He flipped from the dust bath and hit the stone floor hard, bruising his limbs and shoulders, running through his cave naked, tripping over his sleeping mother and gashing his elbows open on the ground, giving premature blood to the land. He rose again and tore aside the leather curtain at the cave’s entrance.

“They’re awake!” he screamed. “The Nax are awake!” He could see shadows of people moving to and fro on the main street, and he imagined the puppet master’s red-painted hand clenching and cutting, taking them all down.

There was an outburst of screaming from all across the cavern. Other fledge dreamers were traveling too far this night.

THE FIRST NAX came from the same tunnel Trey had fled in his fugue.

The Nax were also known as fledge demons. No one had ever seen one and lived. Most had an idea of what they were—myths, stories, legends handed down from generation to generation, drawings in books, ancient cave paintings that smeared some of the rock walls of the home-cave Church—but as well as sometimes being exaggerated with time, the truth can also be diluted. Most people had no idea what they were about to face.

Heads turned as the shadow burst from darkness into weak firelight. It flew across the cavern and landed at the base of one of the five giant pillars. And then it started to kill.

Trey fell to his knees and screamed. His mother shouted in her sleep, sounding as if she was being choked. Other cries rose up across the cavern, high-pitched and androgynous with terror. Because as well as the sight it presented its victims—wings spread, various limbs tipped with spinning bone-clawed appendages, openings that may have been mouths steaming and spitting gobs of flaming gas—the Nax gave them so much more. Its mind reached out as well, probing with alien fingers, seeming to touch everyone in the cavern. And it was like eating shit.