It hit as a smell. Your nostrils quivered, and your head was filled with a strange petroleum odour, redolent of old machines; but there was a sweetish underlayer to it, like vomit. It assaulted you in the manner of a migraine headache. Then the punch—like the Saint of Joy to one’s kidneys—low in your stomach, racing up the central line of your body, seizing your heart in its teeth and shaking. Your palms ran wet. You made a gulping, golloping sound in the back of your throat—you tried to close your eyes as though that were some escape, but it was not—you tilted forward, gasping, your pulse bellowing, your ears deafened. You were suddenly convinced that there were little things crawling over your skin—you rubbed frantically at your forearms—you shivered convulsively, as though to fling them off; you touched obsessively at your ears; you cringed when a stray hair fell across your forehead.

But as you lurched—fretted—perceived—you fought. You made yourself one inhalation and exhalation—reduced yourself to one sensation, following it from down at the toes up all the lines of your body to the crown of your head. As the sensation rose, you filled with contempt for a stranger’s insanity. You had enough of your own to contend with. After a few minutes, you came to with nothing more than a sense of embarrassment, a desire to itch, and a mild heat rash.

Ianthe was screaming over the comm. Everyone waited politely for her to stop.

You said: “Is that all?”

And with a crackle, God said: “It will be like this until they breach, Harrowhark.”

The Princess of Ida’s voice came over the communicator, a little ragged. “How long?”

“Over an hour,” said Mercy.

And Augustine said: “Sit tight, kiddies. The fun starts now.”

Your room had long ago plunged into near-complete darkness, leaving no distraction from the great rocking thump—thump—thump—of body after body flinging itself against the great mass coating the hull. There was nothing to see—the shutters were down—but you could feel the terrible vibration, hear the groan of chitin on metal, the cataclysmic rending of steel by fungous claw.

It was very cold. A fine shimmer of frost now coated your cheeks, your hair, your eyelashes. In that smothering dark, your breath emerged as wisps of wet grey smoke. Sometimes you screamed a little, which no longer embarrassed you. You understood your body’s reaction to the proximity. Screaming was the least of what might happen.

God’s voice came very calmly over the comm: “Ten minutes until breach.”

And you walked to your death like a lover.

EPIPARODOS

NINE MONTHS AND TWENTY-NINE DAYS BEFORE THE EMPEROR’S MURDER