"So, I've been listening to this, and fuck, it is fucked up," she said. "But…"

"How can there be a but?" I asked.

Lark shook her head. "Dekburr, you're a soldier, right?"

"Yes," the subcommand replied.

"Then why obsess with this? It's not like there's anything you can do to change it."

Dk'brr sat up straight. "Ah, but that's where you're wrong. Brrk'zk Szr't't is my progenitor, and I'm favored."

"Congratulations?" Lark said, with a four-armed shrug.

"Oh, that's right," Dk'brr said. "You wouldn't know." He glanced at the city looming larger and larger on the horizon. "In the Dominion, Brrk'zk is the title given to the leader of a settlement."

"So, like… a mayor?" Lark said.

"If that means what Brrk'zk means, then yes," the subcommander replied. "As the favored progeny of the Brrk'zk of T'kznd, I am set to inherit the title. Szr't't will be passing the role to me before the season's end."

"Ahh, I get it," Lark said.

"As the next Burruk-zek," I said, "do you think there's any hope of changing things for the better?"

Dk'brr lowered his flower, like a pensive cocklebell. "I don't know, but I aim to try. One thing I hope to change is my progenitor's stance toward the yeomen. While I agree with most of our Brrk'zk's decisions, I think it was unwise of zym to accede to the yeomen's demands to clear away more Vvz'zsh land. The yeomen want to expand their farm holdings, as they always have, and that puts us into harm's way. There will never be peace if we keep provoking the Vvz'zsh. They certainly aren't the kind to easily let go of a grudge."

"Why did the Brrk'zk do it?" I asked.

"To appease the yeomen, as if those greedy scoundrels' abdomens could ever be filled!" Dk'brr lowered his arms in dismay. "Hopefully, when I become Brrk'zk of T'kznd, I'll be able to lead our community toward a better, more peaceful future."

As we approached another guard tower, Dk'brr rode ahead to clear our passage for us.

Considering everything he'd told me, it was no wonder Dk'brr's people had so much security, even in these seemingly peaceful farmlands.

Not long after we passed the second guard tower, Nina scuttled up behind me with a question of her own.

"Dr. Howle?"

"Yes?"

"I've been meaning to ask you," she said. "Can you see it?"

"See what?" I asked.

"The De'Zidd's magic?"

"Wait… what?" I turned my flower to her in surprise.

I'm not gonna lie: Nina's question caught me off guard.

"What do you mean? I saw Tuhziz's lightweaving or whatever, and there was definitely something going on with them dragging their swords through the dirt, not to mention those freaky whips, but—"

"—So you don't see it?" Nina said, with more than a trace of disappointment.

"If you're asking about my wyrmsight," I said, "I don't know if that applies here, and even if it did, I'd have reservations over using it. It might very well bring the AVUs down on our heads, and, as I've repeatedly stressed, I want to avoid that outcome if at all possible. Still… I'm curious: why can you see this stuff when I can't?"

"I think it might be because of all that practicing I did back home," Nina replied. "While I might not be able to see their magic with my eyes the way you can, I can sense it. And I'm sensing it here. I'm sensing it a lot."

"Wait," I said. "You mean, you sense pataphysics? Here?"

"Yeah, that's what I just said."

"What does this mean?" I asked.

"When we get some time alone," she said, "I want to see if I can use my Blessèd powers here. I think you should, too."

"Weren't you listening, Nina?" I said. "I can't use my powers! It'll attract the Vyx!"

Nina chided me. "Keep your voice down!" The ripples of her sparking whispers quickly dissipated into the air.

She was definitely agitated.

But about what?

"I've been thinking," she said. "The first time you were here, you attracted the Vyx by using your mind-world powers. That's what made you stand out to them."

"As far as I understand it, yes."

"Well… maybe that was because you were using abilities other than what the Network allowed you to use."

"What makes you say that?" I asked her.

"You looked through all those portholes, right? You moved around inside the Vyxit's ships. You even saw their copy of the Sword. If that wouldn't get them to sic their attack dogs on you, I don't know what will!"

"Huh. You might have a point, there."

Nina looked to the horizon. "…think about it, Dr. Howle. If the De'Zidd can naturally use magic here without attracting the antivirus thingies, maybe we can, too. I mean, if we're gonna be here for a while, I think we oughta know how to defend ourselves, don't ya think?"

There was a moment of silence, during which Nina kept showing signs of distress.

"There's something else, isn't there?" I said. "Don't try to deny it."

