Father paused, wiping his mouth with the back of a hand.

“What we usually see here are the younger, immature coronas,” he said. “Most of them are smaller than the poor lady behind us.”

“A lady?” Elata asked.

“They’re always a mixture,” Father said. “Slayers are supposed to count the glands and leave good records, and this one is three parts female to two parts male. And I don’t know why. But we know quite a bit about their ages and movements because we keep careful records. Every harpoon wears its slayer’s code, and the files are kept at Ivory Station. Now I wouldn’t be surprised if we found several old harpoons buried in this body, which gives us dates and places and descriptions about when she was last seen. My guess? She’s eighty thousand days old, maybe older. Which seems like a long time but isn’t. There are older and much larger coronas, giants that rise up through the demon floor only under the most special circumstances, and those behemoths are astonishingly ancient.”

Father paused, looking down. “How’s the foot?”

“It’s fine.” Diamond lifted the other leg, testing the ankle. “Good.”

What wasn’t quite a smile appeared, and Father looked at the demon floor and the yellowish light. “Coronas usually surface near the reefs. For some reason our district sees more activity than most, which is why we have a proud history of chasing them. But more than a thousand days ago, a genuine marvel—a creature at least twice as big as the normal behemoth—appeared near the middle of the world. It was a huge dark unexpected beast that pushed its way through the floor, managing to make one long lazy circle before vanishing again.

“It rose up late in the day, and I couldn’t have seen it if I wanted. Slayers hunt the margins, not the middle. Of course we were sorry to have missed the spectacle, but nobody expected a second sighting. Coronas don’t fall in love with patterns. We assumed this was a fluke, a one-time experience. But less than thirty days later, the giant showed again. That time it was early morning. She emerged from the same point and made the same slow journey. I heard later that she was so enormous and so distended by her vacuum-swollen bladders that she cast a shadow across the District of Districts, causing a modest panic.”

Hugging himself, Seldom said, “Wow.”

Diamond watched his toes and the gritty ground.

“The third appearance was at night,” his father said. “The old lady was seen only because people had figured out her schedule, and everybody was watching for her. As I told you, coronas make their own light—most of it purple and colors beyond purple. But ‘Help’ is a plea made with a golden fire. Our mystery corona emerged that night and flashed a yellow cry in all directions. Normally it would have been brilliant, a searing light visible across the world. But despite its size, the beast had a feeble glow. Only at night would the plea be visible. And the fourth time it appeared, another twenty-nine nights later, she repeated her cry for help, but even weaker than before.

“So there was a pattern to her appearances, and it was precise. People made graphs and looked into the future, deciding it would be midday when the behemoth emerged again. And we were ready. Every healthy, sober slayer in the world was hovering above that location, and exactly when it was predicted, a long dark shape emerged from the superheated soup.”

Quietly, Nissim said, “Oh yes. I remember.”

“We were worried about an awful fight,” Father said. “Old slayers appreciate just how smart the coronas are, and it occurred to us that this could be a trap. Maybe our quarry were tired of being hunted. Maybe they were teasing us with one of their own, and their entire population was hiding below, ready to rise up through the demon floor and slay their foes.

“But it wasn’t a trap. The old-timers were wrong and glad. Of course the young slayers were hoping for a big battle from the giant—something grand and noble, worthy of epic boasts—but they were wrong too. The old lady didn’t so much as take a nip at any of us. In fact, as soon as she saw us descending, those weak yellow flashes stopped begging. No more cries for help. She just let her bladders lift her away from her world, and sometimes her mouth spat out jets to keep her cruising straight and slow. The harpoons punched deep, and she did nothing. Those old dark scales were fragile, like rotted wood. Coronas are full of organs. Many of the organs and glands are mysteries, but we know the vital few. The harpoons reached the weakest tissues, and a dozen fletches pumped electricity down into the central brain, and we had our monster. The kill took three recitations, but I think one slayer and one crew could have done the same in a single recitation. We got in each other’s way, and I never even got off a shot, and I can’t remember an easier or stranger kill. We were putting an end to something older than we could ever measure, and I’m wondering to myself if that’s what she was chasing all along—her merciful quick death.”

Father stopped talking, lifting one hand, flat beneath his eyes to cut the reflected glare. Out in the distance was a long silver aircraft. Diamond watched the ship because his father watched it, and in his mind, he watched a giant corona surrounded by dozens of little fletches.

Father continued. “I didn’t make any shot, but I helped secure the carcass. In the end, that was epic in this story. We sank barbed hooks into her round body, hitting the ribs but avoiding her bladders, and then balloons were deployed to supply lift. That dead lady behind us took seven balloons to carry. But the giant, the wonder, was more than twice as wide and ten times heavier. Seventy balloons were barely enough. We were so far from the reef that we couldn’t even see our destination, and we spent the rest of that day and all night and the full long day that followed taking her where she had to be.

“Harvesting any corona requires tools and skills, but most importantly, you need a solid surface capable of holding great weight. There is no suitable abattoir in the forest, and besides, we have treaties with the papio. Sharing is mandated, by treaty and by custom. So we towed the old girl in the best direction. Unfortunately some young slayer failed to secure several balloons, and when they popped free in the night, our prize started drifting toward the floor. Then several more balloons ripped free of the old meat, and it was big rush just to deploy and secure enough lift to pull her back up to the minimal altitude. Even then we barely dragged her over the edge of the reef. The valley where she was to be butchered isn’t far from here. A determined papio could walk there before night. And it was almost night when we finally had the giant body secured, waiting to be honored, waiting to be chopped into pieces.”

Father pointed sideways but kept looking forwards. “We were in this flat little bowl, in the gloom. I led the honor ceremony, and despite a lot of complaining, I didn’t hurry. Something greater than me was dead, and when that happens, you have to beg for forgiveness, if only so your little soul can sleep when it has the chance. But there wouldn’t be sleep soon. The best dozen crews were ready to set to work, including these boys with me today. And despite darkness and despite the remote location, we had an audience. The papio arrived in force—all of the locals and delegates from different cities, all gathered to watch the spectacle, waiting for the five piles to be finished and their chance to choose.

“There were human dignitaries too. Our local Archon came to wish us well. A fair and practical leader, I’ve always thought. But that day, she proved to me she had a heart. Her name is Prima, and she took the time to speak to my crew and to me. She was the only Archon to ask about the creature’s age. I made inadequate guesses, and not only did the lady say she was sad for the corona, but she looked sad. And that was before any of us realized how little value there was inside that enormous corpse.