my child, and make him give you whatever of it he has, then return to me. But don’t let him follow! No! No! And Aiden Fleischer, you must hasten to the forest to fetch more of the stuff. More Dar’sayn!”
“I won’t be parted from Clarissa!” I objected.
“She will be safe, my boy. I will protect her.”
My sword was sheathed at my side. I wrapped my fingers around its hilt. I’d developed a confidence in my aptitude with the weapon despite my inability to kill and wasn’t afraid of what was sure to be a perilous journey, but leaving my friend behind in the city was another matter entirely.
“Aiden,” Clarissa said, “this might be the only way to save New Yatsillat. If we don’t try, what will become of us? Where shall we live?”
Reluctantly, I stood. “Very well. I’ll get Dar’sayn.”
I drove an autocarriage along the base of the Mountains That Gaze Upon Phenadoor toward the Forest of Indistinct Murmurings—toward the spot where I’d arrived on Ptallaya. The Heart of Blood had by now completely cleared the horizon. Its crimson light glared down and caused everything beneath to writhe in agony—or at least that’s how it appeared, for the trees and plants had contorted into awful shapes and sprouted spines and thorns as if to defend themselves from the dreadful illumination.
Ptallaya looked exactly as I imagined Hell.
The terrain sloped up into the mountains on my left but its undulations were smooth and, so far, had presented no challenge to my vehicle apart from occasional boulders that required steering around. Wildlife had been kept at bay by the autocarriage’s loud chugging, for which I was thankful. The various beasts I’d spotted had been nasty-looking things, all claws, horns, and teeth.
At one point in the journey—now a long way behind me—I’d been disconcerted by a long stretch of hillside upon which purple pumpkin-like plants grew in abundance. They were so prevalent that it was impossible to steer around them, but to my horror, whenever I drove over one, crushing it beneath my vehicle’s wheels, the whole slope emitted a horrible shriek of agony. The vegetables, it appeared, were merely the exterior protrusions of a huge living organism that dwelled beneath the soil. For some considerable distance I was assailed by these awful screams, and the strain on my nerves, together with my attempts to avoid as many of the pumpkins as I could, exhausted me. Nevertheless, once past that horrible hillside I pushed on, and had now been travelling for such a long time without rest that I simply couldn’t stay awake any longer.
I drew the autocarriage to a halt, unfolded and clipped down its leather cover to afford me some protection from the ghastly sunshine, then made myself as comfortable as possible in the seat. I slept.
After a period of insensibility, a distant screeching brought me back to consciousness. I wiped the sleep from my eyes, looked around to see where the noise was coming from, and saw, streaming over the brow of a hill about half a mile away, a pack of ten or twelve unmistakably carnivorous animals. They were glossy black, with hard spiky exoskeletons, bulbous heads, clacking mandibles, and eight limbs apiece ending in talony digits. I recognised them instantly as Tiskeen, the species I’d once seen while approaching New Yatsillat, but transformed and no longer the harmless creatures they’d been under the yellow suns.
I hastily jumped out of the autocarriage, stepped back to its engine, and fired up the boiler. I’d left it burning gently while I slept and the mechanism was still hot, so it started immediately—which was just as well, for the Tiskeen were fast and obviously fixated upon me as their next meal. I scrambled back into the seat, pressed down on the footplate, and accelerated away with the pack in eager pursuit.
At a medium velocity, the autocarriage had navigated the terrain with little trouble, but now, as I forced it to its limits, it began to rattle and jolt with such severity that I feared it might shake itself apart, and a glance back revealed that, even at such great a speed, I wasn’t going to outrun the pack. Nor could I defend myself against so many with just a sword.
I had little choice.
For the first time in my life, I hissed a string of expletives—shocking language for a vicar!—before veering the machine around a boulder, reversing course, and speeding straight back at the oncoming beasts. They were upon me in seconds, at the