“Useless, braindead menial!” the man shrieked. “You’ve ruined my skimmer. You could’ve at least been polite enough to die.” He pointed a pudgy finger at Gwil. “You’ll wish you were dead. Go! Kiss the grill of my precious 917 Crimson Stinger. Kiss the dent!”

“Huh?” Still a bit dazed, Gwil didn’t know what to make of this. The raving guy was short, wearing sunglasses, a silver shirt, short shorts, and furry sandals. His hair was blond and very puffy, a bit like an afro. And he wore a gem-studded tiara atop the floof.

Gwil grimaced and then looked around, hoping for a clue. Much of the crowd had dispersed. He could see them hurrying away. Those that remained seemed amused.

The man ripped off his sunglasses and threw them on the ground. Then he stomped them to bits.

Gwil stared, aghast.

The man spat at him again. Gwil rolled out of the way and got to his feet. He held up his hands. “It’s okay, man. No hard feelings. Let’s get you some help.” He was sure this guy was either insane or shitfaced. Erwin the barman had taught Gwil that kindness was often the best way to deal with a disturbed drunk.

“Help me?!” the man bellowed. “Kiss my fucking skimmer, you savage, animal piece of trash! How dare you stand on your feet and look at me? Kneel!” Veins bulged out of his forehead and the cords in his flabby throat were taut. His cheeks were as red as the skimmer.

Gwil clapped him on the back. “You gotta be more careful, pal. You could’ve killed someone. It’s dangerous to ride a horse if you’re drunk, let alone that crazy machine.”

The man spasmed—eye twitching, knees wobbling. Gwil hoped he wouldn’t have a seizure. This guy was sicker than he’d thought.

Gwil backed away and moved around to the front of the skimmer. There might have been a small dent, and a speck of paint had chipped off. As he examined the vehicle, Gwil rubbed his hip, which had taken the brunt of the impact. It felt tender, but nothing terrible. Nirva was something else.

Gwil whipped around at the movement in his peripheral and caught the crazy man by the wrist. He had been about to strike Gwil upside the head with his fuzzy sandal.

“Braindead cretin! I’ll have you drawn and quartered! I am Lord Ansoir Jaqlov, Heir to Chateau Podexia.”

Gwil gently pushed the man away from him. Very theatrically, the little lord stumbled backward seven paces and then fell onto his back.

Stifling laughter—which he knew could make this type of drunk see red—Gwil went to help him up.

Ansoir rolled away and got onto his knees. He leaned forward and started pounding his fists against the ground. “Where are my guards?” he screeched.

Gwil turned and hurriedly walked away. He was giving up; this guy didn’t want to be helped. And if he really was the Burger’s son, best not to get involved. Oh, man. Leira is gonna be mad.

He turned at a flurry of footsteps—too late to stop Ansoir clinging to him like a piggybacking child. Manicured fingernails began clawing at Gwil’s face. The bastard was going for his eyes.

Gwil flipped Ansoir over his shoulder, dropped him on the ground at his feet.

“Enough,” Gwil said.

The entire crowd had fled at this point—most flocking to the side streets or huddling along the storefronts. It was clear that, though they were frightened, they wanted to watch the debacle. Gwil scanned the crowd but couldn’t find Leira.

Crawling on the ground, Ansoir scurried back over to the skimmer. The big stone Talus stood there too.

Shit. Gwil heard a rumbling sound—getting closer. He took his backpack off and tossed it between two buildings. It seemed like he might be in trouble.

A big vehicle came around the bend. It had wheels and a wagon bed on the back. Gwil realized that must be a truck—cool! And it was not just one truck, but three.

Gwil could’ve run, but he stayed where he was. He kind of had a bone to pick with this place now. It all seemed like a sick joke. Was that obnoxious guy actually in charge of things? And the idiot was enslaving people just so they could keep this stupid festival going?

The three vehicles fanned out before coming to squealing halts, encircling Gwil where he stood. Nirva burned white-hot in his veins, but he put his hands up.

Guards poured out, twelve in all, dressed in the same uniforms as Cigar and Toothpick. Most carried spears, but a few had clubs.

They rushed him. His hands a flurry, Gwil batted their weapons away, disarming the ones he could. A sweeping kick knocked two of them over. But a few had gotten around behind him. A woman struck the back of his head with her club, and he saw stars.

“Kill him! Cut his head off right now!” Ansoir shouted.

Gwil staggered, and they piled on top of him. He tried to scramble away. He didn’t want to start beating the shit out of them or things might get out of hand.

Lowering his shoulder, Gwil plowed through a few pairs of legs, buying himself some space. He was surprised at how well it worked. Despite their weaponry, Gwil could toy with these guards, and toss them around as easily as if they were strawmen.

