Herein lies the tale of Halkjavyk and his brother Myrkjavyn, a “Part Two” short story on the history of the Ovyrrakrúsk, their famed hive city, and the origin of the Great Sleep. “Part One” told of the Moth’s errand in Neem and his flight into Kalyvral.
Long had their shadows grown small as the Airships of Or’Loz and Ord rose high and tall. While the skies grew hot from the sun engines of Shonok, they averred to reverse the weather with a Sky Ship fashioned in Basgis that would shift the Earth on its axis. Fire in their minds, they couldn’t see the black rain coming down from a mysterious whorl of starlight. They even enlisted the help of the Teliconians, Ovyrrakrúsk and Kirrai, to banish ghosts and doubts from midnight.
But the Kirrai had refused once they understood the ambitions of the Orlantian design: Raumakos, the head mage of Korin, also wanted to uncover the maps of the Unseen by charting the blazes his star-watchers had spied here and there in the night sky. Like windows in mansions, they saw them open and close, often along the paths of the Moon as it cycled and reposed.
The Behemoth had taken over a hundred years to build. But finally it lifted from the ground and floated above the stern sea-towers of Ankaras, its chains grappled to the Earth, and on its way to grapple the heavens. But no one saw the red ocean of fire hidden in its belly, rising as if trapped in a belittled boy’s temper, until his scream and a bright white flash tore all asunder.