was louder here, seeming to emanate from all directions. Nimander could see no walls – just floor and ceiling, both stretching off into formless white.
And dolls, thousands of dolls. On the floor, dangling from the ceiling.
'Show yourself,' said Nimander.
The singing stopped.
'Show yourself to me.'
'If you squeeze them,' said the voice – a woman's or a young boy's – 'they leak. I squeezed them all. Until they broke.' There was a pause, and then a soft sigh. 'None worked.'
Nimander did not know where to look – the mangled apparitions hanging before him filled him with horror now, as he saw their similarity to the scarecrows of the fields outside Bastion. They are the same. They weren't planted rows, nothing made to deliver a yield. They were . . . versions.
'Yes. Failing one by one – it's not fair. How did he do it?'
'What are you?' Nimander asked.
The voice grew sly, 'On the floor of the Abyss – yes, there is a floor – there are the fallen. Gods and goddesses, spirits and prophets, disciples and seers, heroes and queens and kings – junk of existence. You can play there. I did. Do you want to? Do you want to play there, too?'
'No.'
'All broken, more broken than me.'
'They call you the Dying God.'
'All gods are dying.'
'But you are no god, are you?'
'Down on the floor, you never go hungry. Am I a god now? I must be. Don't you see? I ate so many of them. So many parts, pieces. Oh, their power, I mean. My body didn't need food. Doesn't need it, I mean, yes, that is fair to say. It is so fair to say. I first met him on the floor – he was exploring, he said, and I had travelled so far . . . so far.'
'Your worshippers—'
'Are mostly dead. More to drink. All that blood, enough to make a river, and the current can take me away from here, can bring me back. All the way back. To make her pay for what she did!'
Having come from chaos, it was no surprise that the god was insane. 'Show yourself.'
'The machine was broken, but I didn't know that. I rode its back, up and up. But then something happened. An accident. We fell a long way. We were terribly broken, both of us. When they dragged me out. Now I need to make a new version, just like you said. And you have brought me one. It will do. I am not deaf to its thoughts. I understand its chaos, its pains and betrayals. I even understand its arrogance. It will do, it will do.'
'You cannot have him,' said Nimander. 'Release him.'
'None of these ones worked. All the power just leaks out. How did he do it?'
One of these dolls. He is one of these dolls. Hiding in the multitude.
The voice began singing again. Wordless, formless.
He drew his sword.
'What are you doing?'
The iron blade slashed outward, chopping through the nearest figures. Strings cut, limbs sliced away, straw and grass drifting in the air.
A cackle, and then: 'You want to find me? How many centuries do you have to spare?'
'As many as I need,' Nimander replied, stepping forward and swinging again. Splintering wood, shattering clay. Underfoot he ground his heel into another figure.
'I'll be gone long before then. The river of blood you provided me – my way out. Far away I go! You can't see it, can you? The gate you've opened here. You can't even see it.'
Nimander destroyed another half-dozen dolls.
'Never find me! Never find me!'
A savage blur of weapons as Salind charged Seerdomin.
Each blow he caught with his tulwar, and each blow thundered up his arm, shot agony through his bones. He reeled back beneath the onslaught. Three steps, five, ten. It was all he could do simply to defend himself. And that, he knew, could not last.
The Redeemer wanted him to hold against this?
He struggled on, desperate.
She was moaning, a soft, yearning sound. A sound of want. Mace heads beat against his weapon, sword blades, the shafts of spears, flails, daggers, scythes – a dozen arms swung at him. Impacts thundered through his body.
He could not hold. He could not—
An axe edge tore into his left shoulder, angled up to slam into the side of his face. He felt his cheekbone and eye socket collapse inward. Blinded, Seerdomin staggered, attempting a desperate counter-attack, the tulwar slashing out. The edge bit into wood, splintering it. Something struck him high on his chest, snapping a clavicle. As