It could not have been too much time, for the dark of night had not yet retreated and he had not rested well. And yet, the fire was burning low, drowsily flowing between cracks in the red embers. Strange, he thought, I built it fer self-feedin’ a good five hours at ze very least... it shouldn’t be out just yet... He looked at his sleeping companions, curled up close together for warmth. Their hair and clothes looked only now a bit damp, so it would seem that the fire had served them well in its short existence. But it was fading fast now, and the dead chill of night still surrounded them. So he stood and looked for the rest of Gideon’s wood to nurture the flames back to life.

Gideon stirred and moaned. “Nya?” he asked sleepily, “Where are you going?”

“Fire’s dyin’,” Nya replied. “I’m goin’ t’see if I can find some more wood fer her.”

“Oh,” Gideon said. He yawned and looked around confused for a moment, as though he had forgotten the events of the previous evening. Then the memories returned to him and he frowned. “Surely morning cannot be too far off, can it? The fire...” His voice died in his throat. His eyes widened and the colour drained from his face. “Nya,” he breathed, “Nya, what is...?”

Nya did not see whatever it was behind him that the Prince was referring to. Some part of him felt he did not need to. An icy sensation took a hold of his heart and he felt the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. Hesitantly, he looked over his shoulder; then he turned around completely and felt as though his heart had withered within his chest!

Nothing in the natural world could explain what he was seeing. A massive shadow loomed directly over him. It was like a mighty stallion in form, though a great deal larger. It was no beast of flesh—his coat absorbed the glow of the fog completely and remained black as a void. A cold crooked blue horn protruded from his great head, and his eyes burned crimson below it. The spectre was soundless, unreal until he huffed his frozen breath into Nya’s stricken face. Then there was a voice; deep, majestic, yet terrifying, “Death comes forth to claim thee and thy brethren, yet do not interpret this to mean that we shall take thy lives, for we shall not. Nay, we are sent to guide thee only, to meet thy queen.”

Gideon shook Marley awake. He had no idea what to make of the cryptic message spoken in a more ancient form of Münshirling. There was no sign of a rider on the fell creature’s back to have spoken, and the words seemed to vibrate from inside his mind, out of the ground, and through the stale air all at once. “W-What are you?” he gasped.

“We are Death. Thou shalt follow us, Child of the Marked, and reserve further questions for a later time. Thou shalt find all answered unto thee, but not as yet. Come and be swift, we make for Karton’s Village.” The horror turned, his movements fluid and soundless.

“K-Karton’s Village?” sputtered Nya.

“We can’t go with you,” Gideon said.

The stallion paused, but he did not look back. One of his ears flicked in the direction of the Prince. “Oh?” the voice asked simply.

“My friend is hurt, she cannot walk the distance to your Karton’s Village,” Gideon said.

Marley gave him a desperate look. “Gideon, don’t tell—”

Gideon looked uncertainly back at Marley. She shook her head quickly. He looked at the shadowy stallion and went on hesitantly, “I-I stood up on the bluff—there isn’t a town for miles.”

“And who is us?” Marley demanded.

The spectre’s ears flattened against his shadowy skull. “Our patience weareth thin. We hath aught to do elsewhere, and cannot abide to hear thy grievances. Thy queen expects thee.”

“If it’s all ze same to yeh, we’ll stay here until morning comes,” Nya said.

“...Morning?” the stallion repeated, as though the word were strange to him. For a moment he stood unmoving. Then he turned towards them again, raising his head high and his ears erect. “Cast thine eyes out across the sea. Beholdest thou the silver thread which doth line the horizon afar off? That is thy Morning, and she shall not come to thee.”

It took some searching to make out the thread to which Death referred, for it was so faint. Then there it was, as though all Kiirlight simply stopped at the edges of the horizon and went no further, without any obstacle to block its path. It was a phenomenon that defied reality once more, but like the spectre before them, also could not be denied. Slowly Gideon’s eyes wandered back to the stallion, seeming dazed as his mind tried to grasp what he had seen and heard. “What do you mean, she shall not come?”

“It cannot be said more simply,” Death stated. He flattened his ears back once more and huffed. “We perceive thy mortal frames art in need of food and shelter. These, also, shall not come to thee, but thou to them. Hesitate no longer, and come.”

Nya gave a warning glance to Marley and Gideon. He still stood defensively between them and the spectre and his expression spoke clearly his opinion, at least to the former. Gideon waited for him to speak, but he did not, so he looked to Marley.

Marley, in her turn, clenched her fists and looked away from everyone. Nya would not, he obviously

did not feel it his place to do so, but she knew she would have to speak. Straightening her back she looked at Gideon. “I’ll not be carried,” she said, grasping hold of the long walking stick she had been so opposed to before.

“You’ll not object to my helping you up though, will you?” Gideon asked.

She shook her head. He stood and offered her his hand.

Nya closed his eyes and drew a deep breath before he turned to face the spectre again. “We do not trust yeh,” he said, “But it is His Majesty’s desire zat we give ourselves t’yer mercy. Lead on.”

