The limb struck the sea with tectonic force. But the Black Heart was agile and swift, and Pi’dan knew his work at the wheel. With a deft turn, the ship pivoted starboard, what Lucan would have thought would be towards the horrific tentacle, but with the swelling of a wave, it managed to crest over the site of impact.

  They still felt the colossal surge of the waters. Waves battered them and they were nearly capsized. The decks were awash, Lucan’s fine robes and boots soaked through in an instant.

  “Perhaps we should retreat belowdecks, sire?” Orfus drawled. The old man looked surprisingly calm amidst the chaos. He’d retained his footing, despite the boat nearly turning on its side.

  Lucan would not retreat. He could not. He did not know why, but some fire of adventure had been awoken within him. He had lived a life of plotting, of strategy. He had become emperor of a mental realm, but now that realm had been perforated, and he hungered for something more tangible.

  He hungered for the manifestation of his desires.

  I will wear the ground. I will wear it in perpetuity. If I have to turn Qi’shath into a blackened wasteland, if I have to raze Memory to the ground. These things could not be done from afar. Once, he might have desired the power to command armies to do his bidding. But now he saw himself at the head of the host. His manicured nails, his delicate hand, was stained with seawater and sweat.

  He gripped the cold metal of the cylinder beneath his robe, drew it out.

  “My lord?” Xarl said, as though trying to call Lucan back from the edge of a cliff.

  Another limb was rising from the waters, coming up from beneath them. He saw the waters splitting. It was as though a mountain rose. Foam and water gushed onto the deck and several sailors were knocked off their feet, carried away by the flood. Lucan, too, would have fallen had not Xarl gripped him. The theront had anchored himself to the deck, squatly crouching, now moving like the toad he resembled. The huge power of the wave had dragged his sack from his face and at last his ugly features were born for all the world—or at least, the sailors—to see.

  They had bigger concerns. The second limb loomed over them, casting a shadow miles long. Lucan saw in excruciating detail the suckering mouths and strange appendages, the way they roved and pulsed as though with their own independent needs. Such a creature… Such a creature… What could it be?

  But in his heart, he knew. The sailors were shouting it. The word was the same in Yarulian, Qi’shathian, Sumyrian, in every tongue. The oldest word, perhaps.

  Daimon.

  How? His mind could not even begin to fathom it. Daimons were monsters of legend, myth-fables to explain the existence of fertile bones and immortal blood. That one could still live was the discovery of the century.

  Though he was committed to action, he could not switch off the part of his mind given over to strategy and advantage. How could he use this for his benefit? Had the Daimon caused the natural disaster at Wylhome? The latter seemed likely. What else could have triggered such violent waves over stormless seas? It all made sense—and also, made no sense at all.

  “Capture it!” Lucan cried, turning to Pi’dan. The captain stared at Lucan as though he were a dangerous lunatic. I suppose I am, Lucan thought. But only madmen change the world. “We must capture it, Pi’dan!”

  Sailors fired their harpoons into the limb—and to Lucan’s surprise some bit successfully into its flesh. They are flesh, for all their myth! They can be hurt, therefore, they can be imprisoned!

  But a second later his bravado faltered as the huge tentacle whipped back and forth, lifting the sailors—still attached to their harpoons—into the air and sending them hurtling over the sea. Where they landed, none saw. There was no hope of recovering them, not with the sea stirred to such a tempest, not with more limbs rising.

  More! Black towers all around him. The sea breaking and birthing terrible serpents. How big is it? As big as a city? Some colossus of pre-history, come to destroy his dreams.

  No. Lucan was many things, many awful things, but never a coward. It took courage to lead a double life. Took courage to command men.

  It would take courage to seize the ultimate prize.

  A great tentacled limb flashed toward them. It moved so fast, impossibly fast, considering its monstrous size. Pi’dan turned the wheel with a scream and the Black Heart listed violently.

  The limb slammed into the water mere feet from their flighty vessel. The swell nearly lifted them into the air. Men and women screamed as they held onto the banisters.

  Lucan felt Xarl’s grip falter. There was a squelching noise.

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  “My lord!”

  Lucan turned to see a small tentacle sweeping across the deck, blindly searching. Two sailors lay in pieces upon the deck. The tendril’s suckers were devouring their limbs and blood, making horrific, slurping noises, like a greedy child with a cup of milk. The sailors were still alive, Lucan realised. They were screaming as they were slowly dismembered and devoured, drawn into these needle-toothed orifices. They begged and moaned.

  Lucan felt the blood draining from his face. The tentacle lurched toward him.