Nina shook her head. (From what I had seen, that was a very unusual gesture by mantis standards.) "I wouldn't dare." She paused. "It's about where I saw their magic."

"And where did you see it?"

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"Lots of places. On their swords," she said. She looked at a passing wagon. "On their wagons. I see them on their buildings, and in the animals and in some of the plants, like the fiber tower we passed a little while ago."

"Yeah, I think that's some kind of radio tower," I said.

"But there's one other place," Nina said. The light of her words dimmed.

"Tell me."

Anxiety twitched through Nina's abdomen. She glanced at the two stoic footmen under T'zz's command, but only for a moment. She immediately averted her gaze. "Those two," she whispered, narrowing her flower, "they've got magic coiled in every inch of their body. It overlaps their body's Charge currents."

"Do you know what it does?" I asked.

She shook her head again.

Finally, we got close enough to get a good look at the town of T'kznd.

Like the other settlements we'd spotted from up on the plateau, T'kznd was enclosed by an imposing hexagonal wall made from some kind of concrete. With a town of this size, you'd expect it to be surrounded by farmlands as far as the eye could see, yet the humble groves of plants scattered among the farmsteads seemed insufficient to sustain its population, which appeared to be in the thousands.

The tarped rooftops of T'kznd's taller buildings crested over the town's walls like sugarloafs. The homes and other buildings clustered outside of the walls had a smooth, sculpted aesthetic, like upside-down teacups crossed with short step-pyramids. A row of carriages parked outside a longer-looking building indicated stables and, one would think, an inn or something.

Somewhat disconcertingly, though the settlement's gates were wide open, there wasn't much activity, either coming or going. Considering the emphasis Dk'brr and his men had put on the dangers of staying outdoors after-dark, it felt odd not to see people flocking to the gates, what with dusk right on the horizon.

Suddenly, Dk'brr brought his ver't'k to a stop. He looked over the city, as if searching for something.

"Did something happen?" Nina asked. She pointed. "There's—"

There was a thin column of smoke rising from the eastern side of the town. The smoke thinned and distorted waves of light as they passed through it.

"—Oh no…" Dk'brr said. "No! No!" He flicked the reins, sending his vrr't'k into a gallop.

"Sparks!" Rzt'zk said. "There's been an attack!"

Fudge.

The rest of the group doubled forward. Lark, Nina, and I looked at one another and followed them inside.

T'kznd was a grove of buildings, and they came in all sizes, from teacups to tall pitchers. Tarps stretching over the chimneys and domed rooftops cast long shadows in the fading daylight. Shops and vendors were finishing up their days' work in awning-covered markets down wide alleys, along streets paved with what felt like concrete beneath my legs.

There were hexagonal-grated drains in the middle of the streets that I noticed only because of the exceptionally enticing scent that was wafting out from them, not that I had enough time to explore it in detail.

Keeping up with Subcommander Dk'brr was a bit of a challenge. Other than the main axial roads crisscrossing it, T'kznd didn't have much of an urban grid. The buildings were just there, with the day's fading traffic moving around through the not-too-narrow spaces in between.

Eventually, we stumbled out onto the road to the eastern gate. The buildings became more orderly as the street widened, which helped to give us a better view of what was going on—and, for the record, there was a lot going on!

The first and most obvious thing was the ten-foot tall statue of a twEfE standing in the middle of the open plaza up ahead. In a better situation, I would have asked the passerby why it was there, but I didn't—and couldn't—because of the corpses.

"Fudge me up the axe…" I muttered.

Three brzhts lay on the ground, dead. They were surrounded by scissorblade-wielding soldiers hard at work harvesting the elephantine creatures' Charge with their swords and potato-nets, as well as taking some for themselves with discreet jabs of their stingers.

The beasts had broken through T'kznd's eastern gate; the door lay in tatters, surrounded by scattered shards of chipped wall-concrete. Stray sparks crackled in the corpses of D'zd civilians that had splattered under the behemoths' feet.

"Ay dios mio…" Nina muttered.

And then, there was the fire.

There was a large, two-story building right up against the street to our left. Smoke trickled out through its chimneys and hexagonal windows. Dk'brr and Rzt'zk stood at the mouth of the alley at the side of the building, staring in shock at a gaping hole in its wall. Judging by the size of the opening, one of the brzht must have made it.

Suddenly, the hole widened, the ceramic cracking as it expanded outward to encompass the alley's floor. Dirt fell away in chunks. The chunks sizzled and burst, exploding and sending up fumes.