“It is then thy fortune that we do not require trust and possess a surplus of mercy, is it not?” Death said icily. He cantered briskly around and started down the beach before checking his pace to a slower gait to allow them to catch up. As when he came, his movements were soundless but for the wind stirred in his passing.

Gideon knew only that Death led them away from the sea, in a northwest direction based on his earlier reckoning. At one point, the sand under their feet became replaced by hard gravel, but aside from that there were no landmarks; no goal to look ahead towards, nothing to look back at to signify how far into the infinite blackness they had gone. Now they turned, now they walked straight. Once Gideon could have sworn that they had turned completely around. The equine spectre only paused when Marley stumbled, and never did he speak or look back.

“Does he even know where we’re going?” Marley said through clenched teeth after one such event.

“This is crazy, we should head back for the beach and wait until Kiir-rise,” Gideon said in a whisper.

“We have no idea where ze beach is any more, yer Highness,” Nya said. “We can’t go back.”

“Are we more lost following after him, or groping back to where we started?” Gideon wondered.

“Both are unnecessary,” stated the voice then, “For we have come to the place that we sought... Or close enough thereto that we may depart from thee. Beholdest thou the amber glow. Seek it out if thou desirest the answers to the riddles that puzzle thee.”

“What? What glow—?” Marley asked. But there was no answer. The spectre was gone, the blue flame of his horn had darkened, and it was as though he had simply melted away into the darkness.

“Where did he go?” Gideon asked, turning this way and that.

“Well that’s fine, just fine, isn’t it?” Marley cried. “So we follow him into the middle of nowhere and he abandons us!”

“I d’not see a glow,” Nya said softly. “Not aside from ze mists, zat is, and certainly not amber.”

“Hold on, was that there before?” Gideon asked, and he stretched out his arm and pointed. There his friends saw at first nothing, and then, very slowly, a dim orange-yellow light came into view. It was a dull and ugly light—unnatural, and Gideon fancied that if light could decay and rot as a corpse, that is exactly what it would look like.

The shapes of two twisted black lampposts began to materialize out of the gloom under the vague illumination. Under these, the Münshirlings could now make out the smooth round pebbles of a cobblestone road. Looking down, they found that they were already standing upon this cobblestone road, though they were sure that they had not been before. They all exchanged glances. Before, too, there had seemed to be no light. Now, without ever having become any brighter, it was impossible to miss—no longer just a spot of the dirtiest light they had ever seen; it was now the glow of a whole town.

In spite of its ugliness, the town was to them in the darkness as the first sight of an island to lost seafarers. Wordlessly they agreed that to go back was no longer an option, regardless of what dangers this new unknown might hold. Then, with a shrug, Gideon spoke the thought that was on each of their minds. “We’ll be able to see, at any rate. Still, I do not know why that shadow horse brought us here, and I doubt he meant us well. We must proceed cautiously.”

“Perhaps we’ll find someone who can help us here,” Marley ventured, though she did not dare actually hope for this. There was a sure feeling of foreboding lurking around this place, perhaps some evil hidden in the shadows far worse than even Death had been.

They proceeded quietly down the road towards the town. Gideon felt Marley’s hand slip into his. He looked at her, but she did not return his gaze. Her eyes were focused ahead towards the town; her jaw set and her expression grim. “Are you all right?”

“Yes,” she said simply. Clack, clack, cl-clack... the sound of her walking stick on the round cobbles was loud in the total silence. “This place isn’t natural,” she said. “It’s a terrible place. It doesn’t feel real—like a nightmare.”

“Perhaps we’re all still sleepin’, zen?” Nya suggested.

“I hurt too much to be sleeping,” Marley said. “Which rules out being dead too, remember?”

Nya and Gideon laughed half-heartedly. They had almost come under the light of those first two lampposts that they had seen. Then, each without any signal one to the other, they stopped. They looked up at the wicked pair now towering over them; the workmanship of each lamppost was foreign and vile. Though neither looked identical, each was fashioned as some twisted demonic figure whose contorted body was grotesquely out of proportion. The hands had long, painfully curling fingers and claws, each held out to support the seemingly hovering ball of amber light. Their legs were long and crooked, coming together and fusing towards the bottom to form the post of the lamp. But worst of all were the faces; each goblin-like lamp featured a wide, hideous grin, with empty, hollow eye sockets which stared down upon the newcomers menacingly.

“Ugh!” Marley exclaimed, “How ghastly!”

“Come on,” Gideon said. “Let’s go.” He could not shake the feeling that something really was peering out of those empty eyes at him, and he did not desire to spend any more time in the presence of whatever it was. He was disappointed as he and his friends proceeded, however, to find that every lamp in Karton’s Village had been fashioned similarly to the ugly sentinels which welcomed them at the first.

“At least we know zat zese are not Vüls,” Nya said in a low voice as they walked down the dingy

streets. “Horrifying and ugly as zeir works, perhaps, but far too much attention t’detail, far too intricate to be of zeir make.”

