The pulse in Yurreth’s palm was not like ceaseless rain—it was still water.

  The Woman Painted White seemed unsurprised when Hazahnahkah had explained what happened beneath the River Sea. No one expected it—least of all Hwayoung, who had the most motivation to stay behind while the rest pursued Nazaki. Hazahnahkah being able to speak was of course yet another reason his company was left speechless. Though the Swordpriest’s silence quickly turned to concern. Whether he was truly working for Knife’s dreams or for Yurreth, it appeared Hazahnahkah speaking was not a part of his plan.

  “And how is it that you tell us this?” Galfarys asked. “You have no mouth and yet you speak? Do not tell me your intention was such a feeble Ramble.”

  This question enraged Hazahnahkah. “How dare you say the privilege of voice is weakness?”

  This shut Galfarys up quickly. Yurreth stepped in even quicker. “What the Swordpriest means to say is that Knife has somehow survived the effects of her new illnesses while remaining ahead of us. She has tricks, and we need ours. Speech isn’t going to prove effective against her, Sword.”

  “Serpent’s Spill’s nonlinear properties are why it heals so well and why it is so sought,” Ysan exclaimed. “Maybe Hazahnahkah always had the ability to speak?”

  This was perceptive. Hazahnahkah realized she was right. He had been so stuck in the perspective of whoever he had become after Ysan found him that he hadn’t considered this. “I don’t know,” he confessed. “I only know it has little to do with the Ramble I developed.”

  “And what Ramble would that be?” Yurreth asked.

  “You are my new wielder, not my new master.”

  This seemed to irritate the Woman Painted White, but she rapidly dismissed this. “I never claimed to be.”

  Right now, Hazahnahkah wanted to keep information about his new Ramble to himself. If someone among them still served Knife, they might inform her of his new abilities for the coming battle.

  Hazahnahkah activated his ability, storing it for later use. The brushstrokes, indentations, and holes within him pooled with vibrant paint, resinous and fresh, smelling clean and sharp. His steel shivered like snakeskin, ceremoniously warping and dressing itself until an illustrious image covered his surface: Hwayoung underneath dark waters. It was a proud mark, and a painting for his promise. Soon he would paint Nazaki there as well.

  “Such a tease,” Yurreth said.

  Hazahnahkah chuckled, steel shivering with paint leakage like an overfilled palette. His breath drew in when one of the carriage drivers unmounted from her horse. She had taken off her hood. It was September 6th. The woman who had taken Ysan’s arm was now without her Tower, but she was not without her Orphanspawn. She opened the carriage doors and they climbed out, carrying bricks, tarp, wooden beams. There was more: artificial cords, metal grids, and magnetic prisms that seemed quite foreign. The one thing they put together that Hazahnahkah could recognize was a tiller and a fairly large mirror. Once one of the younger Orphanspawn took out a talon, the Sword realized what this was—the remains of the Orphanspawn Tower.

  “It will take some time to reconstruct even a portion of it,” September 6th’s eyes narrowed on Hazahnahkah. She appeared to understand who and what he truly was now. “Can the Creator Blade utilize his Third Terror to rebuild it?”

  “No, that would require programming knowledge,” Yurreth said. “The Sword needs to understand what he makes or its just shape without its function.”

  “Programming?”

  “We don’t need to rebuild anything pretty. The sensors in the station will recognize The Tower’s signals even if it’s incomplete.”

  What station? Hazahnahkah wondered, focusing his attention on Ysan. The woman was tense since September 6th appeared. She did not seem surprised though. Her stump had been sitting in the River Sea ever since Hazahnahkah came out. He wondered if her wound still hurt. He could fix that. He wanted to.

  Then, before he could, Ysan pulled out a second arm. It was made of water. This was the power of Ramble! It glistened reflectively, filled with beaded light of stars and dancing blurry faces. Since when did she learn to perform such an amazing feat with her Ramble? Hazahnahkah could not believe how much the girl who saved him grew. He saved her from water, and now in some strange way, she was one with it.

  “Ah, so it’s true,” September 6th said. “The Water Witch can foster phantom limbs.”

