The Queen of the City is dead. The City is an island, surrounded by a River. The City's name is Order. The River's name is Chaos. Of course, these are not their real names. But then again, maybe they are.

(Unbind Me) "No." He turned his head as he passed Animal God, whose looming figure cast terrible black shadows in the shapeshifting blue light of the gasflames. "Karina!" His voice echoed in the empty, vaulted ceilings. The echoes thinned and chased each other like bats, tinkling the crystal, hiding in the shadows of the buttresses. The black and white marble checkerboard of the floor was cold, and the coldness was rising. Degree by degree; it was up to his ankles now. He shivered, skin prickling into gooseflesh. Forbidden words rose to his mind; wool, sheepskin, firewood. (Warmblood. Flesh. Unbind Me) "No!" He broke into a run, feeling Animal God's blind stone eyes boring into his back. Through the dining room, past the long, gleaming onyx table, empty place-settings of china and handblown glass sparkling before each empty seat in the gloaming lowlight of the dying City. Cold carpet. He ran. "Karina!"

Once upon a time there was a Word; no, wait. Once upon a time there was a Pattern, and its symmetry was impeccable. This is the Key to the City. The Queen who is dead carried the Pattern that was a Word that was a Key inside her head. Now the Pattern is broken. Death, however, can be very orderly.

He found her in the old nursery. It was hard to tell, at first, in the low, bloody light that seeped through the tall windows; the dying light of an artificial sun. All the automata, their childhood playmates, lay crumpled on the nursery floor-- Pierrot, Pierrette, Harlequin, their animating magic gone. And there she was, a fetal creature curled between two lifeless heaps of limbs, torsos and heads. He breathed out her name in a desperate mix of relief and terror. "Karina." Her eyes, owl-ringed with dark exhaustion, lifted to meet his. "Evan. We're dying, Evan." "No! Not yet," he said fiercely, hunkering down before her. "We will." He ignored her words determinedly, taking her cold hands between his and chafing them. "Is there anyone left? Anyone alive?" Her low voice was empty of hope. He shook his head. "Only us." "And Him," she spat unexpectedly, eyes glittering to life in their bruised hollows. His hands, still chafing hers, fell motionless. "What happened? Evan, do you understand what happened?" He shook his head again.

Symmetry is not the natural order of mankind. Look in the mirror. The two halves of your face, they are not exactly alike, are they? Sometimes it is best not to look too closely. It has been said that Man has ascended half the distance between animals and angels. This is not a wise thing to forget.

The far wall of the nursery was painted with a fanciful cityscape, all tall spires and towers, stained now with incarnadine light. Evan stared at it, not seeing, encircled from behind by his sister's arms. "I'm losing my mind, Evan," she whispered in his ear. "Why haven't we turned to dust? Why are we still here?" "I don't know. I don't know." He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes and shuddered. She held him, stroking his hair and murmuring wordlessly. The unwinking gazes of the automata surrounded them. He shrugged off her arms and rose, pacing the room, stopping at the window and staring out, gripping the frame with both hands. The window silhouetted him in dull crimson. "Did He speak to you?" Karina's voice came from the darkness behind him. He leaned his forehead against the windowpane and nodded. She made her way to his side. He turned his head and looked at her. "No. Oh, no." "We're going to die, Evan." "No." He roused himself with a shake. "Further up. We'll go to the tower. It will be warmer further up." "Only for a little while," she said.

A long time ago--as long ago as once upon a time, yes, but not always so long ago as that--those who ruled the City remembered why they kept the River at bay and built a Wall around the City; brick by brick, Word by Word and Pattern by Pattern. These things were not meant to be. One small forgetting, generation by generation, grows larger. There is a chink in the Wall. The River is trickling into the City.

He stared at the dying sun. "It's not real, you know," she said. "Not any more." "You want me to unbind Him." Karina drew a fingertip through the faint smear of oil his forehead had left on the glass of the windowpane. "Look. We're still real, Evan. Mother is gone. The City is dead. We aren't." "He doesn't belong here," he said, wearily. "He ruined everything. It's all gone now, except us. He can't destroy us. So let Him die too, cold and stone. He doesn't belong here." "Neither do we." She shivered. "Not any more. I'm afraid, Evan. I'm afraid of the cold and the dark." "Karina." He bowed his head. "Karina." Through closed lids, he could see the darkness encroaching on the City. The cold was already here, knee-high and climbing. It would be simple, so simple, to do nothing, to let it come; but no, his heart beat still, warm and willful, his nerves quivering in tune with Karina's fear. He did not want to die. "Now!" she said. "Let's do it now." Evan released his grip on the window-frame and looked at his sister. Her face, half-shadowed, was a pallid mask hanging in the darkness. "He killed our mother." "No." "What, then?" "Not Him, but what He is..." Karina shivered again and wrapped her arms about herself. "That's what did it. Mother, the City. I understand that much. There's a word for it. Anathema." "All right," he said, unaware that he was crying. "All right. Let's do it."

