"You don't know for sure the target is Forrester's Crossing," Skids said, scratching under dro's helmet. "We aren't even certain that the demons are targeting anywhere."

I wanted to agree with drome, but a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach told me that I had to be right. Or was it the buzzing in my brain, which was almost screaming, 'Look at how the facts line up!' I shook my head, partly in disagreement and partly in an attempt at flicking the weariness out of my head. "No, we don't have the luxury of hoping. The demons are headed toward the one city that has suffered four separate destructive magical events in the past few days." That included the lumber wagon crash, the bakery explosion covering Skids' retrieval of dro's belongings and our escape, the spinnerbike explosion, and the events surrounding our most recent breakout. "Either someone is attacking the city while it is weak, or else the magic is drawing the demons to the city."

Even now, the demons were scuttling past us. I had been avoiding looking at the source of the sound, but could not hold back any longer.

Past the turntable, a pair of rail lines extended roughly north, snugly situated in a cutting. To pass this close to the city, the demons had to cross the cutting, during which time they were visible to anyone blessed with the ability to see in the dark. Or perhaps it was a curse. Even as distant and indistinct as the demons were, the sight was highly upsetting. For the first instant, it appeared that a torrent of animals of various sizes was flowing down the steep embankment. Once my brain had a moment to process, the disturbing reality began to dawn. The shapes of the animals were all wrong. Too long, too lumpy, too many limbs, too many heads. And far too many straight lines and sharp corners. These creatures belonged in the nightmares of an exceptionally tortured mind.

The moving carpet of beings blurred together into one pandemonious mass. I could not tell whether I was seeing several distinct beings, or one ultimate omni-being. The inner illumination made it all the worse. From this distance I could not tell if the dots of coloured light denoted the locations of eyes, or something worse. Or was there anything worse than the demonic mass peering at me with hundreds of luminescent eyes as it seeped past or hundreds of thousands of arrhythmic limbs?

At any moment, any of the demons could change direction and charge toward us. None did. Each one squirmed forward until it reached the opposite embankment, and began clambering up. Some missed their footing, slid back, and were buoyed up by the flowing mass behind them. Some of the smaller ones flew up as if they had been thrown by the larger ones, while others were carried like riders on mounts. Or were they smaller growths attached to a larger mass? There was no way to tell at this distance, and no one wanted to be any closer.

"I don't think I've ever seen anything like this before," Skids remarked beside me. "Unpleasant, isn't it?"

I shuddered. "Why would anyone make something like this?"

Skids' answer was a shrug.

"This is evil," I declared.

"Well it sure isn't nice. Too many legs. But there's plenty of creepy and weird creatures around."

"Those aren't creatures. Perhaps they were before being utterly warped by magic, but they are not now. And they are charging directly at my hometown."

"Magic doesn't... Well technically... There has to be some magical involvement but..."

I tried to glare at Skids, but the goggles diminished my efforts.

Skids seemed to get the message regardless. "Not important. Deepbloom probably isn't in peril, but Exaltation could be and so could Forrester's Crossing. Or perhaps neither. We should send a warning."

"We should send the weapon! What's the use in having this 'secret weapon' if it doesn't get used to slay demons? Why aren't we using it right now?"

"Ahem. If I may," said the rather condescending voice of one of the figures I had mostly ignored. "The beings of darkness do not appear to be endangering this city. We have chosen not to take any actions that may incite their... interest." Even without seeing the man's perfectly pressed black suit, I could tell that he was a cleric.

"That... makes sense," I said, more boldly than I expected was possible under the circumstances. "Is... Is it possible to send the weapon ahead? It is rail portable, after all."

"It... is possible," the cleric said, carefully measuring his words like a store clerk selling a length of the really good fabric. "It may be of little use, however. Forrester's crossing does not have any turntables situated on the periphery of the city. The weapon's aim cannot otherwise be adjusted."

"In other words, thall made a weapon that can only fire dead ahead," Skids said in what I interpreted as a mocking tone.

The cleric's reply was ejected with almost as much pressure as the slugs from the aetherrailer. "Watch your tongue, mage. The weapon is adequately suited to the needs of this city, and the lack of adjustment allows it to be far more powerful than otherwise."

