The greatest human of the age was a Deva called Polybiblios. He had traveled to the final far end of the aging cosmos, to live and study in the glow of the sixty suns of the Shen, a great civilization about to be absorbed by the Chaos.

The City Princes of Earth promised a rich prize if someone would go to those last far places and persuade Polybiblios to return. For as absorbed as he was in his learning, and almost walled in by regions filled with traps and snares, he could not by himself make the journey back to Earth. The first to volunteer was the young Mender called Sangmer, already renowned and beloved for his many exploits and rare courage.

Sangmer gathered a crew and revived the Earth’s last great galaxy ship. With his crew—selected for strength, courage, and wit—he journeyed along the single open course to that final far corner of the universe.

In all their adventures—and many they were, strange and difficult—only ten survived, including Sangmer, to return with Polybiblios. The Chaos raged and consumed and did its deadly dazzle, and many times nearly took their vessel—for none is so persistent and perverse as the Typhon, some say, and others, none so unlikely and difficult to plan against.

Sangmer also brought to Earth Polybiblios’s mysterious adopted daughter, who most agree was less human than the Shen—though her form was very pleasing.

She had taken the name Ishanaxade—born of all stories—and espoused the Deva gens of her father. Back on Earth, they were welcomed by the City Princes and there was great rejoicing, yet funeral rites occupied many families, who mourned their lost youths.

Polybiblios began his work in the high tower over the First Bion of the Kalpa, and using his Shen knowledge, soon helped design and forge the Suspension that protected the new sun, and kept the Chaos at bay for a time.

Sangmer did not sit idly, but continued with his restless ways, making other voyages and studying, measuring, and defying the Chaos, all of which heightened his fame—though these journeys consumed many more sons and daughters of fine families.

So many youths perished that Sangmer the Pilgrim also became known as Killer of Dreams, a title he did not bear proudly, and so, he promised to go into deep exile within the Sessiles, and not to return until he had studied Silence for an age.

Ishanaxade emerged from among the curious that lined the ribbon road to witness his penitent journey, and stood before him where he bore up under the discs of memory of his thousand lost comrades, which nearly bent him double.

None was so wonderfully fashioned as Ishanaxade, but that is not why to this day her images are forbidden or erased; none so beautiful in her father’s eyes, nor in the eyes of the curious who watched her partake of Sangmer’s burden, and help carry the discs to the door of the Sessiles, where Silence is peace.

Some say that it was in the Sessiles that their lines first twined and grew together. Others say their love began on the journey back from the realm of the Shen. No one objected that a Mender should take to wife Ishanaxade, for few dared displease Polybiblios, who had saved the last of humanity, and who sanctioned this union.

Upon their emerging from Silence, Polybiblios assigned them many great works to do, together and apart.

So it was, so it will be.

Tiadba closed the book and the young breeds curled up tighter. Somehow, the story had changed since the last time she read it—details were different, or their ears had become more sophisticated.

“It’s not a happy story, is it?” Khren said.

“We’re all going to die out there,” Nico asserted gloomily. “I don’t understand, but I still want to go. That’s total frass.”

Suddenly, through her exhaustion, Tiadba felt a sudden urge to speak of Jebrassy, to shout at them—that he was notdead, and would somehow be joining them, and that his presence would make this march different from all the others…But she turned her eyes to one side and fell back a little, doubting her companions would believe or take comfort.

“Let’s sleep,” she suggested.

The young breeds blew out their cheeks and pulled up their sleep mats under the high dark arches.

CHAPTER 60

Wallingford

At first the squat, hard-packed old man in the tweed suit refused to tell Daniel his name. He could act aloof, then turn gruffly assertive, as if he had always lived alone but was used to being in charge. His accent was difficult to place: English, like cockney, but Daniel was no expert. Together, they had built up their courage and abandoned the house, leaving Whitlow on his chair, locked in jerky rigor—and now something like sunrise was spreading all around, a burning pewter light painted over the streets. The neighborhood to the north resembled a pasted-up collage, bands of light and shadow lying over dark, forbidding houses. The people left on the streets seemed intent on getting somewhere but were being given a very brief time to do it—and worse, they were doing it over and over. A few seemed to vaguely recognize their plight—like insects caught in congealing resin, all except Daniel and the squat brute, and how long could their freedom last?

“A Shifter who doesn’t dream,” the brute mused between rasping huffs. He struggled to keep up as they turned east on what had once been Forty-fifth Street, toward the freeway. The air was gritty. “I’d never have found you. Mr. Whitlow was primed, however. Even without the dreams, he could sense your stone. That was his specialty. Ironic he couldn’t find shelter—when sheabandoned us.” The brute seemed pleased with himself. “Me, alone,” he wheezed. “Riding the last threads. Pulling them down and sweeping along. And you, of course.”

“Terminus,”Daniel said.

The brute nodded—understood this word well enough. “Mr. Whitlow called it that,” he said. “Never knew what it meant. Where the railway stops? End of the line? Don’t know now. But whatever, I don’t like it. It’s sticky. It catches.”

Daniel wrapped his fingers around the two boxes in his pocket and blessed the little freedom the stones gave him—them. The brute was also contributing, Daniel could not say how. Both seemed aware that without the benefit of the other’s presence, they would be as frustrated—as obviously doomed as the mired, wild-eyed figures they passed on the sidewalks and in the streets.

“Who’s the Chalk Princess?”

“The highest of high, in my line of work. But truthfully—don’t know. Never met her. Dangerous, you know.”

“The Moth?”

“Ah, the Moth—so he washere. So many tiny thrones for the Queen’s servants. Nunc dimittis, I say. I doubt he would have killed you, such a curiosity. He probably wanted to rip you about, like a sheepdog.”

Daniel grunted and turned his head forward. He didn’t like looking back—the street behind was not the street they had just traveled. Time, he supposed, was bunching up like an accordion smashed into a wall. They came upon a rise overlooking where the freeway had once been. Now there was just a long muddy ditch flanked on both sides by empty houses. In this part of the neighborhood, the bunched accordion had brought along material things—houses and funny old cars. But nothing living.

“No more people,” the brute observed.

“What’s that mean?”

“You tell me, young master.”

The freeway was obviously not available—and that meant they would have to take surface streets, such as they were. It would be a long, difficult walk. They looked into a car but machinery was hopeless. It all seemed made of fused cinders.

“What are you, my sidekick?” Daniel shot over his shoulder, flippancy hiding real fear. “My butler?”

“Your guide, young master—taking you back to where I’ve been already. It’s south of here—a green warehouse. I walked around the building, knew theywere inside, yet had nothing to offer and could not hope to enter. After the storm, after the wreck—after the Queen fumbled like a frightened lover and dropped our prey, I knew I wouldn’t be allowed inside, however desperate my situation. They’ll welcome you, however. It’s where you belong—not that you’re grateful.” The brute’s thick fingers clenched. “It’s getting worse. I don’t mind saying—”