Smiling a little, Layanna gave a gentle shrug. “There was a shift in energies, I can’t explain it, I just ... felt it.”

“I’m glad you did,” Avery said.

“Me as well,” Denaris said. Hesitantly, as if afraid of the answer, she added, “And these R’loth can’t counter what you plan to do?”

With utter confidence, Layanna said, “The psychic blast will override their defenses.”

Avery rubbed his mustache thoughtfully. “It’s strange. Layanna and I tried the substance a few days ago, but it had no effect. But then there was some ... change ... Layanna said she could feel some trigger, and the nectar became effective. When that happened, she knew she could eat it and use it.”

“That makes no godsdamned sense,” said Janx.

“No,” Avery agreed. “It does not.”

“There’s a catch, isn’t there?” Denaris said.

“Multiple,” Avery said. “One, we still need to complete the extradimensional drill that will enable us to bore a hole in the Starfish’s exoskeleton. Two, the lethal substance is the nectar of something called the ghost flower. Its uses include assorted medical applications, as well as being made into various alchemical compounds such as the one that makes certain tattoos glow at night.”

Janx slapped his arm, looking shaken. “Shit, I’ve got one right here. There’s a lovely lass whose, well, parts, you can only see after dark. Her clothes’re inked with regular ink, but her body’s done with the nectar ink. Now I’m wonderin’ if I should have that bastard removed.”

“Obtaining more of the substance is problematical,” Avery continued. “There isn’t enough in this whole continent to enable Layanna to kill a single Starfish, or so we believe.” He spread the map on Denaris’s desk. Janx and Layanna crowded around, and the Prime Minister leaned forward in her chair to get a better look when Avery tapped the unrolled paper. “The substance we need,” he said, “the nectar of the ghost flower, is collected and shipped by Coleel Industries, a company located in this city here—Ezzez.”

“In the fucking Crothegra,” Janx said.

“The Atomic Jungle,” Hildra added blackly.

Avery nodded. As all could see from the map, Ezzez, capital of the exotic country of Kusk, was indeed located directly in the middle of the vast, continent-spanning jungle known as the Crothegra. The continent in question was Gulth, a great misshapen oblong south of Consur and Urslin. As for why it was known as the Atomic Jungle, Avery understood that the local system of precipitation, combined with certain unique phenomena, had led to the corruption or infection of much of the vegetation. Ezzez was a city that had long piqued Avery’s interest—a place notorious for dark alchemy and barbaric practices.

“Apparently the countries of Gulth have been affected by the war just as we have,” Avery went on, “and Kusk has been hit pretty hard. It is, or was, a Ghenisan colony, but it was occupied by Octung during their great push south, and, with Octung’s collapse, Kusk has degenerated into a state of chaos. Apparently the region is home to numerous races, human and other, as well as various combative religions, and with the absence of a strong authority the locals have taken the opportunity to settle old scores. That’s my understanding, anyway. Car bombings, assassinations, death squads, rape squads ... At any rate, Coleel Industries’s inability to produce more of the substance is a direct result of the anarchy.”

“If this country is, or was, a Ghenisan colony,” Layanna said, “there should be people there with whom we can deal.” She said this pointedly to Denaris.

“We were actually coordinating with the people who served as military officials there before Octung’s arrival,” the Prime Minister said, “helping them orchestrate a resistance to the Octunggen occupiers. It is my understanding, Doctor, that Octung still controls large parts of the country and has a strong, if contested, presence in Ezzez itself.”

“I’m sure your intelligence is better than mine,” Avery said. “So Octung still occupies the country?”

“After the Octs’ otherworldly weapons failed, the locals rose up against them, and they withdrew to their strongholds and have lived in sort of siege-like state. Lately they’ve been faring out, though, as the people of the country have become preoccupied with their own internal problems, allowing the Octunggen to secure certain areas. The city of Ezzez is very much a debated territory—many different factions and interests, all struggling for power. Octung is just one of many. It’s a lucrative area, as I’m sure you know—all the vegetable and mineral resources of the Crothegra are especially thick in that region, as well as many exotic substances used for alchemical purposes. Octung wants to subdue it to exploit the resources there to help Octung get back on its feet.”

