're seeing. This isn't just an engagement, but a bid to take back her armies from Vemulus. And taking Conrad for her consort signals not only that he is her new second, but that her brother's head will roll if he does not bow the knee."

"Shouldn't Vemulus just give them back to her?"

"You would think so. They are sister and brother, after all. But we're talking about the domination of a world, Lucien, and neither were brought up to be self-sacrificing by their uncle the Regent, a born aristocrat who passed on the creed of the rich, that greed is the first and only good." Ustragon muttered, "as our spies claim Suvani and Vemulus assassinated their uncle, they apparently learned his lesson."

"You're saying civil war is in their blood," said Lucien. "And Conrad's too, if they're related. I can't disagree, as he was always picking on somebody."

"Would he be a good king?"

Lucien brayed a laugh. "Do you have to ask? He's just a kid."

"Would you rather Vemulus was king, or Conrad? Better the devil you know than the devil you don't, or so they say."

"That's hardly a flattering comparison for Conrad. Vemulus is poison, but Conrad has never done anything good."

"Those are awards for bravery," mused Ustragon. Lining Conrad's breastplate were feathered and ribboned medals.

"He was never brave until he came to Alsantia. But he came to this world as a worm, you know."

"Then our course is clear." Ustragon's fingers clicked the keypad on the dashboard.

"Don't lay in a course just yet. We can't leave Teriana without Isola, Aito, Akachi, or Jgorga. And what about Adjia?"

"You misunderstand me. I would never leave Teriana in the hands of villains. I meant only that your friend...frienemy, if you will...must be saved."

"But he's the bad guy now!"

"Then we must save him from himself, and from Suvani's machinations."

"He's old enough to make his own choices."

"I see a boy, as you said, only a little older than you. If he is a wicked boy, we cannot lay blame at his feet, not yet. He never knew his father, Lucien. And the King of Gaona is a good man. He rules Gaona well and peacefully."

"You're telling me Conrad's dad is the king of the only peaceful kingdom in Alsantia."

"You have only seen Teriana at war, Lucien. Teriana was glorious just days ago." Ustragon leaned back and rested his hands on the steering wheel. "And Ephremia has a long history of peaceful reigns. Even their current King and Queen have ruled well and governed impartially, and if they have catered to their vanity, what world leader has not done this?"

"They're dictators!"

"Monarchs. If they indulge their whims, they do so at the whim of their people, by whose indulgence they govern."

"They sent my friends into battle. They would have sent me. Even on the flagship, I saw terrible things..."

"Do you know why you were kept aboard?"

"I imagine Adjia had something to do with it."

"The Ephremians rely on our work for their own designs, Lucien. Just as we have borrowed Ephremian implementation to further our inventions. In fact, this program of idea sharing began when we jointly decided to send our heirs to Earth."

"It's funny that you remember that."

Lucien looked outside. The thick plate window tinted the world light blue, as if its resolution had diminished from picture perfect to watercolor. At the same time, the tinted glass was crystal clear,

and he could see the minutest of details from outside, like soldiers massing on the ridge, and red and purple banners joined by a single gleaming flag, on its gold fabric a white crown flecked with embroidered flames.

"Those are Suvani's troops."

"Joined now by Prince Conrad. The gold flag is Gaona's."

"Where's everybody else?" asked Lucien. "By now, we should have found my friends. Here is where we parted with Akachi, and there is where we last say Isola and Aito."

The walker marched at such a rapid, mechanized clip that the ramparts were now at their backs, and the Ashflowers at their feet, with those shredded by the steel squirrel now pulverized by the walker's heavy tread, and the rest clumped to the Daikonese Elder, who they devoured piecemeal.

Gritting his teeth in pity and disgust, Ustragon stepped the Walker into a brisker gear that tore through the Ashflowers and the Elder's torn husk, producing such loud snaps and cracks that they were felt in the cockpit. "And we should have seen Adjia on leaving the workshop. No doubt your friends headed for the Ephremian side."

"Why do that? Why not run, now that they're free of the Ephremian king and queen?"

"No one's free on this battlefield, Lucien. Not yet. We may not be locked in battle, but Ephremia's armies are routed, Teriana is downtrodden and occupied, and while the Stranger's shade departed for the mirror world, Suvani and Vemulus still overshadow this world."

"Then what do we do now?"

"I'm surprised to hear you say that, when you've acted like the hero of your story until now. We must tell our allies of the civil war brewing in the Alsantian ranks." While Ustragon's face was impassive, the lines of his jaw tightened, as if disappointment threatened to burst the Architect's mounting grief and stress. Lucien could only imagine how he felt. While he couldn't think of Ustragon as his father, having met him little more than an hour ago, his heart went out to the man for the tragedies piling up on him: his wife hiding and perhaps captured, his country invaded, his workshop afire and his hangar, filled with a life's work, in the hands of the enemy--and whether that turned out to be Vemulus or Suvani scarcely mattered...or did it?

"Why should we care if they kill each other? Let them do it."

"I agree, Lucien. But if Ephremia and Daiko reform their ranks and attack now, Vemulus and Suvani will have no recourse but to join forces and seal their breach in repelling our attack. Letting the Alsantians settle their differences isn't politic, it's strategic. We want to wage war on the weakened victors, not both Vemulus and Suvani at the peak of their strength, having had their numbers and powers bolstered by the Stranger."