The others did not reply. Instinct or perhaps something else discouraged noise if they could help it.

The rest of Karton’s Village was not much more inviting. The buildings, some tall, some squat, all square-shaped with flat roofs, were run down and worn under many years of apparent neglect and abuse. There was not one amongst them that did not display torn plaster and exposed brick. Many had gaping holes where the walls had simply given way and collapsed.

Gideon noticed that the mist lost its glow under the light of the amber lamps, as it had under his fire back at the beach. The alleys were still dark, however, and the mist’s glow could be seen vaguely within. The same could not be said of the windows and holes in the buildings; their interiors were as black as the sky above them. “Do you suppose anyone still lives here?” Gideon wondered aloud.

Nya shrugged. “Hard to say. I do not see so much as a trace o’life. Perhaps zey were driven off by a plague.”

“Maybe,” Gideon said. He looked at the dark windows suspiciously. “Driven off by a plague... and yet, every once in a while I could swear I saw something move out of the corner of my eye.”

Nya nodded. “Zen gone, a’course, ze moment you look at it directly.”

“You’ve seen it too?” Gideon asked, looking now at his friend with wide eyes. Then suddenly he felt a sickening horror in the pit of his stomach. Don’t look for it. Don’t talk about it. It’s not real. Don’t talk about it.

They paused and were silent.

“Gideon, let’s go back. This is a bad place. I don’t like it at all,” Marley said.

Gideon looked around at the surrounding buildings. One in particular had a caved-in roof, which allowed for some of the amber light to leak in. Gideon looked close at the interior, though he could not force himself to risk a step nearer to the building. Just vaguely he could make out some sort of shape in the darkness, only the very topmost outlines being licked by the amber glow.

“What is it?” Marley asked slowly, “What do you see?”

Gideon was not sure... then he felt his heart skip a beat and his stomach flip—a crumpled skinny corpse?—he looked away. Quickly he tried to think of anything else it could have been; debris, his imagination. He did not want to be sure. “I—I don’t know,” he stammered. “Let’s go, let’s get out of here, now!”

There was a sense of urgency, dread, helplessness—Gideon could only compare it to the way a small hunted animal must feel before the predator revealed itself and pierced it through. It was a ridiculous notion, but it filled his whole mind and soul with panic!

The sound was not his racing heartbeat, though it nearly matched it. There was a rumbling in the ground that made small pebbles bounce on the cobblestones.

“What’s happenin’?”

Suddenly Marley let out a scream! The shadows were writhing, breathing—they were not shadows, they were people! No, they could not be people, they were too dreadful—but they were everywhere; leaning against the buildings, crowding the streets, standing on the rooftops, crawling out of the gutters—they were everywhere! They were the most wretched creatures that the Münshirlings ever beheld; their eyes seemed empty as the lamps had been, or else filled with hopelessness and sinister glee. Some wore twisted smiles, others bitter glares, some just seemed blank and cold. Their bodies were skinny and ragged, their hair long, wiry, and unkempt. Gideon could feel the hair on the back of his own neck standing on end. His uneasiness was caused by more than that these people lacked health, there was something else missing. It was almost like they lacked souls as well, and something else—something very dark—had taken the place of such an element. All of them were watching the three newcomers with something Gideon felt was akin to hunger as they clamoured closer and closer to them! A thousand tortured whispers filled the air, though none of the Münshirlings could make out what was said, nor did they desire to know!

Marley, Gideon, and Nya backed up against each other as they were encircled by these shells of what may at some point have been people. Marley tried to stave them off with her walking stick, but they avoided her blows like shadows!

“What are they?!” Marley yelled in horror. Suddenly her leg gave out from under her and she fell!

“Marley!” Gideon and Nya cried. Seeing her fall invigorated the things somehow, their advance became an all out onslaught! They dived and clawed desperately at her! Nya reached out to catch the back of the shirt of the one closest her, but it flinched and retreated from his touch. He aimed a fist at another and it ducked away from him—they looked at him uncertainly, and seemed to be trying to avoid him as they went after Marley—“Marley, stay down!” he yelled. He positioned himself in front of her—but there were so many, scuttling and creeping and reaching!

“Oh, blast it all!” Marley cried, grasping her stick. She struck out at one after another—one caught a lock of her hair and she hit its hand, another grasped her injured leg and Nya kicked at it, causing it to retreat... yet still more came!

“Get away!” Gideon cried. The things had no aversion or hesitation towards him as they clamoured closer. He had nothing to fend them off! He struck out at one nearest him with his fist, but the thing caught his arm with a fearfully powerful grip. He yelled and tried to yank his arm back, but to no avail! An expression like surprise or bewilderment crossed its ugly face as its dark nails dug painfully into his wrist.

“Gaaah!”

