Dust of Dreams

derived from birth-month and status, indeed a name once shared by two hundred identical drones—now rose on its hind limbs, thin, prehensile tail slithering across the floor. Oils dripped from its slate-grey hide, pooled and then quickly vanished as the unseen army, emboldened,purified and enlivened by the commander it had itself created, dispersed to renew its war.
    And the ghost withdrew, raced back to his companions.
     
    ‘If this was a mind,’ said Taxilian, ‘it has died.’ He ran his hand along the sleek carapace, frowning at the ribbons of flexible, clear glass rippling out from the iron dome. Was something flowing through that glass? He could not be certain.
    Rautos rubbed his chin. ‘Truly, I do not see how you can tell,’ he said.
    ‘There should be heat, vibration. Something.’
    ‘Why?’
    Taxilian scowled. ‘Because that would tell us it’s working.’
    Breath barked a laugh behind them. ‘Does a knife talk? Does a shield drum? You’ve lost your mind, Taxilian. A city only lives when people are in it, and even then it’s the people doing the living, not the city.’
    In the chamber they had just left, Sheb and Nappet bickered as they cleared rubbish from the floor, making room for everyone to sleep. They had climbed level after level and, even now, still more waited above them. But everyone was exhausted. A dozen levels below, Last had managed to kill a nest of orthen, which he had skinned and gutted, and he was now arranging the six scrawny carcasses on skewers, while off to one side bhederin dung burned in a stone quern, the fire’s heat slowly driving back the chilly, lifeless air. Asane was preparing herbs to feed into a tin pot filled with fresh water.
    Bewildered, the ghost drifted among them.
    Breath strode back into the chamber, eyes scanning the floor. ‘Time,’ she said, ‘for a casting of the Tiles.’
    Anticipation fluttered through the ghost, or perhaps it was terror. He felt himself drawn closer, staring avidly as she drew out her collection of Tiles. Polished bone? Ivory? Glazed clay? All kinds, he realized, shifting before his eyes.
    Breath whispered, ‘See? Still young. So much, so much to decide.’ She licked her lips, her hands twitching.
    The others drew closer, barring Taxilian who had remained in the other room.
    ‘I don’t recognize none of them,’ said Sheb.
    ‘Because they’re new,’ snapped Breath. ‘The old ones are dead. Useless. These’—she gestured—‘they belong to us, just us. For now. And the time has come to give them their names.’ She raked them together in a clatter, scooped them up and held the Tiles in the enclosed bowl of her hands.
    The ghost could see her flushed face, the sudden colour making her skin almost translucent, so that he could discern the faint cage of bones beneath. He saw her pulse through the finest vessels in her flesh, the rush and swish of blood in their eager circuit. He saw the sweat beading on her high brow, and the creatures swimming within it.
    ‘First,’ she said, ‘I need to remake some old ones. Give them new faces. The names may sound like ones you’ve heard before, but these are new anyway.’
    ‘How?’ demanded Sheb, still scowling. ‘How are they new?’
    ‘They just are.’ She sent the Tiles on to the floor. ‘No Holds, you see? Each one is unaligned, all of them are unaligned. That’s the first difference.’ She pointed. ‘
Chance
—Knuckles—but see how it’s at war with itself? That’s the truth of Chance right there. Fortune and Misfortune are mortal enemies. And that one:
Rule
—no throne, thrones are too obvious.’ She flipped that Tile. ‘And
Ambition
on the other side—they kill each other, you see?’ She began flipping more Tiles. ‘Life and Death, Light and Dark, Fire and Water, Air and Stone. Those are the old ones, remade.’ She swept those aside, leaving three remaining Tiles. ‘These are the most potent.
Fury
, and on its opposite side,
Starwheel
. Fury is just what it says. Blind, a destroyer of everything. Starwheel, that’s Time, but unravelled—’
    ‘Meaning what?’ Rautos asked, his voice strangely tight, his face pale.
    Breath shrugged. ‘Before and after are meaningless. Ahead and behind, then and soon, none of them mean anything. All those words that try to force order and, uh, sequence.’ She shrugged again. ‘You won’t see Starwheel in the castings. You’ll just see Fury.’
    ‘How do you know?’
    Her smile was chilling. ‘I just do.’