The Fallen Moon

by Ian Watson

Genres: Science Fiction; Alien Contact; Dystopian; Genetic Engineering

Synopsis

The second and concluding volume of Ian Watson's extraordinary epic, The Book of Mana. Kaleva is Earth's first and only interstellar colony, discovered by Lucky Sariola who was transported there by an Ukko, a mysterious asteriod-like entity that responds to stories told to it - in Lucky's case, those of her Finnish grandmother. Now Queen Lucky, half-mad and newly widowed, is obsessed by relocating that Ukko - but this is potentially disastrous, as the snakelike alien Isi are also on its trail as part of their design to enslave humans. Understanding this, one of Lucky's daughters (with obsessions of her own) crowns herself rival queen. A summer turns into unseasonable winter and elysian peace turns to bitter civil war and Ukko, once more, has a role to play in the history of Kaleva.

Release date: September 29, 2011

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 538

Sample

to most Persons in the two books of MANA

(omitting several lumberjacks, hairdressers, sauna patrons and such, as well as all nakki personages engendered by the Ukko-child; and according to the most regular usage of a person’s first or second name)

ALEKSONIS, VIKTOR: Lucky’s General

ALVAR VAN MAANEN: chronicler, father of Osmo

AMBERMAN: Goldi’s lover at Kip’an’keep

AMELIE: cockeyed maid at Maananfors keep

ANDERSEN: bailiff of the aitch-house

ANNA: echo of Gunther Beck’s dead wife

ANNETTA: informant of Johanna van Maanen who becomes

under-housekeeper at Maananfors keep

ANNI: sex-slave of the Brazen Isi, nurse to Jack, lover of Jatta

ARNI: mutant at Outo who only hears voices

ARTO NURMI: glovemaker, tango conductor, father of Juke

ARVID BLOMBERG: apprentice to shaman Sven Hartzell

BECK, GUNTHER: longlife dream lord of Castlebeck

BEKKER: Captain of Lucky’s wooden soldiers

BEN PRUT: aide to General Aleksonis

BEN: diabetic guard in Lucky’s service

BERGMAN: baker of the aitch-house

BERTEL OKKONEN: Lucky’s longlife consort

BERTHA: Gunther’s cook at Castlebeck

BOSCO: Pootaran consul at Landfall

BRILLE-ESTIVAN: Brazen Isi mage responsible for Jack’s nurture

BURGDORF, MAXI: Lord of Yulistalax, patron of Gala

BURGDORF, MlTZl: Maxi’s wife

CAMMON, TYCHO: former tyrant whom Osmo turned to stone CARTER: Earth’s cartographic satellite

CONWAY, PENELOPE: Earth’s Resident at Landfall CULLY: Gunther’s ‘nephew’, son of Cal and Marietta