It grinned excitedly for his expression of pain and looked to another at its side, who also thrust its hand out and grabbed hold of Gideon’s wrist. Then so too did another and another! More swarmed over him and pushed him to his knees, grabbed his hair—their ugly thin fingers then traced up his arm towards where the

black mark was on his shoulder. Just before the first was able to touch it, there was a shout. The heads of every one of the things went up in alarm, and then as quickly as they had clustered and overwhelmed the Münshirlings, they retreated like scuttling erepods back into the buildings and the darkness!

Panting and bedraggled, the Münshirling boys helped Marley back to her feet. Her lip was bleeding from her fall. They each looked from place to place at the things in the shadows, trying to prepare for the next swarm. But it did not come. Instead they noticed now that a great figure stood in the street. He appeared as a giant of sorts, standing at what Gideon estimated was about nine feet tall. For a moment or two, the Münshirlings knew not how to respond. They stood there, staring at him and panting. He wore black and gold armour, though his left arm and its dark yellow-green flesh were bare and exposed. There on his shoulder they saw a black mark similar—nay, it was identical to their own; a diamond surrounded by three dots. His other arm, the left side of his neck, his left hand, half of his right leg and his entire left leg all appeared to be some twisted mix of La’Karnian machine and flesh. He had wings, like a Dracoen and yet not so, the right one having a mechanical forearm and fingers. The giant’s face was covered by what looked like the cranium of a zyron, with thin red earfins attached to the sides. A hole had been bored into the top of the cranium, allowing his thick black hair to flow out down his neck. His jaw, large and squared, looked to be plated in metal. As Gideon looked up into his fiery eyes, he could not shake the feeling that he had seen them somewhere before.

“What an unpleasant welcome, I must apologize,” the giant said in trade speak in a deep, whirring voice. His tone was casual, even cordial. “But do not worry. They will not come again, not while I am here, anyway. Please, come with me.” He beckoned them forward with a wave of his mechanical arm.

This time there was no resistance, no questions asked. Gideon and his friends were so horrified by what had happened that they proceeded quickly under the wing of this creature that had called off the things.

“You know trade speak, I trust?” the giant asked.

Gideon nodded, glancing over his shoulder uneasily.

“Good, then we shall not have to teach it to you,” said the giant, in that language now rather than Münshirling. “Trade speak is the universal tongue here. Understanding it is a valuable asset, and you should use it and it alone from here on out. Ah, and you had better walk in front of me,” he went on, ushering them ahead. “I’ll direct you to where you need to go. Down this street now, and stay close.”

They proceeded as the giant directed, anxiously glancing at the things they knew were still lurking in the darkness.

“What are they?” Marley whispered.

Before either Gideon or Nya could answer, the giant’s voice declared, “Kiventa.”

The Münshirlings startled and flinched, for the word was foul and used only as a curse back on Novangärd.

“The Kiventa, to be specific. These are they to whom death might have been a mercy and they received it not,” the giant said, looking grimly ahead. “Pay them no mind.”

“Why didn’t the foul things receive it?” Marley muttered.

The giant did not answer. Instead, he motioned that they turn down another street. They found that this one and, as they went on, most of its side streets were lit by the lamps, even the alleys had some dim form of illumination. “I advise that you stay away from the darker sides of Karton’s Village. It is not often that the Kiventa venture out of their shadows, but if you make yourself so easily accessible... well, let us just say that they have never been good at resisting temptation.”

As they went on, they started to notice that larger buildings lined the streets, and that these, although still run down, seemed to be in a better state of repair. There were no gaping holes in the sides, that is.

“Where are we going?” Gideon asked in a hollow voice.

“To the plaza.”

“A plaza? Did those... er, things... build it too?”

“Kiventa do not build.”

Marley shuddered. “Then who did?”

“The Marked.”

“Ze what now?”

“The Marked,” replied the giant simply. The Münshirlings waited for him to elaborate, but he did not.

“What are the Marked?” Gideon asked at last.

“You are. I am.” The giant looked up, and added, “They are.” He motioned up the road towards a lamppost, his mechanical arm whirring and creaking as he did so, where several hooded figures stood together speaking in hushed tones. One of them looked up just before the advancing group came into earshot. He nudged one nearest him, then the lot of them quieted and stood at attention. Gideon looked back at the giant, who nodded to the figures in recognition and dismissed them back to what they had been doing.

Marley’s eyes darted from the figures to the giant and back again. “Excuse me, we are?” she asked in alarm, “No, no, I’m sorry. You must be mistaken. My friends and I don’t live here, we were shipwrecked—we are staying only long enough to find a ferry home, we—”

“Will answer the call of your Queen,” the giant finished.

The Münshirlings exchanged glances. Queen? Nya mouthed to Gideon.

Gideon shrugged. Death too had mentioned a queen.

“...We serve no queen,” Marley said slowly.

“Not yet,” said the giant, as cordially as ever.

“Not ever, or until such a time as the King of New Münshir has a female heir,” Marley reinforced. “I am a Münshirling, I serve only the rightful ruler of my country.”

