Everway - Summary

A Black Mist kidnaps Rathgard, Slight, Jayson, Flame and Wrath and dumps them in a realm in permanent darkness. The heroes help the inhabitants of the Sun and Moon villages (with mixed results) and eventually restore the daylight by destroying a Gate from which the darkness was flowing. They learn about Lightfoot Moondance, an Everwayan who had previously interfered unsuccessfully in the tribal politics.

Chapter 02 - The Guardian of the Gate

The heroes (sans Wrath) are joined by Walker, a healer who believes himself to be cursed. He and Jayson discover that their families were both murdered by White Scorpion Warriors; Jayson thought that he had tracked them down and killed them all twenty years ago, but Walker's tragedy was much more recent. While travelling, the heroes see a Figure in White watching them, but they mysteriously disappear when Jayson investigates. Flame had also seen the figure when she was enveloped by the Black Mist.

The heroes come across a town where a monster is giving the people beautiful dreams but also eating them. This turns out to be a blue dragon called Raging Water which attacks with powerful images. Despite a distraction from Wrath and his dragon Tempest, the heroes are forced to flee through a nearby Gate. They see that Tempest and Raging Water have formed an alliance.

The heroes arrive in a realm that is ruled by a Ghoul Queen. They rescue a woman called Rarity from ghouls; Rathgard is gravely wounded in the battle. Rarity tells them that the Ghoul Queen intended to give her as a bride to a powerful demonic being called the Awakener. Wrath returns; the Awakener arrives; after some confusion he is persuaded that the Ghoul Queen is his bride and when they get together, they turn into a young woman and a dragon that looks like Tempest. They disappear through a portal, closely pursued by Raging Water.

The heroes (again sans Wrath) cross the sea to Waterside, the capital city of the Hawk Empire. En route they see the Figure in White in a boat, but it vanishes again. They meet Why, an inventor who is travelling to Everway to report on a group of priests who destroyed the commune where he lived. Why escaped through a nearby Gate to Woodhall, Slight's home realm, with his friend Tranquil, who turns out to be Rathgard's foster brother. The heroes learn that Wrath is planning to invade the Hawk Empire so they engineer a confrontation at the docks. When it all goes pear-shaped, they once again make a quick exit through the Gate to Plenty.

The heroes enter a fertile realm that is clearly corrupted. They encounter a powerful figure called the Wasted Woman who steals some valuable items from them. In the town of Kufultrees, the heroes learn of the war between the Fat people and the Thin people, which seemed to originate with the disappearance of Mother Harvest, the local deity. In the Thin rebellion's camp, the heroes find an imprisoned Everwayan called Wormwood Crookstaff and also discover the source of the corruption - a statue of Mother Harvest in a pool, which is leaking an inky blackness into the water supply. Assisted by Wormwood, the heroes perform a spell to discover its source, which grants a vision of a young boy enveloped by a cockatrice. The heroes seal the statue in a magically dead cavern which is enough to undo the curse. The Wasted Woman gives back their things. Wormwood invites the heroes to return with him to Everway.

The heroes travel to Storyhome, falling in with a merchant called Fish Trader. En route they learn from Wormwood about the Everway families, the Library of All Worlds and Chamber Platinum, and the great Pyramid, which is made of magic-cancelling midianite and has been unfinished for centuries. The Walker, Everway's patron deity, is reputedly out in the 1000 Spheres looking for the capstone.

The heroes reach the town square and witness the arrest of two members of the Basahn, a travelling folk who speak their own language, which seems to interest Slight particularly. In the evening the heroes join a story circle along with Wormwood and his friend Quill Scratch where various tales about cockatrices, dragons, wizards and unhappy events in Rathgard's and Walker's lives are told. Slight disappears and is tracked by Jayson to the Basahn encampment, but turns out not to need rescuing. He was visiting his sister Lynx who had run off with the Basahn when he was a boy, and whom he had freed from prison. He has been given a puzzle pyramid made of tessellated lizards as a present, which Jayson and Flame try to open without success. The heroes pass through the Gate leading to Everway.