EDITH KlPPAN: wife of Tapper the forest lord of Kip’an’keep

ELLAS: a guard of Lucky’s

ELMER LOXMITH: instinctive engineer of the aitch-house who weds Eva

ESTER NURMI: mother of Eyeno and Juke

ESTER SARIOLA: pestery junior daughter of Lucky’s

EVA SARIOLA: Jatta’s sumptuous, bumptious younger sister who weds Elmer

EYENO NURMI: one-eyed mutant poetess from Outo

GERDA: an echo lass

GOLDI: Juttahat Girlem seductress bred by the Brazen Isi

GRANNY: concierge of Lucky’s portrait gallery

GRETEL: an echo lass

GRÜNWALD, MA: wisewoman at the aitch-house

Gunther Beck: the dream lord

GURRUKAL, MATHAVAN: pilot and medic on tour of duty from Earth

HAAVIO, JUUSI: mana-priest of Forssa, obsessed with cuckoos

HAAVIO, LEENA: Juusi’s wife, obsessive cook

HAKULINEN, SEPPO: the van Maanens’ inept mana-priest

HANNES: groom at Maananfors keep

HARTZELL, SVEN: shaman of Niemi

Haxell, ROLF: Captain of Defence Volunteers of the aitch-house

HAXTHAUSEN, JULIUS: Lucky’s palace tailor

HEAD (and SHOULDERS): mutants at Outo

HELENIUS, JOHANN: Lord of Saari, Master of Mint, Kyli’s father

HENZEL LOXMITH: Elmer’s paralysed father

HERMI: shaman, intermediary with the Velvet Isi

HILDA, GOODY: bent mutant wisewoman from Halvek

HOLMBERG, MRS: housekeeper of Maananfors keep

HUBERTUS JAEGER: longlife Lord of Luolalla, Kay Sariola’s husband, son of Bella

HUKKINEN: mana-priest of Niemi

INGA: echo lass attracted to Eyeno INGA KENNAN: Dame of Niemi, Minkie’s mother

IMBRICATE: Brazen Isi mage imprisoned in Pohjola Palace then in Velvet Isi nest, somaseer and body-adept, responsible for the Jarl project

JACK PAKKEN: son of Jatta and, conceptually, of Jarl; the demon fastboy, the mana-kid

JARL PAKKEN: Jatta’s Juttahat seducer, bred by the Brazen Isi

JATTA SARIOLA: defiant princess seduced by Jarl, mother of Jack JOHANN: brother of jump-biker Jurgen

JOHANNA VAN MAANEN: mother of Osmo

JOHANNES KENNAN: a baby, also known as Piglet

JUKE NURMI: mutant proclaimer from Outo, Eyeno’s brother

JUMALA: mana-bishop in Tumio

JUNE: pathogenic mutant lass who weds Jack, mother of Maids of Horror

JURGEN: jump-biker, Captain of Osmo’s garrison of the aitch-house JUTTAHATS: servants of the Isi, including Tulkis who can interpret, and

Pelkis who assist at games; Jarl and Goldi being the only two Tree’

Juttahats without a voice in their heads

KARL KENNAN: younger brother of Minkie

KARLO: Juke’s jump-bike companion

KAY SARIOLA: wife of Hubertus Jaeger

KIPPAN, TAPPER: longlife forest lord of Kip’an’keep, husband of Edith Sariola, father of Tilly

KOSTI: younger brother of Minkie

KNOTTY: mutant from Outo, plays the fiddle

KURO: mutant at Outo who is deaf to voices

KYLI KENNAN: née Helenius, wife of Minkie

LAMMAS: werewool mutant and tango singer

LlNQVIST: Lucky’s chamberlain

LOKKA LOXMITH: Elmer’s mother

LUCKY: Queen of Kaleva. Those of her daughters who are featured (in descending age, but excluding echoes) are: Edith, Helena, Kay, Jatta, Eva, Minnow, Ester, Sal, Kaisa, Martha, Mary, and Hanna the lastborn

LUTAINEN: Maxi Burgdorf’s laureate

LUNDAHL, MRS: a Christian at Maananfors

LYLE MELATOR: Elmer’s assistant

MAGNUS: clerk at the aitch-house

MAIDS OF HORROR: the daughters of June and Juke, being Minx, Minxie, Jinx, and Jinxie

MARIA: an echo lass

MARIETTA: mother of Cully, sometime bedmate of Gunther MARKOM: Osmo’s watchman MARTI: a guard to Jatta

MARTIN (AND YOUNG MARTIN): retainers of Gunther

MELATOR, LYLE: Elmer’s assistant

MAX: elderly guard of Minnow

MlKAL: Lucky’s court painter

MINKIE KENNAN: rapscallion and seducer, son of Ragnar and Inga

MINNOW SARIOLA: pert princess whom Osmo weds MIRIAM: manageress of the Pootaran emporium in Landfall

