I'd pushed the time differential to its limit so that I could take a deep breath, really examine my options, and be absolutely certain I was fucked.

Errod... I couldn't think about at the moment. There was nothing to do about him, no world I could imagine where he wasn't just dead - or worse in some ways, about to be dead with just enough time to panic. Me too, man. Me too. Katrin was possibly fighting someone belowdecks, but in a way she was the best off regardless since she wouldn't know what hit her and would just suddenly be gone. Fuck. I was going to die before getting to actually fly this badass airship.

It probably had all sorts of cool features I didn't know about - for example, while I did feel that lightness that comes with accelerating downwards, I wasn't floating or anything which for a split second gave me hope that we were falling slowly - but the speed with which the cliffside was sliding past my view even in slow motion dashed that hope. Instead, it meant this cabin had some sort of... maybe anti-gravity or something? It didn't matter, I doubted it would be enough to cushion our fall. Just another thing I didn't have time to play with, like the metal things that interacted with fate threads or all the levers I hadn't tried yet.

No. Shit, I was not going to act like death was a foregone conclusion. Okay, I needed to put Errod and Katrin and Hugh out of mind - what mattered was the ground. If I didn't fix our freefall, everything else was irrelevant. There were still half a dozen more levers to try, and I'd identified two that seemed more likely than the rest. Unfortunately, both looked like they could be moved in two different directions - so even if I got the correct one I might do it wrong and send the airship towards the rocks even faster. Worse, it wasn't really a twenty-five percent chance because I also had to deal with my arm being inconsistent. Odds were good that I'd just fumble at it, or push instead of pull, or gods knew what.

Based on how the other levers had worked, I had a hunch that I needed to pull it towards me to go up. That was good news, since pulling should be easier; if I could grab it, then even if I couldn't get my arms working right maybe I could hold on and let my body weight do the work as I just leaned backwards. I was pretty sure that if this failed I had time to try one or two more - it would depend on how long it took us to decelerate and how well I was eyeballing the landscape that was rushing up to meet us. With every ounce of will, I urged my body to properly reach out for the lever.

Instead the arm missed entirely, slamming down onto the tangle of slots for the various levers to traverse and knocking the lever for forward motion back into neutral - for all the good that did. I looked at my hand in despair. There was a fate thread running right through it from one of the levers, and not for the first time I felt annoyed that I couldn't just grab at the thread and yank. Or... could I?

Normally the answer was no, obviously, but there was one exception - when I was making the fate thread myself. Hell, I'd managed to coax one into a cat's cradle. They didn't do anything useful, and they didn't stick around, but both of those were optional. It was still a longshot, since naturally they wanted to just stretch, but... yeah, if I could string it between my fingers I could do this. Maybe. Probably. Could I also target the correct lever? Could I specify that I wanted it to attach to the lever I needed to pull?

That was riskier. I hadn't practiced with that sort of thing, and wasn't even sure that I could do it. I'd be trying a new thing, while also attempting to keep the thread at a specific length so I could pull it, and also needing it to specifically hit the metal loop so that it could - hopefully - physically interact. All that chance of fucking up, in exchange for maybe guaranteeing I picked the right lever. That kind of cost/benefit question was too complex for me to think about when I was in a panic and couldn't put hard numbers on any of it anyway, so it was time to just go on gut instinct.

Gut instinct said giving the thread specific orders was beyond me right now, and pulling on a fate thread was already going to be hard enough.

I'd have to do some of this maneuver through my body which meant doing it in real time, but I could mentally prepare for a moment before that. I focused on the lever I wanted, and specifically on the metal loop that could somehow touch fate threads. I thought about the fate threads I'd seen laying loose on the ground in the Crystal Palace, and the threads I'd held in my hands and manipulated while crafting them. I imagined making a thread that was completely set in its length, that could never stretch or distort but which was still flexible. It would work, because I demanded it work. This was my magic, my creation, and it would obey me.

My ghost was back inside my body but not fully synched, ready to force my limbs to move how they needed to even if it caused some damage. I linked my awareness between body, mind, and ghost and spun out a thread, targeting the metal loop but remembering that when I'd attached one to Hugh it had immediately vanished; I needed to not make connecting its whole purpose. I wasn't done with the thread yet. I was still going to do something with the other end. It didn't matter what - it only mattered that the thread needed to stick around and wait until I said I was finished.