The guards gave him some space after he broke through the pile, forming a line and brandishing their weapons defensively.

“Kill him, you worthless ingrates!” Ansoir screamed. “This piece of trash struck your lord. I’ll mount his head above my bed.”

“No can do, my lord,” one guard said. “The sheriff’s been clear that able-bodied individuals are not to be executed. Remember the macaroni incident?”

Ansoir lost it at that, like a child throwing a tantrum. Gwil blew a raspberry at the idiot.

One guard launched their spear at Gwil. He snatched it out of the air and went wide-eyed. The flowing Nirva felt comfortable. The voices went quiet, like a whispering breeze.

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His body felt as sturdy as iron and light as a feather. The spear was fragile in his hand. He could crush the wooden handle in his fist like a cookie. Everything—his surroundings, the bodies of the guards and their weapons—was etched with shimmering lines that rendered it slow and simple.

The sound of another engine rose, and this one was not rumbling like the trucks, but screaming.

Gwil whipped around and saw a man riding a giant bike. He wore a wide-brimmed hat.

Ansoir and the guards were clamoring about something, but Gwil couldn’t hear them over the racket.

The man brought the shiny chromed vehicle to a smooth stop. It was a behemoth—a mash of twisted mechanisms, with absurdly tall handlebars. He swung his leg over the seat in dismounting and then propped the bike on its kickstand. Gwil now stood between this new arrival and the guards.

The stranger had an easy way about him as he strode forward, spurred boots jangling. The brim of his hat covered his face, revealing only a bushy mustache. The man wore a brown leather vest with nothing underneath, and black leather pants. His well-polished silver belt buckle was the size of a tea plate, and it read: SHERRIFF, with the ‘I’ in the shape of a nude woman’s silhouette.

“The hell’s going on here?” the man barked.

“Sheriff Jackson,” said one guard, “This animal struck Lord Ansoir.”

“He’s a Hallow!” cried another.

“I know,” the sheriff said with a drawl and a grin. He had golden teeth.

“What’s that giant bike?” Gwil blurted.

The sheriff raised his hands and ropes shot out of his palms. They whipped through the air, like living serpents.

The sheriff moved his arms, manipulating the ropes like extensions of his limbs. Gwil dove out of the way, but the ropes unfurled further and looped into lassos.

His arms and legs were both snared as the sheriff wove the ropes into knots. The ropes seared hot against his skin.

To Gwil’s eyes, the ropes had two aspects, blended but distinct. He saw the plain ropes, braided and fibrous. And he saw the prismatic essence that truly composed them. The thing that drove them into existence, that bound them to the sheriff. Nirva. The sheriff was Hallowed.

Gwil lay there on his stomach, hog-tied—wrists and ankles all bound behind his back—feeling like a fool.

He fought with everything he had against the ropes. He’d beaten a pillar of stone into dust; he could rip through a bit of rope.

Gwil bared his teeth, writhing on the ground. With his limbs bound, he could not muster any force, could not even rip through a single strand. Maybe if he had hours, as he had with the rock spire.

The sheriff planted his boot on Gwil’s back. “S’called a chopper, ya damn hick.”

“Sheriff Jackson,” Ansoir squealed. “Execute this rat immediately.”

“Shut the fuck up, princess,” the sheriff said. He squirted out a spurt of brown spit.

It landed next to Gwil’s face. The man’s lip bulged` with a big wad of chewing tobacco.

A few of the guards chuckled. Gwil saw Ansoir wither, cowering.

“Been tellin’ ole Stony for years,” Jackson said. “What the kid needs is a few good beatings.”

The guards laughed again.

“Quit laughin’ morons,” the sheriff said. “Y’all are lucky this Hallow didn’t kill the lot of ya.” He stomped his foot down on Gwil’s back. “Now, who saw this little altercation? Did our illustrious heir show a lick of spine? Or did he cry like a little bitch?”

Ansoir went stumbling over to his skimmer and fell into the seat. The guards scrambled out of the way as the engine fired up. Ansoir sped off down the street.

The sheriff and the guards howled with laughter.

“Guess that answers that,” Jackson said. “Boys, take a moment to imagine that little shit tellin’ you what to do. And then take a moment to thank me.”

The sheriff ground his heel into Gwil’s back. “Take this one to the Sty.”

“Shouldn’t you come with us, boss?” a guard said nervously.

Jackson strolled back toward his bike. “He ain’t gonna get loose. Kid’s weak as a dandelion. Take him right to Doc Buzzard for a Stake though, eh?”

With that, the sheriff fired up the engine. Smog belched from each of the bike’s eight exhaust pipes. He peeled out.

