the sky every day, but she never noticed him. So he put on his sandals and his cloak and his hat and he walked in the World following after True Fire, always going west, hoping to get to the mountain where she slept every night.
“He took his iron staff with him and, uh, things happened like, when he walked through the Thousand Lake country near Konen Feyy the ground was muddy, and his staff end left holes in the ground that filled up with water, and that’s how the lakes got there. And up in a crater on top of a mountain he found True Fire at last.
“He courted her, and they became lovers. And they wanted to have children, but she—well, she was True Fire, see? So he made children for her, instead, out of red gold. And she touched them with holy fire and they became alive. Perfect mechanisms that could do anything other children could do, including grow up and have children themselves. And they were the ancestors.”
“Some of your ancestors, Willowspear, on your mother’s side,” said Lord Ermenwyr. “Isn’t that an odd thought?”
“And … True Fire made islands rise up out of the sea, and the Children of the Sun lived on them,” said Smith. “Those were the first cities.”
He threw down the rag and squinted up at the sky. “We should get moving again,” he said. “Make sail and weigh anchor!”
The demons, who had been sprawled out in sated repose, clambered to their feet. Two set to with the capstan bars and the anchor jumped up from the depths like a fishhook, while two mounted into the dangerously creaking shrouds.
“There’s more to the story, though, isn’t there, Smith?” said Lord Ermenwyr.
“Yes,” said Smith, taking the helm. “All right, you lot, remember where the anchor goes? Right. Coil the hawser like I showed you.”
“Clever lads!” Lord Ermenwyr called out. “But Smith can’t sail away from the story. Pay close attention, Willowspear, because this is where it all went wrong. If the Children of the Sun had stayed on their islands, all would have been well for the rest of us. Unfortunately, they were clever little clockwork toys and invented all this ship business. Halyards, lanyards, jibs, and whatnot. Which enabled them to spread out and colonize other people’s lands.”
“That was ages before the Yendri even came here, so you can’t blame—”
“The demons were here, though. They matter too.”
“We travel because our Mother travels,” said Smith. “That’s what the stories say. That’s why we’re always moving, the way She moves across the sky.”
“Yes, but you don’t exactly bring us light, do you?” said Lord Ermenwyr.
At the wheel Smith narrowed his eyes, but said nothing as he guided the ship out of the bay.
“Burnbright is the light of my world,” said Willowspear. “They are capable of great love, my lord.”
“And that’s the other problem!” said Lord Ermenwyr. “They breed like rabbits. Even their own legends say that soon there were so many of them running about the world that the other personified abstract archetypes got upset that their own children were being crowded out, so they went to the Smith god and complained.”
“There was a council of the gods,” said Smith. “They told the Father he had to do something. So he made … so he is supposed to have made this Key of Unmaking.”
“The opposite of a key that winds mechanisms up, you see, Willowspear?” said Lord Ermenwyr.
“No,” said Willowspear.
“It shuts us off, all right?” said Smith. “Or it’s supposed to. It’s only a myth, anyway. The stories say that the gods used it to bring on calamities. The first time they used it was when the Gray Plague came. Everybody died but a handful of pregnant women hiding in a cave, that’s what the story says. And then everything was all right for ages, and the cities came back.
“And then… Lord Salt is supposed to have used it when he burnt the granaries of Troon, and famine came, and the Four Wars broke out at once. In the end there was just a handful of fishing villages along the coast, because inland the ghosts massed on the plains like armies, there were so many angry dead. Nobody could live there for generations.
“And people say…” Smith’s voice trailed off.
“What people say” said Lord Ermenwyr, “is that one day the Key of Unmaking will be used for the third time, if the Children of the Sun can’t learn from their mistakes, and there will be no survivors.”
“But it’s