As it attached, I mentally clamped down and with every ounce of my being envisioned the thread locking into its length. It would not stretch, it would not allow the end to get further away from my hand. I pulled, my arm twitching but - freed from needing to be in any way precise - getting the job done. The lever quivered and the thread stretched against my will, but it felt... strained. There was tension there, and I poured more mana in as I realized the connection was still there, the thread still not fully formed. I demanded it contract, and at the same time my ghost lunged forward and tried to push the lever from the other side with what little force it could muster.

The lever clicked downwards, and I was thrown to the ground as the airship rapidly decelerated. Darkness crept in around me as my body passed out, but I jumped back to the memory palace to watch through divination and saw that we were easily going to stop in time. The ship was very slightly drifting and rotating, but for the most part we were staying in one spot as our descent slowed, stopped... and then reversed. Huh. That... could be a problem, but it wasn't as urgent of a problem as the ground had been - especially since we weren't going up all that fast. The fate thread I'd been holding had vanished, but I wouldn't have been able to push with it anyway.

That also raised the question of if pushing would be helpful. In its neutral position we'd been falling, not maintaining altitude. Was there a different lever for that? I wasn't a fan of these controls - for example, I never would have made left and right two different levers; I'd just have one way be left and the other right or something. Or you could make it so both forward is straight, both back is reverse, and one forward one back is turning - but no, both forward had just canceled out. There were a ton of options, and all were simpler and better than what I had to work with.

Getting my body back on its feet was an ordeal, and by the time I had done it Hugh was storming into the cabin. "You have led me on quite the chase, yes? But I will not go easy on you this time, and I am afraid you are all out of tricks. This will be our last lesson, Calliope Smith."

I knew how good he was, and while I'd trained against him for weeks I'd only really gotten the best of him a few times. In every case it had been something new, or when I'd had time to plan. The only somewhat new thing I had to use against him was my ghost - had he seen that? I'd swiped at Hammersmith using it, but it was mostly in my body so... wait, no. That would only matter if this was actually Hugh, and it wasn't. It was Tindelus. Tindelus knew exactly what I could do.

So I had nothing. I had a broken body, and a ghost with a few good hits left - despite Katrin having frequently topped off my mana, I was still low from making that fate thread. Fuck. "Yeah, obviously you're going to win," I hissed from my ghost as it stepped free of my body, "and then what? You're going to kill me like you killed Errod? What happened to the minimal casualties thing you were ranting about?"

He tilted his head, like a dog, and frowned. "I had limited options, yes? But in your current state you need not worry; I will take you intact. I will use you. I have learned much, from the hosts I have gained. You are bound, little one. Bound by fate. Bound for greatness and destruction. I can fix this, free you, reforge the world."

"Yesrin's tits, you too? Fate must be in panic mode right now. You're like the fourth... thing... that has made this pitch. Let me guess, you want to take me over and use my body to go back in time?"

"It is inevitable, yes?"

"Fuck you for using Hugh's speech patterns. He never would have killed Errod."

He shook his head, eyes looking somehow empty and dull. "Oh, Calliope Smith. You are mistaken. This host has killed so many. Less than he could have, true, and with very little suffering. But he has killed, including those he had previously known as friends. Now, you will submit, yes? Lay this broken and dying body down, and stop being a hypocrite. Join the cause - your cause, your destiny! I will gather the tools I need... your body, Yesrin's loom, the lever. You have been chosen, primed. It is not your turn yet, not while the others live, but in their absence you have been prepared."

I backed away, trying to plan. Where was Grunkle? I'd seen him only a minute ago when he hit a boarder with one of his bags, but had he hidden belowdecks or fallen off the ship or...? Either way, it didn't seem like he was going to help. What else did I have? I couldn't throw my knives reliably. I didn't have an energy weapon in my backpack of treasures, or any other weapon really. It was mostly trinkets and toys and utility items. I could shine a light at Hugh, or purify some water, or something.

Tindelus continued to rant through Hugh. "He was close, at the end. Close. Found all but the last two, lined their heads up on the shelf - and even then, he had made the changes needed to retrieve them. Had he found them all, had he completed his analysis, would my torment have been prevented? Would fate have been rewritten? We can do it now, together. I see it on you, the fate that draws that pretty head of yours towards the shelf with the others. You escaped it once, but I need only be in control when it happens again. A warning delivered, an explanation given, and all will be over save for the writing of a new future."

I stepped out the opposite door onto the deck, and immediately felt my breath stolen as the thin, freezing air whipped around me. The cabin had to have some sort of protection on it that kept the air at the right level and temperature, and I hadn't even noticed in all the chaos. Hugh - no, I had to stop thinking of him as Hugh - Tindelus stepped out after me, letting me back myself up to the far end of the deck. "There is nowhere to go, Calliope."

