Read Best Laid Plans for Free Online Page A

took hold of Sammy’s shoulders to grant him a better view, ‘is known to its inhabitants as Thanatos.’
    Sammy felt the tug of the dark world. It drew his eyes, called to him. He felt himself reaching toward it.
    ‘It does not belong here.’ The Archon’s hands felt oddly cold as he pressed Sammy’s head downwards to look upon the inky black hole beneath, its emptiness covered by the misty web he’d seen from the top of the pillar.
    ‘And neither does the Abyss. My brother is the great deceiver. Where I brought with me the laws of our father, he brought nothing but despite and disorder. Even when I cast him back into the Void, he found a way to survive.’ The Archon’s voice spat and popped like a bushfire. Wisps of smoke escaped from beneath his hood, and his fingers dug into Sammy’s shoulders, spreading their peculiar chill. ‘Tell me, child, would you go there?’ The Archon released his grip and lowered his voice. ‘Would you enter the Abyss if the fate of worlds depended on it?’
    Sammy stared at the mist covering the Void and felt it pulling at him. He knew he should be scared, but he felt only calm. He started to imagine a tunnel through space connecting him with the Abyss and gawped as a spiralling green cone began to form in front of him.
    The Archon touched his hand to it and it disappeared. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Now listen to what I expect of you. I have granted you powers to rival even the greatest of the Dreamers. You will make the journey to the Abyss soon. Someone is trapped there.’ The Archon’s hood rustled as he shook his head. ‘Without him, we may not be able to stop the coming crisis.’
    Something felt wrong. Sammy didn’t like the way the Archon was telling him what to do. It wasn’t as if he was his dad. ‘I’m with Huntsman,’ he said, hoping that would make things clear.
    ‘Huntsman serves the children of the Cynocephalus,’ the Archon said.
    Sammy stuck his bottom lip out, not understanding.
    ‘Murgah Muggui, Baru and their kind. Children of the Cynocephalus and grandchildren of my sister, Eingana. They have pledged themselves to me so that together we may thwart the Unweaving.’
    ‘But…But what—?’
    ‘Did Huntsman ever tell you about the Reckoning?’
    Sammy shrugged. He’d mentioned it, but most of what Sammy knew came from listening to Elias. They’d taught about it at school, too: stuff about dragons and demons pouring from the sky and destroying the world of the Ancients.
    ‘Huntsman saved your world from Sektis Gandaw, a scientist of the worst kind who saw the creation of the cosmos as imperfect and believed he could make a better one. His long and murky history began centuries ago when he was first contacted by the Liche Lord, Otto Blightey.’
    ‘The bogey man?’ Sammy said, remembering stories Elias used to tell the kids about Jaspar Paris and Renna Cordelia, and an evil skull that drank souls.
    ‘Sektis Gandaw’s dark science developed out of Blightey’s magic,’ the Archon said. ‘Both bear the mark of the Abyss.’
    Sammy was completely lost now. He screwed his face up into a frown. Rhiannon would have called it his “old man” look.
    ‘The Unweaving is like seeing someone else’s picture in the sand and raking over it in order to start your own,’ the Archon said. ‘Everything would end. In effect, it would never have started. Do you understand what that means?’
    Sammy thought he did. ‘Sounds like a selfish clacker. Least that’s what my sister would say.’
    The Archon chuckled. ‘A little more than selfish, I think, but that will do. He has been stopped twice before, but he is determined. There is so much you don’t know: the relationship of the Supernal Realm to the Earth; the changes brought by the Abyss and Aethir; the closing of the Void; the mechanics of the Unweaving…’
    Sammy’s head hurt. He wanted the Archon to stop. Needed him to stop. He bunched his hands into fists and struck himself on the temples.
    The