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“Oona Pargeter, I dismiss you,” he said. And shut his eyes.

She fell away behind him — tore a patch from him with her passing, hole linked to hole, momentarily open enough to let the dark on either side shine through. But he had no time to allow himself regret.

Chess came up punching, as if through a membrane, a bag, the same too-small, fetid and unspeakably hot channel which once let him loose on the world. Another audible snap, like bones baked in a fire — and then finally, finally —

— he was over that last stile, up through the world’s crust, out at last. Crouched panting under a roiling marine sky, at the base of what he vaguely knew to be one of that old squaw Grandma’s sacred places. A circle of people stood arrayed ’round him, to almost every quarter. Grandma herself in her bone-dust reliquary; that war-painted he-she Yiska, The Night Has Passed, with horse-jaw tomahawk upraised in one fist and that crimson-clad bitch-witch Songbird’s pallid hand held gentle in the other. A scattering of men as well, withdrawn to a respectful distance, their bows held ready.

Beneath his feet, as he rose, something shifted unsteadily; he glanced down, just to confirm what it was — a crevasse big enough to thrust your hand into, cracked on either side like salt-stung dead man’s lips — before cutting a hasty two-step and scrambling alongside, to much firmer ground.

“Mister Pargeter,” a familiar voice cut in, from behind him, “welcome. Been waiting on you quite some time now — mighty glad to see you could accommodate, eventually, considering how hard it was to send you down directions.”

Chess turned, braced for the sight of her already: small and slim, her dark hair braided in two long ropes ties with beaded leather, Injun-style. She wore almost the same rig he’d made for her out of her wedding-dress, save for those skin slippers she must’ve gotten raiding Yiska’s wardrobe. Looked a bit more sunburnt, a tad older . . .

but hell, that was all right.

She’s alive, that’s the important part — not drilled through the head by Mesach Love’s woman, or swung like I thought she might be. And that’s halfway more’n I can say, even now.

Speaking of whom, now: Christ, if that wasn’t not-exactly-Missus Love herself standing back yet further, on Yancey’s left hand. And holding that boy of hers in her arms as well, with hex-light spilling up from his forehead in a new-grown war bonnet, a guttering twenty-candle crown.

Biggest damn hen party he’d attended since leaving ’Frisco, one way or the other . . . and looking at Yancey Kloves, all Chess could think of to tell her was that he’d never in all his life seen anyone he was more glad to meet up with, Rook included.

But still, when he opened his mouth, the very first thing which fell out was — instead —

“. . . where’s Ed?”

BOOK THREE: THE SIXTH WORLD

November 15, 1867

Month Fourteen, Day Eight House

Festival: Still Quecholli, or Treasured Feather

Day Calli (House) is governed by Tepeyollotl, Heart of the Mountain: Jaguar of Night, lord of echoes and earthquakes, so vast that the spots on his coat are said to represent the stars in the sky. Even though Tepeyollotl is a variant of Tezcatlipoca — sometimes called He Who Rules Us All, in his most threatening aspect — Calli is nevertheless considered a good day for rest, tranquility and family life, best spent cementing relationships of trust and mutual interest.

By the Mayan Long Count calendar, however, Day Eight Calli’s primary influence is that of Mictlantecuhtli, Lord of the Dead — a terrible skeleton shown dressed in strips of bark paper, with bulging eyes and a gaping stomach through which the liver, home to the spirit, may be seen hanging. Associated with nighttime animals such as the owl, the bat and the spider, he is also the Fifth Lord of the Night, and ruler of both the tenth day (“Itzcuintli,” or Dog) and the tenth month (“Tecpatl,” or Stone Knife).

As befits the weapon used to carry out human sacrifices, Tecpatl symbolizes moments of grave ordeal, predestined trials and tribulations — good times to test one’s character, yet bad times to rest on one’s past reputation. Cutting through falsehood like its own blade, Tecpatl warns that the mind, like the spirit, must always be kept sharpened, so it can reach the very marrow of cosmic truth.

From the archives of the Western Union Company, Telegraph #67-8155, sent November 14, 1867, stamped as delivered same date:

WESTERN UNION

PDA FWDSTN NA-1 LONG PD=ALBUQ NM DEL 14 10:39PM [1867 NOV 14 11:22PM]

FITZ HUGH LUDLOW= :MR G THIEL=

URGENT EXPEDITE ARRIVAL STOP P HAS DETERMINED ON DIRECT ATTACK UPON PRISM URGED BY NEW ALLY T-CAT STOP I DEEM ALLY MOST DEEPLY UNTRUSTWORTHY STOP MR GREY YET UNABLE TO ESC

ORT GOOD DOCTOR TO NEW POSITION STOP ATTACK PLANNED FOR 15TH TOMORROW STOP PRIVATE ACCESS TO CAMP TELEGRAPH LIMITED BUT WILL DESTROY MESSAGE RECORD HERE STOP URGENT REPLY SOONEST STOP MAINTAIN PROTOCOL STOP FHL

From the Western Union archives, Telegram #67-81594, sent November 15, no delivery stamp:

WESTERN UNION

ALBUQ NM LONG PD=PDA FWDSTN NA-1 DEL 15 01:14AM

EDITOR IN CHIEF= :FITZ HUGH LUDLOW=