MOLLER: mana-priest of the aitch-house

MUSKULAR: Velvet Isi mage

NlKKI LOXMITH: Elmer’s sister

NILS CARLSON: Lucky’s young proclaimer

OLGA: peasant girl, namesake of Cully’s sister OLLI: a guard to Jatta

OSMO VAN MAANEN: prime proclaimer, Lord of Maananfors OTTO: a guard of Lucky’s

OUT: a talking dog

PAAVO SERLACHIUS: Lucky’s mana-priest

PASQUIL: retainer to Gunther

PAULA: Lucky’s doppelganger

PEKULAR: Velvet Isi strategist

PELLER, SAM: Osmo’s paranoid, prematurely aged security chief, son of

Felix

PENELOPE (PEN) CONWAY: Earth’s Resident at Landfall

PIEMAN: whistling mutant of Outo

PIERRE, MISSIEUR: jeweller of Threelakes

PRUT, BEN: aide to General Aleksonis

RlNTALA, VICTOR: father of Vivi, Osmo’s former mistress

ROGER ‘ WETHEAD’ WEX: Earth’s special agent with wetwear in his skull

RUOKOKOSKI: glassmaker at Niemi, his daughter being Ellen

SAL: farmer’s daughter seduced by Minkie

SAM PELLER: Osmo’s security chief, son of Felix

SEPTIMUS: Osmo’s bailiff

SERLACHIUS, PAAVO: Lucky’s mana-priest

SlMBURG, MRS: governess in Lucky’s palace

SNOWY: Minkie’s crony

STUMPY THE ECSTATIC: charismatic village boss of Kaukainkyla

TAIKU SETALA: deceased shaman acquainted with Gunther

TAPPER KIPPAN: forest lord of Kip’an’keep

TILLY KIPPAN: Tapper’s daughter

TOMI: a gay lumberjack

TOMMI: Nikki Loxmith’s talking cat

TYCHO CAMMON: ex-tyrant, turned to stone

VAARA, PETER: dramatist and actor manager, whose troupe consists of

Natalya, Sophie, Stanislav, and Tancred

VANNI, NANNY: nanny in Pohjola Palace

VENNI: odorous cook in Maananfors keep

VlLLANEN, PER: Victor Rintala’s son-in-law

VIPER: monstrous mutant Brindled mage

VlVI RlNTALA: Osmo’s erstwhile mistress

WERNER, HANS: fisherman of Maananfors whose hand Osmo petrifies WETWEAR: protoplasmic computer sharing Roger Wex’s skull

WEX, ROGER: alias Wethead, Earth’s special agent

YÜ: aide to Penelope Conway

This is a cuckoo’s summary, recited by one of our gossipy Kalevan birds eager for a dollop of lamb offal …

During the celebration for the 402nd anniversary of Lucky Paula Sariola entering the Ukko entity adrift in Earths asteroid belt, Lucky s daughter Jatta came to Osmo van Maanen’s keep at Maananfors as a vagabond along with her demon child Jack, the fastboy.

In actuality Jatta had been seduced by an alien Juttahat cunningly bred in the guise of a human being – who assumed the name of jarl Pakken. This servant of the Isi serpents perhaps hoped to steal the secret of longlife with which all Sariola princesses could endow the man who first bedded them. Lucky s daughters themselves all lived a normal lifespan unlike their ever-youthful mother, the Queen in the North, whom the Ukko had altered before it began transporting human immigrants to this new world of Kaleva.

Lord Osmo (my son, incidentally – no not the cuckoos son but mine, Alvar’s) presumed that Jatta had slept with one of the mutant mocky-men whom he abhorred. Using his power as a proclaimer, he who had changed the tyrant Tycho Cammon into stone bespoke Jatta to seek refuge in some mutant hovel far away in Saari (much to my chagrin, since Td hoped to question Jatta!).

Juke Nurmi, son of mutants – but not himself visibly marked – had nursed a mania to trounce Lord Osmo. Following that Lucky’s Day feast Juke freed Cammon from his stone stasis so that the ex-tyrant might take revenge. Cammon murdered Osmo’s sometime bed-partner Vivi before being destroyed (and his bones burned to ash).

