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charm, yes?’
    He pulled his stained quilted gambeson over his head, yanked it down. ‘With you, Kiska? No charm. It’s the moustache – the moustache gets them every time.’
    ‘Gods deliver me!’ Kiska headed off down the beach.
If he only knew
.
    Three rocky headlands later Kiska stood peering down on yet another long scimitar arc of black beach. The clatter of jagged volcanic rocks announced Leoman’s approach. He sat with a heavy sigh, adjusted the leather wrapping over his trouser legs. ‘He’d have a hard time hiding, Kiska.’
    She bit back a snarl of disgust. ‘Don’t you want to find out what’s here?’
    An uninterested wave: ‘There’s nothing here.’
    She eyed the broad smooth expanse of the beach, noted something there, something tall. ‘Over there.’
    Closer, she saw now why she’d missed it. The same dull black as the sands, he was. Now about her height, since he was sitting. As they approached, feet shushing through the sands, he stood, towering to twice that. He reminded her of a crude sculpture of a person carved from that fine-grained black stone, basalt. His hands were broad fingerless shovels, his head a worn stone between boulder-like shoulders. He was identical in every detail to the mountain-sized titan they’d watched these last weeks digging in the sea of light, apparently building up the shoreline. Leoman stepped up next to her, hands near his morningstars, but those weapons still sensibly strapped to his sides. ‘Greetings,’ she called, her voice dry and weak.
Gods, how does one address an entity such as this?
    Stone grated as it cocked its head aside as if listening.
    ‘My name is Kiska, and this is Leoman.’ She waited for an answer. The entity merely regarded them – or so she imagined, as now she could see that it had no eyes, no mouth, no features at all that could be named a face. ‘Do you understand—’
    She flinched as a voice spoke within her mind: ‘
Do you hear me? For I hear you
.’ The wonder in Leoman’s widened eyes made it clear that he had heard as well. ‘Yes. I – we – can hear you.’
    ‘
Good. I am pleased. Welcome, strangers! You are most welcome. For ages none have visited. I have been alone. Now even more come! I am gladdened
.
’
    At that she could not suppress an eager glance to Leoman.
More! It said more!
His answering gaze held warning and caution. She brushed them aside: if this thing wanted to kill them there was little they could do about it. She took a steadying breath. ‘And your name? What should we call you?’
    ‘
No name such as I understand your term. I carry what you would call a title. I am Maker
.’
    She stared, speechless.
All the gods above and below
. Maker. The Creator? No. It did not say
Creator
. It said
Maker
. Muttering distracted her: Leoman murmuring beneath his breath. She almost laughed aloud. The Seven Cities invocation of the gods! Cynical Leoman thrown back on to his roots! Yet the prayer seemed mouthed more in wonder than devotion.
    She tried to speak, couldn’t force words past her dry throat. Her knees felt watery and she stepped back, blinking. Leoman’s hand at her shoulder steadied her. ‘There are others, you say?’ she managed to force out. ‘More of us?’
    ‘
One other like you. One other not
.’
    ‘I see …’
I think
. ‘May we meet them? Are they here?’
    ‘
One is
.’ An arm as thick and blocky as a stalactite gestured further down the beach. ‘
This way
.’ Maker turned, stepping, and when the slab-like foot landed the sands beneath Kiska’s feet shuddered and rocks cracked and tumbled down the surrounding headlands.
    Now we hear him? Perhaps he has made himself somehow different in order to communicate
. Walking alongside, she saw no one else on the sweep of the black sands. Yet some object did lie ahead. A flat polished flag of stone, deep blood-red veined with black. Garnet, perhaps. And on the slab what appeared no more than a wind-gathered pile of trash: a fistful of