Mulia looked out on the magnificent plaza of gazebos and boat-studded canals and ignored the signs that this was merely a dream of better days forever gone. The faces of departed loved ones had been returned to life—her cherished father and mother, once ripped away by knife and nature, now here again in radiant flesh and fine clothes. Fate had blessed the young couple Donric and Mulia and their wedding guests with a clear and beautiful sky. They were now in the customary phase of the ceremony in which the groom was to search for his hidden bride before he could forever claim her with kiss and oath and blood. Donric went from door to door in the event complex, unable to find his fiancée in any of the dwellings or shops. Mulia smiled as she watched her betrothed scratch his jaw and scan the crowd of friends and family as they laughed at his perplexity. Finally Donric's gaze landed on the canals that had been populated with great white swans of cursive necks and startling golden eyes. His sharp eye leapt along the graceful gondolas whose drivers wore wide-brimmed hats that blocked the glaring sun until his stare settled on a lovely woman who wore one of those covers rung with gentle bells on its brim, her face disguised in its plentiful shade. Donric finally saw through the disguise, that wide jangling hat and loose red robes and long oar in her hands. He smiled and went toward her. Mulia had been masqueraded as one of the boatsmen, he now realized. Donric stepped from the canal edge onto her boat and pulled her hat back to reveal her face to her lover and future husband. He took Mulia in his strong arms and they kissed for a long while as the guests applauded and cheered. Then came the screams.

Arrows and spears whistled through the air. Donric's head blossomed into a red rose before Mulia's deathstruck eyes and he fell splashing into the waters. A cloud of blood snaked through its dark eddies as he sank below the surface to finish his life at the bottom of the murk. Mulia looked up and witnessed nightmares on the backs of nightmares. Scores of hobgoblin savages poured into the plaza and slaughtered everyone in sight with relish, ordained by their god to visit suffering and woe on all. She watched as relatives and friends were cut down, everyone she held dear, their red juices stark against the white tablecloths. Blood and wine admixed and indistinguishable. Mulia's boat shifted and threatened to capsize. Someone had landed on its planks behind her. She turned to see the howling and painted face of a sandman, bones and teeth jutting from its contorted face, black eyes shot with monstrous lust. It raised its bonesword high.

— • —

All was stopped by a sudden and distant boom. Mulia awoke in her manor bedroom. Dust lingered in the air like dazed sprites. Voices shouted from the other rooms, the agitated staff commenting on the sudden commotion. Dogs barked and howled outside and birds cackled in shrill alarm. Something had roused the entire ward.

Mulia's door flew open and Astrid and Amelie rushed to her bed, fear-stricken. "What happened, mother?" said Astrid as the girls climbed under her covers. "Is it the Black Dawn?" Mulia held her daughters tight and comforted them and assured them the world was not coming to its promised end and hoped it true. Could one of the countless doomsayers that preached from every corner of Camshire have been right, after all? Had Qali and her horde come to collect her ancient promise to reclaim the living world? Was there truth to the Wandering Shepherd's grim prophecies? Had the thousand-bodied gods decided to once again wipe clean the world for yet another shaping? Or were the Anarch insurrectionists to blame? A more mundane explanation, perhaps, but no less world-ending to their unlucky victims than a comet crashing from the sky. Dead was dead.

— • —

It was into that black-canvassed wagon again for Varga Skinner. Valen and his men ferried their captive man, perhaps the arrest of their careers, across cobblestones and through streets of mud on another damnable ride through the unruly city. Skinner's possessors presumably meant to carry him back full circle to Fetterstone. The scapegoat lamented his shameful naiveté. The signs had all been there—to include Church's stern warnings to stay away from his apartment, where his framers had planted the bones of those murdered kids. Skinner had found it odd that Hotch had chosen him from the start. The etching was all right there in the stones. Fitting that he never became a Reaper. His world had again turned upside down and he'd done nothing to avoid it. Perhaps the promise of freedom had blinded him. Well, that was a fantasy and always was. Skinner now wished for nothing more than to be brought before that firing line. He couldn't take seeing the walls of that cell again or another like it. It would undo what remained of his mind.

Skinner's world again flipped—but this time it was in the most literal sense. A furious shockwave came with no warning and upended the wagon and flung it into a stone wall like a child's toy. Skinner felt as if his soul had been knocked loose from his body by that godly slap. His ears rung like the Night of Bells and his vision cleaved. When his senses returned to him like poorly-trained dogs he could see a blur of light peeking through the torn and smoldering canvas. The wagon was on its side now and the cage itself warped and melted on the far end. Had Skinner been on the other side of the space he would have fused with those bands of smoldering iron in the unheralded hellstrike. The sounds from beyond the ripped tarp and blackened bars were muted and surreal. Far-off shouting and crying, a steady creaking, the canvas whipping in the wind.