There was a chamber underground, beneath the building. Given the way a column of smoke came roaring up out of the sinkhole, it was a safe bet that that basement—or, whatever it was—was the source of the fire.

"No!" Rzt'zk yelled. "The barrack's storehouse!"

The light-waves of the bystanders' panic distorted as they fled.

Dk'brr rode his vrr't'k into the middle of the street and strode up to one of the soldiers.

"Where's the Buruk-Zek?" he asked.

"Ze's coming! Ze's coming!"

"Who did this?" Nina asked.

"Who else?" T'zz said. The robed hazzan skittered out from between some fleeing civilians. "The Vvz'zsh!"

The fire continued to spread, triggering more peals of screams. More than a few of them came from the barracks themselves. Even the fire was alien to me; the way the structure burned was unlike anything I'd ever seen before. There was far more smoke than fire, and the few flames I managed to spot were smaller and weaker than what I was used to. But those looks were deceiving: the seemingly meager flames were giving off truly monstrous amounts of heat. It was like a desert wind screaming lava right into our faces. My exoskeleton tingled from the heat. I could see the energy—heat, I assumed—rippling off the blaze in disorienting waves. The pulses throbbed like an infected wound.

Somewhere inside the building, there was a scream, followed by a sickening squelch. Vapor rushed out one of the windows in a sweet, scalding cloud, only to condense into fluid that rained down onto the street and the dead brzhts.

And that's when I realized: the building was sublimating. In the right conditions, solids told the liquid phase of matter to fudge off and just skipped straight to becoming a gas, exactly like what was happening here. The cracks the fire opened in the building's walls were like volcanic rifts, fuming and steaming. Yet the steam was short-lived, condensing into grains that hailed down on us not long after it rose over the barrack's roof.

Lark darted forward as Rzt'zk scrambled back.

The singer cursed. "What the fuck are you doing!?" She turned her flower toward the fire. "There are people in there!"

Lark was right. There were D'zd dying inside, yet no one—and I mean absolutely nobody—was doing anything about it. Heck, if anything, they were pulling away. Even the soldiers were backpedaling.

Were they just going to stand there?

The armored heavy raised his upper pair of arms at Lark in anger. "What do mean, what am I—"

"—We have to do something!" a dDzd yelled, scrambling out from the crowd. "All that Charge!" He turned to the burning building. "Winter is coming."

The D'zd ran toward the sinkhole in the alley. More than one bystander called out to him, begging him to stop. Arms and torsos reached, yet he pulled away.

Rzt'zk yelled. "Kid, no!" The heavy pushed off Lark and ran, only for Dk'brr to ride his vrr't'k in front of the warrior and cut him off with an imposing gaze.

Up ahead, the young D'zd screamed in pain. He dug all four of his legs into the pavement, obviously trying to slow down and reverse course, but it was too late. His forelegs snapped against the ground, sending him toppling onto the ground.

His slender body swelled.

Then, all of sudden, his torso and abdomen popped like balloons, and the light of his agony cut out. His body fell, lifeless, gusting up vapor, only to condense into fluid seconds later and rain back onto the pavement.

Lark scuttled back in terror. "Holy shit!"

"Well," Nina muttered, grimly, "that explains why no one is doing anything."

"Out of the way!" someone yelled. "Move! Move!"

"Brrk'zk Szr't't! It's Brrk'zk Szr't't!"

I turned just in time to see a cloth-wrapped figure push his way out from the crowd. He wore broad robes and had multiple belts on his abdomen, adorned with tassels and drooping tails that flailed as he moved.

The Brrk'zk stepped out into the open, raised his four, wide-sleeved arms, and yelled.

"Get back, everyone!" His voice rippled out in waves of light that spread far and wide. I could see the wisdom in his speech.

And then he spread his arms and sang.

The Sun was setting behind jagged mountains in the distance. Its light bulleted over the street and the Brrk'zk. The D'zd Chant blossomed from his flower, whirling around him in a serpentine sunbeam, slithering through the air in a descending orbit that pulled it round and round the burning barracks until it plowed into the smoking, sublimating walls and spread through them like veins of lightning.

Power flashed within the structure; something slumbering within its walls sparked and came to life.

The building collapsed on itself with a mighty crash, its smoothly sculpted roof crumpling inward. Smoke and dust blasted out in every direction, searing us with their heat before bouncing off an invisible barrier and ricocheting skyward in a massive column that spilled back down in wet, grainy precipitation.

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