Decamping, the mutie proclaimer imposed himself upon Jatta and Jack as their escort – as far as Speakers’ Valley above Yulistalax. There, amidst a mana-bliard and a stampede of sheep set on fire by young Demon Jack, a sky-boatful of armed Juttahats brawled with a boatful of the Queens guards. The Jutties kidnapped Jack (but jarl Pakken proved to have become a ombie). Abandoning the little boy to his fate, Lucky snatched the Brazen Isi mage, Imbricate, and retrieved Jatta (who was desolate) along with her escort.

In that same valley two months later, at the autumn gala, Lucky’s consort

Prince Bertel introduced their marriageable daughter Eva to our champion pro-claimer Osmo – and to Osmo s friend from over the turquoise lake, Elmer Loxmith the instinctive engineer. Bertel had fathered a hundredsome daughters and was privately bone-sick of longlife and of his wife’s caprices.

Queen Lucky was sure that part of her soul and sanity had been kept by the Ukko entity and that this echo of herself might now dwell in an offspring of the original Ukko somewhere upon Kaleva itself. Lucky had stolen an everything machine (an all-purpose nanotek, no, nanotechno – Penelope Conway in the Earthkeep at Landfall must know the right name!). Well, Lucky s General Aleksonis had looted this from a crashed Isi shuttle-ship. The Queen hoped the machine would build a device with which she could locate this Ukko offspring and consequently her lost self The everything machine was kept under guard by Lucky s wooden soldiers inside the Fortress in the Fjord at Sariolinna. It remained stubbornly inactive.

Could Osmo bespeak it to work in exchange for daughter Eva s hand? Or could Elmer tinker it to work? Could Roger Wex, the Earth agent with wetwear in his head, compel the captive mage Imbricate to reveal how the everything machine functioned?

At the gala Osmo was beset with an erotic frenzy for Eyeno Nurmi, the one-eyed mutie poetess who was Jukes sister and for whom Juke guiltily nursed incestuous feelings. Eyeno wore a convincing false eye obtained from the Velvet Isi, and she resented Osmos advances. When the mutie proclaimer’s challenge against Osmo failed, to save his skin Juke bartered his sister to the victor. To Osmos horror, Eyeno plucked out her eye. Enraged, Osmo bespoke Eyeno to drown herself in a lake far away.

Hear the story, hark to the tale. Thinking to kill herself in Loom Lake, Eyeno was instead sucked in to the junior Ukko concealed beneath those waters. (Though we did not learn about this till later!) Therein, she met Paula Sariola s echo and the echoes of dead Sariola daughters whom Eyeno previously used to glimpse with her inward eye. The only other living person to have entered this inner domain, this wishworld within the junior Ukko, had been the father of a certain rapscallion, name of Minkie Kennan.

Osmo’s venom at Eyeno had arced through mana-space, killing his mother in Maananfors (my wife Johanna, who never cared a hoot about my Chronicles). Johanna’s death caused Osmo such grief that he was disinclined to proclaim for many months. Elmer Loxmith, for his part, had been commissioned to build a sleep-monitor for the longlife Gunther Beck, who planned to hibernate by drinking serpent hormone. Through deep dreams Lord Beck hoped to find the echo of his beloved wife Anna Sariola who died two centuries previously.

Hark to the story! During the winter Wethead Wexs status at the Queens court diminished, but he conceived an affection for Minnow Sariola, Jatta s elfin younger sister who chattered to herself. In the spring Demon Jack landed at the palace in a stolen sky-boat. In the space of a mere nine months in Isi hands, Jatta’s fastboy had grown speedily to adolescence, and now had escaped from the alien serpents. Once the winter ice thawed, Lucky summoned Osmo and Elmer to Pohjola Palace to compete at activating the everything machine. Elmer succeeded, winning Eva as his bride. To pique Osmo, the Queen invited mutants from Juke Nurmis village as wedding guests. (The mutie proclaimer himself had disappeared after the gala.) Enraged, Osmo departed in his sky-boat only to find that Vivi’s father – one of Osmo’s small entourage – had abducted Minnow for him as a consolation prize. En route, Juke lay in ambush with missiles given him by the Velvet Isi (who had formerly given his sister her artificial eye). Damaged, Osmo’s sky-boat strayed way off course before crashing. Only he (ah my son!) and Minnow survived.

