Five hundred feet above Khel Marjon, sitting on the edge of the Pier of Ventures, was Surandot. She reclined on her arms, kicking her feet absently, clacking her boots together, her head cocked to one side, waiting on her mistress. Her military fashion was modeled on Tristanué’s, whom she served politically as a squire and personally as a valet. Just as Tristanué’s blue armor accentuated her southern skin, Surandot’s arms and armor accentuated hers, cast with ascending hues of beige and gold and macadamia with foil highlights. Unfamiliar with sparse Ecclesiarch fashions, especially with the fearless hems and plunging lines of Sephragelo, Surandot fidgeted with her lambion, which, like all her gear, was modeled directly on her Tristanué’s. Any discrepancies between them were physical ones, those embellishments Nature published so proudly in one and not the other. Tristanué’s assets had come to full estate, while Surandot’s were just arriving.

Behind her, Nonchalor was dipping its beak in the watercourse near the center of the Pier. In feather, he was off-white, or chiffon, while his face, eyes, beak, and feet were shiny black—the beak more so being thinly lacquered in dark brass. Likewise, Surandot’s saddle, straps, and tack were also black.

Bored, she stood up and tugged at her corselet just as the wind picked up and blew her dreadlocks into a mess again, clacking her hair beads and rings. Throwing her locs behind her with a sharp swing of her head, Nonchalor shrieked and flew away.

It was then she perceived Tristanué had called Pier of Ventures into service.

It was descending.

High above the bailiff’s tower, dull gray clouds began to swirl, imperceptibly at first, as competing dints of thunder portended a strange twist of nature. As the watchmen looked up, a five-sided silhouette briefly appeared, backlit by lightning. After a brief silence, the guard dogs began barking hysterically and jerking against their chains. A tremor rippled through the bridge rattling the gates, swinging lanterns, and rocking signs. Below, the calm water under the bridge splashed and roiled. Above, still concealed by clouds, the Pier of Ventures opened. Despite having the appearance of a solid object, a five-sided aperture opened and expanded in the middle of the Pier. Up there, where no one could see her, young Surandot marveled at the effect. The distance from the inside of the Pier to its five outer edges did not change, remaining about thirty feet. Instead, the diameter and circumference of the Pier expanded. Each of its five sides, originally over forty feet long, lengthened inch by inch, foot by foot. Amazingly, the stone grew out of itself. It continued this way, slowly broadening until the five-sided hollow was the exact circumference of the Pier when closed.

Inside the tower, Kuinkazner and his men, who had been dining, drinking, passing the mouthpieces of hookahs, recounting their victories, lamenting their losses, indulging in games of chance, and cursing the Sablers, suddenly felt the air pressure change. Their captured sighthounds that had been sleeping, awakened, and snarled. A force mumbled through the stone walls and wooden decks. The planks creaked, straining the nails that held them down. The chandelier, a heavily candled ring of iron, swayed overhead while the tongues of fire atop the candelabras fluttered as if troubled by a breeze. On the table, their strong drinks rippled inside their cups and tankards.

“What storm has come?” one of the officers asked.

Kuinkazner stood up, his face twisting in alarm. “No, it is another thing!” No sooner had he spoken than something strange and irresistible seized the tower with a shock.

The sighthounds stood and barked at the ceiling.

“Silence! Worthless curs!” Kuinkazner shouted, throwing his drink at them.

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Outside, the mortar of the tower cracked and burst. The effect raced down the building to the bridge like a down blast of wind. The bricks surrounding the base of the stronghold split and shot out of place as the Pier of Ventures imposed its torque, twisting the turret free of its foundations. The bridge guards screamed and leaped back as their horses broke free of their handlers and raced away.

Kuinkazner and his men struggled to maintain balance as everything inside the tower teetered and fell over. Kuinkazner, balancing through the rumbling sway to the main door, flung it open. Intent on escape, he instead leaped back in surprise. There, one step beyond the sill where there should have been stone, was sky.