Gwil did not care for that guy.

One of the guards picked Gwil up like a sack of potatoes. As he twisted helplessly, he glimpsed a tall woman leaning against the wall in an alleyway.

She wore a puffy, frilly pink dress and a sunhat. The woman looked up.

Leira.

She winked in her one-eyed way and held up his backpack. Gwil giggled. She’d managed to get herself a dress in no time at all, and with no money.

Everything was gonna be fine.

The guard tossed Gwil into the bed of the truck. Three of the other Podexians climbed in and took seats around him.

***

It had only been about ten minutes, but Gwil’s first time traveling in a vehicle was a big disappointment. However, his predicament may have skewed his opinion.

They drove through the outskirts of the resort alongside the canyon wall. Still bound, Gwil bounced around as the truck bumped across rough, rocky terrain. His face kept smacking into the floor of the cargo bed. His nose was bloodied, and he’d busted his lip open three separate times. His Nirva kept fusing it back together.

No matter how viciously he strained and flailed, the ropes proved indestructible. The guards laughed at him, kicked him as he struggled. Whenever his shoulder dislocated, it popped back into its socket like a suction cup.

The knot gripped his limbs like a vise. The rope still seared with the unreal fire of the sheriff’s Nirva. It was a strange sensation—the ropes blazing hot, his flesh deeply cold where they bound him. His own Nirva fled from the site, paled and overwhelmed. Diluted.

The truck slowed to a halt, but the engine kept running. One guard shouted something. Gwil tilted his head back to look up.

The wall loomed above, rising to the sky, a mountain carved by man. Gwil felt small. Butterflies fluttered in his stomach. He wondered if he might’ve botched things.

Then, the sound of grinding metal. Two of the guards jumped out, and the truck lurched forward. They passed through a gate in the wall.

They rolled into a barren yard enclosed by sheer rock walls. The truck stopped again. The guard that had remained with Gwil in the bed hoisted him up and dropped him over the side.

He landed face first on dusty, gravelly rock. Wooden shacks and piles of rubble were scattered all throughout the yard. Haphazard scaffolding scaled one of the cliff faces.

This place lay beyond the city, at the very end of the canyon, and near the coast. To his right, Gwil could hear the sea crashing, waging its slow, relentless war against the land.

A guard pulled up beside him with a wheelbarrow, and a second one picked him up and dropped him in. They both wore gasmasks. Gwil shifted to see ahead as they wheeled him forward.

They entered a massive tunnel. Gwil gaped. What could burrow through so much rock, through a mountain? The tiny blue lights that glowed within revealed no detail beyond vast depth.

The stench was horrific, like burnt rubber mixed with rancid meat. Gwil clenched his teeth against his retching.

It was cold inside, not just the damp coolness of a cave, but frigid, stiff air that cut to the bone. He’d stopped wrestling with the ropes, and his Nirva had faded away.

They passed a pair of guards heading the opposite direction. The man pushing the wheelbarrow said, “Is the doc in his lab?”

“Think so,” one answered, his voice muffled by his mask.

Incomprehensible machinery lined the walls. Gwil saw a huge drill that looked like it could be driven, and a huge thing with an array of corkscrews sticking out everywhere.

They came to a metal wall embedded in the side of the tunnel. One guard rapped the butt of his spear against the door.

“Who is it?” called a high-pitched, raspy voice. Gwil thought of the way house cats screech when they’re fighting.

“New slave,” the guard said. “A Hallow.”

“Heehee. Wonderful.” The door squeaked open.

Gwil gasped.

The man who answered wore all white, and a crazy pair of goggles with small telescopes for lenses. He looked like an insect. He had glowing blue skin.

“Meet Doctor Buzzard,” the guard said as he pushed the wheelbarrow through the door and dumped Gwil onto the floor.

The doctor fiddled with his goggles and said, “A fine specimen,” while rubbing his hands together.

“You got him from here, doc?”

“Yes, yes, go away,” Buzzard squeaked in his feline voice.

The heavy metal door slammed shut behind the guards. Uh-oh. Gwil wanted nothing to do with this creep.

One last try. His Nirva flared with terrible desperation. He spent everything he had. He could feel his muscles ripping and stitching, ripping and stitching.

Nothing.

“Mmmmm. A fine specimen indeed,” Buzzard said. Though the man was very short, he had ridiculously long arms, like a monkey. His fingers dragged on the floor as he walked.

The doctor was bald, except for a few odd patches of white-blue hair that grew like bundles of wheat. Flaky skin covered his exposed scalp, and jagged black streaks writhed beneath his skin, like varicose veins.

Gwil gasped. The doctor practically oozed Kaia.