"And they write books, it seems." She pointed at the volume. "Gods only knows why it’s in High Kettai. Maybe that’s what they speak now-they’d be the only people in the world who do. I don’t know, Godsdammit, Silas. Maybe it’s all crap," she snapped with sudden irritation. "Maybe that damn thing’s a forgery or a lie or, yes, a children’s story. But I’ve been told by Tintinnabulum to look for anything by Kruach Aum, so do you think the subject matter of this damn book is just coincidence?"

"What does it say?" he asked.

Bellis took the book from him and slowly translated the first lines.

" ‘I would lie if I told you that I write this without pride. I am full of it like food, because I have… found a story to tell, of what had not been done since the Ghosthead Empire and was achieved once more, a thousand years ago. One of our ancestors, after our queens collapsed and we came here to hide… With… devices and thaumaturgy… he went out over the water… to a dark place… and he sent hexes into the mouth of the water and after twenty-one days of heat and thirst and hunger he… drew out a great and mysterious thing.’ " She looked up at Silas and concluded, " ‘The mountain-that-swims, the godwhale, the greatest beast ever to visit our world, the avanc.’ "

She closed the book softly.

"He called up an avanc, Silas."

"What happened?" he said. "You’ve read it, what happened?"

Bellis sighed. "It doesn’t say how or where, but Aum found a bunch of old manuscripts, an old story. And he’s put them together and made sense of them, and retold them. The story of an anophelius, who’s never named. Centuries ago. There are ten pages about his preparations. The man fasts; he researches; he stares out to sea a lot; he gathers the things he needs: barrels, liquor, old machines that have been moldering on the beach. He goes out to sea. Alone. Trying to keep control of a yacht way too big for one man, but no one would come with him. He’s looking for a particular place, some kind of… deep, deep shaft, a hole in the ocean’s floor. That’s where he’s hunting. That’s where he casts. That’s where he wants the avanc to… come through, from where they normally live.

"Then we get twenty very dull pages about the privations of the sea. Hungry, thirsty, tired, wet, hot… That sort of thing. He knows he’s in the right place. He’s sure his hook is… extending into somewhere else. Bleeding through the world. But he can’t attract the avanc. There’s no worm that big.