Behind him, he heard Ryhenna scream. Whirling, he saw Dai’chon kneeling on the platform’s edge, Ryhenna’s tether grasped in one forepaw. Trembling, the coppery mare tugged and tried to back away—but she seemed almost paralyzed with fright. The godking spoke soothingly in its strange, hollow-sounding voice. It pulled her head closer. Eyes rolling, the coppery mare whinnied shrilly as, crooning, the godking placed the point of the long, sharp skewer to her throat.

“Tash! ‘Omat!” shouted Tai-shan, vaulting onto the high stone platform.

He lunged to catch the skewer’s length against his horn and bat it away. With a cry, Dai’chon fell back, releasing Ryhenna. The dark unicorn reared. Growling, the da–headed creature slashed at him. Tai-shan parried, sweeping his horn to once more knock aside the blade. The godking ducked, dodged. Tai-shan felt his horn strike a solid blow and leapt back astonished—for the other’s neck was hard as wood, with none of the give of mortal flesh. The sound of the blow rang hollowly, like a hoofstamp on a rotten log. Dai’chon staggered. The head upon the creature’s shoulders wobbled. A moment later, it fell. Tai-shan cried out. His blow had held neither aim nor force enough to have severed his opponent’s gorge—and yet Dai’chon’s strange, stiff head toppled with a hollow thump to the dried petals and wood shavings littering the dais. Dumbstruck, the dark unicorn stared at the creature before him. Though beheaded, it still possessed a head: a round, two-foot head upon a squat, two-foot neck. An ordinary firekeeper stood before him, one whose real head had been concealed beneath a hollow artifice of wood. The unmasked keeper glared at Tai-shan, black eyes furious, his own teeth bared as fiercely as the carved teeth of the wooden godhead had been. The dark curls of the other’s hair and beard were slick with sweat. An instant later, the dark unicorn recognized him.

“The chon! The chon,” Ryhenna below him cried. “No god at all!”

Similar screams came from the stampeding daya. Shrieks and wails rose from the scattering two-foots as well. Eyes wide with betrayal, faces drawn with shock, the commonfolk of the city scrambled to flee. Yet the two-foots of the palace reacted differently. The daïcha’s companions and her green-garbed followers, plumed guards of both colors as well as the chon’s purple-badged underlings, while clearly outraged at their ruler’s unmasking, did not seem the least surprised to discover their mortal leader impersonating a god. Even the daïcha, the dark unicorn realized in astonishment, had known all along.

A stinging welt across one shoulder brought Tai-shan sharply around. The chon had lunged at him again, slashing with the skewer and lashing with the flail. The dark unicorn dodged, back-stepping. Ryhenna’s cry came almost too late.

“My lord Moonbrow, the edge!”

Wheeling, Tai-shan sprang away barely in time. The chon had sought to drive him backward over the stone platform’s brink. Shouting, the two-foot ruler pursued him across the dais, cracking the stinging lash. As the dark unicorn ducked, the lash coiled itself about his horn. With a heave of neck and shoulders, Tai-shan jerked it from the two-foot’s grasp and slung it spinning off across the clifftop into the empty air beyond. It hung a moment against the gathering storm clouds, before vanishing. Growling with rage, the chon redoubled his attack with the blade.

“ ‘Ware the chon’s guard!” Ryhenna cried.

Tai-shan glimpsed a handful of purple-plumes breaking through the daïcha’s green-plumed defenders to rush the dais. Ryhenna dashed to the foot of the platform’s ramp, blocking their path. The purple-plumes fell back in confusion as the wild mare reared and struck at them. Tai-shan returned his attention to the chon, countering the other’s lunges and blows, parrying each feint and thrust. The nimbleness of this puny, upright creature astonished him. Though the chon possessed not nearly the strength of a full-grown unicorn, the sweep and agility of his forelimb gave him great range. Tai-shan had never fenced such a dexterous foe. The dark unicorn plunged, pivoted, ramped, and dodged.

His hooves grew hot. Churning and plunging through the dry stuff strewn about the platform, he felt his heels striking the flinty stone beneath. Flashes of white and amber light leapt from his hooves. More flashes showered down as his horn grated against the skewer of the chon. Sparks! Sparks of fire were falling from his horn as it struck against the skystuff—more springing up from his hooves as they skidded on the stone: sparks such as he had once seen leap from the tools of the two-foot firesmith. Now his own hooves and horn were doing the same! Astonished, the dark unicorn stared.

“Look! Look!” Ryhenna below him cried. Many of her fleeing companions had halted, gazing in open wonder at the bright rain falling from his hooves and horn. “Here standeth the true Dai’chon, full of the divine fire!”

Lighting upon the platform’s thick carpet of dry hay, withered flower petals, and aromatic wood shavings, the sparks began to smolder. Black storm clouds were fast sweeping in across the sea. A warm, wet wind picked up. Bits of burning chaff gusted from the dais to the open space below, catching in the dried stuff there. A thick pall of smoke rose, filling the air with cinders. Plumed two-foots of both colors tore off their outer falseskins and flailed at the spreading flames.

Choking, the chon covered his mouth and nose with one forepaw—yet still he fought. Tai-shan clashed and countered, gasping for breath, until in a furious assault, he drove the two-foot ruler to one knee and disarmed him with a parry that knocked the skewer from his grip and sent it, like the flail before it, spinning away into the emptiness beyond the cliff. The dark unicorn ramped before the defeated chon, whose bloodshot eyes glared back at him, full of hatred still.

“Tash! Tash so bei!” The daïcha rushed past Ryhenna up onto the platform to interpose herself between the dark unicorn and the chon. “Tash bei im chon!”

Tai-shan knew she must be saying, No, don’t kill him. Don’t kill my king.

Fury burned in the dark unicorn. At that moment, he wanted nothing other than to skewer the treacherous two-foot ruler—but the daïcha stood suppliant before him, and he owed her his life. Forehooves touching the ground once more, Tai-shan shook himself. A kind of silence fell around him. With great difficulty, summoning all the agility of lips and teeth not made to frame such speech, he strove to pronounce clearly the words of the firekeepers’ tongue.

“Undan ptola, daïcha,” he told her. As you wish.

The others eyes widened. She gazed at the dark unicorn as though unable to believe her ears. The purple-plumes below the dais stood halted in wonder. The green-plumes, too, had heard. They stood staring. Beyond them, the daïcha’s companions sank to the ground, two of them weeping. On the dais, ashen-faced, the chon shook his head.

“Tash,” he gasped. “Tash—ipsicat!”

Tai-shan did not recognize the second word, but he could guess its meaning: No. No—impossible. The chon made as if to rise.

“Tash! ‘Omat!” the dark unicorn ordered. No. Stop. “Himay.” Keep still.

The chon choked out something else, too fast for Tai-shan to follow. What was he saying now, the dark unicorn wondered, that daya–even miraculously horned, outland daya–ought not be able to speak?

“Jima ‘pnor!” That’s enough, the dark unicorn commanded, cutting the chon off as he spoke.” Asolet.” Silence. Again the other made to rise, but the dark unicorn stopped him with a feint of his horn. “Tash bim!”

He did not know the phrase for Come no nearer and so had to settle for Do not come. Tai-shan stamped angrily, galled by his lack of words.