Every Grand Thing, chapter 1:

  So many threads, each thinking itself to be whole and aloof, were woven together to form an image meant to be seen from above by no one but Fate.

  So many pieces, glued back together with seams of bright gold to make something different but wondrous (even with all of its evident cracks).

  So many notes, interweaving and clashing, creating the music of space, time and manna.

  …coming at last to a close.

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  In the Shrieking Dark of the Nether-hells:

  A mortally wounded skin-changer was magically hurled to the realm of its pitiless master. Back in her own blank and pasty-white shape, stripped of soul and identity by a vengeful god, the torn-open creature clutched its entrails together with one shaking hand, and scrabbled around for a cursed ivory box with the other.

  No choice, as transport magic faded to sparks, leaving “Outlander” squirming and gasping on cracked, barren ground. Foul things took notice of her at once. They began stirring and gathering, drawn by the rich copper scent of fresh blood. The Shrieking Dark was third among hells, its master a very ambitious demon-lord.

  …and it wasn’t only the gutting that hurt. Just as bad in its own way was a gaping hole where her stolen shape had been. That mummified soul had kept “Outlander” warm for a very long time, giving her purpose. Gone now, though, torn from her grasp by Firelord.

  Hollow inside and out, the skin-changer finally got her hand into the cloak pocket containing that card case. She nearly tore off its lid, exposing a deck of terribly powerful, cursed magic cards. The dying creature was desperate. Here in the hells, it could suffer a true, final death… or be tormented forever by Lord-of-the-Endless-Night, just for the music of screams.

  Something enormous and scaley snuffed at the skin-changer, bending its head to slurp up a loop of intestine. “Outlander” yanked out a card, gasping through tight-gritted teeth. Something else fluttered down from the shadows above her to land hard on the skin-changer’s chest, sinking crusted talons into her flesh.

  But the card… was an icy-bright vellum square that came to life as Outlander stared, coughing heart’s blood. Flowing dark script wrote with maddening slowness: The Pirate Ship. Its surface glowed, displaying the image of a haunted dark airship, docked in some massive, overworld cave.

  The skin-changer gurgled out something like: “Yes… thither!” Then she vanished, leaving two puzzled demons behind to lap at spilled blood, imprinting her scent like a pair of hounds.

  Lord-of-the-endless-Night was most intrigued, when he learned of this happening, later.

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  In Karellon, just below Valinor Palace:

  Lord Oberyn wasn’t a god of broad strokes or big, flashy gestures. No percentage in that. He was a gambler. Preferring to work through cautious manipulation rather than force, the largest shatter-god found Himself right in the thick of a genuine mess, caused mostly by Firelord, Chezzik and Builder of Cities, who collectively hadn’t the patience to just let a plan unfold.

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  The Shining One was a fool, being punished now by having to maintain the ravaged body of his favorite sword-arm, until Galadin’s soul chose to return. Or not. Oberyn exerted no influence, there. (That He’d admit to, at least.)

  Chezzik had also acted prematurely. Unable to resist a stupid joke, that nearly forgotten horned trickster had armed Galadin… tormented past reason… with Jillian Clothier’s scissors, causing the savagely wounded elf to break his own vow and fight off attack. Well meant, but foolish, the deed had been punished by robbing Chezzik of what a trickster needs most: applause, attention and laughter. He’d slunk off into the cave wall afterward, most likely to study “physical humor”. And that brought up the third offender.

  Builder of Cities was deeply complicit, as well. Having escaped a far-future prison, the cyborg had altered Midworld’s past, freeing the god he once worshipped, then slaughtering skin-changers like the vermin they were. Hasty, impatient, unsubtle… and very much out of the way, exiled once more to his original prison, Etherion.

  So much for the primary troublemakers.

  Next, Oberyn swept all the others away, sending Hyrenn, Frost Maiden, Ashlord, She-of-the-Flowers, Loeth, the Lake Master, Istara and TTN-iA back to their proper demesnes. This left only Firelord, who had all he could do to keep Galadin’s faltering heart beating.

  “I regret the necessity,” murmured Oberyn, damping that reeling battle-god even further, setting a lure for one who would not turn away from a friend.

  His next thought brought the drifting ash that was four vicious broodlings back to ravening life. They took their most powerful shapes as another flick of Oberyn’s thought urged the rescue teams forward.

  The broodlings’ mother had placed herself in Fate’s icy hand by drawing one of those cursed cards. She had two more to go before Oberyn could safely step in… but His pieces were properly ranged once again; the gameboard set up for His final match.

  Oberyn withdrew, just as two parties converged on the crossroads from opposite directions. Alexion, Korvin, Marika, Genevera and Panya hurtled along from the palace, never sensing Oberyn’s nudge.

  Mikale Sanderyn, Zesha Starling, Freys Arvendahl and Zesha’s half-elven son came barreling up from the Low Town West passage, having got in through an alley near the Open Casket tavern. Chaos erupted immediately.

  All that they saw was each other, then a horrifically wounded Lord Galadin, picked at by monsters, unarmed and alone. All nine of those shouting rescuers sprang into action at once.

  Alexion, Mikale and Zesha’s boy leapt at the skin-changed manticore, barghest, wyvern and chuul. Panya, Marika and Freys worked magic; the sea-elf creating a wall of roaring and swirling water to shelter Galadin, Freys calling lightning out of the slow-grinding rock far below, burning monsters like moths at a bonfire.

  “Leave the brood-mother alive!” yelled Panya. “Official investigation! I have to interrogate Lady Outlander!”

  Meanwhile,

  “Lex, coming from up and behind! 3… 2… now!” shouted Korvin, warning his brother in time to prevent a deadly manticore-strike.

  Alexion dropped to the ground and rolled, just as an oozing stinger smashed the stone floor where he’d been. Sssh-CRACK! The older prince got his shield up to block a clawed side-swipe, while Mikale vaulted over his head with a bellowing cry, cutting down hard at the manticore’s outstretched forelimb. Drew black, reeking blood and a hideous shriek from the injured monster.

  And then Zesh was there with her son, Alain. The pair of them darted in under the manticore’s belly, stabbing upward… thuk, thwup… then rushing off in different directions, leaving their weapons hilt-deep in the monster’s bristling hide.

  Freys held off the barghest and chuul like the mage he was, while Korvin, Panya and Genna took on the wyvern together. Turned out that fliers don’t do very well in a bubble of frigid seawater; flames banked, wings pinned, battered by Korvin’s cannonball spells, frozen by Marika’s ice-magic. Then it converted itself to a river-wyrm, lashing its spiney tail at Genna’s darting and bobbing green spy-eye.

  The chuul seized Alain in a massive, lobster-like claw, squeezing and cutting. Alexion rushed to help the boy, directed by Korvin. Then Lord Galadin burst out of that roaring water tornado, still leaking fire and manna from too many wounds to survive. Just like the arena. Just like their old, awful, closer-than-siblings, past.