A deep crevasse cut apart the central plaza of the imperial mall like a great wound, cleaving the tiled square in two halves. Standing at the mouth of the ravine, Kera peered down into the mystery of the shadows below.

  Dozens of such sinkholes were scattered throughout the city. But that particular gash marring the once-perfect marble of the mall’s forum exuded a worse foreboding than any she’d yet passed. Its darkness gave the impression of a massive beast’s open maw, waiting in ambush to snap shut around anyone foolish enough to venture inside.

  But Kera had to know the truth for herself, after reading her mother’s journal.

  Steeling herself, she took her first probing step past the hole’s upturned lip. A mountain of marble rubble piled to the surface from the bottom of the crevasse, almost too steep to descend, but with careful measure of each foothold she slowly found a path downward.

  Horus stamped, and exhaled in displeasure from the makeshift post to which she’d left him tied. She spared him an apologetic frown, but then slipped. Scrabbling for purchase with her boots on a sheer vertical, she slowed her fall enough to avoid a scrape before the next landing. But that far down, even the top of Horus’ head fell out of sight, leaving her at last alone in the dark.

  * * *

  “Uh… Left side here,” said Theo’s assistant squad leader.

  Theo peeled away her wistful longing from the ongoing battle semi-distant below.

  “Looks like… looks like a bird, sir,” said the officer. “Just crested that hill.”

  She took the spyglass from her subordinate, and through its lens spotted the animal at last. A lone wild bird, indeed. No cause to warn Lycera.

  But she kept the spyglass raised.

  No — the bird wasn’t wild, she saw. It had no rider, but it was fixed with a saddle. And it was running at pace from the north, straight toward their positions on the ridge.

  “Sergeant, signal the commander—“

  But she stopped herself. Beyond just the fact that it was saddled, Theo realized she recognized that specific bird: it was the stallion Iumatar had taken from the stables, before riding off to the city’s ruins.

  And it was returning. Without her.

  Theo stowed the spyglass, with the animal then upon the ridge. It didn’t seem injured, at least. A thick rope tied to its saddle on one end was severed and frayed on its other. The bird had been hitched somewhere, but had broken free.

  Further down the line atop the heights, the bird approached another squad of intrigued soldiers, as if inspecting them before moving on. But it stopped when it reached Theo’s squad.

  The animal’s massive neck craned down. One massive eye came within a few inches of her sergeant, and he reached for his saber.

  “Easy,” said Theo. But she shouldered her rifle, too. It was large even for a territorial stallion. As it stamped and pivoted, talons scratched miniature canals in the dusty earth.

  Without warning, the bird’s attention swung to Theo. The same glassy eyes drew much closer than would’ve been comfortable, but she stood her ground.

  But then it pulled back, pivoting to present its saddle to her, and dropping to the ground.

  She felt at once a deep knowledge behind the great eye that stared back at her.

  “I think — I think it wants you to—” said her sergeant.

  Theo nodded, hesitating. Instinct tugged at her, for the second time that day.

  She glanced back at the battlefield below. Tiny fires of vis shimmered like colored candleflames beneath the ridge, bright even through the battle’s dustclouds and gunsmoke. Theo could sense some of their wielders, however faint, even at such distance.

  The main lines commanded by Tanhkmet were peeling off to regroup once more, having trudged ahead in assault minutes before. The enemy’s positions, on the other hand, had been hammered to the brink of collapse. They wouldn’t survive Tanhkmet’s next storming, once his forces reformed.

  But even if the battle below was already won, Theo couldn't help but cringe. If she did what she was thinking of doing, a superior could call it desertion. Worthy of a court-martial.

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  If there even was a Patrol Corps to be court-martialed from, after all was said and done.

  Nebet would have had a better idea of all this.

  She thought of her love, and the day she’d gone. And as well, the rawness of what Iumatar had said, earlier that day. And she saw faceless, emerald Aeto in her mind’s eye, watching her with his infinite patience. Waiting for her to do what she knew was right.

  When she opened her eyes, it was Iumatar’s bird instead, looking back at her as its saddle awaited. It ruffled its wings one final time.

  She thrust one leg over the bird’s saddle. It stood at once without command, almost bucking her off.

  “Lieutenant?” asked her sergeant.

  “You’re in command, until I return—” she managed, grappling for the reins as the bird began its first strides. “I saw this bird’s rider just a few hours ago—”

  Theo had to imagine the sergeant was suddenly doubting the wisdom of her leadership. But he saluted nevertheless, as the bird left him behind in a cloud of dust.

