He threw the blade in after it and watched it sink below the light. Then he closed his eyes and leapt, casting his name into creation.

            Sanura gasped and jerked her hand away from the Nameless Sword. Khenet turned to look inquiringly back at her, but the soldier recovered her equilibrium and dismissed the old woman’s concern with a casual wave of her hand. Behind that facade, Sanura’s mind reeled with the implications of what she had seen.

            She had long since decided that the visions belonged to the Destroyer of the first universe, although this was the first to actually confirm that. It was the final moments of the vision that shook her. There was no doubt in her mind about what it meant: she was the reincarnation of the Destroyer of the Universe.

            The sword and the second-sight responded the same for her as it had for him. Her gift had not be a shard, but merely a resumption of the abilities of her first life, the one she had always felt she had, even if she had not known the details. She tried to reconstruct how she had gone from David’s addled worldview to the Destroyer’s skill, but the visions had yet to reveal that to her.

            The travelers had followed the Prince’s company all the way along the rift. The relatively peaceful nature of the ecology along its floor allowed Arva to judiciously use proxies to speed the travelers along. By the time they emerged from the rift, they were only a few days behind Celeres and the gold masks.

            That brought them within range of Katchen’s detection proxies. It was an hour after Sanura’s realization of her true nature that they ran afoul of the magic. It started with a steady buzz from the horizon. Sanura recognized it from her trek through Yudoko territory. She opened her mouth to warn the others, but Tyla beat her to it.

            “Verhaler seed!” the Ai announced, halting the group.

            “Trouble?” Arva asked.

            “They do not come to Tiran naturally. When their parents spawn among the stars, the seeds drop into the ether ocean, where they float until they are ready to sprout. I’ve heard rumors that some of the Firstborn use them as scouts here on Tiran, but this is the first I’ve run into here.”

            “Not some Firstborn. There’s only one: Thacker,” Khenet said authoritatively. “He discovered a way to sprout them more quickly than the ocean. Some accept a brief period of servitude with him to return to the skies more quickly.

            “And Thacker works for Zonneshin,” the old woman said grimly.

            “So, these might be working with the Prince?” Sanura asked.

            “Probably.”

            “Then we have to make sure it can’t tell our prey about us,” Tyla reasoned.

            “Can we hide from it?” Arva asked.

            The old woman cackled. “It emits a roar that bounces off everything and returns to tell it of the things around it. It’ll tear through any cover we find or any proxy you throw up.”

            “What if we dig into the ground?” Tyla asked.

            Sanura shivered.

            “Its technique lets it see a few miles into Tiran. Do you think you could get us to the under side of the world in the next few minutes?” Khenet growled.

            Tyla shrugged. “Then I guess we have to kill it.”

            “That’ll warn Thacker or whoever that there’s something around here that can kill the seeds,” Arva objected.

            “Better that than handing him the exact details of our group and our location,” Tyla countered.

            “How do we kill it?” Sanura asked, drawing the Nameless Sword.

            “With that,” Tyla said, pointing at the blade. “I’ve fought one before. They’re fast and strong, and it took me several days to finally break its shell. That weapon will crack it easily if we can bring it in range.

            “We’ll wait until its almost on top of us to strike. Arva, it attacks with sound. You’ll have to use your proxies to blunt its power. I’ll drag it from the sky with my ring, and Sanura can cut it down. Khenet, try to keep the antelopes under control.”

            The travelers agreed to the plan and prepared for the fight. Khenet drew the antelopes into a circle and entranced them with a proxy. Off to the side, the others arrayed themselves in a triangle. Sanura took the point facing the approaching Verhaler seed and watched the sky. The others flanked her and prepared for the attack.

            The seed flew nearer, and the buzz grew into a scream and then a roar that shook the air around them. Feeling detached from the incoming danger, Sanura found herself missing Celeres right then.

            Arva waited for the noise to become unbearable and struck. A resonant dirge dripped from his lips and smothered the sound, cutting its strength. A fishline of light zipped out from Tyla’s ring and flew into the sky. The seed redirected its efforts and tried to blow away the string, creating a fan of light that shimmered in the sky. The Cheldean changed the shape his song, allowing the light to collapse back into a string and wrap itself around the seed. The unborn verhaler fought the light, but Tyla was relentless, reeling it down to the ground where Sanura could reach it.

