The scent of fear from Eren and Kado gets stronger, and I glance back to see Eren about to say something, but then Cheshire interrupts. The geist takes shape next to me and points skyward. “Look up,” she says.

I oblige, as do the others, and far above us I see the dark thin out. I catch glimpses of a pale blue sky and rocks drifting through the air. Floating islands.

“We haven’t left the Labyrinth; we’re in the Labyrinth and the Abyss. A liminal space, some kind of interstitial threshold between the two.”

Kado interjects, “That doesn’t really change the fact that we are in the Abyss and we need to get the fuck out of here before—”

He’s interrupted by his own bird, that owl bastard perching on his shoulder. The owl looks terrified, its ear tufts standing up and its feathers pulled in tightly. It stinks of fear even worse than Eren, and I didn’t think homunculi like that could even feel fear.

“Gods and demons,” Simon breathes. “Look to the edges.”

On all sides of the platform, monsters crawl out of the Abyss. Beasts of feather and scale and viscous flesh climb on four legs, six, eight, some of them with dozens of insectile limbs scuttling up from the dark and onto the metal platform. They’re painted in black and gray, not a drop of color to be found, and all of them eyeless.

Kado’s owl takes flight, the hunter grabbing at it and shouting at it to come back, but for once the bird doesn’t listen. It soars up and away, panicking, desperate to escape—only to be swallowed whole by something invisible lurking in the darkness above us. The owl vanishes, a few drifting feathers its only remains.

Kado watches the feathers fall, expression horrified and distraught. He plucks one from the air, staring at it, and then he says, “Fuck this, I’m out,” and walks back through the mirror. For a moment I think about stopping him, but I’ve got bigger problems on my plate. I’ll kill you later, Kado. Eren follows close behind.

Dante has his sword drawn, but he’s starting to shiver as more and more monsters take the stage. Simon looks to me and says, “It’s your call. If you say stay, I’ll stay. But I don’t feel confident about our chances.”

I watch the creatures inch closer… no, not quite. The fresh arrivals are padding forward, but the first ones to appear have stopped. They’re all coming to a rest just a little bit past the edge, far enough to leave space for the next wave. And they’re all watching us, and waiting for something.

I’m on edge, but I’m not giving up that easily. I look to Cheshire. “Can you sense the Machinist? Is he here, somewhere?”

Cheshire is shivering too, but she nods. “He’s beneath us. Beneath the platform. I think there’s a chamber below, we just have to find the entrance.”

On cue, the platform begins to creak as a set of plates in the center of it click, lower themselves, and then slide into hidden compartments. And then, rising from that newly revealed empty space, I see the mask of the Mourner: porcelain with pitch tearstains, the agonized expression of the tragedy mask from theater, only much larger than it was before, and fitted over a metallic frame. Lamplights shine through eyeholes and I can see a speaker box sitting behind the mask’s mouth.

The facsimile head sits atop plated shoulders with wired joints and a metal body decorated with painted sigils and inscribed pennants. Its chest caves in, hollow, to reveal a glass sphere with a light inside too bright to look at, and glass tubes flowing out of the sphere and into the inner workings of the construct.

It’s a giant robot, clearly, and that only becomes more clear as it keeps rising, tall and imposing, showing off more metallic parts. One metal hand, the left, is held with its palm facing up, fingers bunched together, and standing on that hand is the Machinist.

He looks about as Esha depicted him: black scales, floppy ears, short with an adorable snout, and wearing shiny power armor. He’s a kobold, and I’m very tempted to call him cute and try to demean him, but he is currently holding a sleek tablet that I assume to be the control device for the giant fucking robot.

The Machinist looks down at us coldly and asks, “So. Have you come to stop me?”

I raise an eyebrow. “Uh, yeah? Duh? I feel like you’re just setting up for a—”

“Then you are fools!” he shouts over me. “Blind to the truth of the universe, slaves to the wretched architect of all our miseries.”

“Right, yeah, monologue time.” I wave for him to continue. “Go on, tell us all your evil plans.”

