The heat began to swell within as he pressed the blade to his wrist and muttered the words. He worked the point, twisting it, driving it through tendon and vein. He forced the metal to the bone, homeward. The length of metal glowed and sent a pulse of energy into his being. His throat burned and a stream of light poured from between his teeth. With the light his voice was gone: his lungs turned to ash. His stomach ballooned from the pressure of fire and smoke. Seething liquid fell from his bowels and steamed from the floor, but his legs did not fail him. The process would always bring pain. There was a moment where the being in the room was no more, and all was light. Then he felt himself again, shucked and naked, like the flesh of an oyster torn from its shell, a no-thing between worlds. He was a spoor in the drift, bodiless. He flitted between the many variations of the now until, finally, he was grafted to another real, a new moment. His mind reeled. Reality arose piecemeal about him, shapes and geometries pronouncing themselves from the dark. Masses of steel, edges and contours of iron and brick asserter their claim to the earth. Jags. Spires. Turrets. What had once been a vista of sun and stars was now obscured by concrete, and only the moon above took to its allotment of sky. A populace formed from the mists. Pieces of his being recoiled, went mutinous. Flesh unfamiliar to this world flexed against the new air. A chitinous feeler brushed at the world once before retreating to the safety of its own flesh. Something like a crab dislodged itself from his torso and skittered into the dark. He knew that soon he would rise to meet this place, but that he must take these first minutes with care. He willed his body to remain whole, took a lungful of air, then another. Moments passed. His passage had ended. He tested the strength in his arms, his legs. He lifted himself from the concrete and surveyed his surrounds. It was night. He stood in an alley between dark windowless buildings. At the end of the alley was what seemed to be a march larger street, brightly lit, with hurried figures of many sizes passing by. It seemed no eyes had witnessed his immolation. He closed his eyes and breathed. Oil and iron, fat, sugar, shit and piss was all heavy in the air. Overheard something whirred past the alley too fast for him to catch with his eyes. This place had changed in his absence. ‘I have to see it,’ he said with a fresh throat. ‘I have to know its face.’ Surveying the wall beside him, he chose a drain pipe. He flexed his fingers, opened and closed his fists, then took a hold of the lead pipe and hoisted himself up. Eight meters and he was on the roof, a platform of clay and plaster. He walked to the edge of the roof and watched the pedestrians below, scoffed at their ignorance. Little did they know who, what stood over them this night. Never mind. He turned his gaze elsewhere. The city was all about. It had grown voraciously, spilling beyond the boarders he had once known and engulfing the surrounding countryside. Slums had been uprooted. Parkland had become slum. They had gauged the coastline to make their harbors. They had emptied the hills to pile up their towers. Change was all about, but one thing stood as if to defy time. It stood and peered down at the world. A nail driven into the earth. The palace of Slim-Nacre. The figure stared at this edifice and reaffirmed his sacred duty, his purpose. He would bring an end to this place.