            With her second-sight, Sanura could only admire the complexity of the seed. Its true names reflected the names she had seen spread over the very heights of the sky in the black regions between the stars. Where its parent’s songs had overlapped, their essences had merged into a seed that had fallen from the sky and eventually found its way here. Tracing its names, Sanura thought she could sense its terror and its longing to return to the sky and sing.

            Desperate, the seed overcame Arva’s proxies and shot a bone shattering wave of sound at Sanura. The soldier brushed it aside with the Nameless Sword and stepped up before the seed. She thrust the sword at it, carefully flicking the wicked edge across its hull.

            She was rewarded by an overwhelming aural experience. Pure pleasure danced through her in response to the music around her. It lasted only a few moments before receding rapidly into the sky but left her feeling warm and comforted for many minutes.

            “Break me,” Arva whispered reverentially, “What was that?”

            “I sent it home. It wanted it so badly, so I showed it how to bloom instead of killing it,” Sanura said.

            “You’re full of surprises, young one,” Khenet said, shaking her head in disbelief. Behind her, the antelope shook themselves free of the old woman’s proxy and the verhaler’s song.

            “If that’s what the stars experience all the time, then maybe Brendis them a favor way back then. In the meantime, Celeres isn’t getting any closer,” Tyla said.

            Sanura nodded and strode briskly over to Longstride. The euphoria faded as they rode, returning the soldier to her previous worries. In her last life, why had she ever agreed to destroy the universe? She checked to make sure the others were not paying attention, circumspectly exposed an inch of her sword from its sheath, and ran a fingertip along its edge, drawing blood.

            He shuffled through the jammed sliding doors and into the lobby of the building he called home. Tally sat with his drug-stink on the ripped couched against the wall. Tally waved, but the man ignored him. Tally had long since lost the fight with the shadows.

            The man’s home was on the second floor in what had once been an ultra-efficiency hotel, before the new domes had been built and city space had still been at a premium. Units barely bigger than coffins were stacked two high and lined the wall of the corridors, like bunks on a old train’s sleeping car. The floor was grungy, and the units bore scars from decades of use. There had been talk for years of reclaiming this part of town, including this building, but in the meantime, the old hotel had been allowed to deteriorate until only the meanest of people would live there.

            The man stepped over his neighbor, who had collapsed in a pool of his own vomit and was snoring loudly. Perching precariously to keep his shoes dry, the man unlocked the top unit. Firudo sniffed at the neighbor and started growling. Ignoring the dog’s commentary on the local living conditions, the man scooped the animal up, placed him inside the top unit, and crawled in after him.

            As the man entered, a small figure animated in the far corner of the unit and spoke. “Good morn-SNICK-night, David,” said the purple furred robot.

            “Hi, Gomi.”

            “How was your day?” the robot asked, ignoring Firudo’s inquiring snuffle.

            “Decent,” the man said while peeling off his shoes and tossing them across the room. A feeling of warmth crept through his being. He loved his little room. No shadows could sneak up on him here.

            Gomi limped over to the footwear and tucked them neatly in the corner. A worn-out servo in its left leg caused its odd gait. The dog’s ears perked up at the electric whine of the damaged equipment, but the man was oblivious to the interaction.

            “Aete brought some milkbones for Firudo, today,” he said.

            “Amy’s a good person,” Gomi noted.

            “Yeah. Her granddaughter just got her doctorate in chemistry.”

            “A mighty achievement.”

            “I wonder if that let’s her see the shadows,” mused the man.

            The robot had nothing to say to that and nothing left to tidy, so it settled back into its corner. Firudo put his head in its lap and gazed up at it imploringly.

            “I talked to the librarian again, today,” the man said.

            “Really?” Gomi asked, perking up.

            “Yeah. I don’t know if I want to do what he wants.”

            “What did he ask from you?”

            “He said he needed to change me so I could see the shadows more clearly. That way I could do something about them. Cut them out, kind of.”

            “I think you should do it,” the robot said earnestly.

            The man looked at him sharply, but Gomi looked the same as he always did. There were no new shadows in its fur or under its skin. The robot’s intensity puzzled the man, but he knew all those housekeeping patches to the toy’s software made Gomi erratic sometimes.

