Page 72 of The Thrice-Bound Fool

I rode the rest of the way in silence, watching.

Toward the end of the journey, as the western sun lowered bright orange and we kept on south, I saw the shadows of the two ships against a bank of clouds, and toward the back of the second shadow, a couple of little bumps on the boat-part under the huge balloon. I knew one of those was my own head. I thought about how my ma would say, “Hush now, Kinch, you scoundrel, you saw no such thing,” were I to go back to Platha Glurris and tell her I’d seen my own shadow on a cloud.

I did see it, though.

And I did fly.

But the thing about flying is, you have to come down.

Our cloud-ship circled for some time while His Majesty and Her Grace made their way down the docking tower of the palace from the Storm’s Plaything. I had plenty of time to look at the wonder that was Erydon, the City of Giants, and the mountain that stood off to one side of it, called the Throne of Thumos. That mountain was high and black, its head stuck in a veil of clouds, as if for shame at what happens in its shadow.

23Where the Wicked Roost

A song for Erydon, civil wilderness with a heart of cool garnet,

a hell for devils sized between men and giants,

connoisseur of cages, stamper of cruel books,

A hoarder and waster of water in dry places,

and enslaver of every man-shaped thing.

Who have you not greeted with chains and a blow,

captor of flame and all its handmaidens,

with loins of brass and hair of nettles, wearing your garland of poison flowers?

Yours is a god I know to be real, and what a sorrow,

for that bastard would rather a stillbirth than a kindhearted son,

would pour fire in the eyes of a daughter who wept,