"Well someone needs to figure out how to make it useful elsewhere," Skids said, unimpressed by the cleric's demeanor.

"Careful," I said to drome. "He could have us executed in an instant."

"I'm a bit too useful," Skids whispered back. "We both are, 'cos we can see in the dark without their tonic."

I glanced back to the cleric, unable to shake the feeling that we were standing atop a disordered pile of bales of hay. At any moment a wrong step could send us tumbling down to be dashed against the ground and crushed underneath the treacherous mass.

"Is something wrong with the tonic?" My reply was intentionally loud enough to be heard by the cleric. I was wary of appearing too secretive.

"That is none of your concern," the cleric said, clamping down on the topic as if he was shutting a high-pressure valve.

I glanced at the handful of other figures standing around the weapon, but they all seemed to be waiting passively for orders from the cleric. Each of them would much rather be asleep safe in his bed, I realised. So would I. But they were protecting their city, and I had to do the same. I tried to keep my reply neutral and respectful. "Honoured cleric, it may be my concern if it impacts how much help can be sent to Forrester's Crossing."

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"Do not 'honoured cleric' me, girl. I know you are meant to be banished, or purified. Exceptional circumstances apply in this moment, but do not presume that will be the case for long, or always work in your favour. When rules are bent..."

I was tempted to answer, 'There is an equal and opposite pushback,' but I knew that would be asking for trouble. Unsure of how to safely proceed, I said nothing.

"Hmph. Well, since he insists on making himself useful..." the cleric muttered. "Diegan!"

"Yes, Cleric Elliot?" Diegan's arrival was implausibly rapid, as if he had started running before hearing his name. Or, I dozed off momentarily.

"You are to take your sprinter with the Great Maker's own haste to Forrester's Crossing via Exaltation. I will assign you two junior clerics to pass on a warning about the demon threat." The cleric looked around for volunteers. "Amir and... Who else is here, Amir?"

"It is only me, Cleric Elliot. The others all had... bad reactions to the tonic."

"Rust everything," Cleric Elliot muttered. "No time to awaken and brief someone else."

My mind raced through possible solutions. "Do we really need to leave someone in Exaltation?"

"If you want a weapon sent to Forrester's Crossing, yes."

That hardly seemed fair. Exaltation was unlikely to be in any peril. "But..."

"Moving something so massive such a distance will require a change of engines. Amir must coordinate that to ensure no time is wasted."

Despite the wind still whipping around us, my cheeks were suddenly hot. "Oh. Can Diegan do it himself?"

"A non-cleric approaching a cleric's house in the dead of night? He would be struck down."

Right, that was a terrible idea. "He could go to a junior cleric first. That would be safe."

"Attempting to rouse a junior cleric from the utmost depths of sleep would be quite futile."

This was true. The clerics worked their trainees almost to the bone, and they earned their sleep. Many would take sleeping tonics to ensure the quality of their rest. I might find pushing the weapon to Forrester's Crossing by hand an easier task than waking a junior cleric at this hour. The champion sleeper had to be Kim's editor, Divvo. She had told me how he had slept until two hours past noon on a festival day, despite repeated loud singing right outside his house. He was practically dead to the world after a very late night of editing.

Oh. "RJ Divvo might still be up!"

"Who?"

I felt everyone looking at me like I had spoken some word of arcane power. "He's the resin editor for Woman Purified. You know, with Kim Riggs. Cleric Riggs' wife? Divvo has to edit during nights to avoid sound from the trains." I knew from Kim that she would be forced to record at night if she did not have the benefit of Divvo's amazing editing. Even so, she was often frustrated by ruined takes.

I remembered that a conversation was in progress. No one was saying anything.

"Ah, you must mean Junior Cleric Divakar Pebsen," said Amir. I had not paid much attention to him. He seemed to be putting on a brave face, but was clearly utterly miserable. The front of his robe was dripping with an unknown substance.

"I suppose. Whatever you call him, he should still be up. Kim is doing a big promotion at the moment, so..." I realised they did not need so much detail. "He will be awake, and if you bang on his door enough, he will have to come down and stop you. You can tell him a friend of Kim Riggs sent you."