The heroes arrive in the Gatelands and enter Everway through the north gate. As they are taking in the sights and sounds of the Imperial Way, Wormwood is shot by a bowman from a nearby building and dies from poison. The heroes chase after the assassin but he stabs Why and gets away. The heroes are arrested as accessories but are eventually released at the behest of the ancient necromancer Ulrich Crookstaff, who asks them to investigate Wormwood's murder on his behalf.

Flame discovers a cache of cheeses; Slight becomes Splendid!, learns about the Motleys and annoys the Masks; Walker tries to find someone to lift his curse; and Why learns from an apothecary that the poison used to kill Wormwood is joyberry juice, which is specific to the Green Mountain Warriors, a tribe that lives outside the city. The heroes pay them a visit. The camp is in an uproar because one of its members - Warsong - is accused of killing the clan chief. The heroes work out that it was actually the doing of the assassin and terrify the tribe with cat demon illusions (or were they?) to get them to agree. Warsong is freed and accompanies them to Everway - Jayson remains behind, having fallen in love with one of the Green Mountain women. Warsong and Slight identify the assassin as a street performer called Huckster Motley; the heroes track him down in the Bazaar, but he kills himself before he can be arrested. An investigation of Huckster's dwelling reveals a link to Loudvoice Mask, the proprietor of the Theatre of All Worlds. At Wormwood's inquest, the heroes' Disputed Status is rescinded.

The heroes are invited to meet Codex Platinum Scratch, the Master of the Library of All Worlds. On the way, they encounter a powerful young woman (goddess?) called Painter who demands that Flame hands over one of her books, saying that Flame's master (Shadow) meant for her to have it. When Flame refuses, she withdraws, but says that she will be back.

Codex invites the heroes to join Chamber Platinum and offers them a quest to investigate a report of an ancient mural that has been found in some old cellars in Strangerside that are occupied by smugglers and a street gang called the Sons of the West. She sends a spirit worker called Wishbone to help them out. Walker meets a nice young priestess called Humility; Fish Trader investigates Beggartown and encounters the Daggerboys; Rathgard schmoozes the merchants of Old Town; and Flame, Wishbone and Slight investigate the smugglers' secret river entrance and end up inadvertantly killing most of them. Wishbone enters a spirit trance and discovers that Walker is linked to a powerful entity, but is an agent of change rather than death as he had thought. Why leaves the party on a secret commission.

The heroes invade the cellars and arrange a truce with Towershield, the gang leader. The mural, which dates from before the founding of Everway, seriously spooks Slight as it depicts the puzzle pyramid that he is carrying. He reveals that he is in fact couriering it for Urumora, the Basahn leader, and is supposed to have given it to a trader in the Bazaar. Flame does a divination for Stoneflake and Whiting to discover the whereabouts of their missing daughter Terracotta. As part-payment, Stoneflake creates a fake version of the pyramid which Walker delivers to the contact. Slight follows the boy who picks up the pyramid to the Walker's Ark, but has to retreat after being mobbed by small children.

A Crookstaff servant delivers a page of Wormwood's notes that she found while clearing his room, which mentions a number of people and places that are of interest to Wishbone, Flame, Slight and Rathgard. Flame and Wishbone investigate the location suggested by Flame's Terracotta divination and discover a vertically bifurcated half-corpse. A follow-up divination mentions the Twelve and suggests a location beneath the Library of All Worlds that could be linked to Wrath. Rathgard and Fish Trader start up their smuggling empire, dispatching Callus Wenderway to fetch a valuable pot from the Glorious Empire. The heroes report an expurgated version of their mural findings to Codex's underling Blemish Scratch, who rewards them.

