Still, no one else seemed to notice what was most strange.

In many ways, this shared body looked like a papio, except built on a gigantic scale. But it had always been clumsy to the brink of crippled, which was why caretakers were essential. Each voice had a small or large role in tightening muscles and relaxing muscles while keeping the entire structure in rough balance. Too many times to count, there had been mistakes. The Eight had fallen down jagged slopes, crushing fingers and gouging eyes. Entire limbs had been lost for no reason but simple clumsiness. Yet none of the wounds lasted for long, which caused some to suggest that the Creators were wise in their hearts, and despite evidence to the contrary, they were kind, fashioning a creature that couldn’t hurt itself for very long.

Perhaps, and perhaps.

But Divers’ voice had the largest role in shaping the body’s growth and then making it move. And as the others spoke endlessly about memories and odd conjectures, telling the same but different stories about events long passed, she took hold of every muscle that she could, and with one titanic urge, caused their body to rise up from the comfortable mat, one leg and then its mate driving it forward onto the crumbled, desiccated coral.

Seven voices shouted their fierce disapproval.

Divers said, “Quiet,” and then she said, “You blind fools.”

That earned more comments, insults and several reflexive attempts to stop their forward motion.

Coral grit slid down the slope, kicking clouds of dust into the weak glare of the day.

The odd boy heard something, or maybe he felt the Eight’s presence. Or it could have been chance that turned his head, making him look up at their hiding place.

In unison, the great body froze where it was, muscles rigid, clamping down on the breath trapped inside its various lungs.

The boy paused, and they felt seen.

But then he walked on.

With every step, his oddness became more obvious.

Giant eyes grew dry, and tears flowed. But each voice fought the urge to blink, for fear of missing anything.

They watched the boy leave the others, running beside the corona, which was so very dangerous.

“Whatever he is,” said one voice, “he has to be as stupid as a bellringer bird.”

Then the dead neck leaped, and the foot was chopped off.

Every voice gave its opinion—scorn or pity, and sometimes both.

Then the foot was recovered, and the boy returned it to his leg, and the famous slayer stood before this magical creature. Sensitive as the big ears were, no words were heard. But there was a sense about what was happening before them, and what the slayer and boy were to each other.

Every voice had opinions.

Not one of them spoke, watching spellbound.

The boy stood on his dead foot, which wasn’t dead. Then some of the monkeys walked with him down into the valley, and they became even tinier as they stood next to the empty air.

“He is like us,” the voices whispered.

Which begged the old question: what exactly were “us”?

Then the Ruler of the Wind appeared, bringing the Archon of Archons to the lands of the papio. But the giant airship wasn’t important, and List was just another monkey from the trees, and the arrival was like the false calm that comes to a story when it loses its way.

“Run, run, run, run,” Father said.

Diamond did just that.

Voices chased after him, shrill and close and then not so close. Suddenly there was nothing to hear but his quick breathing and the bite of sandals into the rough coral dirt. He didn’t look back. He felt as if all he had to do now was run forever. Forever might be possible. A boy who could reattach his severed foot should be able to run day and night, eating what he could grab and sleeping in those little bites of time while both of his feet were in the air, free of duties. Running forever wasn’t what Father had wanted. It was Diamond’s plan, nobody else’s, and he promised himself that he wouldn’t stop until he was halfway around the world, and only then he would pause long enough to glance over his shoulder—days and days between him and his pursuers.

The tent village was stretched out before him, and those very strange people were standing on the flat, foot-packed ground. Papio faces sported long, strong jaws and teeth bigger than human teeth, or his. They had pink hair on their scalps and some men had long red beards, and there were colorful, intricate tattoos wherever the brown skin showed. Eyes were bright and gold, staring out at Diamond from deep holes. Neat, durable clothes ended with bare broad toes on the long feet and bony hands curled up, knuckles touching the ground when the papio were doing nothing but standing. Knives and pistols rode on several of the belts. They didn’t stand any taller than humans, but they were massive with muscle and bone. Golden eyes stared at the running boy. The faces seemed very different from human faces, but the same emotions made their expressions flow in important ways. Then one of the papio, the delegate woman from the beginning, pointed her eyes and arm at something behind the running boy, and then she hollered a few sharp, senseless words.

One of Father’s men emerged from a tent, each hand holding a long toolbox. Seeing Diamond, he began to laugh. He couldn’t act happier. Then he looked past the boy, and the laughter drained away into a low mutter while he lifted the boxes in front of him, as if to use them as a shield.

Diamond slowed to look back.

Papio bodies were a little strange, but what was chasing him was far more peculiar. The body was covered with yellowish plates of armor, bright spikes on the elbows and knees and around the crest of the head, and the creature’s legs were at least as tall as Diamond’s legs, and if the gait wasn’t the same as Diamond’s running stride, it was because that armored suit covered the entire creature, including a nightmarish mask that couldn’t be the face.

Diamond slowed to a trot, measuring the threat.

The creature was taller than him, and it was broader, and maybe it wasn’t as fast but the body relentless pushed forward. “Someone like me is inside,” Diamond thought, giving himself time to invite happiness. What a great day this would be, finding another person with his shape and perhaps even the same face. But it occurred to him that the armor wasn’t worn. Those spikes and plates looked as if they grew from the body, and the eyes staring out from the mask were strangely shaped and too green to be real, and where one mouth should be enough there were two big openings, one on top of the other. The top mouth began to shout at him. A voice neither human nor papio asked, “Have you ever seen anything so beautiful as me, you cowardly monkey?”

Diamond ran again, sprinted, cutting through the back of the tent village.

A broad, heavily used trail attacked the slope leading out of the valley. Two white-haired papio were coming down the trail together. One was an old man who was careful in his manner, while the other papio was an even older woman and—a once-powerful creature reduced to a frail wisp, holding her companion’s offered hand while grinning at the odd fellow who was desperately climbing towards them.

Diamond jumped sideways, and his sandal clipped the gnarled dead stump of a tree, dropping him, and then the ground tore through his trousers, coral stripping the flesh from one knee.

The old woman stood over him for a moment. The wrinkled face was tattooed with faded vines and half of her teeth were missing, and she whistled when she offered a single human word. “Careful.”

The boy sat up, and then a callused knuckle touched him on the forehead, tapping him twice.

Catching Diamond’s gaze, the male papio told him, “Blessings of the Creators upon you.”

He leaped up and ran on.

The trail was slick and the steep pitch of the hill became steeper as he reached the summit. Nothing was as easy as before. Fatigue grabbed the backs of his legs, warming the muscles. The harder he ran, the heavier and duller he felt. One moment he was thinking about nothing, and then a tangle of ideas came to him in hard, confused bursts. He was running forever, except he couldn’t. There was a plan at work. But what was the plan? Then his father’s voice found him, repeating everything in one breathless rush, and the boy listened to that memory. He was going to be caught. For everyone’s sake, he couldn’t get away. But that didn’t seem fair or right, certainly not this soon, and that was why Diamond gathered himself, pushing to the top.