"Very well, that should suffice," Cleric Elliot said, sufficiently impressed by my idea. "Now, I must draw up some official orders." He produced a notepad from a pocket of his fine wool suit jacket and a pen from a different pocket. After extending the pen's nib by sliding and turning a spring-loaded metal bolt, he scribbled out a few lines on each of the top two pages. He added his signature at the bottom with a dramatic flourish, which was as impressive and impractical as his pen. "For you, and for Pebsen," he said, tearing off the pages and handing them to Arim and Diegan. "Maker bless and all that."

"Er, should we run to the railyard or...?"

"I can ride," Amir said, pointing behind us. I turned and spotted Skids' spinnerbike parked out of the way against a shed. "If I may?"

"Of course," Cleric Elliot said, not even turning. "Now, about moving a weapon to—"

"Hey, not so fast," Skids cut in. "You can't just..."

Amir stepped past the spinnerbike and unlocked the shed door.

Skids recovered quickly. "Don't mind me, you were saying?"

"We are at the start of the northwest line which goes to The Empyreal Miracle of The Great Maker. The horde is heading northeast. Once this location is no longer under threat, I will send this weapon to the northeast turntable to replace the weapon there. That weapon will be sent to Forrester's Crossing."

"Why not send the weapon from the south roundabout sooner?" Skids asked, which informed me that there were a total of three weapons. Dro checked the progress of the demons on dro's scryer. "It looks like they won't be out of here for the next twenty minutes, at least."

"That is not your concern," Cleric Elliot said. I guessed that it might be less functional or have other problems, a fact which he would not want to discuss in front of us. "What is your concern is that the tonic of dark-seeing is temporary. The duration is not exact. I hope there will be enough time to get the weapon to Forrester's Crossing, but I doubt it will be sufficient to effectively defend the city."

"Can you not give the men more tonic?"

Behind us, Amir answered my question. "That drastically increases the likelihood and severity of side effects." His words were punctuated by minor hisses of steam.

We turned to see him and Diegan astride a sleek metal contraption. It looked far more advanced than the steam bikes I had seen before, mostly in drawings. "I thought..." I cut my self off, realising that no one cared whether or not I had expected to see a steam bike in Deepbloom. "Wait, what are the severe side effects?" Should I be worried about Shenks?

The only answer from Amir was a cloud of steam.

Skids leaned close to me. "I think some people's eyeballs exploded."

I shuddered, and unconsciously reached up to my good eye. "That must have made it difficult to find volunteers, if it's true."

Skids shrugged. "Thall might have only lost thall's supper."

"Then why did you have to mention exploding eyes? I did not need that image in my head."

"Sorry, wasn't thinking." Skids turned back to the cleric. "You're telling us you need to send some people who can see in the dark, yeah? Or are you trying to requisition our goggles?"

"I would pefer not to involve you, but my men and I would much prefer to keep your magic at arm's length, rather than strapped to their faces."

"And I would rather keep mine strapped to my own face," Skids said, agreeing while still being aggressive. Dro did not mention the two spare pairs which had been worn by the fallen casters. I expected that there was even less chance of inducing the cleric's men to put those on.

"Then the defense of Forrester's Crossing requires your involvement."

"Gladly," Skids said, as if dro had any other choice. The alternative was probably a swift execution. I had noticed some of the men present were armed with crossbows. "But I'm not leaving Charity alone."

"I meant the pair of you. One set of eyes is not enough."

"Then it's settled," Skids said, unable to keep from sounding very eager.

This was all happening too fast for me. "Um. Are you sure about this?"

I felt an elbow nudge my side, and Skids gave me a look which was mostly lost under the goggles and my exhaustion.

Cleric Elliot presented me with the thinnest possible smile. "Are you sure your city is in peril?"

"I... Quite sure."

"Then the only question left is how you will aim the weapon at the demons without a turntable."

Oh, I'd forgotten about that problem. "You're sending the weapon without a way to aim it?" That seemed futile.

"It is your city that is in danger. You have a few hours. I trust you will find a way. Look on this as a way to put your extensive education to good use. Much has been invested in you, Miss Wilison. More than you know. Prove yourself worthy."