Diamond made himself look up.

The highest portions of the trunk had no homes and few signs of human activity—a broad brownish-black pillar polished smooth by time and darkness. Following behind were the broad branch-like roots covered with bladders and bowls meant to catch the dawn rain. Two roots were close. The blimp’s pilot saw them dropping, and he abruptly shifted course. Diamond was yanked sideways as one engine slowed while guide wires twisted the tail fins, but the descending roots refused to follow any line as they fell, seemingly eager for the chance to smash this tiny black bug.

They were going to be hit and killed.

Diamond knew it and believed nothing else, even as the nearest root missed them by a long ways. Rainwater was spilling from the tipped bowls. Gouges had been cut in the bladders. A tiny cool rain fell over them as the blimp shuddered in the shifting air, feeling the wood race past but surviving unharmed.

Most of the high roots were missing, left behind in the topmost reaches of the Creation. But what remained was burning. Irresistible forces had wrenched apart living wood, setting fire whatever refused to break. The final roots were long and jagged, as if a great hand had yanked so hard that most of their bulk had been forsaken, and the remnants dragged black smoke after them.

The blimp jerked and twisted, finding a new trajectory, and then another, and finally, one straight quick line.

“Maybe,” Tar`ro shouted.

Diamond’s shoulder was healing. Marduk was half-swallowed by the world beneath their world, its canopy lost and a ring of flame encircling the trunk. The trunk looked like a brown finger shoved into filthy water. The coronas’ realm was dark with smoke and wild sparks of light. Diamond cried out, and then Tar`ro said something else. Tar`ro was looking up at him. A wild smile came to his face, and the man shouted, “They don’t practice this. Pilots don’t.”

The guard let out a great sorry laugh.

Roots would catch them, or a burning ember would set the blimp on fire. Or maybe the swirling air would be enough to pull the overloaded machine into oblivion, everyone but Diamond dead.

The room below the human room was Diamond’s first home.

With that odd thought, he shut his eyes, and Good gave a wild howl as scorching heat swept across their faces, and then the air twisted and the walkway gave a wild kick, like the end of a whip, and he opened his eyes to find everybody still clinging tight. Even Karlan at the bottom of the whip had kept hold. The blazing root was below, and the smoky choking air stilled, growing hot as an oven, the heat of the fire and the heat from the ripped-open floor welling up, and the blimp continued pressing backwards, climbing higher while the police officers riding in the nose found enough hope, at last, to begin helping the refugees climb on board, one crying person after another.

The black corona meat was infused with every metal, including so much iron that the blisteringly hot muscles shone black and smelled like engine parts. Corona scales and bones weighed little yet outlasted the best steel, while no knife was as sharp as a young milk-colored tooth. And each of the creature’s exceptional organs filled some essential role, whether in industry or the military, which was why so much wealth was wrapped inside their greasy black guts.

Each District had its slayers and their famous ships, but every history of the subject agreed: the richest hunting and finest crews always worked beneath the present-day Ivory Station.

Commerce meant merchants and markets, laws and professional codes. Civilization would be impossible without that one dull person sitting before a stack of ledgers. Yet the corona traders were often regarded as selfish mercenaries and thieves, and because they also dealt with the papio, some voices regarded the traders as being conspirators against their own kind. Yet Prima’s parents had always avoided the traditional controversies. Famous for integrity and a tenacious need to make their customers happy, her mother and father were never in the top tier of their profession, but buyers knew that her family didn’t lie about wares, and they paid their bills in a timely fashion, and the only people who needed to fear them were the selfish and the foolish who had tried to cheat them or their sterling names.

Prima was raised to appreciate honesty and expect decency, and among her siblings, she was the one who took those lessons deepest into her heart.

Born in comfort, every venture was open to the young girl. Politics was never her first choice as a career, and she could imagine it being her last. But cancer had killed the previous Archon, and she agreed to fill out the final hundred days of his uneventful term. Friends as well as enemies warned Prima that she wouldn’t like the job. The Archon’s desk meant corruption of the spirit, dilution of the soul. List was everyone’s favorite example. Once a fine little fellow, bright and deeply competent, he probably would have stayed decent and basically harmless, if only for a loss or two at the polls. But he won every contest, and now he was a power, a guiding force of nature. His District held half of the world’s humans and two-thirds of its wealth—a circumstance reaching back for as long as any history could see. And if that wasn’t awful enough, the one-time bureaucrat had acquired the King creature, monstrous and allegedly brilliant—a weapon of unmeasured power walking about free and half-tamed.

But Prima had a tougher nature than anyone expected, including Prima. She didn’t corrupt, and she didn’t dilute easily. After one hundred days at the desk, her citizens demanded another thousand days, and by the end of the term she had mastered the office and its limitations. No serious candidate faced her in the following election. Prosperity followed, and every scandal was small. Understanding traders and the corona markets, she was able to deftly avoid even the odor of impropriety. The world concluded that the woman couldn’t be compromised, fouled or seriously tested. And that’s why the Corona District worshipped their small lady, most of the citizens nourishing some deep personal reason for these remarkable feelings.

Energy and focus were her strengths.

She was charming, and her memory was tenacious, and she never stopped surprising her staff as well as the public when it came to threading solutions through tangled problems and little disasters.

In reflective moments—a rare commodity for any Archon—Prima recalled her father sitting inside his tiny, paper-choked office. A good friend was near death, and she was about to take the Archon’s desk. Her logic felt sound, but emotion carried her words, and she spoke about her plans and half-born policies until the heavy warm voice interrupted her speech.

“You know, my dear,” said Father. “I always imagined you as the next trader sitting in my chair. But since that future isn’t great enough for you . . . ”

“This is a temporary job,” she insisted.

“Lie to someone else,” he said.

Hearing that, Prima’s first thought was that she needed to improve her skills weaving the truth.

“Let’s discuss the future,” Father continued. “Starting now, I want you to aim for twenty thousand days from now. That’s my only advice, daughter. Picture the historian sitting at her dusty little desk, a cup of tea at the elbow, and now watch her write her seminal account of your life. ‘Earn a hundred good acts for every bad.’ That cliché is not a bad way to judge any life, particularly your own.”

She was thinking that just then, the heavy knowing voice shamelessly tugging at her pink human heart.

And that’s when an aide behind her said, “The fletch is still waiting, madam.”

She said nothing.

“Madam Archon?”

Her aide was named Bealeen. He was young and had a duty, and he also had a hope that was nicely aligned with his duty. He was trying to coax one stubborn woman to a safer place, which would have the benefit of saving him too.