  Ysan turned to Zalaster, then knelt, fist beside her shoulder. Her water arm took an incredibly complex shape, forming both her swordcoat, her sword, and a saintly string of beads. Her mastery of the Ramble even allowed her to slow, quicken, and reshape it at will. Insignias on the tiny beads showed a swordfish in a storm—a simplified variant of The Fawn City Crest and an old patron deity once worshipped for the season of harahm.

  “Patriarch, Serpent’s Spill is very different from the typical here. We could address the drought that Red Keep and The Scarlet Gates currently faces.”

  “And the diseases of Blue Puddle?” Zalaster asked.

  Ysan sucked her teeth but said nothing.

  “Unless you’ve had enough experience to develop another Ramble,” Zalaster continued. “We must face it. My marriage to Yurreth is our only option—and one I will readily accept.”

  “You do not need to speak now or here,” Yurreth said.

  “For the good of my people, I do.”

  Yurreth’s lips smiled widely. “I do love eagerness. A blood pact, shall we?”

  “No exchange of blades?”

  “A bladed exchange is not ideal currently,” Yurreth lifted Hazahnahkah. “More importantly, I am not one for ceremonies.”

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  Zalaster took his arrowhead. He used his Ramble to duplicate it. In one swift motion he pulled down his vest, pierced the skin above his breast, and carved out a cross. Yurreth took it and did the same. Zalaster then retrieved and repeated this. They traded back and forth three times before the arrow dissipated into a bloodmist.

  Zalaster seemed very unhappy with this, but Hazahnahkah did not feel comfortable inserting himself into politics where all the lives of The Fawn Cities hung in the balance. By the end of their discussion, Ysan was made the new Right Hand of Yurreth, and the segments of The Tower had been redesigned.

  It was a strange new device that sat amidst the River Sea; a bowl sitting in a pattern of circles made of circles. It took several Orphanspawn to crew it. Whatever they did, the bowl shifted and tilted. A rambletide leyline flickered to the little star above. To Hazahnahkah’s amazement, humans had commandeered a celestial body without touching it. It was no ball of fire at all, but some kind of triangular ship. The air was rather cold around it. The strange unidentified object inhaled the warmth of Black Garden into its small mechanical shell despite the fact it was too bright for most besides Yurreth to look at. The skin was a shifting plasma, a burning paint that hovered and sank, sometimes beneath the surface, sometimes just above it. It was surprisingly silent for its size and speed, swimming in the wind like a whale. Its mouth opened and a throat of glistening lights washed them.

  Yurreth led the group inside. Even Hazahnahkah was a bit cautious. He has never once witnessed a vehicle of any sort, powered but Ramble or not, without men and women to possess it. Ghosts seemed to command its doors, images, and functions. They all moved on their own. An army of invisible servants served Yurreth’s beck and call. Her final command to them was “takeoff”, and the whale began to fly. It was a slow but sudden movement, and oddly controlled.

  The force’s sudden obedience then shook to a stop, and with an explosive noise and flash of red, it yelled at Yurreth in a way no person had ever dared yell at her before.

  “SECURITY CLEARANCE DENIED. IDENTITY AUTHENTICATION REQUIRED.”

  “Oh, so Zalahak finally has some folds in his brain,” Yurreth said.

  It was still quite unclear who Zalahak was.

  Dalagun used his Ramble and smashed his hammer into the walls of the metal beast. This prompted the ceiling to open up. Little metal stems craned from all directions. Their eyes gazed upon Yurreth. Not a second later she was riddled with holes. Bullets. Or maybe something else? Projectiles much swifter than the weapons of the Orphanspawn. They reduced Yurreth to mush while everyone else dove for cover, scuttling behind carriages and countertops. However, they attacked Yurreth and Yurreth only. Hazahnahkah sat in Yurreth’s pooling flesh, trying to understand how to approach an attacker he could not sense or see. He froze physics in the chamber with his Second Terror by creating a field where matter couldn’t move, but this did not work. No bullets or arrows were flying through the air. These weren’t projectiles. The attacks were being overlaid on top of their targets, much like how a calligrapher splashed directly onto a page, but this metaphor did not help Hazahnahkah understand how this could be stopped. Wherever the weapons were, they weren’t here. These weren’t guns. Hazahnahkah used his Third Terror and destroyed the glass eyes of the alien machine. Crippling its senses seemed to work. The attacks ceased almost immediately.