As well as mutants, Bertel brought Minkie Kennan to the wedding at Pohjola Palace. Alas, Elmer proved unable to consummate his nuptials. Back in Loxmithlinna, Elmer began to whip his new bride nightly. Gunther Beck’s missing nephew Cully arrived at the Loxmiths’ keep in a seriously confused state of mind. This young man s plight intrigued Eva almightily.

Hark and hear: the Queen’s everything machine began to produce exotic weapons, amongst which was an armed jump-bike. Bertel goaded Minkie into a rage. Young Kennan seized this jump-bike, gunned the prince down, and escaped together with the Isi mage (of whom he quickly rid himself). Chasing after the murderer by sky-boat, fastboy Jack came across Juke instead. He brought the mutie proclaimer back to the palace where the widowed Queen raged and grieved.

Osmo (oh my son!) discovered sterling qualities in Minnow when the two castaways made their way through a deathmaze in the western forests to the den of the giant Isi mana-mage known as Viper. Minnow saved Osmo’s spirit from being raped by the mage. Now the two would wed as equals on their return to Maananfors – where Osmo’s paranoid bondsman Sam Peller was stockpiling new weapons. These were unexpectedly being supplied by Isi of the Brindled faction. News of Juke’s welcome at the royal palace inflamed Osmo. Word of the survival of Minnow’s kidnapper fevered Lucky.

Bertel’s assassin had vanished. Minkie was in seventh heaven in the Ukko under Loom Lake, seducing maidens – until Eyeno began to rouse the exotic inhabitants to war against him. (Which we only discovered subsequently!) Wex was pursuing a quest to rescue Minnow. Broken-legged, Wex stumbled upon a conclave of our enigmatic gossip-birds, where all the cackle was about looming war. By now Osmo was eyeing nearby Loxmithlinna as of strategic importance; surely Lucky would reason likewise. At Loxmithlinna itself, Eva’s probings finally maddened Cully. The Isi had filled this young man’s mind with false memories so that he would murder the dreamlord out of hatred – and Lord Beck’s nephew had been bemusedly resisting their sway. In anguish Cully put out one of Eva’s prying eyes with his dinner knife, and fled during the confusion.

‘Bloodshed and war,’ cackled a cuckoo …

On a blithe evening early in June the timbered village hall of Onnekyla was decked with freshly cut foliage. Amid the bristly verdant sprays hung many bunches of herbs, splendid for warding off gadflies and such. The scent of evergreen sap and tart midgebane mingled in a duet of odours, puckish to people but pukey to insects.

The women wore bright woollen robes of all hues of blue, banded and striped in yellow and crimson. The men: purple tunics embroidered with gilt braid. Unruly pompons spilled from the men’s caps, wild mop-heads of red wool. Maybe a sixth of the assembly were dancing to the wistful tango melody, couples slow-stepping sideways by the mellow light of oil-lamps. Double doors stood open upon a dusky tree-fringed forecourt. Occasional exuberant yoiks resounded from a cluster of drinkers at a canopied booth. The buffet table inside the hall was nearly denuded of pasties and pies. A lone dedicated glutton browsed upon some remnants. Most villagers in the hall simply harkened to the plangent tones of the singer. The bulk of Lammas’s audience lolled in all available chairs; they leaned against the plank walls; they stood swaying to his song, eyes moist with sentiment. Surely this must be the woolly mutant’s final encore of the evening. Penultimate, anyway.

‘To you I may look like a beast,

‘To your eyes I may seem nature’s jest.

‘One pitying glance from you, Rita, the least

‘Little nod, and love beats a drum in my breast.

‘You’re such a fine hen, charming chick,

‘Dainty bird – any man will avow.

