For a moment my vision cleared and I was back in my own head. The Chime wasn’t one thing, it was twenty-seven things. The things the Queen Scythin carried in their chests. Tuning forks of death. Notes. And what they did – if I understood the visions correctly – was worse than anything Naecia had suggested. The Oblivion Fray was their sustenance, their energy source, and their ticket to other dimensions. The collection of it set fire to the heavens, evaporating trillions in an ineffable horror too momentous for human brains to fathom. The Bloom of God was all consuming, leaving only abject nothingness behind – a void where even the idea of existence becomes vapor. Whatever force had spawned the big bang, the Scythin could summon it. In reverse. With a musical chord.

I tried to get up, to dive into the tomb for the prong embedded in Jecca’s body – the Chime – only to discover that my limbs had gone numb. Like a fainting goat, I was paralyzed.107

A blanket of white drew down – not in front of me, not between myself and Jecca – but in the world of my mind. The blizzard of reflections came together, erasing everything I saw, everything I thought. And I was shown a new imprint, not from Jecca – through Jecca – the entire story of Jecca’s first prior.

And my fourth.

104 Australian peacock spider. Maratus jactatus. The most fabulous of all spiders.

105 Hmm, pigs don’t really sweat. Now, horses? They sweat. Better than being a stork, though, who shit on their legs to keep cool.

106 Ben, it’s the Oblivion Fray. They can touch it.

107 Okay, there’s a lot going on right now, and I hate to interrupt, but it’s important to clarify that the goats aren’t actually fainting. It is a condition called myotonia congenita, which is a stiffening of the muscles based on a chloride channel disorder. They remain conscious the whole time. Carry on.

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

THE INSTRUMENT MAKER

Black becomes violet becomes burning pink and orange – the sky of dawn in the center of night. Those gathered into the amphitheater see it as well, though they are too mesmerized by the transcendent notes and the imminent crescendo to care much for the phenomenon happening above. An aurora, perhaps, come to join the stars in audience to the numinous sounds of the Procession, nothing more.

The Instrument Maker continues in spite of the anomaly. Being the director of the music, she is not swaddled in it as those who have come to watch, and views the change with greater concern. But what is there to do except continue? To give melody to the thing that has come.