“It would be a kindness, ruthen.”

He looked at her again, more directly this time, and said. “Then. In the old time, there was one of us, we know not his name, he defied the calling of his blood and did not become a dragon. He learned of the Little Cousins under Thrymhaiam and the Blackthorns, and he thought he would create a religion to teach the Gray Folk to fight their blood—to not surrender to the evil within them. He was our lawgiver, our temple builder. But the temple was empty, for who—what god would be the perfect being who would inspire us to be perfect?

“Then the God actually appeared?”

“He appeared, and he was evil in our eyes and stank in our snouts. Many were lost to the dragon plague then. But a new teacher arose. He taught that this was an avatar of the God, sent to show us how not to be, how not to live. His imperfection was our guide to perfection.”

“Hm.”

“Well, it stopped the plague. We could live, together, as ourselves, and that was something.”

“And then . . . ?”

“And then came the Olvinar, the Adversary, the one called Lightbringer. He came to free us. He taught us that if we managed to kill the God, we would truly be free. It was a great word, and many received it gladly.”

“But not all.”

“No. Many still cling to the old foolish ways. And so we are at war with ourselves. The city burns, and we cannot cooperate to put out the fire. And the sun is dying, and some say it is because of the war against the God.”

Ambrosia put her hand on the excantor’s gray-plated forearm and said, “If I tried to escape, you wouldn’t try very hard to stop me, would you?”

“I would not try at all,” the mandrake said candidly. “I am . . . sick of it. Sick of all this.” After a pause he whispered, “When the Adversary . . . when he sends us out to fight our ruthen kin . . . I enjoy it too much. Sometimes I . . . feel a cold thirst in my throat that I would quench with hot blood. I dream blasphemous dreams of chewing the sacred flesh of my kin . . . breaking their bones . . . licking out the burning marrow with a long forked tongue. I can’t. . . . This can’t go on forever. It has gone on too long. Perhaps the world really must end. Perhaps I would welcome it.”

“Well, I’ll go with you and talk to the Olvinar, this anti-God. Perhaps we can sort out a less permanent solution for this mess.”

He nodded, clamped his long jaws hungrily a few times, and did not speak.

The Adversary lived in a house on the north side of town. It looked like a coil of great cable, wrapped around and around several storeys high, with a protrusion like a tower at the top.

There were two excantors chanting quietly at the front door. They held up their swords to salute their senior, then opened the door and stood aside.

“Go in, if you will,” her companion said. “He would like to speak to you alone.”

Ambrosia entered the dark doorway and heard the door closed and locked behind her. Protecting the Adversary? Imprisoning him?

The ground floor of the house was one big room interrupted by support columns. The stairway to the upper floors was exposed against the far wall.

The room was lit only in the center, where a white light-globe floated in midair. Beneath it, an old man sat at a table piled with books, light gleaming on his white hair and beard as he pored over a curious volume bound in brass.

The Adversary raised his head and looked at her with luminous blue eyes.

“Good evening, father,” said Ambrosia.

“Ah! Ambrosia my dear, my very dear!” Merlin Ambrosius leapt up and ran over to greet his favorite daughter.

“Ὓπαγε ὀπίσω μου, Σατανᾶ!” she said, holding out both her hands to reject his embrace. Get behind me, Adversary! it meant in one of the unspoken languages from her mother’s world.

“What . . . ? Ah! Ah hahahaha!” He laughed for some time rather theatrically and then said, “Very good, my dear. A most amusing reference to that somewhat obscure literary classic. That’s one reason I enjoy talking to you, my dear: your suppleness of mind. Your brother would be sadly incapable of appreciating such a jest, even if he were well-read enough to make it.”

Ambrosia forbore to point out that she was not joking and that Morlock had quoted that very text to her less than an hour before. She said instead, “Why are you here, father? I take it you are the great Adversary of the local god.”

“Yes, yes, they flatter me with that noble title. You know the secret name of this god, perhaps?”

“Morlock says he is Rulgân Silverfoot, also called the Kinslayer.”

“Yes, indeed—although what point there is in calling a dragon ‘kinslayer’ is beyond my telling. It’s like saying, ‘the one with wings—you know, the one who breathes fire.’”

“Hm.”

“But, more to the point, what brings you here, my dear? I gather you didn’t expect to find me here.”

“Not until I saw that vile fish you made.”

“Oh! Oh. You spotted that as one of mine, did you? How?”

“The thing was vicious, ugly, and a patchwork of scars. The maker makes in his own image.”

“Oh, come now. I have very few scars.”

“It was also in dreadful pain. So Morlock says.”

“The pain of a fish. These are the trivia that your brother concerns himself with, my dear.”

“He was concerned with saving me and my companions.”

“Oh! Your companions, yes, I admit, I have little interest in them. But my emissary would not have killed you. Your blood would have poisoned him, among other things. No, I wanted you to come here, and here you are.”

“But you can’t have expected me. You came here originally for some other reason.”

“And so did you, but you haven’t told me either, you know. We can dance around and around the point and never come to it.”

“We think Rulgân knows something about these entities that are killing the sun.”

Merlin’s eyebrows rose in polite surprise. “Only that? Really?”

“It seems somewhat important to us.”

“I can’t understand why. This world is doomed. But there are others. You were always fairly good at mathematics, and I understand even Morlock eventually learned enough to plot a course across the Sea of Worlds.”

“That’s your plan, then?”

“Eventually. It can’t really come too soon, to my way of thinking. This world is becoming so unfriendly, what with all the cannibalism and warfare because of the crops failing year after year. And the winters lately. My dear, you have no idea how uncomfortable cold can be as one gets a little older. It’s been a thousand years since I could properly enjoy a snowfall without thinking: My joints! That old wound in my chest! My sinuses! God Creator, my sinuses.”

“Then why don’t you abandon the sinking ship of this universe and swim away to sunnier climes?”

“I quite understand and resent your rodental metaphor, my dear, but the fact is that my business here is not quite finished, and I hate to leave a thing as important as this unfinished.”

“If ‘this,’ whatever it is, doesn’t impede my own plans too much, I might be inclined to help you with it. Morlock would feel the same way, I’m sure.”

“Him!” Merlin shook his head. “No—the boy is soft as rancid butter. We never should have let those dwarves near him. Besides, he knows little or nothing of lifemaking, and that is what my business entails.”

“In that case, I won’t be of much help, either. It’s not one of my arts.”

“Now that’s where you’re wrong, my dear; I’m sure you’ll be invaluable. Won’t you help me, please? And then, I give you my word, I will assist in your little quest. If you can save this world, I would be well pleased—I have nothing against it, really.”

Ambrosia hesitated. Nothing was more dangerous than Merlin when he seemed plausible.

“Well,” she said, reluctant to commit herself, “what is it, exactly?”