  Hazahnahkah resumed physics. Everyone threw themselves forward reactively, stumbling and screaming. Yurreth regenerated blindingly fast. She picked Hazahnahkah back up.

  “Excellent work,” Yurreth said. “How did you know where the pagodas were?”

  “Pagodas?” Hazahnahkah asked. “I destroyed the eyes.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Unfortunate. We actually needed those.”

  “I can remake them.”

  “No, you can’t. Those are cameras. Not eyes. They are a device used to interpret visual data. You need to know how they are built before you use your Third Terror on them, much like The Tower.”

  A servant of Yurreth then drew her bow at Dalagun, cursing. “Hold yourself man! You utter fool! These are stranger skies.”

  Dalagun stood stupidly. “It dared to question Yurreth.”

  The lower white of Yurreth’s eyes flashed. “It doesn’t dare anything, it’s not alive. I should have explained earlier but we are already here and out of time. The carriages are loaded with remnants of the Kairenhah Tower. The cameras view that as a part of the vessel and so the pagodas won’t attack them, but now its system thinks it has been hijacked, so it has cut off all leyline ports to our destination.”

  Hazahnahkah still couldn’t quite wrap his mind around an object that could think. Maybe this was personification, but it literally behaved on its own. If it had a soul, Hazahnahkah could reason with it. “Maybe it wishes to speak as badly as I once did. My friend, I can hear you! I know that you are there! I am here, friend!”

  “Stop,” Yurreth said. “It does not have a soul. It is programmed electrically.”

  “Vikushak’s technology?”

  “That technology was never Vikushak’s. He stole his ideas from The Tower,” Yurreth whispered, troubled. “Without the cameras we can’t trick them through my masquerading physically. We will need to get access to at least one rambletide leyline at the Waker Station.”

  “Well why can’t we just choose another rambletide?” Ysan asked.

  “The Waker Station creates and connects all the rambletide leylines in Serpent’s Ramble. There are no other leylines.”

  “I understand how leylines work. I know their molecular dance and quantum song,” Hazahnahkah said. “I can make one.”

  Yurreth blinked, speechless. She ordered everyone to stay put as she bashed a large hole in the next chamber over. The wind roared at this height, and nearly all sound was sucked into the vast black like an endless scream. Between the impossible strength, the ability to stand in these extreme conditions, and the regeneration she’d displayed—even during the moment Hazahnahkah had paused all physical interactions—it was anyone’s guess how her Ramble operated. Hazahnahkah had thought it was blood related, but just blood couldn’t explain this.

  The Woman Painted White raised Hazahnahkah to the sky. “Straight that way.”

  “There’s nothing there.”

  “There is.”

  Hazahnahkah didn’t sense anything. He created the leyline. The aurora was powerful enough to see with the human eye, dancing and pulsating as a ghostly river in the sky. At this, the strange ship continued on its way, and suddenly, out of nowhere an even larger structure appeared. It was disc-shaped and ringed with lights. Why, it must have been the size of all The Fawn Cities combined, and higher than The Great Wish River itself. The disc megastructure was far larger inside than it was out; a city was inside it, and the city was empty. The fact that such an artifact could lay suspended against the forces of nature which should have dragged it down with such ease was a magnificence symbol to whoever it was that created it. They could have created anything. Torches didn’t flicker or die. The cold of space, somehow magically, had become a balanced warmth. Water hissed softly from unseen pipes, spraying the roots of tall green plants that grew in neat, perfect lines along every tower—towers that were identical to the Orphanspawn’s Tower. What had all the crises in the world below been for? Such feats could solve the worst problems of Serpent’s Ramble in the matter of one sun.

  Looking down through the glass floor where they came, Hazahnahkah saw something he should have seen far earlier. Great mechanical hands with those “cameras” in their palms floated in uncountable numbers. It was a net of stirring black. They hovered around the beautifully sculpted and perfectly brushed canvas of Black Garden, of its vibrant rivers, skies, and hills, of all of Serpent’s Ramble. Their downcast stares were all a blinkless red, as if not one inch of the surface below was permissible. It was so obvious now…

  … Serpent’s Ramble was a prison.