He spread his wings and beat up into the air. His destination would be the park, but, as was his habit, he took a brief excursion around the city first. Its buildings tended to be of regular shapes with straight sides and edges, framed of stone and faced with glass to afford views and admit light. But they were built along streets that since the beginning of the Second Age had veered round diverse hazards and obstructions. Most prominent of all such was the crater that Egdod had made when he had smashed into the Firmament and broken it. This was now a circular pond of chaos round whose shores many buildings had been erected out of the ring of rubble that had once surrounded it. Dodge flew over that, as he always did, and gazed down into it. In its depths he saw the Fastness. He could tell at a glance that all was well there. In its towers and courtyards would be many souls whose work it was to look after those realms of the Land where Egdod held sway. No doubt many of them would have news to relate and questions to ask. But there was nothing that required his attention this morning.

Satisfied of that, he banked round over the district between the crater and the park. In the midst of that, a new building had gone up of late. Pick’s Cube, they called it. It was sheathed in adamant and styled after the Cube from which the members of the Quest had retrieved the key. They had named it after the soul who had fallen just short of that goal. On its roof, well back from the edges so that it could not be seen from the streets, was a perch surrounded by bones, and on the perch was a giant talking raven.

Though it was early in the day, Dodge could see Querc approaching its front door. She divided her time between Land and Firmament. While she was here, she worked in Pick’s Cube with Thingor and Corvus and Knotweave and other curious souls who were skilled at plumbing the deep nature of things. They strove to divine the hidden secrets of the other plane of existence and to fashion ever tinier and more sophisticated machines.