Then three of them began to laugh, hands touching.

“Thank you,” said Merit. “For my wife and for me, thank you so much.”

The butcher smiled, relieved to be at the end of his trial.

But Merit looked down the valley, gazing up at the wilderness and the heavy green canopy leading into the shrouded distance, staring at home first and then the District of Districts. He didn’t know what he was searching for, but his eyes narrowed. Then he quietly mentioned, “There is one problem with your story, however.”

“Where is your wife?” Nissim asked.

“No, I think I know where she is,” Merit said, looking at the world’s center. “But I have to think like a hunter, you see. I know how to chase, and I understand how to build a workable trap. And I think that if the Archon or whoever wanted to steal my son, he would have been stolen by now.

“No,” said the corona slayer. “Our enemies, whoever they are, were consciously, carefully driving you.”

A sorry little sigh came out of Nissim.

“I’m afraid,” Merit said, and then his voice stopped. He turned and looked at the children, saying, “Someone feels very confident. The trap is inescapable, they think, and they want the boy here. For good reasons, for their reasons. Whichever. They want Diamond here.”

“Do you know why?” Nissim asked.

“Well,” Merit said. “A story comes to mind, yes.”

TWELVE

Diamond tried jumping on his two feet, measuring the aches and his body and discovering that the pain had become very small.

“You’re shorter,” Seldom said.

Diamond agreed. “My hurt leg got shorter. And I think the other one did too, maybe.”

“To keep you balanced,” Elata guessed, giving him a rough hug.

Father had been talking to Master Nissim. But now he turned away and with a big voice called to his crew. The men had just reached the tents, and now they were coming back. Except for one person who Diamond hadn’t noticed before—a woman who wasn’t part of Father’s crew.

Something was wrong with the woman. She had a very long face and a peculiar stance, pitched forward on her overlong arms, big eyes staring out from her heavy, misshapen head.

When Seldom saw her, he made an odd little sound.

With a doubting tone, Elata asked, “Is that a papio?”

Seldom nodded and his feet ran in place.

The strange woman said a few words, and one of his father’s crew paused, laughing nervously when he pointed at his own foot.

The papio kept staring at Diamond.

Father walked out to meet his men, and they gathered close around him, letting him speak quietly for a little while. Everybody listened intently. They watched him as if nothing else mattered. Then they started to move away, alone and in pairs. Some broke into shuffling runs. Father called to one man by name and brought him back again, putting a hand on his shoulder, giving him encouragement along with extra orders.

“Oh, the papio’s leaving,” said Seldom, disappointed.

The woman had a different gait than people. She walked easily on two strong squat legs, but pitched forwards slightly, and where the ground rose she used her arms to help climb across the raw, slashing coral.

The last man was sprinting for the farthest tents.

Father returned, watching the ground as he approached Diamond. His face looked tired and thoughtful and very serious, but then he brought up a smile and a sudden wink.

“That was a papio,” Seldom said smartly.

“She’s our official delegate,” Father explained, looking only at his son. “This is their realm. We pay them to use their ground as an abattoir, where we can safely butcher the coronas.”

“Like your butcher block at school,” Elata said to Nissim.

“On a Creator’s scale, yes,” the Master said.

“But we’re very sloppy butchers,” Father said. “Normally this carcass would be hacked to pieces, organs and scales and flesh and skin mixed however seems best, and then we make five roughly equal piles as the delegate watches everything, coming forward afterwards to choose two piles for her people. The first pile is to pay the papio for using their land, while the other pile is our gift or our tribute, depending on how you read the history books.”

The running man came out of a tent, one long object in each hand.

Seldom asked, “Can we watch you butcher the monster?”

Father didn’t seem to hear the boy. He looked at the ground again, one hand wiping at his mouth, one of the fingers absently following the raised ridge of the long handsome scar. “No,” he said at last. “No, you may not.”

Then turning back to Diamond, saying, “Son. I have something to tell you.”

Father walked away from the corona and the tents, following the valley’s slope while Diamond walked beside him, as close as possible. Then his father stopped and called back to the others. “This isn’t a private conversation. Believe me, everybody deserves to know.”

Five of them walked the valley together. The ground was gravel and pulverized coral boulders and short deep crevices jammed full of vegetation and raspy-voiced insects. This was the eroded, depleted top of the reef, and the valley ended with a sharp line and empty air, and Diamond was thinking how easy it would be for a person to walk to that edge and with one more step plunge into whatever amazement lay below.

“What’s under us?” he asked.

“The true world is,” Father said.

“What does that mean?” Seldom asked.

“Quiet,” said Elata.

“Quiet,” said the Master.

“Oh, I’m just making noise,” said Father, starting to laugh. “Don’t listen to me.”

They walked for a recitation. Nobody spoke.

“It’s just the way slayers think,” he explained. “Our world, with its forests and rain and birds, is a cold and very simple place. Each day lets the trees grow a little bit, making the air fresher. Then come nights that last a little while or a long time. But every dawn finds the same forest hanging at the top of the world. A few tree-walkers have died, others have been born, and it’s the same for the reef and the papio too.”

Father quit talking.

Seldom began to talk, but Nissim put a hand over his mouth.

Father asked, “Have you learned much about the coronas, son?”

“No.”

The Master cleared his throat. “I might have unleashed a lecture on the boy. But I’m not the expert on the subject.”

Nodding, Father looked at his son. “I assumed your mother might have mentioned the coronas.”

“Almost never, sir.”

“No? But she did teach you to read, didn’t she?” He didn’t wait for answers. Dropping a hand on Diamond’s shoulder, he said, “I’ve been gone too much. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t know a thing or three.”

Diamond said nothing.

Father extended the other arm, holding the hand flat. “Up here, in our realm, the air is pleasant and cool. Perfect for humans, and that’s how it has always been.” And he lowered the hand. “But below us is something else. The something else requires an entirely different kind of air. And between the realms is a barrier. Think of a floor, flat and perfectly smooth, resting below the lowest branches and underneath the reef. We call it the ‘demon floor’ for some reason or another, and everybody knows that barrier is there, yet like any respectable demon, it can be very hard to see.

“In a sense, the Creation is one house enclosing two enormous rooms. Ride a fletch to the bottom of this world and you can throw out a handful of coral dust, and the dust scatters across the demon floor. That’s a good trick to discover exactly where the barrier begins. The heaviest grit sinks out of sight first, followed by the dust. Thankfully the ingredients in our air are too light or too small to make the passage. But if you drop anything heavier than grit—a coral boulder or a man, or the fletch and its crew—those objects easily fall into the room below us. And at night, when the air is especially calm, your fletch can hover just above the demons and their floor, nothing to see but a faint endless glimmer stretching to the ends of the world. On that kind of night, a young slayer can reach out the ship’s window with a torch and pitcher, sacrificing his beer by pouring it onto floor, watching it flow sideways before sifting through, and if his eyes are sharp and his torch is strong, he can see his good drink drop a very slight distance before instantly turning to steam.”