But at least if we’re the ones building it, we can ease the world into it as gently as possible, instead
of abruptly crashing a few national economies overnight. Some of which may well deserve to be crashed, but it’s never the people on top who bear the brunt.”
Rigney nodded. “I’ll prepare a report,” he suggested, “on what we can expect.”
“Do that,” said Beartongue. “Then you can be the one to read the report and summarize it for me.”
He laughed softly. “Naturally.”
The Bishop pushed away from the railing and moved toward the door, trailing Rigney like a tall shadow. Behind them, metal clanged and Ashes Magnus yelled, “Lad, if you can’t be more careful with your fingers, you don’t deserve to keep them!” and Beartongue shook her head and muttered something under her breath that sounded like a prayer.
AND A LONG WAY AWAY, on the edge of the dry, dusty plains of Charlock, a tall, auburn-haired woman stood looking across the desert.
She no longer had a horse. The horse hadn’t much cared for berserkers, and it cared even less for what this one carried. They had parted with much mutual antipathy.
<The desert, then?>
“Do you dislike the desert?” Judith asked aloud. She didn’t need to, but speaking out loud made it easier for her to keep track of what was her and what was…not.
<I have never formed an opinion.>
“You will,” Judith promised. “No one who goes into the desert comes out of it without one.” She considered for a moment, then, in the interest of honesty, added, “Most people hate it.”
<We are not like most people> said the demon called Wisdom.
Judith laughed. Her fellow paladins would have been surprised to hear it. In the years since the Saint of Steel died, she might chuckle, but she had thought that her old, full-throated laugh had been buried along with her god.
“No,” she said, pulling her scarf up to cover her face from the sun. “We most definitely are not.”
The heat haze drifted over their tracks and magnified them briefly, before the relentless wind pulled them apart and left no trace of their passage behind.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
T. Kingfisher is the vaguely absurd pen-name of Ursula Vernon, an author from North Carolina. In another life, she writes children's books and weird comics. Her work has won the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, Sequoyah, Dragon, Alfie, WSFA, Mythopoeic and Coyotl awards.
This is the name she uses when writing things for grown-ups. Her work includes horror, fantasy romance, fairy-tale retellings and odd little stories about elves and goblins.
When she is not writing, she is probably out in the garden, trying to make eye contact with butterflies.