“I remember we made the country our colony for much the same reason all those years ago,” Avery mused.

“Our stewardship has been benign,” Denaris said. “Octung’s has not.”

Avery let that pass.

“But you have people there,” Layanna pressed, her focus on Denaris.

“We do,” Denaris said. “The Resistance they were leading is still partly underground, but a lot of the fighting is open now. I’ll contact the leader of the movement and have him make inquiries with this company, Coleel Industries. Maybe they’re still producing the substance, just not able to deliver it, or maybe they know of another company that can get it for us.”

“We need a large amount of concentrated nectar,” Avery said.

“It must be fresh,” Layanna said. “From living flowers, if possible. For best results I must go myself.”

“We need you here,” Denaris said. “Remember the other R’loth.”

“Yes. But I cannot be in two places at once. Find me the substance and I’ll go there, ingest it, and come right back.”

It wasn’t that easy, though. A few days later Denaris summoned them back to her office and laid it out for them.

“Captain Vursk, the head of the Resistance throughout Kusk, couldn’t contact the company. Power’s down in large parts of Ezzez, and so are phone lines. He sent a small team across town to talk with the company’s owner directly—it’s a dangerous thing, apparently, going across town, sometimes requiring two or three days. The team never returned.”

“Shit,” said Janx.

Denaris nodded. “Apparently the owner of the company, one Losgana, or Losg, Coleel, holds the monopoly on harvesting and distributing the ghost flower nectar. That seems to be the way it’s done in Kusk. It’s a strange region with many alchemical source elements, and businessmen and women purchase or bribe their way into controlling the monopolies on certain ones. At any rate, this Losg Coleel controls the substance, and he’s proving a difficult man to get ahold of. General Vursk refuses to send another team out to find him unless we’re willing to send our own people with them.”

Avery glanced at the others, and Janx swore. Layanna seemed disappointed, but if there were a deeper, more violent reaction under the surface Avery couldn’t tell it. As for himself, he felt physically sick. He had been standing, but now he hastily sat down. His legs had felt very weak all of a sudden. A fluttery feeling came to his stomach.

“We’re going to have to go, aren’t we?” he heard himself saying. “We’re going to have to go to Ezzez.”

“I don’t see another way,” Denaris said. “Captain Vursk refuses to send any more men, and I don’t blame him, and we don’t have time for another failed mission. Our newly acquired Octunggen submarines report that the nearest Starfish is coming our way, closer every day.”

Avery didn’t need her to tell him that. He read the papers, and every morning or two he was greeted with news of another island vanishing, its people either killed or put to flight, and every day the destroyed island was a little closer to home. There weren’t that many left between here and there.

“They’ll reach us in three weeks, maybe less.” Denaris let a moment of silence go by, then said, “I’ll send a couple of men with you, but beyond that ...”

“No,” Avery said, thinking of the business card on his pillow. “We’ll go alone. Just provide us transportation.”

“Shit,” Janx said, as if the reality of it were just sinking in. “Shit.”

“We’d better not have to go into the fucking Atomic Jungle,” Hildra said. “Ezzez is bad enough.”

“I’ll arrange it so that you meet up with Captain Vursk or his people upon your arrival,” Denaris said.

“Why us?” Hildra said, and they looked at her. “I mean, why does it always have to be us?”

“Because we took an oath,” Janx said.

“I could send some of my people to escort Layanna,” Denaris said. “Really, she’s the only one of you that must go.”

Silence met this, and in that moment Avery pictured himself staying in Hissig with Ani, being a father and at rest for the first time in what seemed like forever, while Layanna went into the war-torn city with men she did not know and could not trust on a mission to determine the fate of what could very possibly be the world.

He sighed. “I’m going. I’m the one that activated the Device and brought all this on us. I’ll help make it right if I can.”

“Well, shit,” Janx said. “I ain’t lettin’ you go into the godsdamned Crothegra without me. Besides—see it through, right? Mu didn’t die for nothing, and that oath still matters.” He seemed to say this last part more for Hildra’s sake than his own.

“Well, I can hardly let you die alone, you idiot,” she told him.

Layanna touched Avery’s hand. Quietly, she said, “What of Ani?”