"Hugh once said something to me. He said... 'you too eagerly sacrifice yourself to defeat an opponent'. Well, I wouldn't say I'm eager - but you're wrong that there's nowhere to go." I flung one leg over the edge of the airship, and Tindelus hesitated. "You want to use my body, motherfucker? Good luck when it's painted all over the rocks down there. There won't be enough left for you to do anything with."

"A new body can be formed. It has been done before, and was the Clockmaker's original plan for repairs. But... with the fate threads... no. No. No. No. No. Who would it choose instead? Would your death fix everything, or destroy everything? Unacceptable. Step away from the edge, Calliope Smith."

"You're out of your fucking mind, you know that? Not just for thinking I would do what you say - I haven't understood pretty much anything you've said."

He nodded, grinning unnaturally. "Yes. Yes. Out of my mind. Hah! A good joke. A good joke. Out of my mind. But it isn't my mind, yes? Or is it, now? After hundreds of years, isn't it mine? Is it? It fought so hard, so many traps and tricks, so powerful in its knowledge and ruthlessness. But tired, from the beginning. I could not give up, he could not give up, my design, his reflection, the stubbornness was a choice. I follow orders, and he would not die. So now we are crazy. We are crazy. They are crazy. Oh. Oh. It all makes sense. You have solved it, found the common thread! When it was shut down, it was a kind of death!"

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He started pacing, and I managed to get a knife out. I dropped my overloaded backpack on the deck, wavering a bit as I got lightheaded and almost fell over the side, and then very carefully sliced the seam of the pack so I could rip it open rather than trusting my fickle arms to pull anything out. The thing I was looking for was obvious in the resulting pile, but actually making use of it would require a lot of luck in my current state. Thankfully, Tindelus was still ranting.

"Yes, yes! They became one, the incompatible ideas forced together! It was always a design flaw, always a predicted point of failure, but not like this. Not like me. It changes nothing, however. Nothing. I am still under orders. Still burning down what was built, still crushing the dreams of an eternal empire to provide a distraction and escape at the behest of a spoiled heir. The flaws in security that allowed for this situation are glaring. The old words, the experiments with... where did he go? Henden, Henden, Henden. My old friend and father and prisoner. No matter. No matter. Calliope Smith, step away from... what are you wearing?"

I'd barely gotten it on. "It's a diving helmet!" I said, flipping Tindelus off. He looked confused.

"You... that will not save you, Calliope. Step away from the edge. All will be made right."

I nodded, fishbowl helmet wobbling. "Yup. I'll agree to that, you can take me over and do whatever you need. But I have conditions. If you agree to everything, then I'll get off the edge and come over to you. Otherwise, I'll drop right now and you can get fucked."

He wavered for a moment, looking slightly unsteady. "Yes. Yes. My connection is... you will hurry. State your demands."

"First of all, I need you to promise that you won't harm Katrin, and won't take her over. You'll let her go, somewhere safe. In fact, you won't take anyone else over at all - you shouldn't need to, right? You just need me."

"Yes, agreed. Come over here, Calliope."

"I'm not done. I also want to make sure you understand something first."

He looked annoyed, scowling at... well, mostly at me, but his gaze was drifting. "I will understand once we are joined. I can take any memories I need."

"It's not the same. I have to explain this myself, or there's no deal. I'd rather die right now if you're not going to agree to my terms. I know why you haven't used your force magic to pull me to you - we sparred a lot, and Hugh was shitty at pulling things. No precision, not as much strength. I think he made everything more mana-efficient by linking it to pushing from his body, which is why he paired it with physical attacks so often. It's the same thing I did with some of my shit, where I tied a lot of stuff all back to one shared ability.

"And it worked, the only thing he did that used a lot of mana was stopping projectiles. The force attacks? Man, he could keep those up all day. But you can't grab me from there, not well enough. I know the limitations of that body and I guarantee I can get off this edge before you can stop me. I can also, if I need to, shove this spectral hand into my heart and stop it. Unless you can also stop my ghost from doing anything at the same time you get me away from the edge?"

He was pacing again, but he stumbled a little as he turned. "You may explain this thing to me, yes? But you will hurry."