The giant was unmoved. He continued walking without any change of pace or expression, as though Marley had not said anything at all. Then at last he asked, “Are you so uneducated that you are completely unaware of what the mark you bear on your shoulder means?”

Marley’s face flushed with anger. She stopped suddenly and turned to face him. “Uneducated?”

The giant halted, but he was not interested in quibbling. “You are not just a little Münshirling with so petty and futile a purpose as to serve a mortal king whose life will come and go as ash in the wind. No, you are something much greater. You are one of the Marked. On your shoulder you bear the Black Diamond; it was chosen you long before you were born. This destines you for greatness. The Marked are often called Black Shards; for shards we are, shards of a much greater and fuller object. That is why you have come. There comes a time when all shards must at some point come together to be made one once more. The Snake Queen is our mighty leader. All others are weak. All others shall fall before us.”

“So petty a—how dare you!” Marley cried. “I will hear no more of this!”

“Never mind him, Marley,” Gideon said, putting his hand on her shoulder. “Let’s go. We’ll find our own way.”

“There is only one way to go. That way.” He stretched his great arm over their heads and pointed up the road. “I believe it has been made blatantly clear why you cannot go any other way, least of all return in the direction you came, thus I will not permit you to turn from our course.” There was a less than subtle movement, and the Münshirlings became aware that he meant that as a threat which he would not hesitate to act upon. “Proceed.”

Before Marley could speak, Gideon put up his hand and said, “We will proceed. I desire to speak to this queen of yours, perhaps sort out this misunderstanding.”

Nya and Marley looked at him strangely, but yielded.

The giant directed them on up the road until at last they reached the plaza. Nya noted at once that the architecture of this place was characteristically different from the rest of Karton’s Village that they had seen so far. Once, he was sure, it had been a beautiful, majestic place—and of its kind of craftsmanship he had never before seen the like. The plaza was incredibly vast; circular and room enough for perhaps many thousands of people to gather at once. Cobbles did not pave the ground here, but tiles instead, upon which were engraved the most intricate carvings he had ever beheld. Those that had not been deliberately shattered seemed to him as though they might each be a small piece of a grand work, with symbols and stories within symbols and stories. All this he found with but a glance, for the giant would not allow for him to stop and examine them further. It was just as well, Nya reasoned, for beholding the desecration that this artwork had endured caused him to mourn within his heart.

As Nya raised his eyes from the tiles, he saw that a great towering statue stood in the centre of the plaza. She, too, had once been a magnificent work; she stood tall and proud, dressed in flowing robes which draped her shoulders and, though cut of stone, seemed to flow about her slender bare feet in delicate wisps. As they were approaching the statue from the side, Nya could see that her back had been damaged; the area just above her midriff was jagged and rough as though part of the statue had been hewn off. Too, he could see an ugly crater behind her where he guessed the debris must have fallen. Carried off as material for zose repulsive houses, no doubt, he thought. The details of her face he could not make out, for the altitude and darkness were too great, but he could see her slender arms—one grasping a staff at her side, and the other presenting what looked like a biireo of some kind to the skies. Yet, for all the beauty and magnificence of the statue, a fell feeling entered his heart as he looked up at that biireo, and he looked away.

The giant directed them to the pedestal of the statue, and then around towards the front. As they rounded the corner, Marley stifled a gasp; there, before the pedestal’s black door, was a sword with a blade of brutal strength. It struck upright from the plaza ground at an angle from the soil, and the hilt mounted upon it leaned inward from the tilt. It too was of a make unknown to the Münshirlings, but again, different from the plaza or the streets which came before, and the details cut both of blade and hilt were so fine as to be barely visible but for a glint. It could not be said what element cast the glint, for it was not light, but some rich, distracting thing that seemed to scramble the senses—visually reminiscent of electricity, but more subtle, and black. A mass of small black stones were piled up around the sword’s base and clung to the blade as if wet. Truly, it could be seen that a thick black liquid seemed to seep down the blue-tinted blade and pool in the deep cracks through the plaza stone. It was a terrible sight, yet it had not been the look of it that had startled Marley so, it was the atmosphere hanging about it. The very ground seemed to be rent and tormented under it for several feet out. A terrible smell of death filled the air around it—not the smell of decaying flesh, but rather the very smell of a weakening life ebbing fast away, cold and haunting.

The giant paused sombrely before it. “The Snake Queen’s blade,” he said in a monotonous tone. “It is called Kran-dé-Fatalé. It was cast here to commemorate Her great conquest. To touch it is to taste of instantaneous death, and so I would ask you to refrain from doing so.”

“As if we were tempted to,” Marley muttered to Gideon, wincing as she leaned on her walking stick. “I’d sooner touch fire.”

“Suddenly I question my wisdom in seeking out an audience with this Snake Queen,” Gideon said gravely.

“You do not have a choice in the matter,” the giant said, “Though you may believe what you will. Come.”