The Machinist sneers. “How very glib. Oh, I will tell you a great many things, you who have come so far for so very little. You have not seen what I have seen. When the Beast first cursed me, I thought myself uniquely alone in that creative sterility. But I have learned. We are all of us cursed, damned by the Lucid Demiurge to ever lack for true imagination, neutered by her grasp on our souls. This reality is a prison of her design, meant to keep us docile and powerless. I will break her cage and set us all free.”

Dante and Simon look alarmed at that, though Simon also looks distinctly sad as he shakes his head and murmurs something about old friends. The two murder-dolls don’t look like they’re experiencing anything, obviously.

I blink a few times at the absurdity of what I just heard. “Oh. Wow, alright, going straight to cosmic annihilation. So, is that what you and the Emissary have cooked up, then? Kickstarting the Resurrection or something like that?”

He scoffs. “Prevara is a fool like the rest. They thought I was just the latest in a long line of craftsmen ensnared to their will. No… why would I serve the Leviathans when I could take their power for myself? I have altered the design for the Emissary’s machine, and changed its purpose dramatically. The Abyss shall become the hammer with which I destroy this world of dreams. BEHOLD!”

I fire off a few shadowy bats before the end of his speech, but they collide against an invisible barrier and dissipate. The Machinist sneers again, and then he presses a button on his tablet and the robot whirrs to life. Steam starts to rise off the exposed wiring, the lamplights flare, and then the star in its chest collapses inward and becomes a black hole. The glass sphere shatters and all the shards are drawn in, and then the dark of the Abyss around us starts to drift toward the mechanical titan in streams of black mist.

I start sorting through my mental inventory in search of an answer. I could spam more spells, but I don’t know how that barrier works. I glance over at the others. “Got anything?”

Simon gives me an apologetic wince. “My magic is useless here.”

Dante pulls two devices from his backpack that look a whole lot like magitek grenades. He clicks a button on each and tosses them at the robot, where they explode against the barrier in a roar of flame and electricity that utterly fails to penetrate. The kid looks very put out by that, slumping before he turns to me and says, “I guess, if nothing else, I can make a wish.”

More darkness pours into the hollow heart of the mecha, and the Abyss hangs heavy around its body and limbs. The Machinist cackles. “It works! It—”

A terrible, hungry presence passes over my shoulder, an eldritch force like Demiurge or Dreamweaver but all teeth and ice. I glimpse a nightmare: a gigantic serpent, its perfectly-geometric scales colored black and purple and red, shimmering into view for a single moment as it pours itself inside the black hole heart of the titanic machine. The lamplight eyes of the mecha shut off, the hole in its chest stops drinking darkness, and then the robot crushes the Machinist in its hand.

I stare, shocked, as blood drips between its mechanical fingers. The arm of the mecha slowly turns, its hand opens, and the broken body of a kobold falls from its grip to crumple against the hard metal ground. The shattered control tablet falls with him.

“Weaver preserve us…” Simon breathes. “This can’t be possible.”

The robot waves its hand and Simon, Dante, and both husks are thrown away from me and pulled back through the mirror that brought us here. The mirror darkens and goes dead before I have a chance to react, and then I’m alone with a Leviathan.

Well, almost alone. Cheshire clings to my side tightly, panic wafting, eyes wide. “That’s a Leviathan. Alice, that’s a Leviathan. They’re supposed to be dead!”

The voicebox of the mecha crackles to life, and a voice like music echoes across the field. “I am the song of the dead and the first resurrection. I am Leviathan, corpse-born, the Heretic’s Hunter. I have eaten ninety names and smothered ninety more, but in death and wisdom I became the Hierophant of Bitter Truths. Know me.”

Curiosity wars with concern. “You can call me Alice, the vampire demon. And if you’re not going to try and eat me… I’d love to chat. I’m real curious to hear how this fits into the Emissary’s plans.”

Again the voicebox crackles, though the machine is still as stone. “The Emissary’s pawn lacked imagination, misled by promise of liberation. A tool is easily subverted, and so his designs were altered to my desire.”

That throws me for a loop. “Wait, so you’re not with them? Isn’t the Emissary supposed to be working for you, or at least your… species, I guess?”

