You have to say those words, Nomi had said. They're the language of the Sleeping Gods. He looked up at the thing carrying them—Its massive head, six eyes, sturdy legs and the stumps of long-lost wings on its back—and shook his head.

“They won't work,” he said. He looked across at Nomi once more and she was looking at him. It was difficult to tell with the constant movement, but he thought she was crying.

Ramus was surprised to find his own cheeks damp with tears.

THE FALLEN GOD stood on the edge of the Great Divide and gazed down upon Noreela. The constant cloud cover was still there, but in the distance, the hazy horizon showed a smudge of dark green; and closer by, a slab of cliff had fallen away, forging a hole through the clouds that were still billowing. Far down, the ground. The Noreela this Fallen God had perhaps once known, before being sent down by its kin.

Nomi had no idea what it was about to do. It stood there for a long time, while all around it the tumult continued. The destruction was growing worse. The sky to the south was a furnace of towering clouds lit from within by unimaginable fires. From the east came a long, enduring grinding sound, seeming to shake the air in that direction so that it became blurred and indistinct. The noise went on and on, and Nomi hoped that Sordon Perlenni was already dead. Whatever he had turned into—whatever he had caused—she could not wish more suffering upon him.

Several miles to the west, another huge slice of cliff parted from the Divide and began to fall away. It seemed to take forever, lowering down first as though the trees and bushes on its surface wanted to become a part of the ground below. Several hundred steps below the level of the plateau, it tilted out, crumbling and breaking as it tumbled eventually into the soft cloud cover and disappeared.

Flocks of birds poured past above them, all heading north. The sky had grown dark, lightning sparked here and there and Nomi saw a thousand birds turned to ash. They drifted down, caught in thermals from Noreela below and held aloft for a final flight.

“What have you done?” a voice said, and she thought Ramus had come to his senses. Yes, she thought. Accept it and make it better. But Ramus was looking at her, and his mouth did not move as that voice spoke again. “What have I done?”