Blackjaw’s soldiers watched in awe as the turret lifted into the night without a sound, rotating lazily. Some babbled the names of their dull guardian spirits, while others staggered away as the tower drifted over the town, sloughing off bricks and streams of mortar dust as it went. As a parting slight, Surandot startled the bridge guards with a low pass atop Nonchalor, whose bone-rattling shriek, let out not ten feet above them, stripped what little composure any of them had left.

As for Kuinkazner, he stood clutching the jambs, slack-jawed in astonishment: beneath him was seventy feet of the empty night air. The tops of the various buildings, streets, yards, standing cressets of fire, and date palms passed below him. Terrorstruck, he closed the heavy iron door and laid a bar across it. One of Kuinkazner’s officers rushed to the opposite door, flung it open, and raced out. Unfortunately, his shrill but fading scream proved to the others there was indeed no escape.

“What devilry is this!” another officer yelled, drawing his curved dagger.

“The devils of Royos!” Kuinkazner growled. “The Yales!” He then commanded his men to search for what rope and chain could be found in the tower and secure them from the candelabras, now reimagined as anchors, for it was his intent to rappel down to freedom. And though there was great uncertainty about the plan, his officers obeyed. Many feared the ropes and chains would not reach the ground and that leaping onto roofs or dunes might follow, but another threat quickly overshadowed all others. No sooner had the first officer slipped out the window and down the rope a little than an arrow pierced him back to front. With that killing shot, the man felt his strength vanish. He groaned once, then again, lost his grip, and fell away to death. Scarcely had the man at the window witnessed this than a second arrow stabbed through his neck. Spraying blood, he fell back into a third man, thrashing wildly as all life rushed out of him.

Out there in the sky, keeping pace with them on the east side of the turret, revealed by a bright sinuous streak of lightning, was a giant black falcon and a slender blue-clad archeress on its back. Then it thundered, punctuating the moment with a boom.

“Kuinkazner—!” the third man shouted, but as he turned to his master, a perfect third shot ended his plea. He took a few listless steps and fell over dead before his fellow collaborators could react past a look.

Across the chamber at another window, Kuinkazner had sent two other officers down a winch chain. Hearing a scream, he looked down: the lowest man had disappeared. The man above him was yelling frantically in his old dialect, gesturing into the sky. Just then, Nonchalor swept into view. Kuinkazner recoiled as Surandot took aim at his man and released her razor-tipped decision. The arrow hit the culprit in the chest. Letting out a great cry, he surprised everyone by not slipping down the chain, not even an inch. A strong man, he had been wounded before and fought through it. He marshaled his strength with a great roar, determined not to let a single arrow embarrass him before his master.

That was until Surandot put a second shaft through his skull.

The man strained for a second, went limp, and fell away like the others.

As for Surandot, she pressed against Nonchalor and dove while Kuinkazner threw a spare helmet at her, cursing her in his grandmother’s tongue. “My bow!” he demanded, thrusting out his hand. No sooner had he spoken than the turret struck something as heavy as it was. The impact threw Kuinkazner and his officers to the floor and sent the dogs skidding, but the tower righted itself.

A scrambling officer brought Kuinkazner his bow and a fistful of arrows. “Quickly, now!” Kuinkazner ordered with a nod, “I will protect you!”

The young man darted to the window and leaned out to see where the falcon-riding archers were when a short sword stabbed up through his boiled leather breastplate, the breastbone behind it, and his backbone. He seized instantly, wheezing from the death blow. Climbing into the room, using him as a shield, was Jocasta Valan.

All this was according to something close to a plan.

Tristanué had directed the tower into a brushing pass with an abandoned minaret at the southern side of Khel Marjon, where Jocasta had earlier taken up position and signaled her readiness. And though Jocasta did not anticipate the ropes and chains Kuinkazner had employed, she made opportunity by them the instant they came within reach. Unfortunately, Tristanué’s aim was a little off target: the heavy tower struck the minaret, collapsing it.

Tristanué flew on the east side of the tower and Surandot on the west. They could hear the screams of Kuinkazner’s men as the double-armed Jocasta Valan hacked her way through them to the evening’s main prize—

The Sixth Kuinkazner.