Outside, the morning sun blinded me for a few moments as I tottered down the street, reeling from the aching of my head and joints. The continuing pains of withdrawal weTe era>wgh to make a bullet seem welcome. As my vision cleared, I saw bodies strewn everywhere in the street, fresh blood turning the fallen snow a deep red. Up by the church, I could make out the uniformed soldiers of the city. Gunshots sounded, and those without uniforms fell face first in a race to the ground. Flames billowed from the tops of buildings, devouring gray wood, and thick smoke spewed forth from the broken windows of the bank.
"Cley," I heard a familiar voice yell. I turned and saw the Master standing a hundred yards away. He was dressed in furs and wore a broad smile. Greta Sykes strained at a golden leash he held tightly. He waved to me. "It's been nice working with you," he called over the din of the mayhem. I saw him crouch down then, and he appeared to be whispering something in the werewolf's ear. Even from the considerable distance that separated us, I could see she looked exactly as she had in that vision or dream in which I had met them in the mines of Gronus. Then he unhooked her collar and she was dashing toward me.
I turned and tried to run, but at that very moment the coach and four came charging out from the alley between the bank and the theater. I lost all my will to live, knowing I was trapped. The breath left me in one great torrent as I prepared myself for the sharp fangs and long-suppressed revenge of Greta Sykes.
"Cley," I then heard another familiar voice call. I looked up and saw that the driver of the coach was not the Master's porcine henchman as I had expected but instead Bataldo. I thought I was going to be crushed beneath the horses' hooves and the wheels, but at the last moment, they swerved to my left and came to an abrupt stop. "Get in," said the mayor.
For a second, I could not move. When I did, it was to turn and see the werewolf push off the ground fifteen yards away, springing directly at my throat. The door of the coach opened and out stepped Calloo. He strode over and grabbed me with one hand, pulling me back out of the way. Then turning with a grace and precision I would not believe him capable of, he made a fist and drove it into the side of Greta Sykes' head, burying one of her metal bolts deep beneath the skull. She shorted out on the ground before my eyes, jerking, sparking, spewing yellow liquid as he dragged me to the coach and threw me inside. The door closed with a bang and the horses responded. We flew past the sound of whizzing bullets, children screaming, the Master laughing eternally deep behind my eyes.
We stopped briefly at the mayor's house to collect guns, ammunition, and warm coats and blankets. Calloo staved in the wooden wheels of the coach and turned the horses loose. He told me that it was held to be true that the demons of the wilderness had a special appetite for the flesh of domesticated animals, and the smell of the beasts would attract them like a magnet. Bataldo could not stop crying as he ran from room to room, setting the drapes and shelves of books, the bedding and the furniture on fire.
Outside, we stood for a moment at the boundary of the woods and watched the smoke pour from the open windows. The mayor told Calloo and me that he had watched as Drachton Below's werewolf ripped out and devoured his wife's intestines on the main street of Anamasobia.
"Why did you save me?" I asked as he wiped his eyes clear.
"It doesn't matter what we were, Cley. I was no innocent; none of us were. We will head for paradise. There is no room for hatred there."
Calloo simply nodded and then rested one of his huge hands on Bataldo's back as much to hurry him along as to comfort him.
We set out into that vast forest that the members of old man Beaton's expedition had referred to as the Beyond. I was still nauseous and aching from withdrawal, but I ran on and on, determined not to slow the others down, pacing myself a few yards behind Calloo, who seemed tireless. It felt good to run amid the tall barren trees, over the hardened snow. I felt like a child running away from my guilt. I did not care if I froze to death, if I was rent to pieces by demons, if I was caught and killed by the Master's troops. Had it not been for the elusive promise of Wenau, I probably would have sat down where I was and waited for Greta Sykes.
After running for an hour, the mayor collapsed on the snow, heaving for breath. We decided to stop and give him a few minutes rest. I could not have gone on much longer myself. From our position on top of a wooded hill, we could look back and see smoke from Anamasobia rising high into the air. Even as far away as we were, I noticed that a flurry of fine, black ash was falling around us.
In the valley we had recently traversed, we could see the troops in pursuit. Some carried rifles and some the special flamethrowers that had been invented by Drachton Below. He himself rode in another of his inventions, an automated, gear-work carriage with a small compartment for two riders and eight articulated legs like a spider's, that carried him over rocks and fallen trees. I pointed out to Calloo a soldier holding a leash attached to the straining neck of Greta Sykes. Although I was astonished at the speed of her recovery, the big man just shrugged and spat. Then the two of us went and helped Bataldo to his feet and offered words of encouragement.
"Leave me behind," said the mayor. "I can see I will only hold you two back." His face was flushed and his formal, raccoon coat was ripped here and there and covered with all manner of twigs and burrs.
Hearing this, Calloo walked up behind the mayor and kicked him hard in the rear end. Bataldo jumped and then the two of them broke out laughing. I had no idea what I was laughing at, but I joined them.
"All right," said the mayor, and we crested the hill and started down the other side. We no longer ran, for fear that Bataldo would give up, but we walked quickly, heading due north, pushing ever deeper into the Beyond. Each mile of forest we traversed held natural wonders never before seen by civilized man, but we could not slow to inspect any of them.
There were certain trees whose barren branches moved like arms, swiping at the birds that flew just out of their grasp. A species of diminutive deer, the very color of grass, moved in small herds off in the distance. We saw them through the trees, and when they saw us they ran away, emitting the cries of a woman with her hair on fire. Small red lizards with wings flitted from tree to tree like dragonflies, and the songs of birds we could not see, for they flew too high, were hauntingly human. We witnessed all this in utter silence until we came to a brook where Calloo said we could rest for a minute. Then the mayor wondered aloud if we might not really have died back in Ana-masobia and were wandering in the next world.
I was leaning over, taking a drink of water to ease my burning throat, when the demons came swooping down from the trees and burst out of snowbanks we had never suspected. The mayor was the first to draw his gun and shoot. He hit nothing, but the explosion frightened our attackers, and both the ones on the ground and the ones circling above flew up to the highest of the tall trees. They peered down at us, hissing and dropping branches they had torn from their perches.
Calloo lifted the rifle he was carrying, took aim, and shot one of them. Its scream was like nothing I had ever heard. The piercing nature of it tore a hole in reality as the creature plummeted to the ground. There it writhed, its barbed tail slapping the snow. We did not wait to see more but started running as fast as we could. I bounded over the brook with an agility I did not know I possessed. Calloo made it over easily, but the mayor fell into the water, having twisted his ankle when leaping from the bank. By the time we could turn back to help him, two of the creatures had him by the arms and were lifting him toward the treetops. Even as they flew, one of the them had sunk its fangs in Bataldo's cheek.