He led them into the pedestal. The room they found inside was rather bleak and lifeless—a torch on either side provided for the light. There were two staircases, one going in an upward spiral into blackness, and the other going down under the floor. It was towards this second staircase that they were directed. It proved to be a short flight, perhaps fifteen steps down and they entered a room with a low ceiling. A single strange pale green crystal lit this room, and apart from it standing in the centre, the room was utterly vacant. On the left side of the room were two small doors. The giant then produced three small black bundles from under his cape. He handed them to each of the Münshirlings. He directed Gideon and Nya into one of the smaller rooms, and Marley into the other. “Put these on, quickly,” he instructed, closing the doors behind them.

“At least we have a change of clothes,” Gideon said to Nya, “Mine are so cold and damp that I think I would go mad if I should have to wear them any longer.”

Nya wrinkled his nose as he examined the garments given them by the giant. “Zese look like uniforms of some kind,” he muttered. “Like what zose oz’ers in ze streets were wearing... but wizout ze hood an’ cape.”

“And would you look,” Gideon said, pulling on the black shirt and vest, “No left sleeve! What’s the point of that, then?”

Nya looked grim. “Zey mean to have us, Gideon,” he said darkly. “It’s ze mark. I don’t know how zey knew about it, but look. Left arm, zat’s ze one wiz ze birthmark on it. Mine too.”

“He has it too, did you see it?” Gideon said. “But what is its significance? Didn’t my father say that it was caused by some sort of plague our mothers caught before we were born?”

“Aye, zat he did,” Nya said, looking over the uniform. The right sleeve was long enough to cover his knuckles, with a glossy triangular black hem and vest made of some sort of material—leather, maybe. The boots too were fashioned of some sort of leather, in a style almost reminiscent of riding boots. They were sleek, coming up nearly to the knee with a stiff pointed toe and distinct heel. The trousers were plain black (tied on with a sash that would dangle at the side) and loose until the knee where they became tight so as to slip easily into the boots. “Strange, isn’t it, zat he already had zese, and zat zey are tailored almost perfectly to our size...?”

“Like we were expected,” Gideon finished uneasily.

Nya nodded. “We must keep our wits about us, sire,” he said in a low voice. “We must take care what we say and do. Zees lot are the sort zat would kill us for saying something zey don’t want said, I believe. I wish we had a moment t’speak to Marley alone. She must temper her tongue if we’re t’escape zees place alive.”

“Play along for now, until we know what we’re dealing with. He’s handling us now, probably has higher orders from his queen, likely as not, but I agree he’s got blood on his mind.”

They gathered their old clothes and met with the giant outside the dressing room.

“Leave those here,” the giant ordered. “They are of no further use to you.”

Gideon saw, behind him, that Marley’s door had opened a crack as though she meant to come out, but after the giant spoke it closed again softly. A few moments later, Marley emerged dressed in the same sort of black uniform as he and Nya had on, tugging at the hem of her sleeveless side uncomfortably as though that might make it magically grow longer.

“It’s so tacky and uneven,” she whispered to Gideon as the giant directed them back up the staircase.

“Where are we going now?” Gideon asked.

“To the Hand,” answered the giant, gesturing to the second staircase.

“Why? What’s up there?”

“The one you are to meet. And if ever we can make it to the top without opening your mouths again, you just might receive satisfaction to your endless questions.”

Up the spiral staircase they went, into pitch blackness, as the upper level of the statue was not lit. Gideon and Nya braced Marley most of the way, as the stone steps proved too narrow for her crude walking stick to of much use.

Nya listened to their echoing footsteps as they ascended. Every sound they made, each breath, each heartbeat, seemed amplified in the spiralling hall. There were whispers too... he was reminded of those he had heard during the attack of the Kiventa... but these were different, somehow. More forlorn and sad, and while he still could not make out the words, the voices were soft and almost beautiful. Still, they filled him with a terrible feeling. He looked down, to see if he might see the glow of torchlight below and perhaps be reminded that light was indeed something real, but the tower would afford him no such comfort. Something far more unnatural than darkness alone shrouded his vision, of this he was sure. He could almost feel it brushing against his bare shoulder, causing a sort of tingling sensation in his mark.

“Ack!” Marley cried out suddenly. She tripped, so abruptly that Nya and Gideon were not prepared to catch her fall! A sharp slap rent the stillness of the hall, the echo of her hands hitting the stone steps.

“Marley!”

“Are you all right?” Gideon exclaimed, whirling back around. Still, he could see nothing.

“I’m fine.” There was an edge to her voice that neither of the boys could miss.

The sound of the giant’s metallic footsteps had ceased.

Gideon stretched out his hand into the blackness for Marley. At first he felt only empty air, but soon she found him and grasped his hand.

“These steps aren’t slick at all,” she muttered as he helped her up.

“What do yeh mean?” Nya asked.

“They’re ridged, have a feel,” Marley said. She grasped his hand also and guided it to the step. He could feel deep grooves of carvings in the stone. “And yet,” Marley went on, scraping her boot against a lower step, “You could slip straight to the bottom.”