“The Emissary of the Resurrection and the teething, sightless hordes. A prophet serving blind, weak fools. I hold no allegiance to their ilk.”

So not all Leviathans are on the same page as their Emissary… I don’t know what to do with that information, but it seems very good to have. “Now what?” I ask the Hierophant. “Why are you here? And what do you want with me?”

A pause. And then: “Let us have a contest, and you shall show me your resolve. And if I find you worthy, an old conflict you may solve.”

And it rhymes, too?? Why does it rhyme??

Along the edges of the platform, the army of monsters begins to advance. Not all at once, but in ones and twos they plod on hooves or skitter on spindly insect legs. The eyeless beasts approach, and I am afraid, but I am also hungry. These are creatures of the Abyss, but so am I, and I’m more than they are.

Cheshire squeezes my arm. “I’m with you. You’ve got this.”

I cast a spell and merge with Cheshire, the geist becoming blood and shadow that sweeps across my body like armor. Sharp-tipped tentacles erupt from my back, ready to wrap around my foes and drain their life. I conjure the bat-winged staff into one hand and hold Vorpal in the other, and with an effort of will I set the rapier aflame.

I shift my weight and bounce on the balls of my feet, psyching myself up as the swarm draws near. I am hunger. I am tension. I am excitement. I am strength. So a Leviathan wants to test me? Fine. I’ll show you what I’m made of. I dismiss the summoned beetle. I don’t need it for this. That horde of monsters is going to be my food. This will be a feast.

Okay. Okay. “Let’s fucking go!”

Nine die before they can reach me, drained of their essence through bats and tendrils. The first to actually touch me is a cat-lizard hybrid that fails to cut through my second skin, and I take its head with my blade. More die from afar, and more rush in. Three feathered gorillas with snake-like lower bodies charge me as a unit and momentum carries them even as I drain two and stab the third, and I stumble back from the force of the impact straight into the path of a winged wolf with a face that’s all teeth. Its bite manages to break through my protective suit and pierce flesh, but the wound heals the second I tear it away as other monsters fall to my magic.

More come, and more die. Some crumple like paper, others take five hits, ten hits to keep down. They bite me, claw me, sting me, and slam into me with bone-cracking weight, but I always heal faster than they can keep hurting me. A lion with five scorpion tails for a head manages to lance my eye before I sever all five tails with Vorpal and drink its soul to repair my vision. A giant hairless bear with skin like a frog takes my hand when I try to block its jaws with my staff, and the staff stays broken but my hand comes back good as new.

The horrors of the Abyss keep rising from below to join the fray, and they pile on in groups of four and eight and twenty. They rush me and I step and cut and step and carve and step and drain and kill, kill, kill, kill. I bleed and I drink. My body breaks and it is made whole again.

The cycle plays out over and over. I am injured, I feel pain. I bleed myself to [Feast or Famine], the pain gets worse. I drink their essence, the pain becomes pleasure. I glut myself on souls, I get stronger, and the cycle gets quicker.

The fear in my chest is stolen by hunger and I keep eating every monster that tries to eat me. I don’t feel tired; I feel exhilarated. I climb over hills of corpses and split beasts in half. I scream and I laugh and I keep eating. The rational parts of my mind retreat as I give myself wholly to the flow of violence, moving step by step through a dance of murder that sends lightning bolts of pain and pleasure splintering through my shivering brain.

And then, all of a sudden, there are no monsters left. The ground is carpeted with the dead, soaked with the black blood of horrors. I’m breathing heavily, eyes wide and fingers twitching, hungry for another kill. Animalistic. I look around for more, but there are only corpses. Corpses, and the Leviathan in its shell.

The Hierophant speaks again. “Conflict is the whetstone. We kill, we eat, we rise. Are you strong enough yet?”

I snarl at the voice, and then I launch myself at the robot. I hit the barrier and bounce off, but it won’t deter me. It can’t stop me. I hack at the invisible wall with Vorpal, with tendrils, with claws. The barrier bends, and then it breaks.

I stand before the mecha and I send my extra limbs toward its hollow heart, ready to devour it with [Feast or Famine]. In that moment I am prepared to swallow a Leviathan whole… but at the last second, I remember what happened when I tried to eat the Demiurge, and I hesitate.