  The beast accelerated to a full sprint in seconds, heading back along the course from whence it came. Theo gave up trying for the reins, deciding instead to simply hug its great trunklike neck for balance: it was clear she had no need to steer the animal’s direction, or control its speed. The bird knew all itself where it was taking her.

  * * *

  At the bottom of the sinkhole, Kera willed her vis manifest. Its dull periwinkle flame didn’t penetrate deep into the darkness.

  But in that meager light she could see at least the ground in front of her, and some distance beyond. A long, airy cavern was held up by thick, pillared and half-ruined arcades, stretching far beyond the edge of her illumination. It was clear she could see but a fraction of the expanse ahead.

  The Augury, officer’s academy, and every arm of the capital government were once housed above that place. She’d always known the catacombs were extensive, but nothing like what lay before her.

  If it had been intended as a bulwark against the catastrophe, it had saved nobody.

  After traversing hundreds of yards of rubble-pocked ground, a door came into view of her light, as she reached the far end of the cavern at last. Behind her, a sliver of evening light far filtered in from the crevasse opening through which she'd descended.

  The door didn’t yield at first. But against her shoulder it protested, then splintered, folding over in a shower of gray flakes. So close to the epicenter, the door’s hardwood had been burnt into as much ash, right where it stood.

  Beyond, the flames of her crown illuminated a tunnel crossroads. Five narrow branches, low and functional like a city sewer, extended away in different directions. Lengths of insulated telegraphy wiring ran along the ceilings of four of the five passages. But a thick helical braid led down the last.

  Just as the cavern before, that passage as well continued on for a great distance. Before long, though, she soon heard a faint, low thrum, and felt vibrations in the stone underfoot. And after many more minutes, a hint of new light shone from its distant end.

  The brightness intensified, and the hum grew louder, before at last she burst past the tunnel’s terminus, shielding her eyes.

  But then her breath caught, as she lowered her hand, and beheld the vast machine.

  Sprouting from a great pedestal of machinery, reaching towards the distant ceiling of that underground chamber, was erected an enormous glass bulb. Not unlike that of an electric lamp, if thousands of times larger. Mechanical and electrical components whose functions Kera couldn’t recognize formed a supporting base that sprawled outward, taking root across the floor.

  Wires ran from the device to rows of telegraphy consoles that lined the chamber, as well as many thick-braided cables identical to the one she’d followed, reaching into holes drilled into the walls and ceiling.

  It was as if a tumorous growth beneath the palace, invasive and alien, incubating some terrible sickness. But only humming, then.

  It menaced her, even as it remained in but quiet, broken dormancy, as she at last truly grasped the gravity of its purpose. Its terrible purpose, that it had executed just as designed.

  The people of the city had been sacrificed. She understood that in full only then.

  The machine had taken them, transmuted them into pure energy, a fraction of a second before the catastrophe’s destruction.

  A fraction of a second before so before many of them would have died.

  Before some of them would have survived.

  Reeling, she steadied herself on its metal plinth, dazzled by much more than just the brightness swimming in the vast bulb. An inescapable metallic odor hung over that place, and her throat burned, as if breathing peeled away at her lungs’ walls.

  An invisible tow pulled at her like an unseen hand. Drawing her toward the light, even as the intensity of its brightness was painful to near.

  Its glass shell was cracked, she saw. A fracture sprouted from the base, like the first lesion of blight upon an elder oak, that would in time rot all but bark. The vacuum was compromised. The single, ragged fissure reached more than halfway up its vast height. And yet, light still filled the bulb to its brim. The enclosure had cracked, but not yet failed.

  So the whole of the city was still… in there.

  Most of the city, anyway, she thought, eyeing the fracture. Could any of them have… leaked out, through that?

  Nothing made sense. Some of what did make sense, was just unthinkable.

  She needed to report everything to Tanhkmet. He’d know what to do. If the vacuum was holding until then, it could hold a little longer. Until someone else could sort out what to do…

  Echoes resounding from the tunnel behind her broke above the machine’s constant thrum. She whirled.

  Trickling down the smooth stone walls of the passage, footsteps accompanied strange vocalizations. Whoever produced them was approaching, and already close.

  A vis presence intruded into her awareness, unfamiliar and powerful.

  And then, deep within the catacombs beneath the ruins of the imperial mall, Kera was paralyzed with inexplicable, all-penetrating fear, as the tendrils of a swelling melody snaked over her: the first notes of a haunting, beautiful, terrible waltz.

  "One good thing about music: when it hits you, you feel no pain."

  Bob Marley