‘How it wounds me to the quick

‘When a beast can’t woo a bird, thou …’

Lammas warbled so soulfully. Except upon his endearingly winsome face and upon the palms of his hands, tufty grey curls entirely covered the mutant. He only wore a token pair of brown cotton shorts (and sandals). More clothes, and he would sweat uncomfortably. His fellow mutie, Knotty, accompanied Lammas on the fiddle. Knotty wore a hessian tunic to complement his own ridgy ropy skin, which seemed woven of tangled string. The third musician, Pieman, whistled melodiously while chiming a couple of cymbals together – the soul of shining silver transformed into sound. His face and his fists (and his other tunic-clad parts) were as crusty as well-baked bread.

Arto Nurmi conducted the combo. Arto was short and bow-legged. He sported a natty (if frayed) waistcoat of gold and blue stripes over a baggy embroidered white shirt, the sleeves being rolled up to the elbows. Cross-gartered moccasins tethered the lower reaches of his roomy black breeches. On his hands: white kid gloves, of his own crafty cutting and nimble sewing. In the right glove (with six fingers – or rather, five fingers and a thumb) Arto waved an open red fan as baton while conducting, signalling that the current choice of dancing partners was at the women’s behest. In the other glove (likewise with six fingers) Arto clutched a closed blue fan. His ears, long and pointy as a goat’s, were alert to every nuance of Knotty’s fiddle and of Pieman’s fluting whistle. Also to Lammas, of course, the star of the occasion.

‘Dear duckling, you’ll forever be my only.

‘Yet ne’er I’ll tiptoe to your downy nest.

‘Forever must my aching heart be lonely,

‘Never shall my love for you be blessed …’

The Queen’s two guards were as deeply affected as the villagers of Onnekyla. Maybe more so. For the past three weeks blond Elias and sandy Otto had been guiding the mutie combo on their tango tour through the Northland, and they had heard the werewool perform every evening. In their camouflage leathers, lightpistols at their waists, that tough duo were misty-eyed.

Yet now the crook-legged conductor missed a beat. His sensitive ears twitched. He frowned.

A grumbling.

A rumbling.

A muted blare. Aaaaannnggg. As of an ill-tempered hervy blundering through woodland in rut.

The Northland wasn’t home to any of those horn-crowned beasts. No hervies dwelled north of the Great Fjord – not so far as Arto knew! Admittedly the bow-legged glovemaker had never strayed far from his hovel in southernmost Saari until quite recently when the crazy Queen required a gaggle of mocky-men to be guests at a certain wedding. Arto in particular. Him being the dad of the lad who’d helped out Queen Lucky’s unlucky daughter Jatta and her miracle boy, the lad who was Lord van Maanen’s bane.

The lad who had betrayed his own sister.

Who sold out precious Eyeno.

Arto didn’t wish to think too much about that business. Likely he’d never see Juke again, no more than he’d see the lad’s sister. Juke might be roaming incognito anywhere between Tumio and Kip’an’keep. Anyplace between Landfall and the Velvet Serpent nest beyond Saari city. Lying low, or trying to get himself killed by hobnobbing with alien snakes or bumping into tetchy hervies.

The sounds which Arto’s preternaturally keen lugs were picking up couldn’t possibly be those of a hervy …

Damn Juke for looking so normal! For being that freak among freaks, that mockery among mocky-men: a child without visible flaw or blemish or abnormality. The lad’s birth had been a curse – as Eyeno might have rhymed it.

Might have, indeed. Before she was sent to her death.

Insufferable sadness possessed the glovemaker. Loss. Grief. Poignant pangs. Soulfully he wagged the red fan. His thoughts homed upon his creaky cott in humble Outo. Each groan of its ramshackled fabric was dear to him, engraved in memory. Ester must be fretting somethink chronic about her hubby’s prolonged absence. Dear plump, hairy, goat-eyed Ester, left alone these four long weeks ever since the prince descended upon the mutants’ village in the royal sky-boat.