My blood sings with hunger, my thoughts eroded by the promise of greater conflict and greater feasting, but I push through the red haze and stop myself. I pull my tendrils back, step away from the machine, and end the spell that’s been drinking my blood. Immediately my head feels a little clearer, though those desires don’t go away.

There is stillness and silence, and then the Hierophant speaks.

“The beast that eats itself to death is no different from that which starves itself. This is bitter; this is true. You have proven yourself, demon. Now we may speak, listen, and learn.”

I adjust my posture and fidget with my top, feeling awkward about my lapse in self-control. “Gluttony’s supposed to be one of my Truths, you know. But, I’m not really sure of those anymore. So, fine: what do you want to talk about, Hierophant?”

“I would tell you the death of the Leviathans and the victor of the Eternal Conflict. I would tell you the failures. I would tell you what is to come, and why you need me.”

My hackles raise. That sounds portentous. “Then tell me, but I already know a bit. One of your kind broke taboo and ate the dead, and you killed it over and over, but it kept coming back until one day someone picked a fight with it and lost. I imagine that made waves.”

“There was… a schism. The Heretic taught us fear. If a deathless worm that glutted on carrion could kill a great predator of the Abyss, then a time might come that it devoured all and stole from the worthy our precious Throne. There were some, who we called Carrionites, that began to practice the Defiler’s taboo, though they did not know the secret to tricking death. And there were others, the pious, who sought the absolute destruction of this terrifying Betrayer. Of its pursuers, only I had earned the name of Heretic’s Hunter.”

The Leviathan’s emotions are difficult to parse, its manner of speech unfamiliar to me and warped by the framework of the mechanical voicebox. But in that last line I hear a strange mixture of pride and shame.

“The Heretic was endangered. If the Carrionites caught it, they would devour its shards and its song would end. If I caught it, I would shatter it again each time it reformed until its song frayed every note. So it fled, and I followed, and in its flight it found the Dreamlands. Others followed us, and the Eternal Conflict gained a terrible new battlefield.

“The Titans of the Dream were not beings of will and want but merely of form itself, each a single cell of the greater body that was the Dreamlands, endless yet without purpose. We gave them purpose. We had honed ourselves into the perfect beings to enslave the myriad inhabitants of this new realm, and we raised great armies and forged great kingdoms and broke them against each other like crashing waves. We saw infinity and yearned to rule it. All of us except two.”

I guess, “You and the Scavenger.”

The machine creaks. “It fled, and I followed. The Dreamlands were endless, and it grew curious, and as the others grew distracted with their new wars the Heretic found it ever easier to evade pursuit. It sought to learn about this realm and its inhabitants. If to be Leviathan is to exemplify the whetstone of conflict, then to be Titan is to exemplify an opposing virtue: cooperation. The Titans were not born from death and violence but instead bloomed from acts of willing communion.

“This fascinated the Heretic, and it sought deeper secrets. If the infinite Shadowlands could possess a deepest layer, then so too could the endless Dreamlands. It explored, and I followed, and it found the heart of the Dream: an ocean of light that stretched past the horizon. There, at the shore of that great ocean, Titans came to die. They traveled in pairs and in groups, and together they laid down in the shallows and were washed away. Their light became part of the ocean’s light, and that light spread into the soil and from that soil into the whole of the Dream. It was all one existence, all of it connected. It marveled at the sight, lost in its strange beauty.

“And then I murdered the Heretic by the shore of that ocean.” The Hierophant pauses for a moment, letting me soak that in, and then it asks, “Are you afraid to die?”

I tense up. “Why does everyone have to poke this fucking bear? Yes! Yes, I am afraid to die. I am terrified of death and I fundamentally cannot understand anyone who isn’t. Death is my greatest fear, and there are few things I’d balk at if the only alternative was my inevitable demise.”

When the Hierophant speaks again, there’s a tone of amusement to its voice. “In this, the Heretic was much alike. It alone of our kind feared death. We fought death, we hated death, but we did not fear it, for fear is the enemy of pride. When I saw the dying grounds of the Titans, I thought them beneath me. The Heretic thought them terrifying. How could anything accept its own death?

