Glancing affectionately at Garth, who was talking intensely with his red-uniformed daughter, Venera had to admit that the prospect wasnt so frightening as it used to be.
It became harder to walk as gravity began to vary between nearly nothing and something crushingly more than one g . Her horse balked, and Venera had to dismount; and when he ran off, she shrugged and fell into step next to Bryce and Sarto who were arguing politics to distract themselves.
They paused to smile at her, then continued. Slowly, with many pauses and some panicked milling about as gaps appeared in the land ahead, they made their way to Fin.
They were nearly there when Buridan finally consigned itself to the air. The shouting and pointing made Venera lift her eyes from the splitting soil, and she was in time to see the black tower fold its spiderweb of girders around itself like a man spinning a robe over his shoulders. Then it lowered itself in stately majesty through the gaping rent in the land until only blue sky remained.
She looked at Bryce. He shrugged. They knew it might happen. I told them to scatter all the copies of the book and currency to the winds if they fell. Theyre to seed the skies of Virga with democracy. I hope thats a good enough task to keep them sane for the next few minutes, and then, maybe, theyll be able to see to their own safety.
The tower would quickly disintegrate as it arrowed through the skies. Its pieces would become missiles that might do vast harm to the houses and farms of the neighboring principalities; so much more so would be the larger shreds of Spyre itself when it all finally went. That was tragic, but the new citizens of Buridan, and the men and women of Bryces organization, would soon find themselves gliding through a warm blue sky. They might kick their way from stone to tumbling stone and so make their way out of the wreckage. And then they would be like everyone else in the world: sunlit and free in an endless sky.
Venera smiled. Ahead she saw the doors of the low bunker that led to Fin, and broke into a run. Were there!
Her logic had been simple. Fin was a wing, aerodynamic like nothing else in Spyre. Of all the parts that might come loose and fall in the next little while, it was bound to travel fastest and farthest. So, it would almost certainly outrun the rest of the wreckage. And Venera had a hunch that Fins inhabitants had given thought, over the centuries, about what they would do when Spyre died.
She was right. Although the guards at the door were initially reluctant to let in the mob, Corinne appeared and ordered them to stand down. As the motley collection of soldiers and citizens streamed down the steps, she turned to Venera and grinned, just a little hysterically. We have parachutes, she said. And the fin can be detached and let drop. It was always our plan of last resort if we ever got invaded. Now She shrugged.
But do you have boats? Bikes? Any means of traveling once were in the air? Corinne grinned and nodded, and Venera let out a sigh of relief. She had led her people to the right place.
Spyres final death agony began as the last were stumbling inside. Venera stood with Corinne, Bryce, and Sarto at the top of the stairs and watched a bright line start at the rim of the world, high up past the sedately spinning wheels of Lesser Spyre. The line became a visible split, its edges pulling in trees and buildings, and Spyre peeled apart from that point. Its ancient fusion engines had proven incapable of slowing it safelyit might have been the stress they generated as much as centripetal force that finally did in the titanium structure. The details didnt matter. All that Venera saw was a thousand ancient cultures ending in one stroke of burgeoning sunlight.
A trembling shockwave raced around the curve of the world. It was beautiful in the blued distance but Venera knew it was headed straight for her. She should go inside before it arrived. She didnt move.
Other splits appeared in the peeling halves of the world, and now the land simply shredded like paper. A roar like the howl of a furious god was approaching, and a tremble went through the ground as gravity failed for good.
Just before Bryce grabbed her wrist and hauled her inside, Venera saw a herd of Dali horses gallop with grace and courage off the rim of the world.
They would survive, she was sure. Kicking and neighing, they would sail through the skies of Virga until they landed in the lap of someone unsuspecting. Gravity would be found for them, somewhere; they were too mythic and beautiful to be left to die.
Corinnes men threw the levers that detached Fin from the rest of Spyre. Suddenly weightless, Venera hovered in the open doorway and watched a wall of speed-ivy recede very quickly, and disappear behind a cloud.
Nobody spoke as she drifted inside. Hollow-eyed men and women glanced at one another, all crowded together in the thin antechamber of the tiny nation. They were all refugees now; it was clear from their faces that they expected some terrible fate to befall them, perhaps within the next few minutes. None could imagine what that might be, of course, and seeing that confusion, Venera didnt know whether to laugh or