“I know very little about military matters,” Father continued, “but I’m going to ride with our fleet tomorrow, out to give Prima whatever help she deserves.”

“And I’ll go with you,” King said.

Father let a grin show. “But what if I tell you to stay here and study?”

“I won’t.”

“What if I send a hundred soldiers to restrain you?”

Father and son had planned this game, this loud show. But the generals weren’t paying attention to the family drama, and they weren’t looking at the papers in their hands. All that mattered were their personal miseries, standing inside the bud-green silks and their wrinkled flesh, wet eyes close to leaking tears.

That was why King picked up his father’s massive desk.

The Archon wanted people to be impressed with his son. He wanted his generals to talk about the child’s warrior spirit. But this was too loud, too bold. With a glance, List told King to quit. But Father’s papers had slid free and the desk hung in space, needing somewhere to go. So with his total strength and a contrived flash of rage, King flung the lump of bloodwood partway across the spacious office, watching its flight and then the hard landing that shattered every seam.

“Send a thousand soldiers to sit on me,” he told those cowering old men. “Do it. Please do it. But we’ll go to war a thousand soldiers weaker.”

That young boy generated every possible reaction in people.

Prima was no exception.

Diamond revealed empathy inside the coldest soul, amazement in the most banal. What he meant to the world might leave twenty passionate, conflicting opinions inside the same average head. Some citizens couldn’t sleep with their worries. A mad few claimed to feel his presence—a black chill or a blazing second sun transforming everyone and everything. Even in his presence, the boy was a conundrum. Sometimes he was the wondrous child, charming and sweet and reassuringly ordinary. But then suddenly he became an odd face and a smile that meant nothing. A rational person had to wonder if every appearance was camouflage, an exterior worn by a crafty monster biding its time, waiting for the world to lose its focus, its strength.

Compassion and suspicion lived inside Prima. Seeing Diamond that first time, she wanted to take care of him, marshaling the powers of her office and District in his defense. Yet she also feared him in the deepest worst ways. There were nights without sleep and more nights infected with wild dreams, and odd as it seemed, the only reliable cure for the doubts was to board the hub elevator early in the morning, standing beside a stern, silent gentleman dressed in a stern, silent gray and white uniform, the two of them rising to the highest reaches of the forest.

There was no darker, more oppressive place in the world.

In normal times, barely a whisper of sunlight reached that bleak terrain, and then only noticeable to eyes accustomed to the night.

Yet the world’s roof was plastered with life. Not the trees, no. Named trees and tiny nameless trees weren’t the end of the Creation. Roots snaked only part way inside the fleshy black sky-reef. Learned scientists described that reef as lichen, but instead of being green with algae it was full of organisms that consumed the long-light that no human eye could resolve. Rising from the sun, that portion of the spectrum was relentless, passing through wood and every human body, and the spherical shape of the world served to focus these energies against higher regions, up where the oil-infused reef was deep enough for the gigantic bloodwoods to cling with their greedy, oversized roots.

Prima had climbed the high, half-lit reaches above the District of Districts, but she preferred her home with its blackness and the shallower roots, and in particular the spongy bladders filled with phloem, dangling heavy and rich in the morning gloom. She loved the great dish-shaped basins that hung from trees like intricate shelves, one beside the next in close order, each gathering up the highest drops of rain. Strange creatures thrived where light was rare. She particularly liked the bizarre little animals that flew through the trapped water, fins and pink gills flapping. In that realm, an Archon could find the time to remove her shoes and stockings, sitting on the brink of a favorite basin where the trail was maintained and ropes were strung across the gaps. Then the toes went into the chill water. Many of the water-flyers lacked eyes, but they seemed to taste her flesh in the currents, and when they felt especially brave, they would dart forward, enjoying little nibbles of human skin.

Worries about the boy brought Prima to the world’s ceiling.

And so did the King monster living in List’s house, and the rumors of two more mysteries, whatever they might be.

Just the idea of these creatures was a lure, a nectar perhaps, or perhaps the bait in a trap. Prima could never be as close to the ends of the Creation as she was there, and it was possible to sit in the dark, feeling bony mouths chewing harmlessly at her toes. And in the dark, as alone as any Archon could be, she was able to consider each impossibility.

“Madam,” said a man’s rough voice. “You wouldn’t recognize this place now.”

Prima was standing alone in her office, the call-line pressed hard against her ear and her mouth. “Tell me,” she said.

“There’s smoke everywhere, and sunlight,” said the fletch’s captain

“Of course,” she said.

The line crackled for a few moments, threatening to break. But the voice returned in mid-sentence, telling her, “ . . . but the ignition failed or they didn’t finish the setup.”

“What are we talking about?” she asked.

“The bladders, madam. Somebody pumped fuel into Hanner’s oldest bladders. We’re guessing by the smell, but the alcohol’s been spiked with explosives. That would make the blast hotter and much quicker.”

“Inside the bladders?”

“Yes, madam.”

“Which was brought there how?” she shouted.

“In drops and dribbles, I’d guess.” The captain paused, and the roar on an engine sounded. “If I seeded this entire area—what exploded and what didn’t—then we’d be talking about a hundred loads of high-quality papio fuel and explosives.”

“Papio,” she repeated.

“That’s what I’m guessing, madam. And the detonators are definitely papio. Which makes it double-lucky that Hanner didn’t come down too. The papio have great detonators.”

Did the man know how he sounded, praising the murderers?

“But are we safe now?” she asked.

“Your tree?” The voice became quieter, as if he were holding the call-line away from his mouth. “Hanner will survive the day, madam. And we can drain this bomb out without too much risk. But the fuel is toxic and the explosives have some ugly chemicals. This mess has already seeped through the bladder walls, poisoning the wood for a hundred paces in every direction. Long-term, we’re talking about abandoning Hanner before she dies and drops on her own.”

Prima straightened her back, narrowed her eyes. “Thank you.”

“But we think, we hope, the fires are done burning,” he continued. “So at least the damage won’t spread farther.”

Plainly, the captain wasn’t seeing what she saw. The first fire might be done, but a far worse blaze was beginning.

“Madam?”

The Archon said nothing.

“Can you hear me, madam?”

But she had nothing to say. Standing alone and feeling alone, she thought about the mouths that had lived inside those dark basins of rainwater. Did the attached minds—those little white drops of brain—ever ask if there were better places in existence?

Did they believe in brighter realms?

And would that be a comfort, knowing it was so?

FIVE

The woman never pretended to be their mother, not when she did her duties and not inside their minds. Explaining her place, she told the other papio that she was a door between the Eight and the world. Her deep voice and uncompromising attitude colored everything. Some of the Eight always loved her, while others felt that way only afterwards. One or another might ask to know her feelings. Did she love them, and if so, in what order did she love them? These weren’t fair questions, and she told them so. But then she would answer the question, claiming to love each of them equally, even though that was untrue. She also assured them they shared a wonderful body, a beautiful body, and everyone wanted to believe those words even more than the promises of love: this contrivance of flesh and imagination was the Eight, and it was lovely, and the woman rightfully saw magnificence standing before her.