“Useless footwear,” Gideon muttered under his breath.

There was a heavy sigh above their heads in the blackness, as the mechanical giant seemed to be losing his patience. Gideon helped Marley to her feet and the three of them set on again up the staircase. Their silence, of course, did not last long. Gideon shuddered and muttered something about the cold, to which Marley returned scornfully, “It’s been cold since we got to this wretched place, no change there.”

“I know that,” Gideon shot back, “But we had sleeves before.”

“Damp sleeves,” Marley said. She was quiet a moment or two, and then added, “The fabric’s none too fine. And the seams itch. Oh, blast it, where are we even going, anyway?”

“To the Hand, obviously,” Gideon replied, some ire in his voice as he looked ahead in the direction of the giant.

“Probably so this brute can push the lot of us off, I shouldn’t wonder.”

“If your lives were valued so little,” said the giant’s voice ahead, catching them all off guard, “The serpents in the shallows would have devoured your flesh long before Death retrieved you.”

“What serpents?” Marley asked.

Another impatient sigh hissed and echoed in the darkness. “The serpents which gathered about your heels as you lay helpless upon our shores.”

“Augh!” Gideon exclaimed suddenly, drawing his hand over his nose and mouth. Marley and Nya need not have questioned his exclamation. They could smell it too.

“It’s that stench, like the one about the sword,” Marley said.

“Dare I say it, it’s stronger up here!” Gideon said.

There was a scraping sound in the blackness, the giant’s boots on the stone steps—it sounded as though he had turned another way than would have been expected. Then Gideon felt a powerful metal hand grasp his shoulder and fling him in the direction of what he was sure was a wall—he flinched involuntarily, expecting impact that did not come. There was a great creaking sound, and the blackness melted from his sight. The giant had opened a door that led out onto a balcony of sorts, and he shoved the Prince and his friends out upon it. From there they could see the entire layout of the plaza. To Nya, however, the make of the balcony was far more interesting. It was, after all, fashioned as another hand at the statue’s breast. He found this strange, as he was sure he had seen two hands already; looking to his right he could see the one bearing the staff, and to his left the one holding the biireo. But he was not to consider this further; the giant gruffly demanded that they follow a flight of stairs along a wrinkle in the statue’s robe to the left hand. “There you shall gain the answers you seek,” he said.

Somehow, there was no temptation in that promise as the three Münshirlings looked up at The Hand. They each felt an overpowering dread—almost a subconscious warning that they not comply. But the giant shifted impatiently, and they decided it would be best not to further antagonize him.

The stairway from the chest followed a fold in the statue’s robes for the most part, so that it would not be noticeable from below. This brought them to the statue’s left shoulder. From there, there was another stairway leading down to the statue’s elbow; this turned up again to reach The Hand. Gideon looked up towards the destination as he made his way up this last stairway, his gaze held most particularly by the vague outline of a giant biireo’s bowed back against the black sky. This figure was only vaguely illuminated by two torches situated on the statue’s wrist so he could not make out any of its details, and yet... yet he could not shake the feeling that there was something truly dreadful up there with it. What sort of a person was this Snake Queen? Too, that awful smell of death lingered in the air, and became more and more potent with each step he took.

The Snake Queen did not meet them at The Hand, however. When they reached the top of the stairway, they were surprised to discover that the deck supported by the hand was utterly vacant, save for the torches and that massive figure of some sort of biireo. The latter stood perched atop the tips of the statue’s fingers, its back towards them, head bowed and wings tucked closely against its sides. What sort of biireo it was, the Münshirlings could not venture a guess. Such creatures were to be identified by their beaks, talons, and tail feathers, and all of these were hidden from them by the creature’s position. But it stank; Marley was sure that it was in fact this figure which was producing the wretched stink. She wrinkled her nose and looked back at the giant, who stood now stolidly near the torches, his eyes fixed upon the statue.

Suddenly, the biireo shifted. It was not a statue; it was alive! A fantastic scraping noise was stirred as it roused its feathers, like a thousand knives scraping together at once. Slowly, as its feathers smoothed down again, it rose to its full height and swivelled its head around to look at them; its eyes were a luminescent scarlet. These terrible, wicked eyes were nothing like an animal’s should be—they were calculating, filled with malice and satisfaction as they gazed upon the blanching Münshirlings. The creature’s beak was like a raptor’s, but towards the tip it split into three long fang-like prongs on the top mandible of its beak and two on the lower; these interlocked when the beak was closed. With some effort, it readjusted its great, scaly feet so that it could turn its incredible girth to face them. Nya heard grinding as the creatures’ thick, black talons bit deeply into its stone perch. “Welcome, children,” a female voice said as the creature’s hideous beak parted. The voice seemed to match the appearance of the creature only in cruelty and poison, for otherwise it was silky and almost beautiful. “You have come to me with many questions, I am sure. Please, speak, and I shall answer.”

The three Münshirlings said nothing at first, mouths agape and faces pale.