            “If the shadows are dangerous, then any upgrade that makes us better at canceling them is worth installing,” the robot continued, oblivious to the man’s scrutiny.

            “Yeah,” the man said distantly.

            Gomi waited for him to say something. When nothing further came, the robot resumed his disinterested slouch in the corner.

            The man sat silently for a few minutes, flipped on the passive information feed, watched the glowing lights that washed across the screen, and laughed with the accompanying soundtrack.

            A memory surfaced, interrupting his entertainment. If he was going to cut anything, he was going to need a knife. The librarian had said that much. He gaze settle on the heirloom sword among the clutter of knick-knacks along one wall and smiled. Yes, that would work.

            Sanura withdrew her hand and sighed. She had been misled back then, she knew, but surely this business about the shadows had not been the entire reason for agreeing to the destruction. There had been more, she remembered, something about restoring the universe as it had been before things went awry.

            Movement in the tree line caught the soldier’s attention, and she looked up to see Chadder drifting back to the group. On nice days, the bug spent much of the time flitting across the landscape, keeping an eye out for threats to the party. A fight with an overaggressive eagle had kept him from rushing back during the approach of the verhaler seed. He wandered back only now, figuring the humans had handled it or had not and all died. In either case, he probably could not do much about it.

            He was pleased to find his humans alive and buzzed around each of the group before settling in front of Sanura’s saddle. “Loud noise?” he asked.

            “Tyla said it was a verhaler seed. We took care of it,” Sanura said, pinching closed the cut on her fingertip with her other hand.

            “Good. Wounded?” the bug said, peering at her hand.

            “Just a small cut. I’ll be fine.”

            “Arva could wrap for you.”

            “No, I’ll take care of it myself,” Sanura assured him and scratched the top of his head.

            Chadder buzzed contentedly.

            “Can I ask you a question?” the soldier asked.

            “Sure,” the bug chirped back.

            “What if you aren’t what you thought you were?”

            Chadder thought about that for a while. “Something more or something less?” he finally asked.

            “More, I guess.”

            “Good more or bad more?”

            “Bad.”

            The bug hesitated then laboriously answered, “One is always something more from one moment to the next. Good additions are treasure. Bad ones must be survived.”

            Sanura contemplated that silently.

            “Help any?” Chadder asked, cocking his head.

            “I don’t know,” she sighed.

            The bug buzzed sympathetically and bumped her hand for more scratching.

            Sanura ignored the Nameless Sword for the rest of the day and wondered just how she could survive being the Destroyer of the Universe. It was still on her mind the next day when the second verhaler seed sought them out.

            “Break me,” Arva cursed upon hearing the now familiar whine in the distance. “Again?”

            “Probably sent to find out what happened to the first,” Tyla said reasonably.

            “If the seeds keep disappearing back here, it’s only a matter of time until they send something more dangerous to investigate it,” the Cheldean said sourly.

            “Really?” she asked, a slow smile spreading across her face.

            “Stop that!” Arva ordered irritably.

            Tyla shrugged, the smile still kissing her lips. “Same strategy as yesterday?”

            The Cheldean grunted and dismounted. The others followed suit and arranged themselves in the same formation as the day before. Chadder settled down on one of the antelopes that Khenet soothed with her proxy.

            Using her second-sight, Sanura watched the seed approach. Its shell was the same, but the true names inside were packed together differently. The soldier traced its twists and color cascades as she waited for Arva’s attack.

            When the seed’s scream had become almost unbearable, the Cheldean threw up his proxy, stifling the scout’s sound. Tyla cast out her string of light and pulled the seed down.

            This seed struggled for a few moments as yesterday’s had before changing tactics. Instead of fight Tyla’s pull, it swept forward with it. The Ai took up the slack on the light but was not fast enough to deny the seed its objective. It slammed into Arva’s chest, driving the air from the Cheldean’s lungs and disrupting his proxy. It dodged Sanura’s counterstrike and reversed itself again, using Tyla’s now rigid string of light to pick the Ai off the ground and spun her through the air. Tyla released the light, but her momentum crashed her straight into a tree.

            Sanura struck again, but the seed leapt up out of reach. It blitzed the attackers with a teeth-rattling burst of thunder followed by a piercing shriek. That unsettled the antelopes despite Khenet’s proxy, forcing the old woman to redouble her efforts.