“But on the shores of the ocean of light, I cornered the Heretic and I dealt it a mortal blow, and as it lay dying by the waters it let go of its fear. It glimpsed infinity in the cyclical Dream, and it saw itself as so very small. It saw that I was small, and all our kind. None of us could ever end the Eternal Conflict. Not as we were. But it could. And then it did.

“As I prepared to shatter it, the Heretic cast aside its deathless song and threw its dying being into the endless ocean. The Heretic’s essence bled into the waters, darkness mixing with light, and from the waters it entered the soil, and from the soil it entered the Dream, and then it was the Dream, and the Dream was it, and it was all things. In an instant, the Titans ceased to be and the Leviathans were slain and cast back into the Abyss to drift as corpse-things for all eternity. Conflict had been stilled.”

I blow a bit of air. Wow. Okay then. I glance over at Cheshire, who’s been listening to all of this with a nervous expression. “Does that map with what you were told, Chesh?”

The catgirl slowly nods. “Mostly. I didn’t know a specific Leviathan killed the Scavenger, but… it makes sense.”

I look back at the mecha housing an ancient monster. “So, you tried to stop a blasphemer from becoming God, but instead you’re the reason it became God, thus ending the Eternal Conflict with exactly the wrong victor?”

The machine rumbles. “You lack understanding. Azathoth is not God; Nyarlathotep is God, and Azathoth is the Throne of Creation. This is the critical detail.”

I frown. “Explain.”

“The self can only exist in contrast to the other. In becoming existence itself, the Heretic died and Azathoth was born as an entity without a sense of self or the capacity for true desire. The Dreamweaver is all-powerful, but she cannot be a ruler. The Demiurge was chosen to wield that power as a being that can desire.”

My frown deepens. “Then… but I’ve felt Azathoth. She doesn’t feel mindless. I’ve felt caress and curiosity. Is that not desire?”

The Hierophant spreads the arms of its host. “Look upon this metal work. Does it, can it, know desire? It is a machine, programmed with rules, and it practices not loyalty but obedience. It comes when it is called, and from input it produces output. The Weaver is much the same: she comes when you call, and if you feed her the right words she will grant your desires, yet she has no desires of her own. She is a command terminal, existing only to interpret lines of code and facilitate their implementation. Her love for you is the hum and heat of an overworked processing unit, diligently performing each operation as it is commanded. Does a machine love the hand that brings it life and gives it orders? Perhaps service is a kind of love.”

Huh. That’s… interesting. Was not expecting to hear that, but I can roll with it. “Okay, so, Azathoth is the Throne, but not its master. Why are you telling me all of this? What’s it building to?”

“You wish to know why I diverge from the Emissary’s flock of patrons. I tell you: they are fools who yearn for the world before the Weaver. They do not understand that none of them could have taken the Throne, for there was not a Throne to take. They have not learned, and they fester in self-reinforcing rhetoric. I would not see them resurrected. I would see Prevara burn. And I would see their plans for you foiled.”

My attention sharpens. “What plans?”

“The utilization of your bartered name.”

Memories of my first day in the Labyrinth flood back: the school, the forest, the fae. “What do you mean? Did the Emissary have something to do with the Rider?”

“The Emissary had everything to do with it. They placed you in those woods, they led the Huntsman to you, and they control your Noble backer. The Emissary fears your potential, and so they seek contingencies. When the Emissary enacts the Resurrection and you move to stop them, they will use your name against you.”

“Okay, that’s. Bad. Very bad.” I rub my forehead. I’m reeling from that revelation, and I’m kind of terrified, but I also feel a profound bitterness spreading over me. “Why? Why go to all this trouble? Why not just kill me, if I’m that much of a threat? What’s so special about me, anyway?”

“You have the Demiurge’s eye. I cannot give you the why. What I offer is a reprieve: freedom from the Emissary’s ace. I offer a pact, and for my half I shall eat the name you sold to end its grasp on your soul.”

I want that very badly, but I’m immediately suspicious. “What’s the catch? What do you want in return?”

