And there shall be a wall of globes. And there shall be a man with mice in his throat. A dark bird about to take you apart and no one there to stop it. Only to watch. The strange man says your name, and the word is terrifying in his mouth. “You shouldn’t have done this. You shouldn’t have taken the journal.” Nods to dark birds. Nods to the men standing behind him. Swarming now. Merciless now.

But the salamander’s there, too, at the edge of the river in your mind. And you give yourself over to him. And he envelops you and in that cool embrace, in that moment where his skin is breathing into you. Speaking to you in that unbearably beautiful language, that unknown, unknowable language. Unfathomable and fathoms deep.

Such a great and abiding light and an orchestral majesty to the invisible molecules of the air.

In that moment, the salamander takes everything from you, before they can. All of it. Every last thing. All the poison and the need, the imperfections and the want. The incurable wound, the things that make you human but hold you back. Gives them to the ones who are killing you now. To the ones who deserve it.

Neither of you will be the same again. Neither can ever be the same again. Both are different and in different ways. And yet, in the moment, on the long journey ahead, recognized. Not alone. Never alone.

You’ll never be part of history. But you’ll carry history with you. And even though you don’t really escape until much later. Even though you know what’s really happened to you, he’s there. Makes you free. Makes you ready.

For the next thing.

<<The girl’s name was Sarah. She didn’t mean to travel so far, for so long, or to become so different. She didn’t mean to become a demon.>>

7. Corpse

Once, there had been no Company upon that desert plain. Once, there had been no City. Only a river running clear and clean. Only the fringe of green around its banks, the birds overhead, the creatures of the land that inhabited that place. A vast plain of reeds and grass, through which passed multitudes.

The first fish of Behemoth’s kind had come out of that river. Had sat there on the mud flats breathing in and breathing out as the dawn light heated the ground, water rose through the mud. And from that first fish had come the next, and the next, and they had grown in size and number, eaten and been eaten. Herons had stalked them and they had stalked little frogs and crabs.