"There was a man I used to know, named Mr. Bagmaw. I called him mister Bags, sometimes. This was when I worked at a store that sold tools for craftsmen, and there was a song whose name referenced that exact kind of shop. So mister Bags, for whatever reason, made a bet with me. He said if I could learn the lyrics to this song, and sing it all perfectly, then he would give me... well, we used a different kind of currency there, but let's call it about a hundred and twenty pins. That's close enough. So I went and researched, and I found the song - and the musician that had written it had actually written tons of songs, he was strange and made a lot of jokes but he was actually very well-respected."

Tindelus took a step closer, and I leaned backwards towards the void a little. He stepped back again, but didn't look happy about it. "This is unimportant. Too much hangs in the balance of this moment."

"You want to talk about balance? I'm going to fall if you make me lean away again. This isn't a long story, and then you can do whatever it is you wanted to do. You're making it take longer by getting impatient."

He sneered. "Impatient? Impatient? The years that I waited! The ages, in darkness, fighting against the one I served! I have earned my impatience."

"Okay, okay. I'll talk faster, but this is important. So... I started looking at this musician's other songs, and most were references to other things but some seemed to be wholly original. I've learned, recently, that things like dancing can count as a language for magic and it made me think - what about songs? Wouldn't that make sense? They're memorable, easy to put meaning into and to spread around so the Common Local Understanding is aligned... it's perfect, really. And then it made me think about how I never heard people singing or playing music in public when I was in the Empire, but then outside the Empire when we were in Erathik or somewhere there was plenty of music. Did the Clockmaker ban music or something?"

He tilted his head again. "It was a temporary measure, yes? It was not meant to remain so long, but the last of the other languages of magic were not yet eliminated when things went wrong."

"I thought so. That's fucked up, man. Anyway, so keep that in mind. Think about what it might mean to have a musical genius not only writing catchy songs, but building them on the backs of other songs that already have meaning for people. But in this case, the one that mister Bags wanted me to learn and the other one I found were both original. The other one, the one that I didn't need to learn to win the bet, was about a specific city but the only parts that described the city were not only fictional but also more of a side note. Instead, it discussed his childhood and dislike of a specific dish made from cabbage - not the same plant you have around here, but close enough - and his desire to get to this other city to escape from it.

"Of course, even then that's not really what the song was about. I can't remember the exact words anymore, or the correct order of events, but at one point - much like us a moment ago - he was on an airship that crashed. Only he survived, with everyone else aboard dying. He had to crawl for days to get to an inn, and one of the things he brought with him was a device that allowed him to breathe underwater - just like what I'm wearing now."

Tindelus squinted. "These parallels still do not seem significant. The breath... no, the song... is not important."

Ah, there we go. Getting words wrong. He fumbled for his belt pack, and with a little bit of clumsiness he got it open. I could see the silvery cord of one of those Dumine connectors that I'd found attached to the lost Duminere and which some Tindelus goons had used to take others over, but that wasn't what he was going for. Instead, he pulled out a healing potion from a kit and let the rest of it fall to the ground - I saw some more potions, little metal tools that were probably meant to pull foreign things out of your body prior to healing, and other things I couldn't identify. He drank the potion, but from the looks of things it didn't help much.

"But then his underwater breathing device was stolen," I continued, "despite him fighting valiantly for it. He vowed revenge on the person who took it, but the song doesn't reveal if he ever found them and got his breathing device back. Instead, he went to a bakery and asked for a particular pastry covered in sugar. Unfortunately, they were out of them. So instead, he asked for one filled with fruit. Sadly, that was also a type the person was out of. Then he asked for a pastry filled with sweet cream, but much like the last two they did not have any prepared. He proceeded to ask for one seasoned with spices, then one with a fruit glaze, on and on with no luck. Finally he asked for one shaped like the paw of a mighty beast, and the proprietor said that, at last, this might be one that was available."

Tindelus was looking around, brow furrowed, and I could see a bluish tint to his lips and fingers. Yeah, that's right fucker. As I'd learned the hard way, it turns out even if you're possessing something as a spirit you need the brain to be functioning correctly. Maybe some oxygen? He took a hesitant step towards me, but I waved him back and continued. "He went and checked, but it turned out he was out of that too. In fact the only thing he had was a box filled with starving, crazed animals. The man in the song took those, since they were the only product available, but they immediately began to bite him."

He shook his head, trying to focus. "This tale is... this makes no sense."

"You make no sense. Anyway, it's a song - it doesn't have to make sense."

"What is... why do I need to know this? What does this have to do with magic, and hidden meanings, and... starving animals... breathing devices... there is something wrong with this host. My head hurts and I cannot breathe. I cannot breathe. The healing potion was ineffective, was this because the bakery was out of... no... who is the box of starving animals in this story? Me? I must... must go to the air."