Guisarme, one of Towershield's lieutenants, is killed in an ambush by Cut Throat, leader of the Daggerboys. Towershield vows revenge and ropes in the heroes to help. Rathgard negotiates the assistance of Nighthawk, leader of the Blackhearts who run the brothels and restaurants in central Strangerside. They attack the Daggerboys' heavily defended water tower HQ at night and Towershield stabs Cut Throat. He also tries to push Rathgard over the parapet, but Voulges kills him. Rathgard is proclaimed leader of the combined gang, the Daggers of the West.

The heroes investigate the origin of the dangerous drug Bliss that the Daggerboys were selling and find a link to the Nippers and the Masks. Rathgard rapidly tires of trying to sort out gang members' problems and makes arrangements to go on a smuggling mission with Three Trees. Slight sees an Emerald messenger visit the Lavender House, the Blackhearts' main brothel.

Rathgard, Fish Trader and Wishbone set off for Vineland in the Spice Runner with Three Trees, three laconic fisherfolk, and Iron the highly adolescent cabin boy. After trading in Grapetown - Wishbone stays behind to investigate satyr stories - they meet Captain Tench of the Sneak Wolf, a Middlelander. Rathgard passes intelligence about Everway and its defences. On the return journey, the heroes disrupt a nasty plot to poison grapes using a mould grown on corpses, and successfully dodge a Bluestripe patrol by conning a smuggler pirate who is an enemy of Three Trees.

Back in Everway, Nighthawk annoys the heroes by breaking the arms of the gang's quartermaster Scarab in retaliation for failure to pay for the attack on the Water Tower. Tensions between the gangs escalate, culminating in a spectacular firefight in Talespinners Square in which Flame incinerates Nighthawk, and a follow-up raid on the Blackheart's HQ in the marshes. The heroes merge the remaining Blackhearts, forming the Black Daggers of the West.

Slight investigates the Nippers and meets their leader Carrot. At her behest the heroes raid the Mudbank family home and rescue her brother Bean, whom they take back to the cellars. He and Carrot turn out to be the children of Goldring Digger, overseer of the Royal Mint. They want to dodge their family responsibilities and be kids forever. Carrot lets the heroes see some papers, which show that Highstake Mask is the Bliss contact. Bean is returned, but not before mysteriously disappearing from the cellars, one of a number of strange events that have been happening there.

The mysterious happenings culminate in a light show in which the real pyramid is swapped for the fake one. Slight identifies their originator: Cunning Gold, a wizard with powers similar to his own. Cunning claims to be Slight's real father; he and Urumora are members of a Basahn faction known as the Founders who want to create a safe haven for their people. Their enemies are the Returners who are led by a wizard called Maba; they want to re-take Everway, which was originally the site of a Basahn city. Cunning identifies Flame's master Shadow as Maba, who is also Cunning's father - Maba had human bones and organs sewn into his son so that he could get past watch-sprites, which understandably turned Cunning against him. He also tells Slight that the Twelve are a secret organisation of powerful Everwayans who want to turn themselves into Avatars, beings and things with god-like powers. Wrath is the result of a failed experiment by the Twelve. Slight finds a link between Flame's book and her destructive powers, explaining why Painter could not just take it.

The heroes follow up the Highstake Mask connection and Flame learns that she in turn is a courier for a Mother called Immortal Light, a link that is strengthened when a mole is discovered in the Mercy Hospital who has been sending reports about Bliss addicts to the Temple of Mercy. The connection between the Palace and the Lavender House is explained when it transpires that one of the courtesans, Beautiful Rice, has been servicing Crown Prince Tourmaline. Beautiful Rice and Topaz, Tourmaline's previous favourite, are both murdered. The heroes identify the assassins but they get away.

A local potter called Caddis Whitestar insists that the heroes investigate her rival Hewer Wainscot who is undercutting her. Hewer is in financial difficulty himself, having had a major order for the Digger family cancelled. While visiting the Diggers' intermediary, the heroes find a plate with strange markings, which Wishbone decodes as a plea for help. Hewer identifies the maker of the plate as Waving Flag, a merchant. The heroes raid his compound and find a number of refugee slaves who were brought to Everway after a black mist obscured the moon and their homes were attacked by White Scorpion Warriors. As is traditional, Flame burns Waving Flag to death. The ex-slaves join the Black Daggers of the West and Rathgard placates the potters with a get-rich-quick scheme.