  Xarl stepped in the way.

  It hesitated, then lashed like an elephantine whip. Xarl tried to dodge out the way and throw his arms about the limb, but it was a useless effort. He might as well have tried to seize a striking cobra by its throat. The limb crushed him to the deck with a crack of bones and wood. Xarl screamed, his pudgy face contorted into a look of agonised terror. The suckers had latched onto him, were burrowing into him.

  Lucan did not think. He depressed the secret button on the cylinder in his hand and unfurled the glittering sky-spear. He ran forward, placed a booted foot on the hideous black limb and drove the spear in a two-handed strike downward.

  The spear found flesh, penetrated.

  But it did more.

  The spear was hot in his hands.

  Steam rose from the wound. He heard a screaming, somewhere deep and dark, far below water, yet loud enough to reach them nonetheless. The dark armoured flesh was bubbling, blistering, flaking away, revealing something white and amorphous beneath. Tiny worms writhed and congealed. It was as though he had plunged a hot poker into a nest of sleeping larvae; now they awoke, stirred to frenzy.

  He withdrew the spear and the limb surged away, bearing Xarl with it, who left a bloody trail along the deck as he screamed and screamed.

  “Xarl…” Lucan whispered, as the theront was dragged overboard and down into the abyssal waters.

  A moment passed. Lucan realised the sea was calming. The black towers had vanished and retreated below the surface. The Daimon, if that indeed was what it was, had fled. The touch of the spear. It could not tolerate it.

  When Lucan turned to inspect the damage to the Black Heart, he found the seven still living souls staring at him with wonderment, and perhaps a little terror too. If only the people of Virgoda had been here to see what he did! But then again, word would travel fast, even among the clandestine communities of these sailors.

  Captain Pi’dan had abandoned the wheel. He marched up to Lucan, eyes glittering with awe. He was looking not at Lucan, but at the spear.

  “Kwei-Shin Ten,” Pi’dan hissed. “You are carrying god-forged steel!”

  Curious, Lucan thought. It seems Qala has some powerful allies indeed. And it seems there is more afoot than I realised.

  He smiled. Where there was chaos, there was opportunity. Where there was war, rulers could rise.

  Where there were monsters—whether of mind or matter—there were those who could destroy them.

  “Perhaps I am chosen of the gods?” Lucan said. “Perhaps I am their emissary, come to help the world when it is in dire need.”

  The sailors shifted uneasily, exchanging nervous glances.

  “Or perhaps you got lucky!” one of the sailors snarled.

  The courageous one of the group, I see, Lucan thought.

  “I do not believe in luck,” Lucan said, soft as silk. “We make our own luck in this world. Still, you are welcome to try yours.” Lucan pointed the spear at him, and the man backed away, making signs with his hand. From his time with Dreyne, Lucan recognised them as crude magical glyphs, though he doubted the man knew an ounce of Sumyrian magic, and was merely reciting some superstitious ritual drilled into him from birth to ward evil.

  Lucan smiled once more.

  “Daimons still roam the deep,” Lucan said. “You have just seen one. Why not gods, too? And for those who will worship… rewards will follow.”

  Silence followed his words. Then, one by one, the sailors knelt. The first ones were uncertain, but soon, the certainty of the crowd grew. Lucan could see he was no more their passenger, nor merely their provider of funds, but something else. They saw him in a new light, as a being made of light, perhaps. Their reverence was almost a visible aura, and he basked in it for long moments. Even Pi’dan knelt, eventually, bowing his head. From their mouths came murmurations, an old spell, an old oath, simple and yet ineluctable.

  “In blood we’re bound.”

  Palms were cut, blood flowed upon the deck. Hands clasped in fellowship renewed.

  “In blood we’re bound.”

  The dead were cast overboard. Prayers were uttered.

  “In blood we’re bound.”

  Lucan descended belowdecks and took the effigy of Nereth from the captain’s quarters. He went to the prow of the ship, held it aloft, and cast it into the sea. He watched as the Fate-weaver descended into the gloom of the abyss.

  The gods are dead, he thought. Long live the new gods.

  He turned to the gathering and raised his arms in exultation. The sky spear extended and caught the still-gleaming light.

  “We go now to Memory to claim the ultimate power, power I shall share with each of you: those loyal to me, who have seen me for what I truly am!” Lucan roared. “And no god, Daimon, nor emperor shall stop us!”

  “In blood we’re bound!” they answered.

  Lucan smiled.

  The sea welcomes me.

  For I am the sea.