CARCOSA is already awake.
The sun does not rise here so much as arrive. It spills itself in over the valley in sheets of molten gold and bruised orange. Light catches on everything. Tile, bone, sweat, prayer. It refuses to choose favorites.
POIMANDRÉSH and THE DEVIL stand at the edge of a park that has never agreed on what it is.
Palms erupt from cracked marble. Vines climb statues older than recorded memory. Stone benches sink at odd angles into the ground. Into soil that remembers being jungle, battlefield, cathedral, market.
Above them, the mountains loom.
They are not mountains, not in their entirety.
Great ribs arc through the cloudline. Vertebrae the size of apartment blocks jut from mist. Entire neighborhoods cling to fossilized spines. Laundry flutters from the remains of gods that never learned restraint.
High overhead, something vast wheels in lazy sigil-circles.
POIMANDRÉSH shields his sockets with a clawed hand.
“Are those?”
“Yes,” THE DEVIL says. “Don’t finish that thought.”
The creatures circle the mountains in slow, ceremonial loops.
Condors, once, or great parrots of some kind. Now something else.
Their wings lattice with gold-veined bone. Feathers end in hooked talons. Faces jeweled, unreadable. They descend in turns, alighting on exposed skulls in the stone. The monstrous bird things loose memories, names, fragments of abandoned myth. Whatever they extract, they swallow without ceremony.
The city does not react.
Street vendors continue setting up stalls. A DAEMON child kicks a ball made of compressed sunlight. A DYBBUK woman with three shadows sweeps her stoop, humming.
Behind POIMANDRÉSH and THE DEVIL, a DYBBUK jogs past. The DYBBUK gives them a polite nod, earbuds in. She appears unconcerned with the airborne god creatures dismantling history above her.
POIMANDRÉSH swallows.
“They’re beautiful.”
“They’re efficient,” THE DEVIL corrects.
THE DEVIL lands heavy on a stone bench that exhales as it accepts him. His coat looks too warm. His horns are duller than usual. One hand presses to his temple, as though checking whether the universe is still in there.
“I don’t care for mornings,” he says. “They insist on continuity.”POIMANDRÉSH lowers himself beside him, careful, still unsure which joints will behave.
The bench sprouts a small moss between them. It is immediately trampled by a passing pigeonthing with too many eyes.
THE DEVIL watches the scavenger-gods work.
“I used to enjoy this city,” he says. “Back when it surprised me.”
POIMANDRÉSH tilts his head.
“And now?”
THE DEVIL snorts.
“Now it remembers me too well.”
He coughs. Something dry and glittering lands in his palm. He inspects it with distaste and flicks it into the grass, where it becomes a flower and apologizes.
“This is all I’ve eaten in days. I’m starving,” he adds. “When’s the bar open?”
POIMANDRÉSH looks to the shadows. “Three hours.”
Around them, CARCOSA hums. Vendors shout. Spirits argue. A god passes overhead, late for something important. The city metabolizes another day.
POIMANDRÉSH hesitates.
“Maybe,” he says, “we shouldn’t stay.”
THE DEVIL shoots him a look.
“Oh?”
“Not…” POIMANDRÉSH gestures at the chaos, the beauty, the danger. “Not because it’s bad.
Because it’s… loud. It’s finishing our sentences.”
THE DEVIL leans back, staring into the sun.
“For once,” he says, “I agree with you for the wrong reason.”
He shifts, uncomfortable. His voice drops.
“I feel… thick. Like something’s trying to congeal.”
A beat.
“I don’t like that.”
One of the great condors screams. The sound peels paint from a distant building.
THE DEVIL stands.
“Come on,” he says. “If we stay much longer, I’ll start sinking into the ground.”
POIMANDRÉSH rises, unsteady but willing.
“Where do we go?”
THE DEVIL looks out over CARCOSA once more.
The condors wheel. The city exhales. A minor god argues with a fruit vendor. Somewhere, a bell rings for no reason anyone can remember.
He grimaces.
“Nowhere yet,” he says.
He rubs his hands together, as though trying to generate momentum and failing.“It’s too early for decisions. Too early for food. Too early for absolution.” A pause. “Too early to be seen.”
POIMANDRÉSH nods. His sternum twinges in agreement.
“So,” he says, “back upstairs?”
THE DEVIL considers this, then shrugs with regal defeat.
“Yes,” he says. “Back to the apartment. We’ll sit very still and pretend the morning hasn’t noticed us.”
One of the great condors screams overhead. The sound fractures sunlight.
THE DEVIL winces.
“We’ll wait,” he adds. “Until the hour improves.”
POIMANDRÉSH glances once more at the city. At CARCOSA in all its radiant indifference. Then turns with him.
They walk back the way they came.
Behind them, the city continues to unfurl itself, unconcerned.