The Beastbreaker

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Dilvermoon is a silver apple, big as a world. Ten thousand competing cultures fill her, packed between her steel rind and her hollow heart. You can, if it's your luck to be wealthy, rent a ship and follow the sunset around her equator. Fly low! You'll see signs of the vast trade Dilvermoon supports: innumerable star freighters, huge landing bays set into the armored hull, monstrous flatscreens advertising every conceivable product and service. Fly far enough, and you'll eventually pass over a black pit a hundred kilometers deep and six hundred across, the scar of some long-forgotten disaster.

«You've found the Big Dimple, a ruinous wilderness full of mutated beasts, criminals, savage tribes, and a few madmen.

«There are no tourist facilities.»

– from The Adventurous Travelers Guide to the Manichaean Region.

* * *

The Glimmerchild rode the Midnight Beast through the dark ruins, and the big, beautiful lizard covered ten meters with each lazy bound. Crimson glowlight dripped richly over the Midnight Beast's black hide, clustering thick and bright along her spine, spilling down her withers in sinuous lines, twinkling on the Glimmerchild's crystal scales. The Glimmerchild took pride in the loveliness the two of them made. What a fine thing it must be, to see us pass in the starshine, he thought. A pity there's no one to admire us.

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