Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
ONE - FULGOR, 2603 AD
TWO - EARTH, 777 AD
THREE - FULGOR, 2603 AD
FOUR - EARTH, 1926 AD
FIVE - FULGOR, 2603 AD
SIX - EARTH-CLASS EXPLORATORY EM-0036, 2146 AD
SEVEN - FULGOR, 2603 AD
EIGHT - EARTH, 1926 AD
NINE - FULGOR, 2603 AD
TEN - EARTH, 777 AD
ELEVEN - FULGOR, 2603 AD
TWELVE - EARTH-CLASS EXPLORATORY EM-0036, 2146 AD
THIRTEEN - FULGOR, 2603 AD
FOURTEEN - EARTH, 1926 AD
FIFTEEN - FULGOR, 2603 AD
SIXTEEN - EARTH, 1927 AD
SEVENTEEN - LABYRINTH, 2603 AD (REALSPACE-EQUIVALENT)
EIGHTEEN - EARTH, 1927 AD
NINETEEN - LABYRINTH, 2603 AD (REALSPACE-EQUIVALENT)
TWENTY - EARTH, 777 AD
TWENTY-ONE - FULGOR, 2603 AD
TWENTY-TWO - LUNA, 502013 AD
TWENTY-THREE - FULGOR, 2603 AD
TWENTY-FOUR - EARTH, 2146 AD
TWENTY-FIVE - LABYRINTH, 2603 AD (REALSPACE-EQUIVALENT)
TWENTY-SIX - EARTH, 2146 AD
TWENTY-SEVEN - FULGOR, 2603 AD
TWENTY-EIGHT - EARTH, 777 AD
TWENTY-NINE - FULGOR, 2603 AD
THIRTY - FULGOR, 2603 AD
THIRTY-ONE - EARTH, 1927-1930 A.D.
THIRTY-TWO - LABYRINTH, 2603 AD (REALSPACE-EQUIVALENT)
THIRTY-THREE - EARTH, 1930-1939 A.D.
THIRTY-FOUR - FULGOR, 2603 AD
THIRTY-FIVE - FULGOR, 2603 AD
THIRTY-SIX - EARTH, 1939 AD
THIRTY-SEVEN - FULGOR, 2603 AD
THIRTY-EIGHT - EARTH, 1939-1940 AD
THIRTY-NINE - THE WORLD, 5563 AD
FORTY - EARTH-CLASS EXPLORATORY EM-0036, 2146 AD
FORTY-ONE - LABYRINTH, 2603 AD (REALSPACE-EQUIVALENT)
FORTY-TWO - FULGOR, 2603 AD
FORTY-THREE - FULGOR, 2603 AD
FORTY-FOUR - LABYRINTH, 2603 AD (REALSPACE-EQUIVALENT)
FORTY-FIVE - EARTH, 1940 AD
FORTY-SIX - FULGOR, 2603 AD
FORTY-SEVEN - EARTH, 1940 AD
FORTY-EIGHT - FULGOR, 2603 AD
FORTY-NINE - EARTH, 777 AD
FIFTY - FULGOR, 2603 AD
FIFTY-ONE - EARTH-CLASS EXPLORATORY EM-0036, 2147 AD
FIFTY-TWO - LABYRINTH, 2603 AD (REALSPACE-EQUIVALENT)
Also by John Meaney from Gollancz:
Bone Song
Dark Blood
Absorption
JOHN MEANEY
Orion
www.orionbooks.co.uk
A Gollancz eBook
Copyright © John Meaney 2010 All rights reserved.
The right of John Meaney to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in Great Britain in 2010 by
Gollancz
The Orion Publishing Group Ltd
Orion House
5 Upper Saint Martin’s Lane
London, WC2H 9EA
An Hachette UK Company
This eBook first published in 2010 by Gollancz.
A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library.
eISBN : 978 0 5750 8873 3
This eBook produced by Jouve, France
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
www.johnmeaney.com
www.orionbooks.co.uk
A note on Norse names:
In English, the letter combination th has two pronunciations - compare ‘this’ll’ (as in this’ll be good) with ‘thistle’.
The following names have a hard th as in ‘this’ or ‘other’: Óthinn, Heithrún.
These names have a soft th as in ‘thistle’ or ‘thing’: Thórr, Thórrvaldr.
PROLOGUE
Asleep, a man of living crystal lies on a silver bier. Can it be possible to truly sleep with eyelids so clear, so transparent? Yet he does, he and the crystalline woman nearby. Her bier is silver too, inscribed with angular scarlet runes glowing softly in vacuum.
Is that a twitch of the man’s fingertip?
Around them stands a hall of glass and sapphire hung with shields, some of battered leather while others look unused. All bear runes that glimmer red.
The man’s face wrinkles - highlights rippling through pliable crystal - and he rocks his head, rolls a little to one side, then sees the woman. Pushing himself up, he swings his legs to sit sideways on the bier.
—You’re so beautiful, and I know you.
They are words without sound, for there is no air in here. Oddly, it makes no difference to the way he feels, chest swelling as if inhaling vacuum, fluids moving inside his complex body, his mind coming alive. The woman’s name does not matter for now, and neither does his own. Soon, he will know all he needs to know.
Scarlet runes are glowing brighter now.
Down to the floor - he feels its temperature through crystalline soles, hears nothing save the internal sounds of his body - and finds it easy to stand, to walk, to look around. There is an archway, and he walks towards it, through it; and he finds a larger hall, star-shaped with nine pointed annexes. Near the ceiling, a constellation of nineteen dots of sapphire light is shining.
Each annexe leads to a hall with polished biers. The nearest, a place of silver and emerald, contains another crystalline man, while above him floats an array of twenty-three shining lights, all of them green, like burning copper.
He remembers burning, and oxygen, and being alive in normal flesh.
Then he staggers, with this memory:
Floating in space, surrounded by a billion blazing suns. Tumbling, he sees what he was meant to see: like a needle thrust by gods through the galactic core, a jet one thousand lightyears in extent, its brightness a soundless resonance in his mind, a scream of fear amid magnificence, because this should not be here.
This is the work of Darkness.
As he rotates, the abomination slides out of sight, and he can remember what he should be feeling: awe and joyous humility, for he is the tiniest fragment of awareness at the galaxy’s heart, living for an eyeblink, no more; so how important can humanity’s welfare be?
But then the galactic jet is visible once more, and this time he feels anger, because humans may be insignificant to the cosmic history but not to ourselves, and the betrayers deserve to die, while we do what we can against the Darkness.