While visiting Hewer's workshop, Flame finds some sparkly clay and fragments of spirit bottles. Wishbone follows the trail to the Houses of Dusk and witnesses a disturbing ritual involving a dead body and a cockatrice. She identifies Deadwalk Coven as both the source of the sparkly clay and the destination of the spirit bottles that the potters were making. Flame and Walker visit the House of Calm in the Gatelands and trace Terracotta to the Temple of Mercy; Slight sneaks around and finds a nightmare vivisection laboratory associated with the study of the effects of Bliss. Rathgard and Fish Trader develop their smuggling and prostitution empire, and improve Beggartown's water supply and law and order situation. Flame relocates some rats.

Slight receives a gilt-edged invitation from Princess Absinthe Emerald to perform in his guise as Splendid! at an evening event in the Palace. He takes Flame and Walker as "assistants"; they meet various members of the royal family, including the charming Prince Peridot, the manipulative Princess Persimmon, and the boorish Crown Prince Tourmaline, who ruins Slight's act. Absinthe has a woman-to-woman chat with Flame in which she proves to be taking a great interest in the heroes' affairs, and Slight undermines a performance by Loudvoice Mask's troupe. A mystery guest is revealed as the heroes' erstwhile companion Wrath, who has struck a deal with Absinthe to meet them. He wants Rathgard to be his emissary in Everway as a preliminary to invasion, but further discussion is cut short by a security alert caused by the discovery of Wall Emerald's body. Later, the heroes strike a deal with Wrath that he should gather allies from the realms around Everway. They stage a falling out so that no-one will suspect them of collusion and Wrath departs spectacularly on Tempest, setting off the Peril Bells by hovering over the Palace. Before he goes, he reveals that his ultimate goal is to destroy Death at the behest of twelve white-and-orange-robed Guardians who sometimes come to him on the astral plane.

Wishbone gets to see the cockatrice ceremony close up - it is being used to force spirits into spirit bottles by decomposing the bodies to which they were previously attached. She tracks down and kills one of the attending Crookstaffs who reveals that Ulrich's rival, Nightwing Crookstaff, is working with Old Crow, Wishbone's mother. Wishbone, Fish Trader, Flame and Walker visit Nightwing. There is a fight in his office which ends with Fish Trader cutting Nightwing's jugular, and then a second in Crookstaff Square as Nightwing's acolytes attempt to carry out his plan to smash the spirit bottles against Ulrich's zombies to drive him insane. Wishbone determines that Nightwing was working for Freedom Crow. Ulrich is grateful for the rescue.

Slight finally gets Cunning to reveal that he is a member of the Twelve, as are most of the senior Everwayans that the heroes have met including Absinthe Emerald, Ulrich Crookstaff and Codex Platinum Scratch. Cunning wants to get hold of an artifact that is in the Twelve's secret lair under Chamber Platinum, but can only get in when there is a meeting. Wrath is the re-embodied spirit of Wrathful Crow, a former member of the Twelve who was the sole survivor of a magical ritual gone wrong called the Transcendance. They are contacting him via a spell that involves slicing victims in two lengthways.

Rathgard and Fish Trader put out a fire in Beggartown, hold a party in the cellars, and deal with an attempted uprising by Towershield's former second in command. Walker meets Winnow Tallgrass who tells a strange tale of the "Shifting Man" who came to his village looking for the Twisted Library and the Hermeneutic.

Flame is kidnapped by Painter using a painting that can teleport people and objects. Painter demands the Book again and leaves Flame to die when she refuses. Flame escapes the pit in which she is immured and meets an unusual woman called Silly Me, who says that she created the Fortune Deck, which is linked to Avatars. Painter is not an Avatar, but something else. Silly Me helps Flame get back to the Cellars, telling her that the Black Mist is coming, but the Book can help.

