All Daeman knew for sure right now was that the coming of Setebos to Paris Crater had been a disaster for the voynix here—those not frozen in the rapidly expanding blue-ice had been caught and shelled like tasty crabs. Shelled by whom? Or by what? Two answers came to mind, and neither one was reassuring—the voynix had been crunched open either by the teeth and claws of the calibani or by Setebos’ own hands.

Daeman realized now that what he’d thought were gray-pink ridges running along the floor of the crater were actually more arm-stalks emanating from Setebos. The fleshy stalks disappeared into openings in the dome wall and…

Daeman whirled around, raising his crossbow, finger on the trigger. There had been a sliding sound in the ice tunnel behind him. One of Setebos’ hands, three times my size, squeezing through the tunnel behind me.

Daeman crouched there waiting, arms finally shaking from holding the weight of the raised crossbow, but no silent hand emerged. But the corridor of ice hissed and slithered to echoed noises.

The hands are in the walls and probably outside in the crevasses by now, thought Daeman, trying to slow his hammering heart. It’s dark in the tunnels and outside. What do I do if I run into one or more of the hands in there? He’d seen the pulsing feeding orifice in the palms of the hands below—a group of calibani had been feeding them large chunks of raw red meat, either voynix or human.

Finally he lay back on his belly on the blue-ice balcony, feeling the cold of the ice—a substance he now believed to be living tissue extruded by Setebos himself—flow up through his thermskin.

I can get out of here now. I’ve seen enough.

Lying there on his belly, the silly crossbow ahead of him, keeping his head down as a group of calibani scuttled across the crater floor on all fours not a hundred yards below and in front of him, Daeman waited for strength to return to his cowardly arms and legs so he could get the hell out of this unholy cathedral.

I need to report back to Ardis, came the reasonable voice in his mind. I’ve done all I can here.

No, you haven’t, answered the honest part of Daeman’s mind—the part that would get him killed someday. You have to see what those slick, gray egg shapes are.

The calibani had stowed some of those gray pods in a steaming fumarole not a hundred yards from him, below and to the right of his low mezzanine.

I can’t possibly climb down there. It’s too far.

Liar. It’s less than a hundred feet. You still have most of your rope and the spikes. And the ice hammers. Then it would just be a fast sprint out to look at the pod-shapes—grab one to bring back if you can—and then back to your balcony here and out.

That’s crazy. I’d be exposed the whole time I was on the crater floor. Those calibani were between me and that nest. If I’d been out there when they appeared, they would have grabbed me. Eaten me there or taken me to Setebos.

They’re gone now. Now is your chance. Get down there now.

“No,” said Daeman, realizing that he’d whispered the terrified syllable aloud.

But a minute later he was driving a spike into the blue-ice floor of his balcony, tying the rope securely around it, setting the crossbow over his shoulder next to his pack, and beginning the laborious process of lowering himself to the crater floor.

This is good. You’re showing some courage for a change and… Shut the fuck up, Daeman ordered that brave, totally stupid part of his mind.

His mind obeyed.

“Conceiveth all things will continue thus, and we shall have to live in fear of Him,” came the hymn-chant-hiss of Caliban—not from the calibani, Daeman was sure, but from Caliban himself. The original monster must be somewhere here in the dome, perhaps on the other side of Setebos and the crater nest.

“Thinketh this, that some strange day, Setebos, Lord, He who dances on dark nights, shall come to us like tongue to eye, like teeth to throat—or suppose, grow into it, as grub grow butterflies: else, here are we, and there is He, and nowhere help at all.”

Daeman continued sliding down the slippery rope.

The first thing Dr. Thomas Hockenberry, Ph.D., had to do after quantum teleporting into Ilium was find an alley he could puke in.

That wasn’t hard, even in his inebriated state, since the ex-scholic had spent almost ten years in and around Troy and he’d QT’d back to a minor street off the square near Hector and Paris’s apartments where he’d been a thousand times. Luckily, it was night in Ilium, the shops, market stalls, and little restaurants around the square were closed and shuttered, and no spearman or night guard noticed his silent arrival. Still, he needed an alley and found it fast, was sick until the dry heaves passed, and then he needed an even darker and less traveled alley. Luckily the lanes were many and narrow near the dead Paris’s palace—now Helen’s home and the temporary palace of Priam—and Hockenberry quickly sought out the darkest and narrowest lane, barely four feet across, where he curled up on some straw, wrapped the blanket he’d brought from his cubby on the Queen Mab around him, and slept heavily.

He awoke a little after dawn, aching, surly, profoundly hungover, and acutely aware of both the noise in the square near the palace and the fact that he’d brought the wrong clothes from the Queen Mab; he was dressed in a soft gray cotton jumpsuit and zero-g slippers, something the moravecs had thought suitable for a Twenty-first Century man. The outfit didn’t blend in too well with the robes, leather greaves, sandals, tunics, togas, capes, furs, bronze armor, and rough homespun seen in Ilium.

When he did get to the public square—brushing off the worst of the alley filth even while noticing the real difference between the 1.28-g acceleration load he’d been living under and the single gravity of Earth, he felt bouncy and strong now despite his hangover—Hockenberry was surprised to see how few people were in the square. Just after dawn was the busiest time in this market, but most of the stalls were attended only by their owners, tables at the outdoor eating establishments were all but empty, and the only people at the far side of the square, in front of Paris’s, Helen’s, and now Priam’s palace, were the few guards by the doors and gates.

He decided that proper clothes should precede even breakfast, so he stepped into the shadows under the loggia and began bartering with a one-eyed, one-toothed ancient in a red-rag turban. This old man had the largest cart with the widest variety of goods—mostly discards or rags stolen from fresh corpses—but he haggled like a dragon loath to part with his gold. Hockenberry’s pockets were empty, so all he had to bargain with were the ship clothes and the blanket he’d brought along, but these were exotic enough—he had to tell the old man that he’d come all the way from Persia—that he ended up with a toga, high-lace sandals, some unlucky commander’s fine red wool cape, a regular tunic and skirt, and under linens—Hockenberry chose the cleanest ones in the bin, and when he couldn’t manage clean, he settled for louse-free. He left the plaza with a broad leather belt that held a sword that had seen much action but was still sharp, and two knives, one that he’d carry tucked into the belt and the other that slipped into a specially sewn fold inside the red cape. He also received a handful of coins. One glance back at the old man’s gaping, one-toothed grin let Hockenberry know that the geezer had made out well, that the unusual jumpsuit would probably trade for a horse or gold shield or better. Ah, well.

Hockenberry hadn’t asked the old man or the few other drowsy merchants what was going on—why the mostly empty square, why the absence of soldiers and families, why the strange quiet over the city—but he knew he’d find out soon enough.