            The seed pressed its advantage, sweeping the battlefield with pulses of compressed air. Sanura batted away those thrown at her with her sword, but Arva and Tyla were not so lucky. The Cheldean was pummeled into unconsciousness, while the blast aimed at Tyla cut through the tree looming over her, causing it to collapse. It caught the Ai as she stood, plowing into her back and driving her down to the ground.

            “Khenet!” Sanura called out desperately.

            The old woman looked back to survey the battlefield. Diverting her attention weakened her proxy, and several of the antelope bucked nervously.

            Unsure of what exactly he intended, Chadder threw himself into the air to confront the seed. A wall of sound slammed into him and washed back across the antelopes. That was more than the mounts could take even with Khenet’s magic. Bleating in terror, they fled into the forest. Behind them, Chadder flopped to the ground, stunned.

            Khenet stood resolutely before the seed, taking her opponent’s measure. The creature peppered her with knots of air, trying to drive her away, but she ignored them. A cone of dissonance followed, tugging at her robe but unable to move her.

            From across the clearing, a burst of light shot forth. From beneath the tree, Tyla had retaliated. With her neck twisted at an impossible angle and one rubbery arm held up, she threw a hammer of light at the verhaler seed, knocking it down to the ground.

            Sanura and the old woman rushed forward, but the seed kept calm and channeled its energies into the ground, shaking the earth under their feet. The soldier tripped and fell, but Khenet kept advancing.

            The seed rechanneled its energy and threw off Tyla’s light. It jumped up but could not avoid Khenet’s leaping attack. The old woman crashed into it, claws sprouted from her fingers and harsh guttural cries pouring from her canine muzzle.

            With her second-sight, Sanura watched stunned as the seed’s shell unraveled and a cloudy shape of true names popped out of it. The shape struggled with Khenet, exchanging short, brutal blows. Tyla’s light reach back in and entangled the former seed, allowing Khenet to slash repeatedly into its body.

            Their opponent detonated, blowing away its outer layer and devastating everything around it. Khenet flew through the air, joining the trees around the battlefield that were uprooted by the spreading wave of force. Sanura raised the Nameless Sword to meet the concussion, carving herself an area of calm.

            That is how she saw the seed escape. At the center of the explosion, the true names had resolved themselves into a vaguely humanoid shape. It leapt high into the sky, zooming past the wave of destruction and hurrying to the north-east.

            Sanura watched it disappear from sight, then stood to survey the damage. Tyla had extracted herself from her entrapment and was walking toward the center of the clearing, apparently untouched by the ordeal. Khenet was back among the damaged forest, brushing dust off her robe, looking disheveled but fully human again. Prone on the ground, Arva and Chadder had avoided the worst of the concussion, but their wounds kept them from moving.

            Leaving the bug to Tyla, Sanura rushed over to the Cheldean. No blood leaked from his body, but several dark bruises were starting to spread over his face and head. She could only guess what kind of damage his robe hid. “Khenet!” she called.

            The old woman looked up from where she was kneeling with Tyla over the bug. She nodded in acknowledgement and resumed her conversation with the Ai. After a few moments, she stood and came over to Arva.

            “He’s in trouble,” Sanura said.

            Khenet studied his form and said, “Yes, but we can patch him up.”

            The soldier nodded in relief and asked, “Chadder.”

            “He’s in better shape. He really only got hit once. A bit of rest, and he’ll be flitting around in a few days. Arva here is going to need some proxy work to survive, much less ride in a few days.”

            “The seed survived. It flew off to the north-east,” Sanura said hurriedly, needed to warn her before the old woman started working her magic.

            “I know. When I realized you three couldn’t kill it, driving it away became a higher priority.”

            “I couldn’t get close to it with my sword.”

            Khenet smiled tightly. “Even if you had, I think you would have found this one harder to grant its freedom. I doubt it will be back today, and I don’t want to move the Cheldean today. Why don’t you and Tyla round up the antelopes and come back and set up camp? I need to work on Arva to get him through this.”

            “Right,” Sanura said and stood briskly.

            Trusting the others to follow her suggestions, Khenet began to chant and wave her arms sinuously over Arva’s body. She wondered if she should have told the soldier of the true nature of the second seed. The doubt fell away quickly. The game was to let the girl find the true nature of things on her own, and that was the way the old woman was going to let it play out.