Fish Trader goes off on a secret mission that results in him getting seriously wounded and in the death of two gang members. He reveals that he is in fact a feline-based shape-changer spy from the Peaceful Isles who is trying to "bring peace" to Everway by subverting its rulers. One of his fellow operatives, Rrauw, has gone rogue and was responsible for the murder of Wall Emerald. The heroes work out that the next attack will be on the Great Council of Everway and manage to kill Rrauw, who reveals with his dying breath that the Peaceful Isles have been corrupted by the Black Mist.

The heroes have to deal with the Halyards, an unpleasant smuggling family, and an out-of-control automaton created by their erstwhile companion Why, which they link to Freedom Crow. There are signs of increased tension throughout the city - Outsider temples in All the Gods Way are attacked by Moondancers and part of the Mother sector is burned down (though that was Walker and Flame). King Horizon is thrown off his horse when it is spooked by a rat.

Cunning turns up and tells the heroes that the Twelve will be meeting in the evening. He reveals that he is after the Pearl of Making, one of the Instruments of Odin that according to Basahn legend were used by the sorceror Spheremaker in an attempt to create a new world that was foiled by his dark twin, Shadow. The other instruments are the Book of Words and the Edge of Light and Darkness, a sword that can cut anything in two. In the legend, Spheremaker uses it to bisect a godling, and Ulrich does the same thing with ordinary people to create the portal to Wrath's astral plane. It is held somewhere in Everway.

The heroes' plan to mug the less-defended members of the Twelve for their keys goes seriously wrong when Cunning is unmasked and subsequently unravelled by a magic-cancelling bomb from Ulrich Crookstaff. The heroes charge in and kill every last one of the senior Everwayans making up the Twelve. Slight gets the Pearl, and Wishbone finds a collection of bisected spirits, which includes Terracotta.

Fish Trader deals brutally with an outbreak of cultists, Rathgard identifies a spy, Walker and Flame firebomb the Temple of Mercy, and Slight experiments with the Pearl, but can create only short-lived illusions (he finds a link with the Book, however). He receives a bequest from Cunning consisting of the lizard pyramid which contains a translation of Urumora's note. It says that Maba's castle is in the mountains of Everguard, and that Slight's home realm of Woodhall is overrun by White Scorpion Warriors. A divination from Flame suggests that Walker should go to Golden Mounts to find the Twisted Library.

Callus Wenderway returns with 1000 refugees from Temple who have been trapped by Keepers in the Gatelands; their leaders are Rathgard's foster brother Tranquil and Humility, Walker's old flame. Things are going from bad to worse in Everway - the Mothers announce that Horizon has broken his back so Tourmaline will be king, the workers go on strike, religious mobs instigated by Glimmer Moondance roam the streets, and there are rumours of an approaching Middleland armada - so the heroes decide that they are probably going to leave anyway.

Slight finds his aunt and sisters among the refugees and learns that his (non-biological) father Watchful stayed in Woodhall to fight the White Scorpion Warriors. Fish Trader encounters a fellow Peacemaster who says that his wife and kittens are safe for now. Tranquil tells Rathgard that he has been named King of Rath by his former lover Queen Elian, though his throne has been usurped by Elian's brother Valerian, who is a stooge of the Copper Duke, an avatar. Flame is unsympathetic to Humility's sad tale.

Rathgard wins a duel with an arrogant Crow and persuades the Keeper commander to let the refugees travel to Golden Mounts. Wishbone, Flame and Walker go back to Everway to report to the Watchers, but decide that it is a trap when they see that Carrot and Bean have been captured. The heroes escape through the Gate to Golden Mounts with the refugees and Winnow Tallgrass, just as the peril bells start ringing.

The heroes find a recently abandoned village where the refugees can rest. The schoolteacher Prolix Buttertongue's diary mentions that Lightfoot Moondance is seeking the Twisted Library, but leaves off before saying where. It also becomes apparent that the former residents have been ensorcelled by the Bacchanal, a group of satyrs that had also made off with Wishbone's teenage brother, Gecko on the Wall.

