The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms - By N. K. Jemisin Page 0,8

pain and hunger and all the other incessant demands of mortal flesh. Then this creature, trapped in his tangible vessel, was given to the Arameri for safekeeping, along with three of his godly children. After the horror of incarnation, what difference could mere slavery make?

As a little girl, I learned from the priests of Bright Itempas that this fallen god was pure evil. In the time of the Three, his followers had been a dark, savage cult devoted to violent midnight revels, worshipping madness as a sacrament. If that one had won the war between the gods, the priests intoned direly, mortalkind would probably no longer exist.

So be good, the priests would add, or the Nightlord will get you.

* * *

I ran from the Nightlord through halls of light. Some property of the stuff that made up Skys substance made it glow with its own soft, white luminescence now that the sun had set. Twenty paces behind me charged the god of darkness and chaos. On the one occasion that I risked a glance back, I saw the gentle glow of the hallway fade into a throat of blackness so deep looking that way hurt the eye. I did not look back again.

I could not go straight. All that had saved me thus far was my head start, and the fact that the monster behind me seemed incapable of moving faster than a mortals pace. Perhaps the god retained a human form somewhere within all that dark; even so, his legs were longer than mine.

So I turned at nearly every juncture, slamming into walls to brake my speed and give me something to push against as I sprinted away. I say this as if the wall slamming was deliberate on my part; it was not. If I had been able to reason through my abject terror, I might have retained a general sense of which direction I was going in. As it was, I was already hopelessly lost.

Fortunately, where reason failed, blind panic served well enough.

Spying one of the alcoves that Tvril had described, I flung myself into it, pressing against the back wall. He had told me to think up, which would activate the lifting spell and propel me to the next level of the palace. Instead I thought AWAY AWAY AWAY, not realizing the magic would oblige that, too.

When the coach had brought me from the Salon to Sky-the-palace, Id had the curtains closed. The coachman had simply driven us to a particular spot and stopped; my skin had prickled; a moment later the coachman opened the door to reveal we were there. It had not occurred to me that the magic had pulled me through half a mile of solid matter in the blink of an eye.

Now it happened again. The little alcove, which had been growing dim as the Nightlord closed in, suddenly seemed to stretch, its entrance moving impossibly farther away while I remained still. There was an inbreath of tension, and then I shot forward as if from a sling. Walls flew at my face; I screamed and flung my arms over my eyes even as they passed through me. And then everything stopped.

I lowered my arms slowly. Before I could muster my wits enough to wonder whether this was the same alcove or another just like it, a child thrust his face through the opening, looked around, and spied me.

Come on, he said. Hurry up. It wont take him long to find us.

* * *

The Arameri magic had brought me to a vast open chamber within the body of Sky. Dumb, I looked around at the cold, featureless space as we hurried through it.

The arena, said the boy ahead of me. Some of the highbloods fancy themselves warriors. This way.

I glanced back toward the alcove, wondering if there was some way to block it off so the Nightlord couldnt follow.

No, that wont work, said the boy, following my gaze. But the palace itself inhibits his power on a night like this. He can hunt you using only his senses. (As opposed to what else? I wondered.) On a moonless night youd be in trouble, but tonight hes just a man.

That was not a man, I said. My voice sounded high and shaky in my own ears.

If that were true, you wouldnt be running for your life right now. And apparently I wasnt running fast enough. The boy caught my hand and pulled me along faster. He glanced back at me, and I caught