When a light flashed on the dash, Lucien's mind went back to running errands with Njall. Being not only the only driver, and the only one in the Mansion with any grasp of auto engines, but the fattest and laziest of the Elderliches, Njall would often let routine maintenance go until the check engine light was flashing. For much of the past year, the check engine light flashed all the way to the grocery store and back, unnerving and agitating Lucien.

It seemed thoroughly unfair that, on top of the fantastic stresses of this magical world, that Earth's everyday problems should recur now. Not that he hadn't had his share of skipped meals, loose sandal straps, clothing rips, and bumps and scrapes in Alsantia. He simply had no reason to notice these mundane dilemmas until this moment. Lucien had just turned twelve, but being an introspective boy, he knew the sudden significance of the check engine light was not really the last straw, but a reflection of his weakening ability to cope, no doubt due to constant hungering, thirsting, and craving a long-deserved rest.

"Is that important." Lucien's exhaustion now left him not only too sluggish to emphasize the question mark, but so monotone head to toe that he felt like his every gesture, the slightest twitch of his foot, was swimming in a gelatinous medium.

"What...oh. Thanks for pointing that out. I get so wrapped up in conversation, Lucien.

Words are as real as gears to me, so real I can't see through them sometimes, the way they mesh to make an idea larger than their sum. This might be important, so let's put a pin in our discussion."

When he flipped the switch under the flashing light, another video played on the small screen, its lighting so near identical with the darkening evening pressing down on the cockpit that it must have been taken moments ago.

"Who sends you these videos anyway?"

Ustragon flipped the switch, halting the video, then turned a peeved look to Lucien. "I installed automated camera throughout Teriana in various monuments." Having cleared his throat, as if to forestall more talking, he flipped it back on.

Being not only hirsute head to toe, to the point of seeming forested with hair, but having yellow canines, yellower eyes, and uniforms puffied out and distorted by limbs that didn't quite bend the right way, hybrid forms that merged human and wolf, there was little doubt of what Lucien saw: werewolves.

This beastly contingent looked down upon the ramparts, where Suvani's flapping banners overlooked a sweeping, war-torn meadow strewn with smashed artillery, crushed humans and beasts, and a bizarre, metal oddity walking on backwards-jointed legs, like an ostrich...

"Wait! That's us! We're looking at the walker!"

"More importantly, those werewolves are about to ambush Suvani's troops."

"Now? We'll be caught in the crossfire!" As Lucien's heart pounded, he felt so much like running that if he was not strapped in, he might have spun the cockpit like a hamster wheel. "When was this taken?" His shout echoed in the cockpit. Realizing he had yelled at the Architect--his biological father, however much it pained him to admit it--Lucien trailed off, grasped for something humorous to defuse his bellowing, but came up empty, so that he could only drop to a deferential murmur. "When was this taken?"

"It's live, Lucien."

When Ustragon shifted gears, and throttled the steering wheel forward, the walker burst into a gigantic, loping sprint, its massive stomps resounding through the metal giant to shiver Lucien's legs,

shudder his still sore funny bone, rattle his teeth, and pulverize his every thought. All he could do was gape at the video embedded in the dashboard, in which Suvani's shock troops charged downhill in a monstrous wave, not only spear and sword-waving infantry, but karik knights thundering into Suvani's forefront, two breaking through to level their horns toward the retreating walker.

Ustragon spurred the walker straight for the treeline. Any of the massive trees' enormous branches could impale robot, father, and son in one unyielding blow, if he did not change direction.

"You'll get us killed," said Lucien.

"No, Lucien. Look again."

When your eyes brim with imminent destruction and death, you get a crystal clarity of the big picture, like a bug about to be crushed on a sparkling windshield, but you're not quite in the right frame of mind to enjoy the details, as if one could ever step back from their own death to appreciate the view. Nonetheless, Lucien took a deep breath, and focused all his denial on the crushing array of tall and mighty trees to receive their blow, their knotty outstretched hands...

"They're Daikonese Elders." Lucien breathed a sigh of relief. "They're on our side. The good guys, right, Ustragon."

Ustragon's perplexed look was accented by beads of sweat dripping from his temple into his grizzled goatee. One bead slid from his brow down to his nose, splashed on the steering wheel, and made one hand slip, which he instantly snatched back to the wheel, gripped it in white-knuckled hands, and swerved.

"What are you doing?"

"Something's wrong, Lucien. They were supposed to stand aside, to let us pass through to the Ephremian side."

As the groves surged forward, branches clicked on and scratched the cockpit as the Elder's vegetal hands grappled the walker to a halt. Having lunged across Lucien to tear off the belt, Ustragon flung off his own restraints, then climbed the rungs toward the hatch.

Then the world turned upside down. The cockpit whirled Ustragon from the rungs to the cockpit window, so that he slid in the curve of the glass bubble. When Lucien hung from his armrests, then flopped beside Ustragon, the crack of his feet on the glass made him cringe, but the window held firm.

Long, limber branches enfolded the cockpit, and up, through these gigantic wooden fingers, was a huge, hoary head: the gigantic visage of the largest Daikonese Elder, their ruler, his eyes darkened by the tinted blue glass.

When the fingers tightened on the cockpit, the blue faded to black.