After some adventures with hallucinogenic pollen and a group of drunk centaurs, the heroes infiltrate the Bacchanalian revel and extract Prolix Buttertongue and Gecko on the Wall. Wishbone defeats Silenus, the Bacchanal's leader, by throwing a pot of dreamflower pollen in his face, and the Bacchanal disappears. Prolix says that the Twisted Library was last seen in Shimmersand, a realm that Rathgard has visited, and the Gate to it is nearby. The heroes set off with Winnow and Gecko in tow.

The heroes enter Shimmersand. They do not find the Twisted Library, which annoyingly has moved to a different sphere, but learn that Lightfoot Moondance went into Rath, now the realm of the usurper Valerian, despite the fact that it now a militarised zone. After duping the guards that are looking for Rathgard, the heroes enter Rath themselves and meet the leaders of a rag-tag opposition force - the Rathgard-worshipping Snowdrop, the stuffy ex-soldier Estoc, the dubious Fiddle and the workers' firebrand Catkin - who call themselves the Guardians of Rath and look to Rathgard as their saviour. They learn that Lightfoot has been arrested and is being held in the castle of Rath.

The heroes plan a revolution, using a man-the-barricades-style people's uprising in the main square as a diversion from a clandestine operation to enter the castle using a secret passageway that Rathgard knows from his liaisons with Queen Elian. It does not go quite according to plan - they are spotted on the way in - but the heroes successfully defeat Valerian and destroy his Iron Citadel-supplied army of automata. Lightfoot Moondance tells them how to get to Everguard and offers to take Winnow back to his home realm.

The route to Everguard passes through the realm of Sheepship, so the heroes travel there next. A field of butchered sheep and a destroyed village show evidence of the workings of the Black Mist, but to the heroes' surprise and delight, they also discover the entrance to the Twisted Library. Less delightfully they also encounter Flame's nemesis Painter, who kidnaps Walker and drops him into the heart of an active volcano when Flame refuses once again to give her the Book of Words. Just before hitting the surface, Walker transforms into the Shifting Man, returns to the Twisted Library, and banishes Painter using one of her own paintings. Seriously displeased at the disturbance, the Library forces the heroes out with an army of shadows and animated owl statues, leaving them in a realm of darkness. From a sign in a ruined building, the heroes discover that this is Everguard.

Slight discovers that he can use the Pearl to create a bubble of protection against the Mist's effects if Rathgard strengthens it by reading from the Book. The heroes follow the current of the Mist through the darkness to its origin, a fortress high in the mountains. There they find Lathe, the magically preserved remains of a human boy whose organs and skeleton were taken to be put into Cunning, who shows them a hidden way in. After rescuing some prisoners including Slight's uncle Cheerful, the heroes struggle past many illusions including a house-sized djinn to reach the central keep, from which a huge rotating vortex of Black Mist is rising. Inside is the Mist's source, a complex magical working with three Avatars imprisoned in a magical globe plus a distribution network made using Painter's portal picture technique. It is guarded by a detachment of White Scorpion Warriors and by Maba himself, an ancient wizard with powerful mind-clouding abilities who replenishes himself, vampire-like, by draining the blood of prisoners chained to the wall. After a vicious fight in which several of the heroes are seriously hurt, Slight manages to undo the magical working, while Walker reverses his healing powers to destroy Maba. The trapped Avatars - the innocent boy and the cockatrice from the heroes' vision in Plenty, and an egg which hatches into the Phoenix Queen - escape with only the briefest acknowledgement of their liberators. Sadly, Slight's father Watchful proves to have been one of Maba's victims. The Black Mist dissipates, but an ominous picture on the wall, which shows a bleak landscape in which a stone colossus is picking up a huge pyramidal rock, gives the heroes a feeling of foreboding.