The murdered prince … killed, now, by that raffish fellow-me-lad Minkie Kennan. Bertel, the dad of all Lucky’s harvest of daughters, assassinated!

A cuckoo had cackled this shocking news a fortnight previously while the mutie combo were on tour. How might the murder twist the Queen’s fickle mind? Would it sour the guarantee to the mocky-men to return them safely home once their tango trip was over? Would the grief-stricken Queen honour her dead husband’s promises? Onnekyla was just thirty keys from Sariolinna and Pohjola Palace. The lap of honour around assorted towns and hamlets of the Northland was almost complete. An honour, indeed. Quite a novel experience for mocky-men! Ester would be amazed. So would Juke have been, damn the boy.

Poor precious tumbledown cott in Outo, so far away! Home was as distant as any lovesick lad from his forbidden sweetheart in one of Lammas’s heart-wrenching songs. Poor cherished comfy missus, waiting and wondering all this while. Small comfort their two fine children had proved to be.

On the journey by air from Niemi to Sariolinna that rascal Kennan had acted standoffish enough towards muties. Snooty was the word. Even so, once or twice Kennan had been on the verge of glad-eyeing young June. Just as well for the scoundrel that he didn’t! That particular dish of peaches and cream could give a fellow a disease if old Goody Hilda, the shrivelled chaperon, were to look the other way. Actually the wisewoman almost always did look the other way, her being so stooped over that she could only squint sidelong at you. Goody Hilda kept the lass under control; that was the point. June was the mocky-men’s security, so to speak, their safe conduct.

Not on this present tour of the hinterland, mind you. The Queen had interested herself in June: buxom young June of the double bosoms – four bubs plumping forth beneath the mocky-girl’s roomy blouse, twin titties above twin titties. Lucky had kept June and Hilda behind at the palace.

Unlucky Queen. Her consort of the last four centuries had been snuffed by that rapscallion. How crazy would Lucky be by the time the combo returned to Pohjola Palace?

Aaaaannnggg …

A shrill threadlike scream came from the far end of the hamlet. A blade sliced through softness which was suddenly brittle …

An abrupt whump. Treetops lit up ruddily. ‘How far from here to happiness …?’– the werewool faltered in his song. ‘Fire!’ bellowed a boozer out in the forecourt.

Bones of a house were ablaze. Disjointed timbers flared in silhouette against an ashen skyline: a furnace cage. A constellation of wild sparks flew upward. Another home erupted with a clap of thunder, spouting an inferno. Somewhere children were screaming.

Hubbub, as the crowd poured along the dark pebbled street in their finery. Propelled like flotsam in a flood, Arto gimped valiantly to avoid being overwhelmed.

‘Bucket brigade—!’

‘The well, the pond—!’

‘The kids, our babes—!’

Brilliant saucer eyes glared. Bright rays lanced from a black shape with broad high wheels, the bulk of a laden wagon. The unknown vehicle trundled forward. Those eyebeams raked aside to spotlight a dwelling. Fat phosphorbugs streaked from the wagon as swiftly as firebullets from a crossbow, etching afterimages, bursting against the vertical boards of the house, against the gutter eaves above, swarming through shattering windows, kindling curtains, illuminating rooms from within, clinging, igniting a radiant bonfire. With a vast exhalation of hot breath the wooden building became another furnace cage, enclosing little shrieks of terror and agony which soon were smothered.

‘Devil cart—!’

‘All the fire-nakkis together in a coach—!’

‘Of black metal, look …’

‘Serpent war-wagon—’

‘Nor!’

‘Yes!’

‘Burning our homes—’

‘Slaughtering our bairns in bed. The bairns—’

The crowd bunched tight as their onward rush halted. Bellies and bums crushed Arto, expelling his breath. His ribs were in danger of cracking. Someone’s pompon cap fell across Arto’s face in a floppy woollen cuddle; he shook his head from side to side. Cries, pandemonium.