The creature stepped down from its perch and approached them; her feathers glinting in the torch light. They were a deep, dark blue and black brindle, save for the crest laid back against her skull, which was a poisonously bright red. Two long, thick, bladed tails swished behind her. Marley’s eyes darted to these dangerous looking appendages and back to the creature’s face again. She was not certain if it was real, or if it had been just a trick of the lighting, but she could have sworn that she saw written in the black stripes of her left tail the trade speak characters for DOOM.

“A-Are...” Gideon started, his voice a bit weaker than he would have liked. He swallowed and tried to steady himself. “Who are you? Are you the Snake Queen?”

That red crest on the creature’s head rose, as though surprised. “No,” she said with some amusement in her voice. “No, I am called the Shadowsfalcon. You have met Shadowshifter.” She gestured with her head in the direction of the giant standing behind them. “We are but humble servants of the Snake Queen, Her Majesty Shadowsjade. But surely you did not come all this way to simply inquire my name. What else would you ask?”

“I would ask to see your queen. There has been a mistake,” Gideon said. “My friends and I, our ship was attacked and we washed upon your shore. We mean to get back to New Münshir, but your... Shadowshifter insists that we are to stay here.”

“Oh, there has been no mistake, child,” Shadowsfalcon said silkily, her crest laying back. “Hasn’t

Shadowshifter told you? I am sure he has. You see, that mark of yours—” She stretched out her massive leg and gently brushed Gideon’s shoulder with the very tips of her great jagged talons. There was a strange pulse feeling in the mark at her touch, like an electric shock; Gideon jerked back from her! “—This is why you are here. It called to Snake Queen the day that you took your first breath; She was aware of your birth, as She has been aware of your every movement since then. You are connected to Her... consider this ‘accident’ you spoke of which brought you to our shores as in fact a kind twist of fate which has brought you home.”

“This is not our home!” Marley exclaimed.

The creature looked at her, and withdrew her talons. “Oh, but it is, my dear. It was your destiny to come here, and now here you are.”

“Yes, here we are,” scoffed Marley. “But I ask you, just where is here? What is this dratted place?”

There was a flash of intrigue in the biireo’s eyes, even admiration. The fleshy corners of her beak turned up in something of a dark smile. “Here is Izlair.”

“Izlair?” Gideon repeated.

She looked at him. “Yes. You know it, correct?”

“Well, yes—but it’s just a silly nursery rhyme, to make little children behave; Once a land where—”

Yes, yes... a silly little verse, I agree. It is but a tiny fragment of a much larger prophecy, and your Münshirling nannies and dear little mums have simplified the words deplorably,” Shadowsfalcon finished with annoyance and disgust, rolling her eyes. Then, she paused and seemed to consider something. In her eyes they saw that she had reached a definite conclusion, and sinister pleasure filled her once more. “How curious,” she said slowly, “You know nothing more of Izlair? You have heard nothing... else? How very interesting.”

“What? What else should we know?”

The Shadowsfalcon lifted its head and looked down on him with half-closed eyes. She sighed as though now bored and roused her feathers comfortably. “You should know that it is no mere child’s story. Since you have come, have you not seen that the Kiir does not shine here, that the dead cry and even crawl still about the alleys of Karton’s Village? The She spoken of in your nursery rhyme is none other than the Snake Queen—She is quite real, and quite pleased to have you. More than that, I am sure you will learn soon enough. Shadowshifter, take these little ones to their quarters for some rest, hmm? We will have their introductions later, after they’ve rested up from their journey.”

“Yes, my sister,” the giant said with a bow.

“Hey!” Gideon exclaimed as the giant gruffly gripped his shoulder and shoved him and Nya back towards the stairs. “We’re not finished here, let us go!”

“You seem to be of the mistaken opinion that you have a choice here,” Shadowsfalcon said, looking disinterested. That is, until she noticed Marley standing still, glaring up at her as obstinately as she could.  She returned an icy glare back into Marley’s eyes, smiling tauntingly.

Nya, still struggling against Shadowshifter’s grip (who seemed to have paused and was now waiting) looked between his friend and Shadowsfalcon. It seemed to him that perhaps Marley was trapped looking into her eyes. Suddenly he noticed Marley seem to shudder inwardly, a strange look coming to her face. His heart leapt to his throat though he did not know why, and he felt an urgency to pull her away. He pushed past the giant at last and snatched her hand, whispering to her, “Marley, quick, let it go!”

Instantly Marley jerked her attention to him, her eyes wide and a look of horror on her face. He noticed she did not look like herself. She was pale and seemed very tired.

“Are you all right?” Gideon whispered, touching her shoulder as she and Nya rejoined him at the stairs.

Marley quickly looked down as if ashamed and brushed his hand away from her. “Fine,” she muttered.

Shadowsfalcon shook her head and laughed—a cold dead laughter, and that haunting sound followed them long after they saw the last of her as they retreated back down the stairway... the stairway, which they noticed, was no longer slick.