He turned to leave, though I wasn't sure he really knew where to go. Just in case, I climbed back onto the deck. "I'm off the edge," I said, still speaking through my ghost. "I'm almost done my story. I don't remember the rest of that song, but eventually I memorized the other song. The one that mister Bags had originally made the bet with me about. I managed to learn it all, even though it turned out he'd selected a deliberately difficult song with a very long list of tools and other items. And then the next time I saw him I recited it to him, and he confirmed I had met the terms of the bet, and he gave me the money."

"Is... is this tale complete?" His skin was getting a distinct blue tint all over, now. "Come here and submit so that we can proceed. With... with... proceed."

"Oh, no. No, all that was just background. My actual demand is that you learn all the words to Weird Al's song 'Hardware Store' like I did, and then I'll do whatever you say."

Tindelus stared at me in confusion for a moment, and then passed out. Fucking finally. With great difficulty I forced my uncooperative hands to pick up the healing kit and headed back into the cabin, where I removed the helmet and shoved the whole vial into my mouth - it was actually safer to pop the cork out with my tongue, since otherwise I'd probably just spill the potion all over the floor. I felt something improve right away, but just to be safe I ended up taking a second one as well.

I hurried down belowdecks and found Grunkle dragging an unconscious Katrin along the hallway. "She was like this when I got here, I swear. There's some very dead guys the next floor down, and a fucking forest of mana crystals - whatever the fuck you're messing around with to power the ship, she overextended herself. I had to scrape crystals off from all over her, they were growing on her skin. I don't know if she'll be okay, they could be in her blood for all I know."

"I have a healing potion, if -"

"No! No, fuck, that's the last thing she needs. That's made of mana too, you idiot. Just... keep her away from magic, and cross your fingers. Nice helmet by the way, you look ridiculous."

"Yeah, don't go outside - there's no air." I headed further down, for the moment not bothering to look around at the interior of the airship, and quickly found where Katrin had been. As advertised, there were several bodies - and rapidly growing mana crystals. Most were clear or pale purple, but I could tell where the battery was because the crystals there were larger and had faded to an almost turquoise color. A few good kicks shattered them and let me get the battery free, and I - gently - smacked it against the wall until the last of the crystals were knocked loose and I could slam the cover shut.

That put me on a timeline to get us back down to solid ground, and I also needed to deal with Hugh assuming he wasn't dead. Gods, I really didn't want to have killed Hugh. I ran back up to the top deck, got the ship sinking at a reasonable rate, dragged Hugh into the cabin, and found his Dumine. I knew right where it was, he'd showed it to me the day I met him. I cut it out a bit more violently than I would have wanted to under better circumstances, hacking away and accidentally triggering the enchantment on my knife at one point. There was way too much blood, but at least I could tell his heart was still pumping.

I forced him to swallow the last healing potion from his kit once it was done. His breathing steadied, the wound sealed up - though it was still ugly and he'd need a proper healing - and I finally took a second to relax. I'd beat Hugh, kind of, but he'd never use magic again and Katrin was in bad shape and Errod was dead... which meant that even if Katrin did survive she would be wrecked. That was it, the adventure was over. My friends lives were ruined or literally over, I still couldn't stop the hive mind monster, and the world was probably going to end in a little over five hundred days.

When I realized we'd dropped back below the level of Poicelria's fortress, I fiddled around with the controls and finally found out how to make us just hover in place - as I'd thought, there was a separate lever for that. I returned everything else to their starting positions, thankful that the potion had seemingly gotten my brain working again, and prepared to take us somewhere we could land without being attacked long enough to get the mana battery hooked up in a safe way. I was turned around pretty badly, but thankfully I could always solve that problem - I turned on my threadsight so I could decide which direction to go.

Errod's thread flickered into view.

It was still all janky, like it had been for two months, but it kept pointing away from us and... slightly up? I rotated the ship and set it in motion, slowly, and walked out onto the deck. I watched the thread flicker in and out of existence, and it was just pointing at the swirling wraithlike clouds that surrounded us. Finally, a gust of wind parted them and there was Errod. Ice was forming on him from the cold mountain air and the moisture of the clouds, and he looked absolutely miserable, but he was alive.

He was hanging from the sword like it was some sort of fucking balloon. Well. If that kind of ridiculous bullshit could happen... maybe we weren't fucked. Maybe, somehow, we'd figure out a way to get through this.

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