The heroes investigate the rest of the keep. After killing Harruch the needle demon whose evil magicks were keeping Lathe alive, and finding an imprisoned mad woman who proves to be Slight's Basahni grandmother Lefun, the heroes locate the many volumes of Maba's journal. They cannot make much sense of it, but then an odd androgynous person strolls in. They are the Figure in White who has dogged the heroes' footsteps ever since they first encountered the Mist. She introduces herself as Kayte and explains that she is from outside the Thousand Spheres, where there is another set of worlds based around a place called Amber. Painter, whom she calls Sharra, was her nemesis. Kayte quickly peruses Maba's journals and finds the true story of Spheremaker's attempt to create a new sphere, which turns out to have been an experiment that went horribly wrong. It was not a godling that he bisected with the Edge, but the Avatar of Death, and instead of killing it, the Edge split it into its component parts, the Avatar of Change and the Avatar of Stasis, who is none other than the Walker, the patron deity of Everway. The Walker trapped the Avatar of Change and started to wall them up in a magic-cancelling pyramid, using the Edge to cut paths between the spheres to where midianite could be found. If it succeeded in its aim, then Stasis would overwhelm Change and everything in the Thousand Spheres would stop.

Spheremaker and Maba worked together on a magical mirror that made copies of the Capstone so that the Walker could never find its true location. Then Spheremaker died, leaving Maba to shoulder the spell's maintenance himself. With Maba's death, the spell is now undone. The Walker is returning to Everway with the Capstone and unless the heroes act quickly, everything will stop. Fortunately Kayte is something of a mirror mage herself, and is able to teleport the heroes back into the cellars in Everway.

The heroes decide to surprise Voulges with their reappearance, which goes badly. A fracas develops and Voulges is knocked unconscious. The gang has done well for itself; they retained order in Strangerside during the Darkfall and helped to rescue King Horizon from imprisonment after Tourmaline declared himself king. In this they were aided by the heroes' old companion Why, who appeared during the darkness with a small army of spider automata who were immune to the Mist's effects, and who is now one of Horizon's trusted advisors (despite the fact that he developed the spiders as part of a deal with Freedom Crow to unseat the Emeralds). The heroes arrange to meet him in Old Town, and together with Belladonna, the new leader of the Crookstaffs, they plan a raid on the Armoury under Crookstaff Plaza, where the Edge of Light and Darkness is kept. They will need the Edge to get into the Pyramid as it is the only thing that can cleave midianite.

The heroes reach the Armoury via a passage from Ulrich Crookstaff's secret workshop in the basement of Deadwalk Coven, which Wishbone had learnt about from his bottled spirit. They gain entry and Flame grabs the Edge, triggering an alarm and a fight with mummies. As they emerge, Wishbone's hawk spots a Gate forming in the air just to the north of Everway. The Walker is coming!

The heroes race to the Pyramid and climb to the top with the help of Why's spiders. Flame uses the Edge to enlarge the small hole that the capstone will cover. Below is a dangerous magical labyrinth with a figure sitting tied to a chair at its centre. Walker (the person) establishes a rope slide to the Labyrinth's edge by swinging out across it and jumping. As he does so, the Walker (the avatar) appears in the Gate holding the Capstone and jumps to the ground, causing an earthquake that flattens several buildings. Walker, Flame, Rathgard and Wishbone begin the dangerous task of navigating the Labyrinth, using force of will and bloody-mindedness to pass its many barriers, while Slight, assisted by Why, temporarily distracts the Walker from its unstoppable approach using illusion magic. The Labyrinth-travellers reach the centre; Flame cuts the bonds of the seated figure and Walker offers up the powers of the Shifting Man just as the Walker succeeds in placing the Capstone, sending out a wave of stasis that freezes everything. But in the Pyramid, the Avatar of Change moves. Taking the heroes, it teleports to the top of the Pyramid and merges with the Walker, becoming Anubis, the Avatar of Death, once again. Change returns to the Thousand Spheres and the heroes are celebrated.