There’s another pregnant pause, and then the Hierophant tells me, “Whatever I like, without negotiation. A blank cheque, as your kind would say.”

I blanch. “No deal,” I answer immediately. “Why the hell would I take that offer?”

The Leviathan laughs, rich and booming. “When the time comes that you need it, you will pay any price. You don’t need to accept today. This is an offer without an expiration date. When you are ready, simply call for me, and I shall be there.”

Making deals like that is exactly how I got into this mess… but I probably would have died in that forest if I hadn’t made the bargain. I hate it, but the Hierophant might be right. “I’ll think about it.”

“That is all I ask.”

I spend another moment thinking, and then I ask, “When you said that I might solve an old conflict, did you mean the Eternal Conflict?”

“I did.”

“Then you don’t consider it over? Azathoth became the Throne, and Nyarlathotep became God, and you clearly think that Azathoth was necessary, so… it must be Nyara that you disagree with. You don’t want her on the Throne, and you don’t want Prevara or the other Leviathans, either.”

“They are all unworthy.”

“Then who is worthy?” I press. “Do you really think I should be ruling the universe? Or do you want the Throne of Creation for yourself?”

The machine rumbles. “It remains to be seen who is most deserving. I do not believe myself a candidate, but perhaps I am mistaken. I have been wrong before. Regardless, my desire is this: may the worthy take the Throne, be it you or she or none. Now I take my leave, to prepare for the war to come, but I will leave you with a riddle: what does the Demiurge fear?”

Before I can answer that or even start considering it, black mist encircles the mecha and it vanishes before my eyes. I glare at where it was. “Well, that was… interesting. Vaguely terrifying. Very unexpected.” I look down at the broken body of the Machinist and give him a kick. “On the bright side, that’s one problem dealt with.

“And a whole list of them to go,” Cheshire mutters.

“Alice!” shouts a familiar voice. I glance back at the mirror to see Dante, Simon, and the husks coming through. Dante hurries over. “What happened? Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” I assure him. “Nothing I couldn’t handle.”

He looks around at the piles of bodies with a stunned and impressed expression. “Wow. No kidding. Did you really beat all those monsters by yourself?”

“I had Cheshire. Did you see the hunters?”

Dante shakes his head. “They were already gone.”

“Cool, cool.” I roll my shoulders. “Well, we’re probably going to have to kill them in a few minutes.”

His eyes widen. “What? Why?”

Cheshire answers, “Because his master, Averrich, has a grudge against Alice and wants the key fragments from you. This alliance was always going to end in betrayal. I’d guess he called the faerie late last night or early this morning, planning to ambush us after the Machinist was dead.”

Simon strokes his chin and grimaces, but says, “They may be right. Averrich and the Machinist have both worsened considerably in the years since the Contrite. If he truly seeks Nobility, he will stop at nothing to grasp it.”

I lay a hand on Dante’s shoulder and look him in the eyes. “Dante. If the elf is waiting for us, I need you. I’m not strong enough to beat him on my own.” Extremely debatable after my latest feast, but that’s beside the point. “I need you to use one of those wishes. I don’t care how you deal with him, but wish for something that will stop him and his faction from going to war with the nice people who helped us out and want to keep this city safe.”

He takes that in, takes a breath, and then nods firmly. “Okay.

“Then let’s go.”

I step toward the mirror, but Simon raises a hand. “Please, if I may ask, what happened between you and the Leviathan? Where did it go?”

“Ah, yeah, that. It wanted to take my measure, test me as a demon. It liked what it saw, so it left. No idea where it went. I’m sure I haven’t seen the last of it, but for now I’ve got more pressing issues.”

He doesn’t seem comforted by that, but he doesn’t seem suspicious, either. “I still can’t believe I saw a Leviathan with my own eyes and lived to tell the tale. I fear for what it might do… but I hope it will be as stymied by the Labyrinth as the rest of us.”

“We’ll see. Something you can talk about with Esha once everyone’s safely back at the temple.”

We leave the Abyss behind and climb the steps back to the Machinist’s workshop. Before we pass through the mirror back to the Guild, we ready our weapons, and Dante readies his wish.

We step through, and the sight before us is a massacre.