Life is worth dying for. Chaos is necessary for belief in a god. The absence of belief--belief in a higher power, belief in a force, any force, beyond comprehension--is inimical to human nature. No island stands forever. This is something children do not need to be told. Do you?

Animal God loomed larger. His head was lost in shadow halfway to the high, vaulted ceiling. Blue gasflames still burned on the fluted floor-torches, throwing twisted shadows on the checkerboard floor, giving the hall the look of an abandoned temple. (Unbind Me) "What happens then?" Evan asked, staring upward, hands fisted at his sides. "What then?" (Unbind Me) "What are you? Where did you come from? Who summoned you here?" (Unbind Me) "I don't think He can tell you," Karina said. "I don't think He knows. Nobody remembers." "You know." He looked at his sister. "He comes from the River." "What river?" "The River." She coughed in the cold. "Where we swam before we were born." He stared up again into darkness. Eagle's head, the fierce, hooked beak terrifyingly noble, terrifyingly animal. No animals in the City. Collared ruff of feathers giving way to stone waves of lion's mane on an arching horse's neck. The forelegs were equine, giving way to leonine sides against which massive wings lay folded; enormous granite pinions, delicate and imperishable. Mighty lion haunches, caught mid-ripple, bulged with muscle, ready to launch this impossible beast. The tail, something serpentine, stone- scaled and lost in shadow. All things from picture-books, every picture-book ever written in the City. Cold was rising. Above his knees now and reaching higher, icy tendrils creeping up his thighs; Karina was shivering beside him. "How?" (Warmblood) They looked at each other. "The kitchen." Karina coughed again, then stopped with an effort. "Get a knife." He ran, the heels of his boots striking staccato reverberations from the marble, leaving an echoing trail behind him until he reached carpet. The lights were down now and he had to grope his way toward the kitchen, where a line of ghost-blue flame danced above the pit. It took a moment to find a knife; then he had it, and returned, slowly now, fear and reluctance dragging at every step. "I'm scared." "I know." Her arms came around him and she turned her face to his shoulder, asking muffled; "Do you want me to?" "No." He stepped carefully away from her and raised the knife in his right hand, holding his left out level, palm open. His skin looked suddenly immaculate to him; smooth, pale, flawless. Whole. The point of the knife glittered wickedly, barbaric, hungry for blood. Warmblood. Warm, red blood. He placed the point, drew it across a few centimeters of skin, pushing down. A pallid seam opened in the center of his palm. It held for an instant, then it filled, welling, ruby-red and rich, a crimson drop of life cupped in his hand. Trembling, he lifted the hand; it seemed to rise of its own volition, floating in the darkling air. The rising cold wreathed his loins, caressed his ribs. Fingers splayed, he laid his hand flat on Animal God's cold stone shoulder.

I never promised you that the story would make sense. If the story made sense, you would have no questions. If you had no questions, there would be no mysteries. Only imagine how dull life would be then. Even Plato had second thoughts about letting poets into the Republic. Think about that for a while.

Warmth blossomed beneath his hand; living warmth, powerful animal heat. Unyielding stone gave way to sleek, hide-sheathed muscle. He cried out and leapt back, Karina's hands dragging at him. There was a patch of chestnut-red on the grey granite, growing, licking at the stone like flames. It crept up the arch of neck, flickering into tawny-gold at the mane, chestnut graduating into paler gold along the flanks. The wings burst into a symphony of variegated browns, speckled umber and sienna, echoed in the ruff that melded into the mane. The neck bowed, the arch forming a feathered crest as the head lowered. Living color lapped up the last bit of stone. Speckled feathers, the beak a dull yellow, powerful enough to snap an iron bar in half. Terrible majesty; the hooked beak opened. Fierce eagle eyes burned amber, outblazing the gaslights and Animal God lived. The hall had gone dark, but for dying blue flames and living amber eyes. We are going to die, Evan thought, watching the open beak descend. With his last vestige of will he thrust Karina behind him. "I THANK YOU." His voice filled the hall, leaving no room for echoes. Beneath the gleaming hide, muscles flexed. "AND NOW..." He raised his awesome head. Muscle rippled. Slowly His wings opened, stretching, pinions spread to span the width of the hall. His body reared up on leonine haunches, towering above them. His hoofed forelegs raked the gloaming air and His serpentine tail thrashed. His wings beat once, with a clap like thunder. Cracks ran up the walls, and beyond, rending the fabric of the world, cracking it like an egg. Light, bright beyond belief, poured through the cracks, and a warm wind swept through, bearing moisture and strange, rich odors. The cracks widened, blinding; the world shattered and the shards broke away, falling into nothingness, disappearing like black vapor. The light was revealed. Blueness, of infinite depth, unfurled overhead. The checkerboard of marble on which they stood dwindled to an island in a grass sea of eye-straining green.

Falling. The Wall is falling. The River has flooded the city. People are dancing in the streets. People are mumbling in the alleys. An ocean of blood laps at the piers. An army of cocks plows a field of wombs. Did you really expect a happy ending? Did you really expect an ending at all?