A pain dawned. He'd been burned in the blast and his nerves now acknowledged so as the chemicals of shock abated from his tissues. Skinner crawled forward through the agony on blistered skin and peered through the flap. There were bodies in the streets. A few living folk rushed in panic to get away from the scene or to tend to the wounded and dead. Was this another attack by the rune-martyrs? Skinner's eyes went to the lock of his cage and he saw that it had been melted and dislodged from its seating. Still it smoked. He bundled some of the torn canvas around his tender cuffed hands and tentatively reached out and pushed the door. It groaned open slightly. The felon poked his head out and saw that the steady creaking was from a wheel that still spun loosely in the air. The mangled corpses of the officers who'd been escorting Skinner's wagon were scattered around the vessel and smashed against the nearby wall. No eyes fell on him. All were distracted by other things. Horrible things. He gingerly pushed through the narrow gap and was glad for his thin frame. Had he not starved in Fetterstone so, he would have not been able to slip free.

The cage had apparently also saved Skinner from the fate of the dead around him. Irony by way of iron. Another cosmic laugh from the great Trickster. He ached all over from slamming against the bars but they had protected his life. He got another look at the carnage and his jaw fell open. The buildings all around him had been toppled. Great sections of walls had fallen to earth. A span of street collapsed before his eyes and crumbled into a dark hole like crumbs of cake. He could hear distant booms of other structures buckling in the ongoing aftermath. What could have caused this destruction? Of course it had to be sorcerous, and powerful beyond belief. A whole block of Camshire, at least, brought to blood and rubble.

Skinner found Inspector Valen's body and went through his pockets. He located the detective's keys and unlocked his own cuffs (ah, the unique relief of an unshackling) and took the officer's papers and his money. Then something caught the repeater's eye—Valen's arm made the most subtle movement and his lips issued a soft half-dead groan. Skinner froze. The Inspector's eyes shot open and landed on the felon's face. Valen still clung to life on some fragile and tenuous thread. The officer's hand went for his dagger and Skinner stopped it with his own scarred hand, easily wresting it from his foe. He gently shoved the taken weapon between Valen's ribs and into his quivering heart until the officer's body finally grew still, killed with his own dagger. To hell with the Inspector. To hell with them all. Skinner wiped the blood on the officer's clothing and pocketed it. Pulled Valen's boots off his feet and put them on his own and ran off into the night.

— • —

It was an obstacle course of detritus and looters and fire and sinkholes. Screams issued from an apartment on fire as Skinner passed. He froze and listened. It sounded like a baby trapped on an upper floor. The fugitive found himself paralyzed by his conscience. If he wanted to act, he must do it now before the flames made it impossible. He could not save the children he'd wanted to, but here was one he could rescue, delivered at his feet. Of course he must try. Skinner ran inside and raced up the narrow stairs that could buckle at any moment. It was not a child. It was an old woman. He found her in an upstairs bed, unable to move. The flames were all-consuming. The ceiling splintered and blistered and threatened to collapse upon her. Skinner drew closer. The heat was nearly unbearable. He got his arms under her and found her incredibly light. Like a piece of driftwood. But still his singed arms screamed.

Skinner carried the elder down the stairs and raced back through the raging gauntlet and got her into the street. People were passing in all directions looking for those they loved. Some fought to save their possessions. Some took the possessions of others. The old woman's lungs wheezed but she was still alive. Commanding shouts came from further down the street. Diluvian guardsmen had stopped some looters. Of course they didn't bother to try and save any lives when there was property to protect. The hardsticks had the offenders lined up against a wall. Seeing the sinister unit reminded Skinner that he was a wanted man. Very wanted. If they saw him the chances of Fate being so kind again were slim indeed. He handed the frail woman to a stunned barber who stood nearby watching his shop go up in flames. Left her in that confused haircutter's arms and fled. Once again, Skinner was confoundedly and miraculously free.

— • —

The walls and windows of Mother Blacklove trembled. Dust fell from her high rafters. Dimia and the other orphans went to their windows and watched the chaos unfold outside. People ran and shouted in the streets. No one bothered the old orphanage, not yet. Perhaps they feared this place that was rumored to be haunted by dead prioresses and the wailing ghosts of babes. Or felt nothing within it was worth taking, or had some final decent shred in themselves that forbade them their indulgences when it came to orphans and nuns. But the masses seized this opportunity to partake in myriad other depravities. The riots took to blood. There was the smell of burning. Distant, desperate screams. Suddenly Dimia felt much safer within Mother Blacklove's walls. Her hind may still have ached from Sister Chalice's corporal treatments but that cruelty was nothing compared to the pain of the outside world.

— • —