‘Scatter, scatter—!’

‘Stop the devil wagon—!’

A lurch, and Arto’s arms were free. He gasped. His fingers clawed upward. Bodies collided again. Corklike, Arto rose. A couple of buttons popped from his stressed waistcoat. The black vehicle blared again: Aaaaannnggg. Its eyes glared. Those great hard rubber wheels crunched pebbles. Foul smoke gouted from its rump. Two slanted windows wrapping around the front of the machine were black and glossy as obsidian in the furnace light. No one, nothing, was evident behind those windows. The metal beast was raging of its own volition.

‘Mr Nurmi!’ Elias was taking his escort duty seriously. Trying to shoulder through the throng, the blond guard waved his lightpistol – and the crowd parted, opening a channel to the front for him, and then for Otto too.

Voices appealed: ‘Shoot its eyes! Blind it!’

Almost all knives had been left at home on account of, and out of respect for, the tango concert. Only a couple of villagers were brandishing blades. What use would even the sharpest knives be against the juggernaut? Lightpistols, ah! Maybe. Possibly. Hopefully.

‘Blind its eyes, Queen’s-men!’

‘Come on, Lucky’s leatherboys!’

‘What is it?’ Cuckoo cackle hadn’t forewarned the villagers of this menace.

‘Before it torches another house!’

‘Get out of my way, you fool. Run for it.’

‘Babes in their beds—’

‘Leatherboys, leatherboys!’

Illuminated by the blazing house, the destroyer had paused less than two hundred metres from the front of the crowd. Willy-nilly the glovemaker felt himself being levered to the fore.

‘Let the conductor through! That thing needs charming.’

Maybe that many-bodied beast, the crowd, judged with insensate instinct that in the present extremity a mutie might serve as a suitable scapegoat to appease the metal beast. Notwithstanding their sentimental tears shed so recently. All because Arto came from a goaty region, and sported goaty ears. His baggy sleeve snagged on a belt buckle and promptly tore loose. Nothing would halt his forward progress.

Just as Otto and Elias were levelling their pistols with wary determination, the mob squeezed Arto out like pus from a boil behind the duo. The glovemaker collapsed. He struggled to his feet. Here he was, out in front of the cordon, breathless and bandy-legged.

The great black vehicle basked in the heat and glare. Aaaaannnggg, it brayed.

A drumming …

… of hooves.

‘In the Queen’s name let us through!’

At this cry Lucky’s guards delayed firing their guns. A pair of ponies, stocky and shaggy, came forging through the crowd. One mount bore the fastboy from the Queen’s court: Jatta Sariola’s miracle lad who had escaped from the Isi after growing up as fast as a mushroom. His skin was the cinnamon hue of a penny-bun fungus, too. A wiry lad, with cropped jet hair just like his mum’s. As usual he was wearing that coppery Juttahat livery – which the light from the blazing house bronzed and burnished. A black wriggle-glyph decorated Demon Jack’s right shoulder. An inky vesperbird seemed to cling claw-hooked, as if flattened against a branch.

Not for a moment did Arto mistake the fastboy for an actual servant of the serpent. Some villagers did, though. Some did.

‘It’s a Juttie—!’

‘A Juttie from the south—!’

‘Told you yon war-wagon was Isi, didn’t I—?’

‘Wagon’ll know its proper master—’

Jack reined in and leapt from the saddle. He was unarmed. As was his riding companion, apart from a sheathed knife at the belt.

That companion dismounted swiftly, abandoning his drooling pony to its own devices. Fawn hair swept back from his brow. Icy blue eyes were intent on their target: the berserk war-wagon, the mad hervy-machine. That muscle-corded neck, that vigorous build – so unlike Arto’s own physiology. Smart new grey travelling cloak …

He was Juke. He was none other than the glovemaker’s own flesh and blood. Arto reeled in astonishment.

Neither Arto’s son nor the fastboy paid any heed to the old man. Not right now. Oh no.

‘Don’t you fire those guns,’ Demon